In college I like UVA +14 and Toledo on the money line to stun the Razorbacks. I'll post my NFL picks tomorrow
They have Denver favored by 5 against Baltimore. I have my upset pick of Baltimore winning the game straight up.
clubber nice call on UVA! Just wondering if anyone else has noticed anything. I watch a lot of Big 12 football over the years and it seems to me that, in order to bring attention, TV money, high player evaluations, they slant the balance heavy toward offense (miss-matching defensive players, under-recruiting cornerbacks, throwing defensive calls from the coaching end). This became especially obvious when RGIII was playing at Baylor. Now that RGIII is in the pros it becomes painfully obvious that he was playing against very, very weak defenses in college. Red Skins paid dearly for missing this realization and bought the hype in a big way. Jets too with Geno Smith. Also Josh Freeman, Landry Jones, Colt McCoy, Vince Young, Brandon Weeden, Case Keenum... poor opposition defense became obvious in the pros. I was watching the Iowa-Iowa State game Sat and it looks as if its still going on in the Big 12. The same Fox crew has been covering Big 12 since RGIII and they hype the hell out of all the big offensive plays but never speak of Defense. Once Texas A&M graduated Manziel, they pulled out of the Big 12 and never looked back (Manziel was a classic Big 12 quarterback). However, when I watch an SEC or a Big 10 game it is much more balanced and much more believable. Great defense. Amazing quarterbacks come from conferences with great defense (Harbaugh, Brady, Stafford, Luck, Manning, Brees, Newton, etc). Even the younger generation of QBs coming out of these conferences look pretty good (Mallet, Cousins, Mettenberger, Painter, Stanzi, Foles, McCarron). I guess it is a valid strategy cuz a lot of these Big 12 QBs get people's hopes up and get drafted high. They also provide a lot of entertainment for the farmers out in the Midwest-Southwest. Stadiums are filled, no question. It worked for the 1980's AFC. I mean the Dolphins and the Chargers were scoring machines (Fouts and Marino threw on every play) and there was never even a hint of defensive effort. But it still sold tickets and kept eyes on the TV.
That game was weird. About as exciting as watching paint dry. Manning was flat, and those "slant routes" for 3 yrds so predicatble. Surprised Flacco didn't "air one out" the whole game till he had too in last few minutes. Only great thing about that game was watching (overrated)Flacco EAT DIRT!