Today's Picks

I am currently 42-35 and must do a better job of telling you about winners before they win.  But anyway here goes:
Northwestern -12.5
Purdue +28
SMU-Memphis over 47
South Carolina -7
Texas Tech-West Virginia over 57
Wyoming -7
UConn +15
TCU +7.5
Mizzou +3
Cuse +7.5
Duke +3
Auburn-A&M over 72
Iowa +18
North Texas-4
Houston +10
OU-23
Stanford-5
Stanford-UCLA under 54
ISU +33
ND -3
Clemson +3
Illini +14.5
Washington State +40
Good luck

American Athletic Conference Update

Well here it is, apparently, the season comes down to one game tonight between Louisville and Central Florida.  A conference title and BCS berth is on the line tonight, or so the media tells us.  don't get me wrong.  These two teams are playing much better than the rest of the conference but nothing will be determined tonight because it is only October 18.  Heck the loser of this game is going to wake up in the middle of the pack in this bastard child of a conference.
Okay so I have gotten that off my chest.  Despite a ridiculously high 2-TD spread tonight's game should be a very good one.  Rutgers did a lot of good against Louisville and if they had even fair-to-good QB play could have upset the Cardinals.  Louisville can play better than they showed, and should get back key WR DeVante Parker from injury.  But UCF is confident and eager to prove to the country that they are an up-and-coming college football program.  Take the points and the over!
Houston will remained undefeated in the conference because, well, they play non-member BYU.  Houston is oddly undefeated on the season but has played an absurdly easy schedule and will need to beat BYU and a few more teams before they can make a name for themselves.  BYU's secondary is bad enough that the other Cougars do have a legit chance.
There is not much else going on the AAC but then again even if there was there would not be too much attention paid.

ACC Update

The attention this weekend in the ACC, justifiably, is centered on the huge game between Clemson and Florida State.  That one should be a good one although only if both teams display the newly re-discovered abilities to, well, not play below their high talent levels.  The loser of Saturday night's game may not be too thrilled that the winner has figured out the not choking thing but hey if you want the national attention to come the ACC's way you do need as many good to great teams as possible.
Which brings us to the rest of the conference.  Thanks to the seasons Clemson and FSU have enjoyed Miami has slid somewhat under the radar.  That seems odd being that it is Miami and they have their SEC pelt in Florida.  But the bulk of the Canes' work in conference still needs to be done, headlined by the back-to-back games in November against FSU and Virginia Tech.  They will have to hold serve tonight at North Carolina in what will be their first real road test of the season (with all apologies to South Florida).  The Tar Heels have been major disappointments but could earn back some swagger tonight.
Virginia Tech sits at 3-0 in conference and is off this weekend.  They also do not play both FSU and Clemson, which puts more pressure on fellow Coastal member Miami.
The others are all jockeying for bowl position or hoping, like UNC, to turn their season around.  Maryland-Wake, Duke-Virginia and Syracuse-Tech all have potential to be good games.

Conference Levels Closer Than Advertised

This weekend's upsets by Missouri at Georgia and Utah over Stanford highlight a reality that the media has largely struggled with--that after a few dominant teams the rest of the country features a great deal of parity and that conference levels are fairly even.  Missouri has a rich football tradition but its history featured a great deal of ebb and flow.  Under coach Gary Pinkel, now in his 13th year in Columbia, the Tigers have become a solid program with some glimpses of excellence especially in 2007 when they finished 12-2 and flirted with a spot in the BCS title game.  But being that they were a Big 12 school entering the mighty SEC last season they were not expected to do too much.  It was expected that their offense would struggle against the faster SEC defenses.  And when they finished 5-7 last year they were confined to the national silence that surrounds the mediocre (they were held as proof of SEC superiority while fellow Big 12 transplant was considered an aberration due to one player's talent).  But now they sit at 6-0, 2-0 in conference.  They have lost QB James Franklin to injury but both of their next two opponents, Florida and South Carolina, have been dealing with injuries at that position.  Either way Mizzou have proved that they can be an excellent team no matter the conference.
Utah moved to what is now the Pac 12 after a lifetime spent outside the bigger conferences, most recently as a power in the Mountain West.  They are not having as successful a 2013 season as Missouri but at 4-2 they are doing well and are looking up as a key conference power under coach Kyle Whittingham.  While Whittingham would admit that he had to get bigger and faster to compete against the likes of Stanford and Oregon, he had a squad in place to make the transition easier than fellow transplant Colorado who needed to completely rebuild.  Utah is a good football program and that can translate to any conference.
Have I cherry-picked two squads to prove a point?  Well, yes.  But remember Texas A&M has already proved that switching from the Big 12 to the SEC can look easier than expected.  And the fact that Colorado, a former Big 12 school, continues to struggle in the Pac 12 while the MWC member Utah does better highlights that we cannot judge programs solely on their conference affiliation.

