Thanks to a 3-1 comeback last week, I now have an 8-7 record against the spread for the season. Let’s take a look at the games that I’ll be watching this Saturday while packing for my honeymoon.
PITTSBURGH (pick ’em) AT TEXAS A&M: Aggies’s quarterback Reggie McNeal nearly carried Texas A&M past Virginia Tech by himself last Thursday night in Blacksburg. Thanks in part to his offensive line, McNeal can both run and throw with the best of them. Pitt has trouble defending quarterbacks like McNeal. Heck, Pitt has trouble defending anybody who can throw the ball these days.
Kyle Field is a helluva place to get well after Toledo busted out a family-sized can of whoop-ass on the Panthers last Saturday, and Walt Harris has never been one to quickly turn around a team anyways. So I’ll take the Aggies and hope to be wrong.
TOLEDO (+4) AT SYRACUSE: Chas was right. Toledo gets no respect. Syracuse is half the team that Pitt is this year. I’ll take another dose of the MAC attack, please.
MINNESOTA (-2.5) AT PENN STATE: Da… da… da, da, da… PENN STATE SUCKS!!! This little ditty, once popular in Oakland (but not so popular since it actually became true), has never held more water than this season. The Lions are in the midst of a massive rebuilding effort, especially along their offensive line. I was not impressed by their half-assed victories against Kent State and Temple (they only looked decent at times during their loss to Nebraska).
Minnesota, on the other hand, ain’t half bad this year. They got a very high powered offense (that’s admittedly easy to overrate since they’ve only played patsies thus far). I pick the Golden Gophers to finish no worse than the middle of the Big Ten pack.
Sure, the Gophers are going to win this game. And it is a lot more probable that they’ll win by more than 2.5 than less than 2.5.
NORTHWESTERN (I’m still waiting for the @#%*@#! line) AT OHIO STATE: I might wait until tomorrow morning to pick this one, as I’d like to see a real line. I’ll edit this post then.
Incidentally, Neil Rudel weighed in on the Toledo loss in today’s Altoona Mirror. He blamed it on stupidity within Pitt’s athletic department: Pitt never should have agreed to appear in the Glass Bowl. Personally, I think that Toledo is good enough of a MAC program to deserve at least one home game every few years. Besides, Rudel’s indictment smacks of the same rhetoric that was used to justify Penn State’s avoiding Pitt a few years back. Either way, Rudel’s piece was a very paternalistic, condescending waste of newsprint that isn’t even worth reprinting here.
Hail to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, easily the funniest thing on these days
