Week 10 Big 12 Picks: Country Roads Edition
On Gary Patterson, plus too-early Bedlam speculations
Photo cred: ESPN.
Might as well say it that I have nothing to say about the NCAA, except to say that the NCAA fucking sucks, and I think Mike Boynton is the best thing to happen to OSU in a very, very long time.
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The helmets OSU wore last week were some of the niftiest I’ve seen the Cowboys wear in some time. Just sayin.
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My picks last week were pretty spot-on, although I had no idea that OSU was gonna score 55 points last week or that ISU would do what ISU does when it’s ranked.
I don’t wanna jinx it, but with just four weeks left, I’m as close to meeting my all-time season goal as I’ve ever been. I’ve always wanted to make .750 for the season. It’s never happened in the eight years I’ve done this.
Just for reference, going into Week 10 last year—my worst year of picks ever—I was at .562 through 32 games. Going into Week 10 in 2019, (a far more normal year of picks and really everything else), I was at .648 through 54 games.
This year I’m currently at .767 through 56 games.
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The rankings this week have switched from the AP to the CFP’s version, a move that I am loathe to make since I, along with just about everyone else who doesn’t either pull for Alabama and the SEC and doesn’t work at ESPN and isn’t a goddamn birdbrain, with apologies to the many humble and inoffensive birdbrains to be found throughout this great nation, think Bama being ranked at No. 2 in the inaugural version of the rankings is one of the most egregiously stupid and indefensible moves that a very egregious and indefensible committee has ever made.
OU is way down at No. 8 despite the Sooners’ 9-0 record. Poor Sooners! If they’d printed an SEC logo on the field they’d probably be ranked No. 2 instead of Bama. C’est la vie, Dirt Burglars. Enjoy your week off.
Now to last bits:
Dare I speak it—yes, why not, I might not have another chance: if OSU wins this week, the only teams standing between the Cowboys and a guaranteed double-Bedlam to end the season are TCU and Texas Tech—and the Sooners themselves winning out. (Is that too much to ask for, football gods?) No matter what the results, though I might quit watching college football forever if OSU were to lose both, it feels like two Bedlams would be the craziest and most perfect ending to this year, perhaps OU’s last in the conference, and with the future of the Bedlam series still up in the air.
The road team is favored in all but one of this week’s games (ISU-Texas).
Last week: 4-1 (.800)
Overall: 43-13 (.767)
Kansas State 45, Kansas 15. KU hasn’t beaten KSU since 2008, which was the last year KU had a winning record, 8-5 under Mark Mangino. They haven’t come close since 2018, Bill Snyder’s last year, when the Jayhawks lost 21-17 in Manhattan. For a moment while I was writing I had a funny feeling that maybe—just maybe—Kansas might beat the spread (-24) this week (I definitely still didn’t think they’d beat the Wildcats). Then I came to my senses.
No. 11 Oklahoma State 31, West Virginia 24. Despite the spread I’m giving here, this is a scary game for the Pokes. The Mountaineers seems like they’ve turned a corner after beating TCU and ISU in consecutive weeks, and you have to know that even Jim Knowles’s eyes have been bulging this week after the Mountaineers managed to hang 38 on Iowa State’s defense. They wouldn’t be the first team to run into trouble in Morgantown, but I have faith in the Cowboys’ defense: OSU hasn’t allowed more than 24 points in a game all year, and that isn’t even subtracting for defensive scores by opponents. The Pokes are 14th nationally and first in the conference in points allowed, giving up only 18 per game. They’re ninth nationally in rushing yards allowed (and again first in the conference). Not quite as strong against the pass, ranking 32nd in the country—but that’s still good for second in the Big 12. On the other hand, WVU’s 4-4 record seems to bely how good the Mountaineers really are: three of their four losses have come at a mere combined 12 points; I’d be even more worried going into this week had WVU not upset Iowa State last Saturday. OSU is 7-2 against WVU since the ‘Eers joined the conference.
No. 12 Baylor 42, TCU 34. I don’t have much to add about the Gary Patterson ouster—I have been wondering all season how much longer he might have in Fort Worth; he’s seemed like a dead man walking (or rather complaining, constantly, after every game, about something)—and yet I agree with just about everyone that it seems like he was treated very shittily by the TCU administration. But that’s what administrators do, in just about every institution across this weary earth: they treat people shittily. To fire him right before the Baylor game, the most significant every year for this program in terms of sheer feelings of rivalry, seems like an extra shit-dollop for a man who steered this program out of the long shadows of the disbanded SWC, from the Conference USA all the way into the Big 12.
Texas 20, Iowa State 23. This is a tough one, because you feel like eventually Texas has to win a game again, but then you’re like no, the Horns ain’t winning against that ISU defense, and then you pause to reflect upon the fact that Iowa State gave up 38 points last week to West Virginia, a team that had not managed to score more than 30 points a single time in six tries against P5 competition, and you’re not sure what to do. I think Iowa State bounces back this week, in Texas’ possibly final trip to Ames for the foreseeable future. I know ISU fans hate to hear it, but I’m also feeling, like others I’ve read, that this may be Matt Campbell’s final tour of duty on the Cyclones’ sideline.