Week 8 Pick-em results. A Slightly Boring Victory. But a Big Victory Nonetheless.

Of the 22 BCS Top 25 games this week, 21 teams did what they were supposed to do. Only two upsets this week, but Oklahoma over Kansas is hardly an upset, so the only ones who didn’t win their game in a weekend of gimmes was Miami. Clemson was a .500 team coming into this game and should have been outmatched by the once again rising Hurricanes, but Clemson was able to hold out and keep me away from a perfect week once again.

I can hardly claim perfection in such a boring week of competition. It’s hard to say that any weekend in October could mean a boring week for sports. There are dozens of major stories happening each week in October, but it wasn’t necessarily the action that was missing, just the match-ups. With the exception of an underrated Oregon State team facing USC, there wasn’t a real college game this week, even though there proved to be some exciting ones (Tennessee v. Alabama & Iowa v. Michigan State). Pretty much everyone in the Top 25 won by double digits, or it was never really even a contest. Oregon State put up some late game numbers in their bout with USC, but it was pretty clear early who would win. The final score doesn’t necessarily reflect the nature of that game. It’s always tough for me not to pick upsets, and even though I picked one on paper with OU beating 25th ranked KU, that wasn’t really an upset pick. So this was my first week of not really picking any upsets, but with this uninteresting week in both College Football and the NFL, I couldn’t pick any.

With a 21-1 week, I’m now at a 130-31 count. That puts me at the highest percentage I’ve been all season at .81, so I shouldn’t really be complaining. Next week should be much more interesting, which could once again negatively effect my numbers. The two major battles of the week will be No. 3 Texas traveling to No. 15 Oklahoma State and No. 5 USC heading up to Eugene to visit the mighty No. 10 Oregon Ducks. More than likely, Oregon is going to cause a lot of problems for the Trojans. After their season opening debacle against Boise State, Oregon has caught ablaze putting up ridiculously impressive numbers. They haven’t faced a defense like USC yet however, and SC has the advantages on both the defensive and offensive line. Everyone thinks it’ll be close and it’s always really hard to win in Oregon, whether at Corvallis or Eugene, but I think the Trojans will edge out the Ducks, if only by a little; but that’s assuming USC can score the points.

USC Star Tailback Stafon Johnson Survives Freak Accident

Late Monday afternoon during a routing workout at USC’s weightlifting facilities, star tailback Stafon Johnson had a suffered serious injuries while bench pressing. Even though he was being spotted by an assistant strength trainer, the bar carrying over 275 pounds slipped from his hand and crashed down on Johnson’s throat. He was immediately rushed to the hospital, where four surgeons spent 7 hours performing reconstructive surgery, which was ultimately successful. Johnson is now in critical, but stable condition according to the latest reports.

According to Dr. Gudata Hinika, trauma director at California Hospital Medical Center, the injuries sustained by Stafon were so forceful that they were similar to being thrown through a windshield of a car. Apparently Johnson’s neck was so strong that he was able to keep his breathing passage open, ultimately saving his life. "Had that been any one of us, meaning me, I would not have survived," Hinika went on to say in his press conference today. "His neck was so solid and so muscular, that actually helped maintain his airway." His experience as a top level athlete helped to keep him calm and maintain his composure in a stressful environment that attributed to the success of the surgery and treatment. Hinika says that USC’s 2nd leading rusher and best touchdown producer probably won’t play again this season. The fact is that he’s lucky to be alive.

Now that Johnson is ok, what does this mean for USC football? Certainly a distraction like this tragedy is never welcome, and among many things all those who know, watch, and love Stafon Johnson hope that he will not only make a full recovery, but will be able to continue the game which he loves and has brought him so far. Coming off of a so-so “redemption” victory over the PAC-10 weakest Washington State Cougars, does USC have what it takes to go the distance? They’ll certainly get one of their biggest tests this Saturday.

The California Golden Bears are coming off of an absolutely embarrassing 42-3 thumping by Oregon. Usually after a serious upset, most teams will come back stronger than ever (except for USC against Washington State last week), and if Cal loses this week, they’re season is pretty much over. They’ve got a lot to lose. On the other hand, so does USC. Matt Barkley and stud Safety Taylor Mays are beginning to close in on 100% health, which will certainly help. Stafon Johnson is USC’s current top touchdown producer, and he will be seriously missed by this slightly underachieving offense. Will this be the week the deepest team in College Football turns the corner? Or will they wait to flip the switch until it’s too late like they did against Washington two weeks ago? Whatever the Trojans do, they’d better do it quickly, because short of their bowl game, this will probably be their biggest challenge of the season, all things considered.

