"Tell them … tell the team to bear down"

Jimmy takes the 2009 season title by a narrow margin

By Javier Morales

Jimmy’s slim margin of victory in the 2009 regular season round of picks is similar to how Texas and quarterback Colt McCoy beat Arizona’s next opponent — Nebraska — by the narrowest of margins in the Big 12 title game.

The Longhorns won with a second to spare while Jimmy topped JT Montgomery by two-tenths of a percentage point — .762 to .760. Jimmy and JT Montgomery each went 3-3 in the final week, which opened the door for others to move to the top.

But the last week of picks proved to be too difficult for most of the field — 16 of the 20 who made their picks went 3-3 or worse.

Jimmy did not make his pick in time for the Oregon game (although he indicated he would have taken Oregon State) and JT Montgomery correctly picked the Ducks. The only other difference between the two: JT Montgomery took USC whereas Jimmy went with Arizona.

Boguscat topped the final week of picks with a 5-1 record, missing only the Florida game. His point differential was only three points as he predicted a 24-17 win for Arizona over USC. The Cats defeated USC 21-17 at the L.A. Coliseum. This is how prophetic Boguscat was with his prediction:

“Arizona 24 USC 17 …Gotta go with the upset of the Trojans…trick play won’t work this week Pistol Pete… Go Cats..we will be smelling a holiday in San Diego-not poinsettias!”

Stay tuned for our Bowl Picks Pool. The first bowl game is the New Mexico Bowl between Fresno State and Wyoming on Dec. 19 at 2:30 p.m., Tucson time. We should have the ballot with all the bowls available to you by Dec. 15.

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Jimmy takes the 2009 season title by a narrow margin

By Javier Morales

Jimmy’s slim margin of victory in the 2009 regular season round of picks is similar to how Texas and quarterback Colt McCoy beat Arizona’s next opponent — Nebraska — by the narrowest of margins in the Big 12 title game.

The Longhorns won with a second to spare while Jimmy topped JT Montgomery by two-tenths of a percentage point — .762 to .760. Jimmy and JT Montgomery each went 3-3 in the final week, which opened to the door for others to move to the top.

But the last week of picks proved to be too difficult for most of the field — 16 of the 20 who made their picks went 3-3 or worse.

Jimmy did not make his pick in time for the Oregon game (although he indicated he would have taken Oregon State) and JT Montgomery correctly picked the Ducks. The only other difference between the two: JT Montgomery took USC whereas Jimmy went with Arizona.

Boguscat topped the final week of picks with a 5-1 record, missing only the Florida game. His point differential was only three points as he predicted a 24-17 win for Arizona over USC. The Cats defeated USC 21-17 at the L.A. Coliseum. This is how prophetic Boguscat was with his prediction:

“Arizona 24 USC 17 …Gotta go with the upset of the Trojans…trick play won’t work this week Pistol Pete… Go Cats..we will be smelling a holiday in San Diego-not poinsettias!”

Stay tuned for our Bowl Picks Pool. The first bowl game is the New Mexico Bowl between Fresno State and Wyoming on Dec. 19 at 2:30 p.m., Tucson time. We should have the ballot with all the bowls available to you by Dec. 15.

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Pac-10 features most teams in BCS Top 20

NOTE: THE WASHINGTON-UCLA GAME (INADVERTENTLY LEFT OFF THE ORIGINAL SLATE OF GAMES) IS ENTERED SEPARATELY BELOW. PLEASE MAKE YOUR SELECTION OF THAT GAME THERE. THANK YOU.

By Javier Morales

The Pac-10 has four teams in the BCS Top 20 rankings, but is it really all that good?

No. 8 Oregon appears to be the conference’s best bet for a BCS game with a much anticipated game looming at 18th-ranked Arizona in a couple of weeks. In order for that game to be meaningful for the Cats, they must take care of woeful Washington State tomorrow and win at No. 20 California next week.

No. 12 USC faces an ASU team that — believe it or not — has not beaten a top 15 team at home since the 1998 season (0-13 record against such foes).

The two main reasons why the Pac-10 should not be too proud of its four ranked teams: USC is in the midst of a down year by its standards and Cal is not as good as its ranking suggests. How can a team be in the top 20 after losing by a combined score of 72-6 to Oregon and USC? The Golden Bears’ only win against a team with a current winning record happened in the second week of the season against Eastern Washington (6-3).

What does this say about the state of college football today with the Pac-10 having more ranked teams in the BCS Top 20 than any other conference? The SEC (Florida, Alabama and LSU) and Ben Ten (Iowa, Ohio State and Penn State) each have three teams and the Big 12 (Texas and Oklahoma State), Big East (Cincinnati and Pitt), ACC (Georgia Tech and Miami) and Mountain West (TCU and Utah) each have two. The WAC (Boise State) and Conference USA (Houston) have one apiece.

