Hi everybody! Hope y’all all ate way too much turkey. I’ve been struggling all evening to stay awake after devouring two plates of an excellent spread put out by my mom, youngest sister, and lovely wife. (Tryptophan is a lot of fun to say, but seems like dadformation to me.) I stayed out of the kitchen on account of I’m making Thanksgiving gumbo tomorrow for about ten people. I’ll be making bone broth out of today’s ham and turkey bones. Can’t wait to eat more, plus I’ll be serving up some pre-dinner negronis.
Also, this being the final week of the regular season makes this the final regular week of the Whiskey Cup! Trent is up on me by one game. We have agreed we’ll also be picking the Big 12 title game, so we’ll be back once more after this.
Trent last week: 4-3 (.571)
Nate last week: 5-2 (.714)
Trent overall: 68-30 (.693)
Nate overall: 67-31 (.683)
FRIDAY
TCU 32, No. 14 Oklahoma 28. TCU has only beaten OU twice since joining the Big 12, but the two teams have matched up for a number of memorable games since 2012. Something tells me this, the last one, will be one of them. This one has been giving me a headache, though. Mostly because it’s been very hard to tell whether or not Dillon Gabriel will be starting or not, after sustaining what appeared to be a head injury last week against BYU. I have a nagging feeling that TCU shocks the Sooners on the road and am going with it—even though it may be evidence that I have a head injury.
Texas Tech 30, No. 7 Texas 31. A hard one to decide, at least for me, this the last scheduled game between these two, who have faced off every year since 1960. UT owns the overall edge 54-18, but lost by three to Tech last year in Lubbock.
SATURDAY
Houston 29, UCF 35. This to me is one of the tougher picks of the week. Both of these teams lost last week in ways that can’t have felt good—UCF lost by one on account of a missed PAT.
BYU 24, No. 23 Oklahoma State 44. Boy, I don’t know that anyone in orange felt good when OSU went down 23-9 late in the second quarter last week against Houston. I was mentally prepping myself for a 30-9 deficit. And then the Pokes surged, outscoring Houston 34-7 down the stretch—as lopsided a run as you’ll ever see from a team down by two touchdowns. And now the question is: can a team that is not exactly remarkable at taking care of business where it ought to do exactly that against an over-matched BYU squad, with a title-game berth on the line? I think they will, and decisively, but these Pokes are weird. Maybe the weirdest team Mike Gundy’s ever had. I see them winning with ease, but I wouldn’t be that surprised if BYU hangs around or even wins decisively. The Cowboys and Cougars haven’t met since playing in 1974 and 1976, respectively in the Fiesta and Tangerine bowls. OSU won both games.
West Virginia 34, Baylor 20. Picked dead last in the conference, a win this weekend will make eight for Neal Brown’s Mountaineers. That would feel pretty good going into bowl season.
No. 25 Kansas 20, Cincinnati 24. It’s hard to pick a team that has struggled as mightily this year as Cincy has, but the Bearcats have been tough at home all year, giving OU more than the Sooners wanted, as well as losing by just three and two to Baylor and UCF respectively. For Kansas’s part, I think it might be tough for the Jayhawks to put themselves back together after an emotional loss to K-State.
Iowa State 18, No. 21 Kansas State 20. There’s up to a couple of potential inches of snow in the forecast for this one. Could make things interesting for this, the 107th edition of Farmageddon. A lot of folks were upset to see this game not protected when the conference schedule for the new-look Big 12 came out earlier this fall. I say the two schools should simply schedule a non-conference matchup that year. Silly, maybe—but not as silly as not playing.