Week 3 Pick-em Results. Shame.

Well, I’m astounded at how poorly I picked last week. The upsets that I picked didn’t happen and the surprises that did happened surprised me more than anyone. After a not-so-respectable week, I declare shame on myself for only going 15-7. I didn’t post my first two weeks, but here is my honest record from the first two weeks so we can get caught up: Week 1: 17-3; Week 2: 20-2. Making my grand total a much more respectable 52-12.

The biggest story of the week of course is USC going down at the hands of a much underrated University of Washington. Or was the USC offense just really OVERrated? It certainly didn’t help that they’re starting QB and best defensive player were sidelined with injuries. Matt Barkley and Taylor Mays certainly count for more than 3 points, but this game was not decided from the QB standpoint or a lack of defense (even though Jake Locker may be the best all-around QB in the nation). The Trojans stayed away from the pass like it was the Ebola virus even after picking up 20 quick yards in the air on the first two plays of the game. USC never threw deeper than about 15 yards.

USC isn’t out of the national championship picture quite yet, after BYU went down, it doesn’t seem like anyone is going to run the table this year, but I still think that USC has one more loss left in them. For the fourth straight year USC goes down on a “gimme” game. In the last seven years, 5 out of 6 USC losses have come against unranked PAC-10 opponents. With a true freshman QB and a new coaching staff, the PAC-10 Championship may be up for grabs more than it has ever been in the 7-year Pete Carroll domination era. USC’s frequent unexpected losses states that either Pete Carroll can’t make it through without a hiccup, or that the PAC-10 deserves more respect that it gets. One things for sure, no conference schedules tougher out-of-conference games than the PAC-10, and that has got to count for something.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Ok, so I’m not exactly a Swami/Dali Lama/Elijah and I tanked pretty hard on some predictions (well, not so hard, I only went 2-1 this week), but there was plenty of good watching this weekend in the world of football. The NFL kicked off with some pretty fun match-ups and a slow week in the college game ended up with some interesting outcomes.

On the NFL front, pretty much everything went according to plan. The good teams won and the not-so-good teams lost (with the minor exception of the trash bath of Denver vs. Cincinnati). The best match-up of the week was the first, which I covered last week. Steelers/Titans were by far the most evenly matched teams. New Orleans/Lions, Seattle/St. Louis, and tonight’s New England/Buffalo are the most lop-sided matches of the week. All you fanatasy fans had better have started Drew Brees, throwing for 6 touchdowns and 358 yards, he had the biggest opening game in NFL history and tied a Saints' in game record. In the Patriots/Bills game tonight, expect T.O. to have a couple of catches tonight and not much else from the Bills. Tom Brady’s first regular season game back will have a few bumps, but for the most part will be overwhelming for the Bills’ underwhelming secondary. Other than the Kansas City Chief’s surprising decent offense, the 49ers upset over the NFC Champion Arizona Cardinals, and Indiana’s lack of scoring, the rest was pretty much a normal day at the office.

While anticipating the 2009 NFL season, the drama of college football was inciting a bang. The two big punches came from Ann Arbor and Stillwater, Oklahoma. The 18th ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish came into Michigan’s “Big House” in Ann Arbor thinking that this Wolverine squad was the same team that lost to Appalachian St. last year only to find a 2nd year coach starting to turn his program around. Several experts (including Lou Holtz and Beano Cook) thought Notre Dame was returning to their former glory just because they aren’t in the stink pot this year and predicted an undefeated, national championship season. Even though they don’t have any ranked team on their schedule besides USC, there’s no way this team will even make it to a BCS game now. We definitively learned that Notre Dame is not the national championship team so many would have loved to believe.