Eleven people were perfect at 5-0 last week, led by J.T. Montgomery, who had a 16-point differential in the USC-Oregon game. He picked the Ducks to beat USC 45-34 (they won 47-20) and commented, “Defense takes the week off and the home crowd makes it tough on SC.”

Bingo.

Montgomery is also decisively No. 1 in the season standings with an impressive 38-8 record.

Pick Note: If you miss more than two weeks of picks, you are ineligible for the season standings. Please pick the final score of the WSU-Arizona game as the tie-breaker in the comments selection below.

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Site readers almost equally divided

By Javier Morales

Your picks have been tabulated and USC is a slight favor: 14 picks to 13 for Oregon.

You can check out this week’s picks by clicking on the link. One person actually picked Washington State over Notre Dame. No doubt that’s somebody not enamored of the Golden Domers.

Must be a lazy Saturday afternoon — plus the Wildcats are off today — but I thought at least one person would voice his or her opinion about Jon Wilner’s article. He writes that an Oregon victory would help Arizona more than it would hurt, although the Ducks would remain unbeaten in conference play if that were to happen.

In terms of the conference’s image, I completely agree with Jon that the Pac-10 would shed some of its USC and the nine dwarfs public sentiment if the Ducks win. In Arizona’s case, the Cats control their own destiny still with USC and Oregon no matter what happens today. If the UA beats them both later this season, and wins the rest of its games, the outcome of today’s game would be moot.

Given that, I say “Go Ducks!” for the Pac-10 (although I stand by my prediction that USC will win).

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Picking games getting too easy it seems

By Javier Morales

Ten people went 6-0 last week, which begs the question: Is the Pac-10 getting too predictable and why does it seem that Top 25 matchups are lacking?

We’re averaging about one Top 25 matchup a week outside of the Pac-10 games. In my opinion, that means conferences such as the SEC and Big 12 are down this year. And, yes, the Pac-10 is so predictable that you can now bet on Washington State and UCLA losing their next game without much hesitation.

This all means a suspenseful matchup between the lowly Bruins and Cougars looms at Pullman on Nov. 14.

Keith Jackson, a Wazzu alum, can not be enthused about what’s going on with his alma mater. Another Keith Jackson — as far as we know it is not the legendary broadcaster — went 6-0 in our picks last week.

The_dude was the_man, distancing himself from the other 6-0 finalists with a predicted point-differential of only eight points. He predicted Arizona to beat UCLA 34-14. The Cats won 27-13. This week’s slate only has five games — four involving Pac-10 teams and another lone Top 25 matchup between Texas and Oklahoma State. USC-Oregon figures to be a classic and it’s our tiebreaker game because Arizona is idle this week. Please predict the score of that game in the commentary section.

Pick Note: If you miss more than two weeks of picks, you are ineligible for the season standings.

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Top predictor mirrors UA’s rags-to-riches week

By Javier Morales

In similar fashion to the UA football team last week, one of our predictors went from feeling low to being on top of the world.

Biglebow went from being dead last a week ago with a 2-4 record to having one of our three 7-0 marks in this week’s results. He won the week via the tie-breaker, predicting a 31-24 Arizona victory over Stanford. The Cats came back from their humbling loss at Washington and a 9-point deficit to Stanford to beat the Cardinal 43-38 so his point differential score was 26. Zangerdanger (point differential of 30) and AZ Cats (34) were the others with 7-0 records.

Biglebow jumped six spots in the overall standings to fifth place. JT Montgomery strengthened his lead in the overall standings by going 6-1. In fact, we had 11 respondents with at least a 6-1 record.

This is a good week of Pac-10 matchups, even the one between Arizona and winless (in the Pac-10) UCLA. By the end of the day Saturday, the UA can be tied atop of the Pac-10 standings at 3-1 if it beats the Bruins, Washington defeats Oregon and USC beats Oregon State (as expected in a significant revenge game at The Coliseum). ASU can also be 3-1 if it wins at Stanford.

Happy Pickin’!

Pick Note: If you miss more than two weeks of picks, you are ineligible for the season standings.

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Controversial call prevents five perfect ballots

The six others who went 5-1 did not predict a score so their point-differential was 69 (the amount of points scored by Arizona and Washington).

Not to blow my own horn, but my point-differential was only four, although I predicted Arizona to win 34-33. Being so close is not a consolation at all to the final outcome, a result of Pac-10 officiating ineptitude (if it sounds like I am bitter, it is because I am).

Please post your predicted score in the comments selection below as that serves as a potential tie-breaker.

Pick Note: If you miss more than two weeks of picks, you are ineligible for the season standings.

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