It starts this morning...Minnesota takes on Nebraska with both teams still in the hunt for the Big 10 West title. Nebraska gave up 408 yards to Melvin Gordon of Wisconsin last week in a 59-24 loss in yet another classic example of lack of mid-game adjustments from genius Bo Pelini. You've heard the description of insanity? That's Bo. This week Bo gets to not adjust to the Gophers David Cobb, the seventh leading rusher in the country. Minnesota QB Mitch Leidner is going to have to be more effective than his performance last week against Ohio State (7 of 19, 5 yards, 2 INT) but with Cobb doing the damage, he should be able to manage the game better this week. This pick is purely a vote of confidence that Bo will do a lousy job of preparing his team and will once again manage to lose a game that they'll lead early on.
MINNESOTA +10
Oregon State was great last week and it's natural to assume they'll fall back to earth in Seattle against the Huskies. I don't see it happening. Mike Riley teams always get better as the season wears on. They will miss Terron Ward, out with a knee injury, who combined with Storm Woods ran for 273 yards rushing against ASU last weekend. Sean Mannion has two receivers, Victor Bolden and Jordan Villamin who have 38 catches between them over the last 3 games. With a healthy Storm Woods, this is a much more balanced offense. This is a revenge game for the Beavs after getting beat 69-27 last year. OSU has a healthy and improved defense featuring LB's that will make life miserable for the Huskies today.
OREGON STATE +6.5
UCLA has been getting a lot of hype lately. I thought they'd beat Oregon in LA earlier this season but they were never in the game. They also lost to Utah at home the prior week. Since then, they've beaten Cal 36-34, Colorado 40-37 (OT), Arizona 17-7 (UA QB Solomon was terrible) and Washington 44-30. These are not good teams - Arizona despite their record is struggling. Now they get a healthy USC team with extra time to prepare in a rivalry and double revenge game. UCLA is 3-7 ATS and I'm suppose to trust them as a 4 point favorite? Hundley recently said that his sub par performance this season was due to "NFL pressure". To ease the pressure, handing the ball off to Paul Perkins will help. He's great and the Trojan defense will be prepared.
USC +4
I'm playing all three (adding the Atlanta Falcons -3) on a ML parlay and parlay with the points.