Stillwater, OK. 5th ranked Oklahoma State hosts heavy underdog Houston. The Houston Cougars got out early and it was just too much for the Cowboys to catch up to until they finally took the lead in the 3rd quarter. The fourth quarter became a quick shooting match until the Cougars pulled away in the last 7 minutes of the game. This game was as loud of a wake up call as you can get. Oklahoma State's defense needs some serious work. When it comes time to face Texas, Oklahoma, and even Mike Leach's newly renovated Texas Tech offense, they'll be in serious need to fix some holes. This loss is surely a devastating blow to the Cowboys, but it's also a major blow to the Big 12. With two top 5 losses in the first two weeks for the Big 12, it will take several weeks to bring back legitimacy to their strength of schedules.

As far as the USC/Ohio State game goes, I either drastically overrated USC’s offense, or gave no credit whatsoever to Ohio State’s defense. I haven’t decided yet which is which. Admittedly I put no weight on the power of the 12th man on the field for Ohio State: the crowd. With the Horseshoe filled to capacity at over 102,000, I greatly underrated their influence. USC’s top offensive line was completely neutralized, evening out the mighty Trojan running game. Whether USC’s front five just didn’t show up to play or Ohio State’s defensive line was really that good is difficult to say. One thing’s for sure though, USC did everything they wanted to do the last drive of the 1st half and the last drive of the 2nd half (thanks to Joe McKnight [left]). As far as Ohio State’s offense was concerned, their match up with USC’s spectacular defense was pretty close to what I expected. With the exception of a fluke safety, Ohio State only scores one more field goal than anticipated.

So we’re officially underway. NFL and NCAA are both in full swing and as the top teams try to keep their eyes on the prize, we all keep our eyes open for upsets. We’ve been blessed so far with 3 or 4 big ones in the first few weeks, but don’t get too excited. The best teams always rise to the top. Well… usually.

College Football is BACK!!

Welcome back College Football, we missed you dearly. What a weekend! No matter what university you associate yourself with; this was a great opening weekend.

Highlights of the Week:

-Top ranked Florida thumps the Charleston Southern Buccaneers 62-3. They looked good doing exactly what everyone expected them to do, which is probably the hardest thing to do in sports.
-No. 2 Texas beats University of Louisiana Monroe 59-20, which infers that the Big 12 will be following last year’s pattern of a lot of offense and little-to-no-defense. Even with the large margin of victory, ULM Warhawks should not score 20 points against a 2nd rank Longhorn team.
-No. 23 Notre Dame defeats Nevada 35-0. Even though it was Nevada and not a top 25 team, holding anyone to a shut out is impressive, just ask the 2008 USC defense.
-Then No. 3 Oklahoma loses a stunning heartbreaker to BYU. Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford goes down with a sprained his throwing shoulder. Bradford will be out approximately 4 weeks. To add insult to injury, OU’s star Tight End, Jermaine Gresham will be out for the remainder of the season after having surgery to repair torn cartilage in his right knee. It may be a long couple of weeks for Sooner fans.
-No. 14 Boise St. vs. No. 16 Oregon: Boise domination from the get-go, 19-8 Boise St. final, Blount punch, embarrassment for PAC-10, USC national championship hopes get a little harder.
-No. 4 USC’s true freshman quarterback, Matt Barkley, surprised many by having a near perfect game in their 56-3 victory over San Jose St. There may also be some real promise in John Morton, USC’s new offensive coordinator. In comparison to Steve Sarkisian’s Trojan offense, Morton’s play calling was innovative and eclectic, allowing USC to pretty much do whatever it wanted.
-No. 6 Ohio State barely squeaked by Navy with a score of 31-27. It took an interception from Ohio State on a late 2-point conversion attempt to secure the victory, but for some reason, many experts still think the Buckeyes are going to beat USC this Saturday. Hmmm…
-Miami vs Florida St.: by far the best game of the week. It all came down to one last play, but Florida St. couldn’t quite convert after having 6 chances to get into the end zone from within the 5 yard line. 38-34 Final.

LOOKING FORWARD (Can’t Miss Games of the Week):

No 18. Notre Dame @ Michigan 3:30PM ET (on ABC): Finally Notre Dame seems to be out of their 10 year funk, but winning one game decidedly doesn’t mean that they’re going to the National Championship Game, even though that’s what the Notre Dame radio station and the Notre Dame Broadcasting Channel (otherwise known as NBC) would have you believe. Michigan had a relatively impressive win last week over Western Michigan. Maybe the Wolverines are back on a track to playing like the “winningest” team in College Football. Prediction: Notre Dame 24-13 over Michigan.

