Had my first bad week of picks last week. Looking to rebound, but there aren’t many easy picks this week—the only true no-brainer is Kansas and even that one looks a little iffy to me.
Last week: 1-2 (.333)
Overall: 33-9 (.785)
No. 12 Oklahoma State 38, No. 25 Texas 31. I fully expect a Red River-sized hangover for the Longhorns this week—but I still think they’re going to put up more points against the Pokes than anyone else has so far this year. Despite having dropped their last two to the Horns, OSU is the only visiting team ever to win five straight in Austin and are 7-4 against UT since 2010; the last six meetings between these two have all been decided by one score or less. Ultimately, I think OSU proves to be too much of a match-up nightmare for Texas. UT is averaging 242.8 rushing yards per game, while the Pokes are only allowing 91. We all saw what happened when Texas couldn’t run it in the second half in the Cotton Bowl and Alex Grinch dialed up the pressure on Casey Thompson’s dropbacks: Texas totally stalled out. I predict that the Horns will run into similar trouble this week, but it won’t take until the second half to arrive.
No. 19 BYU 27, Baylor 31. BYU’s coming off its first loss, while Baylor just blew out a team that almost beat OU. It’s a non-conference game being played by a Big 12 team in October (can’t recall the last time that happened) against a future member of the conference. This is the toughest pick of the week for me, so I’m playing it safe with this one.
Texas Tech 37, Kansas 24. Matt Wells lost his first game against Kansas as head coach at Tech, 37-34. Last year he squeaked by 16-13. Lose this one and he’s probably out of a job.
TCU 38, No. 4 Oklahoma 42. I can remember some weeks with this much drama at OU following a Red River loss, but never after a win. This team reminds me of OSU’s 2015 squad, the one that played with fire all year and jumped out to a 10-0 start, only to lose its final three. Seems to me like all the distractions this week should work in TCU’s favor, though I think OU emerges unscathed yet again.
Iowa State 24, Kansas State 27. I’m looking forward to this one, the 105th Farmageddon. That Iowa State is favored in this game at all (-6.5) is a bit surprising to me. Perhaps Vegas is still somewhat attached to ISU’s preseason hype, or maybe bettors are recalling ISU beating K-State last year 45-0. I don’t know. I do know that K-State, despite losses in back-to-back games to the Oklahoma schools, has done something ISU hasn’t done: beat a pretty good team (Stanford, Week 1). ISU hasn’t won a game in Manhattan since 2004.