Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week 12

Is anyone else sort of not excited about basketball season? I love college basketball, but the one and done Freshman thing is so infuriating that I feel like there’s no point watching. So this year I’m resolving to only watch Duke games. And even that is angering because Singler is only a Junior but you know he’s leaving and the same goes for Nolan Smith. The NBA is ruining college basketball and if I ever meet David Stern I swear to God on high I will fight him right then and there. Like Manny Pacquiao I will pummel him within an inch of his life.

Speaking of, boxing is officially back. MMA was nice for a while, but boxing is back thanks to Pacquiao who might be the best fighter I’ve ever seen and is certainly the most entertaining. Unfortunately all my winnings from the Pacquiao fight were lost when the Colts failed to cover a 1.5 spread, winning by only 1 thanks to a ridiculous coaching move by the Pats. And that brings us back to football.

Last week’s scores: Trey 47pts (8-2), Jeff 39 (9-1), Spears 33 (6-4), Mao 31 (6-4), Shuler 29 (7-3), Jim 29 (6-4), Jared -13 (4-6)

Totals:

Mao – 325 (a subpar performance last week opened the door)

Jeff – 321 (continues to be on a tear)

Trey – 319 (of course I won the week named after Bobby Hurley’s retired number)

Spears – 287 (has a fighting chance)

Shuler – 267 (could catch Spears)

Derrick – 250 (missed last week)

Jared – 227 (tanking on purpose to get a higher draft pick)

Jim – 214 (must catch Jared to save face)

Bryan – 144 (pretty much not playing anymore)

 

This week’s games:

Our Teams

Ohio St (10) @ Michigan – Doesn’t it seem too early in the year for this storied rivalry?

Duke @ Miami (20) – Well, at least we came close to bowl eligibility

NC St @ Virginia Tech (15)

Wisconsin (16) @ Northwestern

Virginia @ Clemson (23)

Vanderbilt @ Tennessee – UT better win this one by a lot

College GameDay Game

Oregon (11) @ Arizona – Really? I guess Kirk just wants to party with hot chicks

Fillers

Cal (25) @ Stanford (17) – I dare you to pick either team with even a degree of confidence

LSU (8) @ Ole Miss – A rivalry game

UConn @ Notre Dame – I’m including this one just to see if Charlie Weiss will get fired or not

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week Bobby Hurley’s Retired Jersey (11)

First of all nobody give up if you’re behind in the scores for two reasons: 1) just about every week one person makes up around 20pts on the leaders and 2) as we did last year, we’ll do a bowl pick ‘em that will add to the regular season scores for a cumulative winner but will also be a stand alone thing, thus even if you are dead last in the regular season you can save face by winning the bowl pick ‘em stage.

Secondly, other than Duke losing, last week was the perfect week of football. GT won, UT won, Notre Dame lost for the second year in a row to Navy, FSU lost which ensures that Bowden’s career will end in a totally melodrama, UVA lost which means Al Groh is one week closer to getting fired, Iowa lost so now we can stop pretending they are good, Penn St lost so now the Big 11 is as mediocre record-wise as the ACC, Michigan lost at home to Purdue, Oregon lost so we can go back to ignoring that worthless conference, Alabama won so the SEC championship should be two undefeated teams, and Boise, Cincinnati, and TCU all won so we could finally have a BCS buster (which is good because the BCS is unholy, it is literally against God’s will).

I mention all of those great games last week because this week there are really only two (Utah @ TCU and Iowa @ OSU, which isn’t that good a game if Iowa’s starting QB can’t play).

