Somebody posted this on Shaggy and I thought it was worth a repost here. You can skip ahead to 1:20 for the good part.

The pro picks both hit and pushed me into a 5-3 record and a winning weekend. That’s nice, but by my count I’m 14-14-1 for the season, which is less like treading water and more like slowly drowning.

Let’s jump into these real quick.What’s funny is that my confidence ratings were reversed, but a hey – a win is a win.

Cal -6 @ Oregon (Oregon 42-3 LOSS)

Good lord, did this one hurt to watch. I take solace that Phil Steele and most of the other experts were high on Cal, but they crapped the bed with olympic aplomb. Not much to say except that Oregon showed up to play and Cal showed up. One good thing here is that Cal is now going to be a better value the rest of the season as people are wary of them. My guess is that they’re better than 50/50 to beat USC this week and if they do I don’t think they’ll lose again, although point spreads will probably be depressed. You read that here first.

Texas Tech PK vs Houston (Cougar High 29-28 LOSS)
I fell asleep at halftime with Tech up by 8 and was confident enough to let Mrs Johnnymac convince me to go to bed. Looks like I missed a good game and a lot of blown opportunities by Tech (kick the field goal, Blackbeard). What I didn’t miss was a phantom touchdown catch by UH in the 1st quarter that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. Let me get this straight: you can bobble the ball and drop it when you hit the ground, but so long as you are bobbling it as you cross the goal line the play is dead and it’s a touchdown catch?

Don’t get me wrong, Tech gets away with a lot of stuff  - linemen routinely holding and receivers running blatant picks on every route – and they usually whine about the officiating a bit too much, but they were robbed on that particular play. Not that this one should have had an effect on the result, either - Tech should have won this game by 2-3 scores and blew it all by themselves.

Miami -3  at Virginia Tech (Va Tech 31-7 LOSS)
I could make an excuse and blame it on the weather and my not checking the weather report, but I still would have picked Miami. Virginia Tech has really annoyed me this year – very little offense and not quite enough defense to make up for it – so the heavy rain helped quite a bit by slowing down Miami and letting special teams play a big role. Similar to Cal, I think Miami is still a very talented team and will be very successful from here on out, especially if Bradford comes back for OU this week and the linesmakers shade towards the Sooners based on the relative recent perceptions of the respective programs.

I will talk about this one more on Friday or Saturday.

Alabama -17.5 vs Arkansas (Alabama 35-7 WIN)
Here is what I wrote on Friday night:

I don’t Arkansas has enough defense to contain Bama, and I think Bama keeps it on the ground and keeps the Pigs off the field long enough to make it one dimensional enough to start coming after Mallett on every single play as Arky plays catchup.

And here are some stats:

ECOND QUARTER				ARK	ALA
	TD	09:30	Trent Richardson 52 Yd Run (Leigh Tiffin Kick)	0	7
	TD	06:55	Julio Jones 50 Yd Pass From Greg McElroy (Leigh Tiffin Kick)	0	14
THIRD QUARTER				ARK	ALA
	TD	10:45	Greg Childs 18 Yd Pass From Ryan Mallett (Alex Tejada Kick)	7	14
	TD	10:25	Marquis Maze 80 Yd Pass From Greg McElroy (Leigh Tiffin Kick)	7	21
	TD	05:53	Mark Ingram 14 Yd Pass From Greg McElroy (Leigh Tiffin Kick)	7	28
FOURTH QUARTER				ARK	ALA
	TD	13:12	Mark Ingram 2 Yd Run (Leigh Tiffin Kick)	7	35

Arkansas Rushing
	CAR	YDS	AVG	TD	LG
R. Mallett	3	-28	-9.3	0	0

Arkansas Passing
	C/ATT	YDS	AVG	TD	INT
R. Mallett	12/35	160	4.6	1	1

Except for Bama passing a bit more than I expected, this one played out pretty good for me.

Like last year, all Bama has to do is win out and beat Florida in the CCG and they’re in.

Southern Miss +13.5 at Kansas (Kansas 35-28 WIN)
Southern Miss/Kansas OVER 58.5 (63 total points WIN)
Kansas can score points up and down the field, but Kansas can’t stop anyone up and down the field, either. Ditto for Southern Miss.

NY Giants -6.5 @ Tampa Bay (NY Giants 24-0 WIN)
Justin Tuck played, but Tampa wasn’t going to score 6.5 points, much less stay within that number of the Giants.

