Post-Halloween
Written by Wendi
The Florida Gators were not phased by the 12th man as they went up against Texas A&M. In a close game at the half, the Gators kept the Aggies scoreless in the second half to win 41-24 and handed Jimbo Fisher and company their fifth straight loss. One could say it was because A&M was out a bunch of players due to the flu but with what they are paying Jimbo, he should have good backups to take their place. As Red Skull (Captain America) would say "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place”.
Elsewhere in the SEC, Kentucky traveled to Missouri. Some would call this game, "a game of defense”. I call this game just boring. As this game started the second half, the offenses for both teams decided to wake up. Unfortunately, for Missouri, Kentucky just scored more and won 21-17. Alabama traveled to LSU’s Death Valley under the lights and proved to be quite the game. With an underperforming showing from Bryce Young (Shoulder injury still bothering him maybe?), the Tigers decided they felt confident enough to go for the two-point conversion in overtime instead of wasting any more time on the field. Let’s just say that Bama lost and is now out of any Championship hopes in the post season. I hear the Chick-Fil-A Bowl is a good destination that time of year.
Now if Tennessee’s inflated ego would have done down a smidgen, maybe they could have kept the game close. As Saban would call it, the "Rat Poison” got to them and clearly went into the game thinking "Hey we beat Bama, we can beat you too”. Georgia was well prepared for that mentality and showed it on the field. The Bulldogs’ defense held Tennessee’s high-powered offense to only 289 total yards and 13 points. I think I want my money back from donating to replace their field goal posts from weeks ago. And no, I really didn’t donate.
Shifting to the Big 12, or should I say "Small 10”. Baylor took on Oklahoma in a back-and-forth game that went in favor of Baylor 38-35. I bet the Sooners are missing Lincoln Riley now. I would hire Bob Stoops back in a heartbeat. But I guess I don’t make the big bucks for those kinds of decisions. Oklahoma now sits at 5-4 and 2-4 in the conference. Texas traveled to Manhattan to take on Kansas State. Disregard the comment I made last week about ranked teams going into Manhattan and bad things always happen. <in an angelic voice> Just pretend I never said that. Ok so Texas finally decides to win. It’s not a big deal. So, I will leave it at that. And for the "umpteenth” time Mike, the answer is still NO, TEXAS IS NOT BACK!
So, all of a sudden, Iowa decides to play offense against a decent Purdue team? Purdue has scored at least 20 points in all of their games this year. On Saturday, they thought three was better. It’s whoever scores the most, not the least. Iowa won 24-3. In a toss-up game between Stanford and Washington State, you would have thought the final score would be close. After losing their last three games, I think the Cougars had had enough of that nonsense and won outright 52-14.
After so many weeks of close calls and comebacks, Clemson met their match In Notre Dame. The start of the game started with a pick six that put the Irish up 7-0. It did not stop there. They benched DJ U again and opted for the "winning” QB Klubnik that made the comeback win against Syracuse. His first pass of the game was an interception. By all accounts, if you look at the stats from the game, Clemson should have easily won. But those turnovers are costly and when you have four in a game, it doesn’t end well. Notre Dame got the upset 35-14.
NC State hosted Wake Forest late and with a struggling offense and a backup QB, they were able to outlast a high scoring offense in Wake Forest. With three turnovers for the Demon Deacons, it was just too costly and the Wolf Pack won 30-21.
FUN FACT: The Houston vs. SMU game had a combined 140 points which is a FBS record in regulation and a total of 1,352 yards. SMU won 77-63. There were no field goals made that game. Only touchdowns. WOW!
On to the pick’ems….
We are a week past Halloween now and Saturday felt like a cheap budgeted knock off of a Michael Myers horror movie that would never end. Who thinks it’s a good idea to choose these games? Oh wait, David does. Our picks were all over the place. Holy smokes. This was worse than Week 7. Over half of the group finished with under 20 points.
Mom shot up out of a cannon from 8th to 4th place and is now tied with Cindy who lost the battle with Megan after falling further behind by only getting 13 points for the week. Mom will need another week like this in order to have any type of shot at some prize money. As of now, she currently is 30 points from first. David finally was able to catch up to me and is now tied for first place. Just when my day went horribly wrong losing out on my big points early, his night went just as bad so the damage was minimal. But after only scoring 16 points, I wonder how in the heck am I still in first place at all? Adam was able to inch a few more points to the top and now sits behind first place by seven points after picking Texas to win.
Mike and Marc had an underwhelming day. With only four more weeks left, your only hopes of getting any prize money is to set up a GoFundMe. I’m okay donating a portion of my winnings to charity. If you want to call 25 points a great week, that is what we will do for Sean. He finished second for the week. Maybe he just needed time away from Megan to really think hard about his picks. Ok, maybe not. Stemple was able to recover from the last few weeks and finished third with 23 points but it still did not make a dent in how far back he is. It also didn’t help that he lost the last five games. But to be fair, so did Cindy. Would you believe me if I said 7 out of 12 of us lost the last four games?
As far as the kids, is it really worth mentioning? They did do better than four adults (me included). I have an idea. Why don’t we all just put this week behind us and pretend it didn’t happen. <looks at this week’s picks>. Ok, so now we are making a sequel to this week 10? Thanks, David. Just thanks.
Most points for the week: Mom somehow was able to come out on top with 32 points. I bet it won’t happen again.
Least points for the week: Marc found himself with only 11 points by the end of all the chaos. Just think, if Georgia would have lost, you would only have five points.
Best pick of the week: With me picking Notre Dame for the upset, that meant A LOT of you losing out on some big points. Too bad my Tennessee upset didn’t work out though. At least I got one of the two.
Worst pick of the week: For the bozos that went high on Purdue (me included). I mean who could have predicted that Iowa would suddenly get an offense?
Here are the rankings:
1.Wendi - 385 points
1.David - 385 points
2.Adam - 379 points
3.Megan - 369 points
4.Cindy - 355 points
4.Mom - 355 points
5.Mike - 350 points
6.Marc - 342 points
7.Stemple - 341 points
8.Sean - 340 points
9.Sam - 330 points
10. Noah - 302 points
