Around the Big 12 – Week of September 21st

“Reprimanding Pac-12 officials since 2003”

[colored_box color=yellow]Last Week: 6-2 Straight Up (4-4 vs. Spread)

Season: 20-5 / 13-12[/colored_box]

Week 4 of the 2013 College Football season appears to be a pretty blah slate of games, both in the Big 12 and nationally. However, this is usually the kind of week where lots of fireworks and shocking results come out of nowhere.  That is why, for example, I have road underdog Kansas State not only covering the spread, but winning outright in Austin!!  Wait a minute, that wouldn’t surprise or shock anybody.

After three weeks of picking Big 12 games, Around the Big 12 is treading water, just a nose above .500 against the spread at 13-12 on the season. This is a make or break week, as I only have faith in about 1 of these 5 games.

Enough jibber-jabber, let’s get down to business. Let’s go Around the Big 12.

Louisiana Tech at Kansas (-10.5), 11:00am [FS1] – If you love terrible football teams, Saturday morning’s pillow fight between KU and LaTech will be must-see TV. These two teams are taking incompetence to exciting new places. Louisiana Tech coach Skip Holtz apologized to the fans who attended Tech’s 24-15 loss to Tulane last week. Tulane had given up 41 points to something called South Alabama just one week prior, but held Tech to 15. And Charlie Weis announced that 4 of his starting 11 on offense are getting demoted this week after inconsistent performance doomed the Jayhawks at Rice.  This is a true dart-throw of a game, but for the time being I would never seriously consider Kansas as a double digit favorite against anyone. And plus, Louisiana Tech may have some kind of special luck or

on their side. Yes, let’s call this one voodoo versus doodoo. In that matchup, nobody wins. JAYHAWKS – 26  Bulldogs – 20

Maryland (-6.5) vs. West Virginia (at Baltimore), 2:30pm [ESPNU] – The Mountaineers may have finally found their starting QB in Ford Childress, but there were many red flags in the Mountaineers’ 41-7 win over Georgia State.  The Georgia State Panthers are an FCS team in their 4^th year of existence. Last week they had two offensive linemen quit the team after two dreadful rushing performances to start the season (42 total carries, 102 total yards). Using an offensive line duct taped together with backups and spare parts, Georgia State STILL ran for 136 yards on the West Virginia defense. The game was tight, at 17-7, halfway through the third quarter before WVU blew it open. Yeesh. Maryland has rushed for 6 yards per carry through 3 games, albeit against weak competition. Maryland is just a better football team right now. If you’re looking for an emotional angle to this game, apparently WVU fans are irate that their band is not being “allowed” to play at halftime of the game. Jesus, is there anything that DOESN’T send West Virginia fans into a rage?  TERRAPINS – 33  Mountaineers – 23

Louisiana-Monroe at Baylor (-29), 3:00pm [FS1] – I don’t pretend to know or understand anything about “Duck Dynasty” and America’s fascination with….whatever Duck Dynasty is. All I really know is that the show features a bunch of old dudes with beards, and I just learned that the show is based in Monroe, Louisiana. Since Baylor faces UL-Monroe this weekend, those silly little comedians at Waco came up with this promotional poster, entitled Bear Dynasty.  HAHA IT IS FUNNY BECAUSE THEY DON’T REALLY HAVE BEARDS HAHA. Although if Art Briles actually grew that monster, he would immediately become my favorite coach of all time – and Baylor would win every football game 140-0 for the rest of eternity. We need more coaches with intimidating facial hair. Until Baylor finds a way to Baylor-up this run they’re on in 2013, I see no reason to pick against them.  UL-Monroe is getting a lot of love for last week’s 21-19 win over Wake Forest, but come on….it was Wake Forest.  BEARS – 55 Warhawks – 17

Texas State at Texas Tech (-25.5), 6:00pm [FSN] – After polishing off TCU 20-10 last Thursday, Texas Tech is officially on everyone’s radar. In fact, I saw a number of pundits contemplating the possibility of Texas Tech reaching 7-0 before their October trip to Norman. What does this mean?  It means that Texas Tech is now due for a completely inexplicable, bed-crapping loss. Normally I wouldn’t expect a Texas Tech letdown after a victory over TCU, but Red Raider students DID storm the field after the victory (WHY?!?!?!).  The bed crapping may occur in a couple of weeks in Lawrence or Morgantown, but it will not happen this weekend.  RED RAIDERS – 44  Bobcats – 13

Kansas State at Texas (-3.5), 7:00pm [ABC] – Hey Texas fans, here’s a cheery thought.  If Texas can’t beat Kansas State on Saturday night, it’s quite possible that the Longhorns are staring a 3-9 record right in the eyes. At best! If Texas can’t slow a punchless K-State offense, how will they stop: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, and Baylor? Oh, and let’s not focus all of our criticism on the Longhorn defense. The Texas offense is currently doing the world no favors either. Last Saturday night, Texas had 90 yards of total offense in the 2^nd half after Ole Miss decided at halftime to finally do some coaching and make some adjustments. Mack Brown said that Tyrone Swoopes was ready to play last week, but the offense played too well in the 1^st half, and then they were trailing by too much in the 2^nd half. Well, ummm….Coach, what about that period of time in the 3^rd quarter when the offense was doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and desperately needed any sort of spark? Kansas State is so mediocre that a Longhorn victory is certainly possible, but given all of the dysfunction and delusion in Austin, who would ever wager on it?  Bill Snyder loves to take advantage of his opponents’ soft points, and that means we will see a lot of mobile QB Daniel Sams dancing through the second and third level of the Texas defense, as desperate reaches and half-hearted hugs are offered as attempts to “tackle”. Déjà vu all over again. WILDCATS – 27  Longhorns – 20