No. 3 USC @ No. 8 Ohio State 8:00PM ET (on ESPN): As the only AP Top 25 match-up of the week, this game is clearly the most intriguing game of the week. Unfortunately, it will also probably be the most disappointing. After finding their groove in the first week, this won’t even be a contest for USC. Ohio State has been deemed a national championship contender for the last 8 years and each year has been proven to not even be in the same stratosphere. This year won’t be any different. Terrelle Pryor will put up a good fight and is worth 6 points, but they don’t have the horses to keep up with the Trojans. Prediction: USC 37, Ohio State 10.

Idaho State @ No. 13 Oklahoma 7:00PM ET: Maybe not a “can’t miss” game, but certainly one you might want to keep your eye on. Idaho State got crushed by Arizona State last week, 50-3. While this game may be near unwatchable football-wise, what will be interesting to see is how OU deals with the loss of two of their best players. This may be a great chance for them to rebound and get their feet settled. Their defense still has some issues though. Prediction: OU 41-10.

Rich Rodriguez Cries & It’s a good day to be a Buck Eye

College Football starts this week at 8:15 this Thursday with Oregon facing off against Boise State and no one could be happier than I am. It’s the top dog in everyone’s hearts. The college game comes with blackened brats from barbeques and the soon-to-be-remembered feel of an ice-cold brewski on your lips. Even for the smallest of sports fans College Football brings nostalgia for your alma mater and even holds a faint scent of Thanksgiving and Christmas in the air. What’s not to like? Every little piece of this minced-meat pie quenches the starving soul for a taste of the dramatic love of the game. The nation gorges itself on every victory and scandal and confidently whimpers like little Oliver Twist, “please sir, may I have some more?” A relatively early casualty of this season is the poor, poor, Michigan Wolverines.

The last few years have been a trifle difficult for the Big Blue with the true culmination being their embarrassing loss to the Appalachian State Mountaineers at home. I don’t believe the Big House has ever seen a darker day than that. The coaching transition between Lloyd Carr and Rich Rodriguez has been rough. The change in coaching styles and strategies has pretty much made the transition a clean sweep, cold turkey, 180 degree (insert your own clichéd idiom) situation. It’s worked before and will probably work for the Wolverines, it just takes time; time that the Wolverines don’t really have to stay relevant in a slowly deflating Big 10 conference.

So here’s the bad news, Rich Rodriguez and his staff are now under investigation for breaking NCAA rules pertaining to training restrictions. A few of Michigan’s players innocently spoke to the press about the rigors of their schedules, unknowingly admitting to things that could possibly indict their own coaching staff. Rodriguez recollecting their apology to their coach is what prompted the 13 second “get a hold of yourself” pause that he took during his press conference today. Even though these boys seem relatively innocent, there have been other cases relating to this same issue with Rodriguez, including the loss of one of their top recruits last year. Players are speaking out intentionally and unintentionally. Either is alarming. Because somewhere in this relatively minor scandal there is a disconnect between coach and player. A bad sign for Wolverine fans. Whether respect has been won and lost or whether it was never given at all is irrelevant. It’s not there now, and it’s not where they want to be.

With all of this badness hanging around, I can’t really be mad a Rodriguez for trying to work too hard. I’m not trying to be inconsiderate, but if you’re going to break a rule, this is the best one to break. Getting in trouble because you worked to hard or too much is relatively ok in my book. It’s still against the rules, so you shouldn’t do it, but I can forgive you for that. On a lighter note, you’re probably pretty happy if you’re Ohio State Fan. All this malarkey with Michigan and USC’s number 2 receiver, Ronald Johnson, went down with a broken collar bone after their starting Quarterback, Aaron Corp, went down with a broken fibula leaving a true freshman to start in his wake. So I guess it’s at least a good day to be a Buck Eye. You’ll get to be over-rated again, have a shot at the National Championship again, and get embarrassed by somebody who truly deserved to be there when you really should have been at the Emerald Bowl in the first place, again. So congratulations.

The Honorable Mountain West Gets Bought

Wednesday, July 8, 2009. The Mountain West Conference gives in to the cash. The MWC’s back was up against the wall after a 6 month battle against the BCS which is generally accepted as being fundamentally flawed. On Wednesday, a statement was released from the MWC. Their efforts to change the current system had not been accepted and they felt they had “no choice at this time but to sign the agreements.” When faced with either compromising morality or being able to survive, most will find themselves swaying towards survival. The contract runs through the 2013 season.

