Every week it seems that there is a critical game(s) This week it's. Texas A&M vs Tenn: Vols are slow starters and fast finishers so far this year. Agggies have a great defense and a lot of skill players on offense. This should be great matchup of 2 teams who are amongst the best and have designs on bigger things. I like the Aggies at home here in a close game. With the Aggie Defense if the Vols start slow it might be tough to have another of those fast finishes. There are of course other big games.. Alabama goes to the Ozarks to take on Arkansas. The piggies are a pretty good team, but A&M trounced them a few weeks ago so while I don't expect Alabama to just roll them. I do expect the Tide will get a solid road win. LSU goes to Fla to take on the Gators. Gators didn't look very good beating Vandy last week, and the Tigers have new life under Eddie O. It'll be a matchup of 2 former Purdue QB's. How odd is that. I sort of expect that the Tigers will surprise the Gators, they are better than Vandy after all. I don't know what the status of Leonard Fournette is, if he doesn't play or isn't 100% then this could be a very low scoring close game. Wash State goes to Palo Alto to take on a Stanford team that Wash just hammered them. It was almost like the Huskies had the Stanford playbook. Wash State doesn't have the defense that UW has so I expect that if they are to win they will need to score a lot of points, which they are certainly capable of doing. FSU at Miami...Preseason you'd have expected this to be a game where undefeated and highly ranked FSU would be coming to So. Fla on a roll looking to add to the win total. Now it's FSU desperately needing a win to turn around their season against a better than expected Miami team. But how good is Miami? FAMU,FAU, App State, and Ga.Tech don't really tell us much about how good they are, but this game really should. FSU is still a very talented team. We'll see. Wash at Oregon... Husky's haven't beaten Oregon in quite awhile. I don't think that streak will last after this game. Oregon program looks in decline and Washington going the other way. I really expect Washington to do to Oregon what they did to Stanford Easy big win for the Puppies! Mich at Rutgers...Mich rolls them 50-0 Colorado at USC...Colorado continues to surprise, they haven't been good in a long time, but they seem to be pretty good right now. USC has not been good this season, yet they did take care of ASU last week handily and their new QB freshman Sam Darnold seems to be the real deal. I think USC wins this one starting the cooling process on Clay Heltons seat. Notre Dame at NCState...not even sure that the game will come off. But the Irish need this win badly. Will Kelly's defense which showed some life in the 2nd half vs Syracuse make another baby step up. We know the offense can score. State is a solid club that runs and passes well. I hope the Irish can win, I don't expect a big win though. It'll likely be a close game, either team having a shot at the win in the 4th qtr. Texas vs OU ...oh boy, all the talk about Charlie Strong getting fired, Tom Herman coming, Charlie demoting the DCoord...talk about a team in trouble. Plus one of our RB's is done for the year and the other is limping a little. So it's all on the sore arm of Shane Buchele. While OU maybe found some mojo in the win vs TCU last week. I think OU rolls the Longhorns putting the final nail in Charlies coffin. Indiana vs Ohio State...no contest inspite of the IU upset of MSU. Buckeyes roll and the game is over at half time.
A&M vs. Tenn No idea how this ends up, but there is no lead safe enough for the Aggies so I wouldn't expect backups in at any point if they get a lead. If Tenn starts off with the lead, that really might shake things up. Bama @ Ark Bama could have a rough time with Big Bret. Even assuming they come away with a win, with all the damn dirty blocks Bret's OL uses, Bama could have a hard time getting healthy against Tenn and A&M to follow. LSU @ UF O sure can rally the troops, can't he? Guice did a heck of a job replacing Fournette last week, so I doubt the run game takes a day off. Wazzu @ Stan Before the year began this was the game that would determine if the Cougs could compete for the P12N. Now, it's the game that will determine if the Cougs can compete for .500. At least the Cougs are improving. uw @ UO 13 in a row would be nice. RRR OU should be able to score at least 50. OU's D isn't all that stout, either, so it could be 60-60 at the end of reg.
With Sling I don't get the ACC Network, BTN, CBSSN, or the Regional networks that will be showing Army/Duke and Syr/WF. It appears I won't have to miss any of the games I'm interested in. Any update to the East cost games as relates to Matthew?
ND told NCState they'd play'em anytime between noon sat and noon sunday..after that no deal. I don't know about Friday night. But I've seen something that indicates Matt might take a right turn into the Atlantic...that would work out well for everybody. BTW: Why did you move to Sling? All those cord cutter options just seem so limited and make watching what you want to watch harder. I know a lot of shows are available online, and I like Netflix a lot and even watch some stuff on Amazon Prime. But I just couldn't see getting rid of Directv and having just Roku or Sling or something like that as my default TV watching system.
