Chilly times are ahead folks and its time to wrap yourself up into some nice and tasty picks. This week sees some hot action on the cold, cold fields of Lincoln, Nebraska. Will Missouri continue to roll or be tripped up by the scrappy Cornhuskers? No matter, we’ll be staying warm the best way we know. Hot chocolate helps. So does coffee or fried mac n’ cheese wedges. I’ll probably have all this Saturday. Grab your favorite warm-upper and check out the picks for the week. Remember, he colder and longer the season goes, the harder the picks get.
Halloween is Sunday and we are cooking up various items around the place with pumpkin in them. The roasted pumpkin seeds with cinamon and nutmeg were awesome but so where the pumpkin muffins. Grab your favorite pumpkin related food and check out this week’s Crib Sheet:
The BCS Standings are out and it’s time to start wiping away the competition. Oklahoma and Missouri will lock horns tomorrow to find out who will be worthy from the Big 12. We also have LSU battling Auburn for SEC worthiness. The pretenders are wiping away and it’s all downhill for the road to the BCS Championship Game. The pretenders will also start wiping away in our Pick It and Stick It challenge. Let’s take a look at what’s on the windshield for this week.
It’s that time of the year people! No, not when we break our backs raking leaves, but the time when the BCS Stadings start coming out! For those of you that follow the blog religiously know that we like to take some time out of the heated Pick It and Stick It Standings to go over the BCS fight as well. We’re in week 7 of the picks and there’s a large gap between #2 and #3. Will it grow or shrink in the weeks to come? Meanwhile, the first BCS Standings show that computers are way smarter than people and they also like surprises too.
Another Friday and another day after for me and some Stadiumspotting. Last week didn’t go to well for me but this week was the complete opposite. The college football season is full of ups and downs and it can change every week. With this weekend, we will be about halfway through the football season. The time is running down for more great games and for even more great picks. The field’s thinning at the top and the clock is starting to run down. Let’s go over this week’s Pick It and Stick It to see how the downs can turn into ups:
The big game last night didn’t end up so well for this Kansas State fan. Hey, that’s okay. We tooled to Aggiveille and hit up the Hibachi Hit, which later lead to the vaunted Hibachi Butt. Maybe it was the mixture of great cajun food and the Carbomb we had at O’Malley’s Alley. Who knows? But it was great to see the old stomping grounds, even though the Wildcats were run over by Taylor Martinez and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. More on that with Monday’s post. Until then, we have some picks for the weekend we need to go through. The healing process begins with pickens.
A very special lady sprung on me some tickets to the Kansas State and Nebraska game going on tomorrow. So we’ll do some Stadiumspotting there as well get you stoked for this week of football. First thing is first, though. This week’s Crib Sheet goes over some of the hottest news items of the last week. We have some spicy giblets ready to feed ya and then we’re gonna get the car ready for the impromptu road trip. On to the sheet:
So another week came through and we have the same story as last week. Yup, the picks this week weren’t as good as the picks for the first week of Pick It and Stick It. What does that mean? It means that the 2nd lowest score drop takes effect next week. All the standings are same except for JOOSE, who upped his points to a more respectable 370. So the stage is set. Movement will happen soon. Check out the standings first:
Here we go rolling into another week of Pick It and Stick It. The games are fresh this week and we are stoked about the upcoming Farmageddon happening right in Kansas City’s backyard. Kansas State is a 3.5 point favorite over Iowa State and we can imagine that Daniel Thomas is the reason for the line. Will we see the same outcome as last year? Hopefully it will be just as exciting. So far, Farmageddon delivers on quality. Here are the picks:
It’s amazing to think how long we have been doing this blog. Three years. That’s dedication, homes. One of the very first places we barspotted was The Other Place. It was a great time and now it’s time again to head back over there. What better place to watch Farmageddon other than Arrowhead than deep into one of the few Iowa/Iowa State bars in the area. Yeah, we could go to Kite’s or Lucky Brewgrille for the Kansas State side of things but The Other Place is so much better and it’s been a long time since we’ve been there. So let’s re-live some good times and meet us out there Saturday to watch Farmegeddon blow us away.
Back again with another week of picks. You’d think we all would learn our lesson about off bets but low and behold Kansas had to come out of the gate in week one and prove us wrong. So be careful when you see the off bets this week as we may have another team fall asleep at the well. Let’s be clear, the Jayhawks fell asleep at the wheel. They will get better. This is college. Not all of the kids act like pros and get up for every game. So don’t be so sure about teams coming into this week. Every game counts, but kids will forget that.
So let’s start with the off bets. Virginia Tech will come off a tough loss at home with James Madison. Missouri will get a breather against McNeese State at home. TCU looks to keep the train rolling against Tennesse Tech. Finally, we have Kansas State hosting the Missouri State Bearcats. Okay, since Kansas was in the Big 12, I would say that Missouri and Kansas State has the best chance to lose this week. The best chance amongst off bets that is.
The rest of the games see a great chunk happening around 2:30. Michigan and Notre Dame relive the past again. Ohio State relives a title game with Miami of Florida. Same thing goes for Oklahoma and Florida State. The Cy-Hawk Trophy is up for grabs when Iowa takes on Iowa State. One thing is for sure, these games will not have the bets off. Make your picks people.
There’s just so much to chew on from the first week of college football, we’ll just make the intro real quick. On to the Crib Sheet:
Freshly on its own, BYU signed a deal with ESPN and Notre Dame to be shown exclusively and play, respectively. They are stepping out fresh in their independence but we don’t think they’ll get as strong as their Irish counterparts.