The main problem with this new agreement is that the Mountain West champion would still not automatically qualify for a spot in one of the top-tier bowls. They would have to be voted in like Utah was this year. It would still qualify them as a "BCS Spoiler." Recently, the other major conferences that make up the BCS, along with Notre Dame, rejected a Mountain West proposal for an eight-team playoff to determine a national champion. The release also states that “if a conference wishes to compete at the highest levels of college football, and the only postseason system in place for that is the BCS, no one conference can afford to drop out and penalize its football programs and student-athletes.” Essentially, if they held their ground for a playoff system, the BCS would muscle them out of money, exposure, and recruiting. Option A: stand firm in what you know to be right and hope someone else decides to drop millions of dollars to feel better about themselves or Option B: take the money and run... wise decision Mountain West.

While all College Football can get behind a conference that’s pushing for the much needed playoff, it’s hard to get behind a conference that continues to get the benefit of the doubt. Last year, the Utah Utes finished the season ranked 2nd in the Nation. The Utes have twice gone unbeaten in the BCS era. Each time the Utes were left out of the national championship game, but soundly defeated an opponent from one the leagues with a guaranteed spot in another BCS game. The last of which was against Alabama in the Sugar Bowl where the Utes finished the season with a trouncing Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide 31-17. While that may look spectacular on paper, one must remember that their most difficult game on the road last year was their first game of the season in which they barely beat Michigan by a measly score of 25-23. Michigan, although a historical powerhouse, only won 3 games last year in a weak Big 10 conference.

Apart from the Alabama game, their biggest win of the season was against then-ranked 14 BYU, which was at home and they won by 24 points. However, BYU also shared the same Mountain West cupcake schedule. I commend the Utes for scheduling teams like Michigan and Oregon State, but the MWC will not get any respect scheduling out of conference games against St. Mary’s Little Sisters of the Poor College in Vancouver. Winning 13 games is great, amazing in fact, but if you tell me that Utah would have that same record playing top NFL prospects every week in a conference like the SEC, Big 12, or Pac-10, I will vomit all over my keyboard because it’s just outrageous. If Texas, who played 4 top 11 teams in consecutive weeks and only lost one by a last second touchdown miracle doesn’t get in to the National Championship game, Utah doesn’t deserve to. If USC who had, arguably, one of the best defenses in College Football history who had one bad quarter in their 3rd game of the season doesn’t get into the National Championship game, Utah doesn’t deserve to.

Utah’s win over Alabama was impressive yes, and Alabama did deserve to play in the Sugar Bowl, but Alabama was even more over-rated than the Utes. Bama played only 3 ranked teams in the regular season. Georgia, then ranked 3rd by default, showed us why they were there by default and continued to erode throughout the rest of the season ending it with 3 ugly losses. Clemson ranked 9th was their opener. Wait, who? Oh yeah, I forgot, they ended with 6 losses barely making it into a bowl game. That’s why I forgot. And then, there’s then-ranked 16 LSU. If LSU had a quarterback, they would’ve beat Alabama by 30 points. They were then manhandled by Florida in the SEC title game. The final score (31-20) was not indicative of the second half. Throughout the second half of the season, Alabama looked sloppy and unorganized which was incredibly apparent in the Sugar Bowl against a team they could care less about playing. The Sugar Bowl was Utah’s Super Bowl. It was Alabama’s consolation prize.

The BCS ranked the University of Utah 2nd when all was said and done. Above 12-1 Texas and above 12-1 USC. Instead of Utah fans getting all up in arms about not being given a shot at the National Championship, they should be thanking their lucky stars that they’re even talked about with that sort of gravitas, because the comparison of schedules between them is laughable. The Mountain West better be careful what they wish for. According to their statement issued Wednesday, their “goal is to ensure the eventual outcome of these endeavors is what our universities and student-athletes need, what the vast majority of American sports fans want, and what is long overdue: an equitable system.” In an “equitable system,” you would be demolished the first time you met USC, Texas, Florida, or Oklahoma in your playoff system. Be happy you’ve got a seat at the grown up table, now have good manners or we’ll send you back the kid’s table in the family room. Quiet, grown-ups are talking.