This Week in College Football

Due to my now very lax schedule I’m free to provide more coverage to the things that really matter-sports (especially football), television, movies & a little bit of politics. Hence I will now begin a few weekly columns with my college football weekly predictions being the first. In this column I will preview each PAC-10 game, all games involving top 10 teams, & any between two ranked teams (going by the BCS standing since those are the rankings that matter). Now here we go!

Top 10:

· #1 Oklahoma at #11 Missouri-Yes, Oregon ended the streak of AP #1s losing, but the AP rankings mean about as much as an MTV award now, so Oklahoma is now on the clock as #1 w/ thanks to the BCS computers & they’ve got a tough one ahead of them. Oklahoma is an impressive 6-0 with wins over 2 currently ranked teams as well as a solid Air Force squad. What’s not so impressive is their 71^st ranked defense, and the fact they’ve only played one true road game in which they barely edged out a mediocre Cincinnati team. So yea, I’m taking the less talked about undefeated Big 12 team in this matchup.

Mizzou 31, Oklahoma 27

· #6 LSU at #4 Auburn-In what has to be the game of the week we get two undefeated SEC schools one with a fantastic defense (LSU) & the other with an incredible offense (Auburn). Conventional wisdom says defense wins championships but, LSU has been the least impressive of the undefeated teams & I’d rather not bet against Heisman frontrunner Cam Newton.

Auburn 34, LSU 24

· Air Force at #5 TCU-I like Air Force, they can run the ball like nobody’s business (1^st in the nation), but I don’t like them on the road against my pre-season #2 team.

TCU 24, Air Force 13

· #7 Michigan State at Northwestern-Northwestern football has come a long way the last half-decade & they’ve got a 5-1 record going into this game, which is good because the second half of this season is going to be rough on them. Also, I don’t like to mess with Spartans.

MSU 30, Northwestern 17

· #8 Alabama at Tennessee-Tennessee nearly beat LSU on the road two weeks ago, they won’t come close against a Bama team driven to get back in the title hunt.

Bama 33, Tennessee 16

· Colorado State at #9 Utah-This won’t be close.

Utah 41, CSU 14

· Purdue at #10 Ohio State-Purdue should provide a nice recovery game for the Buckeyes.

OSU 35, Purdue 17

Ranked Teams:

· #13 Wisconsin at #15 Iowa-This game will be a signature battle in the trenches between the Badgers O-line and the Hawkeyes D-line. Both units are impressive (feel free to make a gay joke here) & I think they’ll largely cancel each other out. Ultimately I just have more faith in Iowa, & home field advantage.

Iowa 27, Wisconsin 21

· #16 Nebraska at #14 Oklahoma State-Nebraska’s coming off a title dashing loss that saw freshman phenom Taylor Martinez benched while Oklahoma State is trying to prove they’re more than a product of a weak schedule. I like Martinez and the Cornhuskers to get back on track against OSU’s less than impressive defense.

Nebraska 34, OSU 13.

PAC-10:

· #2 Oregon 60, UCLA 13-Obviously this game already happened just know that before the game I put the line at +/- 50 and my brother & dad laughed thinking that number to be ridiculously high. Turns out my line was a hell of a lot better than Vegas’ 27 points (if you have no idea what I’m talking about then learn how to gamble you putz).

· Washington State at #12 Stanford-WSU is improving, as evidenced by their not getting blow out by Arizona last week, & I’d pick them… if they weren’t playing on the road against a really good team coming off a bye.

Stanford 45, WSU 17

· Arizona State at California-These two teams have alternated between impressive and depressing. Cal is coming off a demolishing at the hands of USC while ASU beat Washington on the road two weeks ago and a bye last week. I could see this going either way but Cal’s been a much better team at home so they get the call.

Cal 26, ASU 23

The Arizona game:

Washington at #18 Arizona-The Matt Scott era 2.0 begins tomorrow & hopefully this one has better results (actually I’d gladly take 2-1 over the next 3 w/ Scott at QB). Scott looked like a much better passer last week, granted not in the same league as Foles, of course he was up against the doormat of the PAC-10 & now he gets to duel one of the premier quarterbacks in all of college football. It doesn’t help matters that only two weeks ago the Arizona secondary was torched at home by a mobile QB with a strong arm. For all of the talk about the Iowa game proving Arizona had turned the corner Arizona’s greatest problem over the last few seasons hasn’t been a failure to beat their better opponents but their inability to consistently beat the teams they’re supposed to. Against Cal the offense kicked into gear just in time, against Oregon State the defense fell apart. Now with their star quarterback out we get to find out exactly what these Cats are made of & if all that Rose Bowl talk is legit, or nothing but deluded hype. It should be exciting.

Arizona 27, Washington 23