This Week in College Football

Last Week: 11-1 (perfection thwarted by Ricky Stanzi’s complete ineptness at running a 2-minute drill)

It’s pretty late & I’ve got to be up in the morning so I’ll make these picks brief (apparently that didn't happen, gonna be a long Saturday...).

Top 10:

· #1 Auburn at Ole Miss-Jeremiah Masoli must hate himself for blowing a chance at national stardom leading the Oregon Ducks on a quest for a title. Instead he’s stuck on a mediocre Ole Miss team & facing off against the most dynamic QB in the nation, Auburn’s Cam Newton. Ole Miss has the potential to be dangerous but, Auburn’s offense should be too much & the streak of #1’s going down should end.

Auburn 37, Ole Miss 24

· #5 Michigan State at # 18 Iowa-Both these teams played tough games that went down to the final minutes last week. MSU fell way down against Northwestern only to climb back up & hold onto the win. Iowa, on the other hand, blew a late lead & saw their quarterback self-destruct in the last 2 minutes. Despite the different showings I still believe in this Iowa team & they’re at home so they’re the pick.

Iowa 27, Michigan State 17

· #6 Missouri at #14 Nebraska-Mizzou is coming off a huge victory over #1 Oklahoma (called it!) & my pre-season #1 Nebraska came back strong from their loss to Texas to hang 51 on Oklahoma State. These two offer differing styles as Mizzou likes to air it out while Nebraska likes to keep it on the ground with QB Taylor Martinez. This game should be a thriller & I like Braska to edge it out on their home turf.

Office Watch-"Costume Contest"

This marks the beginning of my weekly (at least through this calendar year) reviews of half of NBC’s comedy Thursdays (sorry "30 Rock" fans, your show’s funny enough but I’ve just never really gotten into it, & anyone who actually watches "Outsourced"). Hopefully I won’t be overly inept, & can provide some insight into "The Office" & "Community" however if you want a professionals take I recommend Alan Sepinwall at hitfix.com, James Poniewozik at time.com, & the reviewers from the avclub.com.

It would be inappropriate for my first review to be off anything but "The Office". It’s my favorite sitcom of all-time (I own each season & have seen each episode from the first 3 seasons, the show’s apex, a half dozen times), & I was one of the early converts (props to Cody Johnson & Alex Van Guilder for being the only people I know to have discovered it before me), having started my weekly viewings in its 2^nd season. Quite simply no show has given me more enjoyment over the years (even you "Lost").

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