Today's Picks

Here we go, sitting at 36-28 on season (which is not good enough).
OU -11.5
IU +10
Va Tech -8
Texas Tech -14.5
Georgia -7
TCU -24.5
South Carolina -6
Northwestern +10
Washington +13
Fla Atlantic +10
Utah +8 (just a hunch)
Enjoy

SEC Update

It has been a strange season for the SEC.  Is it still the preeminent conference?  Yes.  Does the nation's best team still reside there?  Yes.  Is it a conference packed with superstars and top coaches?  Yes.
But something is amiss.  The player currently receiving the most press--and he is arguably the finest player in the conference--is none other than Jadeveon Clowney of South Carolina.  There is not much more to say about his situation, one in which everyone seems to be at fault, but there are enough great players performing well that are not getting the headlines he is getting for not playing.  And at 4-1 the Gamecocks are still very much alive in the SEC East race (although Georgia had better start losing soon) and yet the biggest story in the aftermath of Clowney's opting out of the Kentucky game is whether his actions hurt not the Gamecocks but his draft stock.
But there is more.  Johnny Manziel's off-field excitement has long overshadowed the play of the Aggies on the field while the coverage of the LSU season has focused on stud RB Jeremy Hill's transgressions and what role coach Les Miles played in the sordid mess at Oklahoma State.  And there have been accusations and rumors about a number of other SEC programs and the ways they may have broken rules over the years.
And there is another reality, one that may be hard to overcome.  A few years ago the conference was honored for its strong play as evidenced by the number of recent winners of national championships (LSU, Florida, Alabama, Auburn).  That streak of course continues but one program has pulled away from the others and Alabama's dominance threatens to deflate the merits of the others.  And so while there have been some exciting games involving SEC teams this year there is also a sense that anything these teams do does not matter in the end because Alabama will win anyway.  And even those teams that beat Alabama, like LSU two years ago and A&M last year, cannot truly stop the Tide steamroller--and Bama avenges those losses soon enough.
But we will not play that game here.  Alabama will probably not lose the "Bear Bryant Bowl" to Kentucky this weekend, but they have not won the 2013 SEC and national titles yet.  And as for the rest of the league, the big games this weekend are Georgia hosting upstart Missouri, Florida traveling to LSU and Texas A&M tangling with Mississippi.  Should be fun.

Fordham Beats Lehigh

The 2013 edition of the Fordham Rams have apparently decided that the best way to honor the 100th birthday of former Ram guard Vince Lombardi--who started during the glorious heyday of Fordham football in the 1930s--was to win all their games.  They have played six so far and run the table despite facing their toughest competition during the season's first half (Villanova, Temple, Lehigh).  Saturday's game, played before a second straight sellout crowd, pitted the Rams, just two years removed from a disastrous 1-10 record, against a Lehigh club favored to win a Patriot League crown the Rams are ineligible to win due to four full classes of scholarship players to two and counting for rest of the league.  Both teams were undefeated and ranked and the game did not disappoint--well Ram fans anyway.  Fordham ended up winning 52-34 but score would have been a lot tighter without huge plays that all came through for home team.  Both teams featured star QBs and with Fordham's Michael Nebrich, a UConn transfer, leading team to win with brilliant play (26-36/384y, 4 TDs) he is in drivers seat for conference player of the year over Lehigh's Brandon Bialkowski (28-46/324y, 3 TDs, INT).  Fordham, gaining 630y Saturday, is difficult to defend as Nebrich is a two-way threat, passing for 1761y on season with 16TDs, to only 1 INT while rushing for 342y.  He has a star RB in senior Carlton Koonce, who averages 125y rushing a game, for balance and three dynamic receivers in Sam Ajala, Brian Wetzel and Tebucky Jones.  Ajala was the star on Saturday with 7 catches for166y and 3 TDs.  Wetzel is not only a brilliant receiver but a stud punt returner.  He is also my daughter's favorite player.
Can Fordham keep this up?  Why not.  Most of their remaining opponents are overmatched and Fordham is inspired by having to earn an at-large bid to the FCS playoffs.  While they can never bring back the excitement of the Lombardi era they can increase the local excitement for college ball.  It will be fun finding out.