Last week’s scores: Derrick 43 (9-1), Jim 37 (7-3), Trey 37 (7-3), Shuler 33 (8-2), Spears 31 (8-2), Jeff 29 (7-3), Mao 27 (6-4), Jared 25 (7-3)

Totals:

Mao 294

Jeff 282

Trey 272

Spears 254 (same top four as last week but everyone gained on Mao)

Derrick 250 (huge weekend for D-rock in his picks and with Ohio St winning)

Jared 240 (making a slow decent)

Shuler 238

Jim 185

Bryan 144 (has now missed two weeks) 

 

This week’s slate of games:

Our Teams

Georgia Tech (7) @ Duke – oh, the humanity

Tennessee @ Ole Miss – Ole Miss imploded this year after ESPN overhyped them

Clemson @ NC St – the Textile Bowl

Northwestern @ Illinois – a game so uninteresting I fell asleep just typing it

Virginia Tech (21) @ Maryland

Iowa (10) @ Ohio St (11) – Big 11 title on the line

Boston College @ Virginia

College GameDay Game

Utah (16) @ TCU (4) – best game of the day and all the money grubbers at the BCS will be praying for an unholy Mormon upset against the righteous Christians of Texas

Fillers

Florida (1) @ South Carolina – what’s wrong with Florida? They’ve got talent, why do they continual barely scrape by teams?

Miami (14) @ unc-chapel hill – the evildoers have a crazy good defense. Duke couldn’t block their d-line (our o-line is assembled by just taking the 5 fattest people who go to Duke and putting them on the field) and their secondary and linebackers swamped our receivers. But at least this year I felt like Duke was in the game. Sure we lost, but last year it felt like we didn’t have a chance, like they were on a different level from us. This year we still lost, but were in the same ballpark as them. Nevertheless, it still hurts.

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week 10

Let’s just say it’s a good thing I didn’t bet on any games. Also, I fucked up the scores last week. I figured out the amount of points people got and just put that as their score without subtracting the points they missed. I’ve redone last week’s stuff and here’s what the scores should’ve been:

Weekly: Spears 47, Jeff 45, Shuler 45, Mao 41, Trey 41, Derrick 39, Bryan 37, Jim 33, Jared 33

The affect of this on the overall scores is that everything is much closer. I apologize for the screw up. Here is where the scores as of last week actually stood:

Totals from last week:

Mao 236

Jeff 220

Jared 206

Trey 204

Spears 202

Derrick 184

Shuler 178

Jim 123

Bryan 115

As for this week, there’s a Thursday game again this week so get your picks in before that. Everyone’s teams are in the mix this week and the slate of games is actually really good and very difficult to rank. We’ve got a total of 6 rivalry games (ok only three of them are actual rivalry games, but the other ones are close). Here are the weekly scores from last week and this week’s CORRECT totals.

Weekly scores: Jeff 33 (8-2), Trey 31 (8-2), Mao 31 (7-3), Bryan 29 (8-2), Shuler 27 (7-3), Jim 25 (6-4), Derrick 23 (6-4), Spears 21 (7-3), Jared 9 (4-6)

Totals:

Mao 267

Jeff 253

Trey 235

Spears 223

Jared 215

Derrick 207

Shuler 205

Jim 148

Bryan 144

This week’s games to pick:

Our Teams

Virginia Tech (23) @ East Carolina – Thursday game, I give credit to VT for playing at ECU

Florida St @ Clemson – rivalry #1 despite the fact that it can’t be called ‘the Bowden Bowl’ anymore

Northwestern @ Iowa (4) – two teams that make absolutely no sense

Virginia @ Miami (17) – the student bodies of these schools couldn’t be more different

Wake Forest @ Georgia Tech (10) – Wake coming off a nice upset and GT played a horrific 1rst half against Vandy

Ohio St (16) @ Penn St (11) – rivalry #2; I don’t know if this is an actual rivalry, but it should be

Duke @ unc – rivalry #3, the Battle for the Victory Bell, features my Duke team who haven’t beaten the tarholes in football since 2003 and Duke has lost 18 of the last 19 times in this rivalry. That is not a typo, they’ve lost 18 of the past 19. Needless to say, I WANT THAT FUCKING BELL!

