And here are the picks:

Nebraska – 13.5 @ Baylor
I’m pretty sure the Nebraska coaching staff has been riding the team pretty hard after that sloppy loss to Iowa State and a down and out (and very disappointed) Baylor team is probably a good remedy for what ails them. About the only way this gets better for Nebraska would be if it were a home game. Nebraska 31-10.

Southern Miss +7 @ Cougar High
I think Houston will overlook this game for one, not to mention that Southern Miss can play defense and has the offensive skill to keep up. Cougars 41-38.

Iowa State +6.5 @ Texas A&M
Something here tells me that just like Tech took A&M lightly last week, the Ags will do the same to the Cyclones. Aggie misery is enhanced when it’s mixed with a little Aggie delusion, and I don’t think all of the talk about “righting the ship” is what happened last week. The Aggies have fat little girlfriends, too, and generally, theirs tend to be fatter and more prone to misunderstanding about the rightful place of the football program. Iowa State 28-27.

Cincinnati -16 @ Syracuse
Syracuse is a speed bump on the way to undefeated BCS irrelevance. How can you be a “BCS Buster” and play in a BCS conference? If the conference is the Big East you sure can. Cincinnati 45-17.

Indiana +17 @ Iowa
I keep getting in front of the Iowa train, but this is a lot of points and Iowa at some point has to catch their breaths after all of these emotional wins. With the offense that Indiana is capable of, and a couple of key injuries on Iowa’s own offense, I can see this one staying close. Iowa 28-21.

Duke +7 @ Virginia
In honor of Canonico getting married yesterday, and somewhat in dishonor of Mrs Johnnymac’s alma mater that failed to keep up with Georgia Tech last week, I’ll ride the Blue Devils to a bowl game.

NFL PICKS

Colts -13 vs 49ers
An early game against a west coast team that has shown it’s not afraid to give up passing yards. Colts 31-14.

Packers -3 vs Vikings
Obviously.

I’m also tempted to go with Jacksonville getting points at the Titans, but the Titans are switching QB’s this week and that might be worth a spark or two.

Unfortunately, I have a 2 1/2 year old living in my house who has just discovered that he can get out of bed at 5:00am now and demand breakfast. Since I usually get most of my writing done early in the morning, this has been a crimp on my blog working style, in addition to this and this (sell to hospitals, Johnny, hospitals!) beginning to take off .

Oh how I long for the days that we could just put him in the crib and ignore him. And, FWIW, he has talked for weeks about wanting to be a turtle for Halloween, so his mom worked her ass off on a cute little handmade turtle costume and he has thus far now refused to wear it. Parenting is hard.

But I digress.

An abbreviated wrapup post follows, then the picks – hopefully I’ll get back on a better schedule next week:

3-3 on college and 1-1 on the pros. We’re now at 33-29-1, still 53%.

Last Week:

Texas Tech -22 vs Texas A&M LOSS
Jesus Christ, Aggies. Jesus Christ, Raiders. Earlier last week I had made similar disparaging Aggie comments on my Facebook page and around 10:00 last Saturday night every Aggie I knew came out of the woodwork and started making comments to that post. Facebook smack – welcome to the 21st century.

Oklahoma State -9.5 at Baylor WIN
Okie Lite’s defense was better than I expected, but otherwise this one turned out just fine.

Virginia + 5.5 vs Georgia Tech LOSS
UVA has Tech’s number! Nevermind.

LSU / Auburn UNDER 50 WIN
I figured it would be an epic 17-13 SEC battle or a 30-something to single digits LSU win, and we got the latter. Auburn didn’t score much and that’s really all we needed for this one to come in.

TCU -2.5 @ BYU WIN
Now people are starting to talk about TCU!

Bama – 13.5 vs Tennessee LOSS
Missed this one completely, although I would say that if you’re not going to cover go ahead and lose the game outright and make it more interesting. It’s a lot more fun to read about the #2 team in the country losing outright than squeaking by. That said, while I was on the Alabama bandwagon a few weeks ago, I’m beginning to think they’re just as flawed as Florida or Texas or anyone else. They can play outstanding defense, but the offense is regressing and stalls against anyone with a decent secondary. LSU might just get back into the conversation next week, iykwim.

NFL Picks

Packers -7 @ Browns WIN
Yep.

Dolphins +6.5 vs Saints LOSS
Easily one of the most dispiriting gambling games I have watched in a very long time. It wasn’t so much that the Saints came all the way back from 21 down, it was the pick 6 with less than 2 minutes left and up by 6, which was the only way they were going to cover there since the Dolphins were out of timeouts and victory formation would have sufficed. Luckily, stuffed baby toys can’t break plasma TV’s when thrown at them, or I would have upgraded to LCD this week.

In case you didn’t see it happen on TV last night, Phil Ivey made a terrible mistake. There aren’t many decisions you can make in poker that are absolutely wrong in every circumstance. I can think of two: failing to bet on the end with the nuts on the river and mucking a winning hand after the betting is done. Ivey did the latter.

He was unaware that he backed into a flush and thought he just had a pair of eighs, so he mucked when his opponent showed a pair of Aces.

This is a decent summary of the entire episode.

It isn’t clear to me, but what I pieced together from 2+2 is that Phil Ivey did not know about this until he saw it on TV. Makes sense that ESPN would not be allowed to tell him earlier. I now remember that there was some discussion back when they moved to the November Nine format that airing hole cards before a tournament is complete gives away too much info. Wonder if this will put Ivey on tilt or at least pierce his veil of invulnerability.

Stories like this always make me sad.

Okay, so Boise state came into this week number 4 in the BCS and pounded a weak Hawaii team 54-9. Based on that hideous performance they dropped to number 7 in the BCS this week. Cincinnati, ranked number 5 last week, fell to number 8 after pounding a weak Louisville team 41-10 with their back-up QB playing the whole game.

So they must have been passed by 3 teams that really tore it up this week. Not quite. Yes, TCU beating BYU on the road was impressive and I could see them leaping over some teams. But USC’s 42-36 win at home over a 4-3 Oregon State team and Iowa’s 15-13 win at the buzzer over a 4-4 Michigan State team were hardly groundbreaking victories. Keep in mind that Cincinnati beat Oregon State on the road 28-18, so USC leapfrogging Cincinnati is kind of ridiculus based on this weeks victory.

Most of the fluctuations are caused by changes in the computer rankings. Iowa jumped from number 3 in the computer ranking to number 1 based on that win over the Spartans. Florida and Alabama who got passed by Iowa in the computer rankings only beat Mississippi State and Tennessee. Those obviously are far inferior teams to the mighty Michigan State Spartans (not!).

I hate that college football uses such a subjective process to help determine their ultimate champion.

My news of the wierd for this week was a no-brainer:
Ball State Coach Stan Parrish won a football game on Oct. 18, 1986, when his Kansas State Wildcats beat Kansas, 29-12. After that, K-State lost the next 27 games over the next two seasons under Parrish. Then he got firerd. Last year, he was named head coach just before Ball State’s bowl game, which he lost to Tulsa. Then, the Cardinals lost their first seven of this year.

After losing 35 straight games as a head coach, Parrish beat (winless) Eastern Michigan on Saturday.