The Big 10 now has divisions, so we’ll see how balanced they are in the next couple of years. The big news is breaking up Michigan and Ohio State. Since they will be the ‘yearly rival’, there’s a big chance that they could play each other again in the Big 10 Championship Game.
The face behind the mask of the mascot for Penn State, notched an MIP for underage drinking. Clint Gyory got busted and now he’s suspended from his mascot duties. It just goes to show that football players aren’t the other ones who have to watch what they do in their free time.
In what’s become the major theme to begin the season, another player will miss games for accepting sports agent gifts. This time it’s Alabama’s Marcell Dareus. They should suspend him for key games. Doing this at the beginning of the year means they miss the cakewalk part of the schedule.
North Carolina was one play away from possibly winning the game against LSU last Saturday. What’s more than amazing is that they did it with a ton of suspended players. About half of the starters didn’t play due to NCAA investigations. We’re not sure if it shows how tough the Tar Heels could be or how weak LSU looks.
TCU coach Gary Patterson gave credit to ESPN’s Lee Corso for inspiring the Horned Frogs to a come from behind win against Oregon State last Saturday. Patterson used the right amount of moto-mojo to get his team over the tough Beavers.
After the embarrassing loss to North Dakota State, Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins retired Tuesday. He was going to retire next year, but the school (and the boosters) decided to cough up the money to get him out of there sooner. We don’t know who the replacement AD, not interim, will be and now we don’t know who the starting quarterback will be. Man basketball season can’t come any faster for the Jayhawks.
Apparently Reggie Bush may be stripped of his Heisman. I guess that’s what happens when it’s discovered that you might have been ineligible during your run in college. He would be the first. How many other Heisman winners may have been ineligible? Should we investigate everyone and find out?
ESPN kicked off ESPN3D last year during the BCS Championship Game and now they have an updated schedule that started with the Boise State and Virginia Tech game. So far so good, according to the review. We’re anxious to get our eyes on it when it becomes mainstream about 20 years from now.
Speaking of the Broncos, they jumped to #3 in both polls. Looks like if they can keep up the blowouts, they will be a contender. Meanwhile, David Ubben runs down the votes for the Big 12 teams. It’s pretty much the big 3 in the top 25 (Texas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma) then about 5 teams about a stone’s throw from the 25 threshold. If they can keep it up, we may see more Big 12 teams up there.
Okay here’s the first pick it list of the year and it’s a doozy. If you remember from last year, a number of us had to eat some missed weeks and totally blew our picks. So, in response to that, anyone can miss can have their lowest 2 scores knocked off. Worried about competition? Well, we have added the Top 25 AND the Big 12 into the mix to make sure our confidence points are all over. Not only do you have to pick against the spread, but now you have to make sure your confidence counts. With that said, let’s check out the first week of picks.
We are back again going out to the best of what Kansas City sports bars has to offer in terms of college football. Like the storied tradition of college football, we have a tradition of going back to the best bar of last year to start out this season for KC College Gameday. We had no way of knowing back at the beginning of last September that Johnny’s in the Power & Light would be the best but here we are planning the first Barspot of the year down there. With every television fit into every nook and cranny as well as the crazy touch table poker game, Johnny’s hit the spot on all things needed for a great sport viewing experience. So come back out with us Saturday as we head back out there to enjoy Johnny’s and scoff at that ridiculous KC College Live thingy going on in the outdoor area.
Apparently there’s still some fallout from the NCAA’s investigation of schools regarding sports agents and football players. Read all about it below. Our take on the whole thing? The times they are a changing and much like any other huge organization, change comes slow. This week’s Crib Sheet points out that while the NCAA is running around doing investigations, they are cutting drug testing budgets. We think the NCAA needs to lean down more and seriously reconsider just how sports are played today. On the Crib Sheet:
It looks like alot of big name players are going down at Nebraska and Missouri. Mike Smith broke a leg for the Cornhuskers and Jerrell Jackson broke his left wrist. Will this potentially blow open the Big 12 North? The bigger injuries usually happen during the season.
Well well well, it looks like Bryce Brown IS coming to Kansas State. That is, until Derek Dooley releases him from his scholarship at Tennessee. Brown’s had some trouble there and decided to bolt after Lane Kiffin did. Bill Snyder 2.0 should help clean him up after this blows over.
As more and more reports of paid trips come up, Nick Saban closes camp to scouts and then grabs some of his buddies on a call to the NFL regarding ways to stamp out the rampant sports agent issue. It’s alright that Saban is trying to clean things up now, but we’re thinking he’s getting ahead of it to take advantage of it later on down the road.
New Mexico football players can’t tweet. Now we loves the Twitter and we see no harm in kids doing the same thing socially that their peers are. If DeWayne Walker was smart, he would cryptically recruit via Twitter.
Playboy picked Ohio State to win it all. Is Playboy even relevent anymore. They used to have it big but now it just seems they are a glorified New Yorker. Even the nudity isn’t intriguing anymore.
So the media circus that was Mike Leach is now replaced with a reality show. Yup, Texas Tech decided that the pirate attention was not enough and will document the team throughout the season in a reality show. Hard Knocks this won’t be. But hey it already sounds better than Jerzey Shore.
Sprint’s Football Live app now does college football. Yes, all of you smartphone subscribers out there will now get a chance to watch ESPN college football games as well as the Notre Dame home games. Very nice indeed.
The NCAA is cutting costs related to drug testing. Gone comprehensive tests, Ephedrine, and advance notice to schools. What stays are the high risk drugs and an easier path of get away with taking performance enhancing drugs.