Dallas -9 vs Carolina (Dallas 21-7 WIN)
Dallas needed a pick 6 in the 4th Quarter to get over the hump last night, but they did. And Felix Jones was on track for about 130/50/ and a couple of TD’s until he got hurt. How sick was that move he made in the 1st quarter? My ankles hurt just watching that guy (whoever it was) try to tackle him and then topple over.

It is very funny to me to see the coverage of the Eagles victory yesterday. The Eagles won 34-14 with their back-up QB Kevin Kolb throwing for 327 yards and two touchdowns, as well as running for one score. Kolb became the first QB to throw for 300 yards in his first two starts.

And yet what is the NEWS coverage of? Michael Vick who played in 11 plays, was 0 for 2 passing and had 1 rush for 7 yards.

I liked the media better when they used to report what was newsworthy, and not what would get the highest ratings.

By the way, I am not bashing Michael Vick or his role on the team, just the media and their coverage.

Here are the weekend picks (in order of confidence):

Cal -6 @ Oregon
Being stuck behind USC and playing on the west coast, I don’t think many casual college football fans are aware just how good Cal is.

Texas Tech PK vs Houston
Tech covered on the road last week at Texas and has played well enough on both sides of the ball all season to make me a believer that perhaps the importance of Mr.Fantasy Draft and his sister Midol might have been a bit overrated. Tech is good and should have been ranked higher going into the season based on what I have seen so far. Yes, the Cougars are a good team this year, but I don’t think that they’re comparable to Texas, especially on defense and in the pass rush, and I especially don’t think they’re as good as so many out-of-the-woodwork Cougar fans are saying. They’ve only played two games this year and the one that everyone is so excited about – beating Oklahoma State in Stillwater – I think told us more about Oklahoma State than it did Cougar High.

Miami -3  at Virginia Tech
Just as Georgia has burned me all year (ooh look, no Georgia pick this week!), Miami hasn’t let me down. Let’s keep rolling here: I like Miami more and more each week and Virginia Tech just hasn’t impressed me at all this year, especially their offense. I like Miami big.

Alabama -17.5 vs Arkansas
This was my big post-Ike winner last year when Arkansas was only getting 10 points at home against what turned out to be a really good Bama team. Bama rolled them up by 35 and scored points all over the field. This year, about the only thing that’s changed is that Arkansas has had an extra year in the offense, but other than that the players are all still the same. I don’t Arkansas has enough defense to contain Bama, and I think Bama keeps it on the ground and keeps the Pigs off the field long enough to make it one dimensional enough to start coming after Mallett on every single play as Arky plays catchup.

Southern Miss +13.5 at Kansas
Southern Miss/Kansas OVER 58.5
I haven’t seen either team play this year, but this seems to be a game where all of the experts think the line is off because of the public perception of Kansas averaging 42 points a game and thus far whipping up on (and covering against) everyone they’ve played, regardless of how weak that competition has actually been. Is Southern Miss a powerhouse from a BCS conference? No, but they also aren’t Northern Colorado, UTEP, or Duke, either. Plus, they’re undefeated and have averaged 38 points per game themselves against a very similar (if not slightly tougher) schedule of Alcorn State, Central Florida, and Virginia. I think this one ends up being a close shootout in a 52-48 type of game.

BONUS NFL PLAYS!!!!!

Now that we’re into the NFL season and can reasonably get a better feel for the relative strength of the teams, I’m starting to pay a bit more attention to those lines. I had a small play on Miami last Monday and then they broke my heart late in the 4th quarter when they were up by 3 and gave the ball back to Peyton Manning. Somehow I just knew that the Colts were going to score a touchdown and cover the 3.5 and dammit that’s exactly what they did.

BUT, regardless of the bad beats, there are also two NFL games I like this week:

NY Giants -6.5 @ Tampa Bay
This one is low because the oddsmakers apparently seem to think that Justin Tuck (how dirty was that, Flozell?) plays tight end and therefore the Giants won’t score any points this week. I guess. Seriously, if this one is less than a touchdown, it’s a good bet.

Dallas -9 vs Carolina
Has been bet down from double digits, I guess because of the injury to Barber. Newsflash to the betting public, when he’s healthy, Felix Jones is actually better. Why wouldn’t the Cowboys not score on this awful Carolina team, especially considering how they put points on the board against the Giants and see this game as a second chance to wipe stigma off of their new palace stadium?

I probably shouldn’t even have to post this, but I like South Carolina tonight plus the points. A home underdog on Thursday night is usually a good bet, plus I think Mississippi isn’t nearly as all that as people apparently want to think.