I cancelled DirecTV in 2010/2011 when I was preparing to get laid off (mission complete was 2013 which is when I left for another job). I figured the $170+ I was paying per month for programming and equipment, on top of the $80+ for broadband could go a long way to saving some money to get me through a 24 month job search (the severance package was enormous but would only cover 18 months at the then-current monthly expenses). I stepped down the broadband speed to save $20-30/month and cancelled the satellite TV/DVR package. In SLC I had more than a dozen channels over the air HD, plus I streamed any of the games I wanted to watch. I ended up not needing the nest egg I built up, but after going without TV, I realized the only stuff I wanted to watch were movies as they came out (Redbox, Netflix, and Prime took care of that) and football. In late 2013 my cable provider offered a deal for basic cable plus the broadband package I originally had for about $20/month cheaper than I was paying originally for just broadband (about the same price as what I had switched to). I did that for the football season then ended up cancelling it when they tried to jack up the rates again. I moved down here in 2014 and without any local channels (except Fox and CBS) I needed some relief for football. Sling was a godsend for my TV needs. Every year they offer me a free week of a full Sling package to come back, which I've used to watch all the HBO shows I want for a week. Then, I cancel everything except the sports package during the football season for $30-$40/month. Come January, I cancel everything and revert back to Redbox, Netflix and Prime. There aren't that many shows that I want to watch that I can't get from those providers. My mainstays are Doctor Who, Agents of Shield, Star Trek (when the new one comes out it's supposed to be on Netflix), Sherlock, Falling Skies, Walking Dead... The beautiful thing about this setup is that the kid can watch his shows (Netflix, Prime, NickJR, PBS Kids) in the guest room, the wife can watch her shows (Netflix, Prime, streaming news) in the room with him on her computer, and I can watch two games at a time (one on the tv in the living room and one on the tablet next to me) without worrying that I'm interrupting them. And I'm typically the only one that streams live events, so most of the time we don't have to watch commercials, or worry about having a receiver/DVR set up in every room. Come January, I will cancel Sling again and go without until September next year. So, for less than what I used to pay a month, I get everything I need for the entire year. The biggest problem for most people is the network channels. In my market I still don't have ABC (unless I stream it on the ESPN app) or NBC (no options). In bigger markets I think you have the option to watch live broadcast networks stream. However, if that were the case, I would rather use OTA like I did in SLC than stream it. Ultimately, I got so sick of paying money for 200-500 channels, of which I only watched 10-20. The other crap that I was forced to pay for, which the cable companies tell me actually reduces my bill (?!?), can be subsidized by someone else. I don't anticipate ever going back unless my cable provider offers basic cable for the same or lower price than what my broadband costs. When the kid gets older, it may be a fight when he hears what else is on TV, but I'll decide at that time. Cutting the cord is definitely not for everyone, or else the cable/satellite providers would really be in trouble.
Hey AJ! I thought you guys loved us Big 10 folk. http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/report-nebraska-wants-to-rejoin-big-12/ar-BBx2U0W Getting back to together with Texas? Aren't the Longhorns kinda like the ex wife where you would leave for work and remember to put the toilet seat down but then come home after a long day of work and notice that the toilet seat was up again? Tell me this article ain't true.
Very interesting article Bobda. I had not heard anything of that nature previously. With the BIG TEN expansion, I think we should have changed the name of the conference, Jim Delaney knows what he is doing, so I can not argue too much. Now for this weeks game with the Hoosiers. Indiana has given us some close scares in recent years at home and on the road. I do not look for a blowout like Rutgers. We seem to be performing better each week and that is the name of the game early in the season.
ACC has rejected the 9 game conference schedule. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/acc-athletic-directors-vote-to-keep-conference-schedule-at-8-games-222928115.html
Phil Steele best bets for the weekend. 1. Utah (-9.5) 31 Arz 16 ATS Pick Utah 2. FSU (+3) 35 Miami 34 ATS Pick FSU 3. LSU (-2.5) 20 Fla 13 ATS Pick LSU 4. UCLA 30 ASU (+10) 27 ATS Pick ASU 5. Wash 41 Oregon (+8 ) 27 ATS Pick Wash 6. Stanford 35 WSU (+7) 23 ATS Pick Stanford 7. Texas A&M 28 Tenn (+7) 27 ATS Pick Tenn 8. ND (+1) 34 NCState 30 ATS Pick ND
This should be a fun weekend of college football provided that the eastern seaboard doesn't get washed out.
Ok AJ, I'm starting to relax. http://www.omaha.com/huskers/blogs/bigred/mad-chatter-why-nebraska-is-not-headed-back-to-the/article_84de4438-8bcf-11e6-8b3e-8b3a2ae71f6f.html IMHO, Nebraska has been a great addition to the B10. Ditto with Maryland. bringing in Rutgers was an idea on par with Ford coming out with the Pinto.
Don't listen to Bobda, AJ! We love you more back in the old B12! If only you and Colorado would come back, we'd be saved! Add in Houston and BYU and the B12 will be rockin' baby. Not to mention you get to have your old rivalry with OU back.
You know Wash State would be a nice fit in the B12. B12 North Neb KSU KU ISU Colorado Wash State BYU B12 South Texas OU OSU Baylor TCU Texas Tech Houston That'd be a great lineup!
I see the "should Leonard Fournette" play again this year question has come up...with some telling him he should sit the rest of the season and not risk injury in the lost cause that is LSU football this year. Get healthy and train for the combine.
Okay, ONE of the conferences that couldn't count. :wink: Fabulous! In that lineup, Wazzu would (or not now that I reconsider) be able to compete. That would also make the headache of having to spend all that P12 money go away. As long as you're bringing back old buddies, you might as well slot Missouri and Arkansas in there.