Memphis @ Tennessee – rivalry #4 in as much as they are in the same state

College GameDay

Army @ Air Force – rivalry #5 and even though Air Force will probably win, we all know that army guys are way tougher than Air Force guys

Filler

LSU (9) @ Alabama (3) - rivalry #6 and by far the best game of a pretty solid week of football

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week 9

Sorry for the lateness of this post, especially since we have a Thursday game to pick. Also, note that I’ve made two changes to this week’s picks. There is this new trend for teams to schedule a cupcake game in the middle of the season. The thinking, I guess, is that rather than having two cupcake games to start the season you have one at the beginning to break in your team and then one in the middle of the season to give your team a break from playing all the conference foes. I don’t like this trend and as a result we will not be picking Ohio State’s game this week (at home against New Mexico St) nor will we be picking ClemPson’s game (at home against Coastal Carolina) because good teams should schedule other good nonconference teams.

As for last week everyone did extremely well. And hey, Duke is 4-2!

Weekly Scores: Spears 51pts (9-1), Jeff 50 (9-1), Shuler 50 (8-2), Mao 48 (8-2), Trey 48 (8-2), Derrick 47 (8-2), Bryan 46 (8-2), Jim 44 (7-3), Jared 44 (7-3)

Totals:

Mao – 243

Jeff – 225

Jared – 217

Trey – 211

Spears – 206

Derrick – 192

Shuler – 183

Jim – 134

Bryan – 124

 

Our Teams

Unc @ Virgina Tech (13)

Duke @ UVA

Penn St (12) @ Northwestern

Georgia Tech (11) @ Vanderbilt

South Carolina @ Tennessee

 

Gameday Game

USC (5) @ Oregon (10)

 

Fillers

Georgia v Florida (1)

Texas (3) @ Oklahoma St (10)

Central Michigan @ BC

Miss St @ Kentucky

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week Ocho (Cinco)

Chad (Johnson) Ochocinco and the Motorola Company bought up unsold tickets for last Sunday’s Bengals game so as to prevent the game from being blackedout on local TV. Well done sir, well done.

Meanwhile I continued to prove the effectiveness of my reverse jinx (you’re welcome GT) and should have won both my upset picks were it not for Bradford getting hurt on their second possession and Wisconsin choking at home in the second half. Speaking of choking, what the hell Ohio State. Everyone had them as their 10 point pick and that kept the scores low. To sum up the week, three people missed only their 10 and 1 point picks and got everything else, the two ladies only missed their 10 and 4 point picks, and of course Bryan and I sucked while Jim forgot to pick.

Quick note, I’m not including the Thursday game (FSU @ unc) this week for two reasons: 1) I think the Thursday game throws people off and they forget to pick (ie Jim didn’t pick last week) so I only want to include it if it’s a really great looking game and 2) basketball season has started and unc can “go to hell Carolina go to hell!”

Weekly Scores: Mao 33pts (8-2), Jeff 33 (8-2), Jared 33 (8-2), Spears 27 (8-2), Shuler 27 (8-2), Derrick 27 (8-2), Trey 17 (6-4), Bryan -1 (5-5)

Totals:

Mao – 195

Jeff – 175

Jared – 173

Trey – 163

Spears – 155

Derrick – 145

Shuler – 133

Jim – 90

Bryan – 78

 

Our teams (VT has a bye)

Georgia Tech (12) @ Virginia – oddly, this is the second best game of the weekend

Minnesota @ Ohio St (19) – OSU screwed everybody out of 10pts last week

Indiana @ Northwestern – no comment

Maryland @ Duke – to reverse jinx or not, that is the question

Tennessee @ Alabama (2) – hello 10pt pick

Clem(p)son @ Miami (10) – oddly, this is the third best game of the weekend

 

College GameDay Game

TCU (8) @ BYU (16) – far and away, the best game of the weekend

 

Fillers

BC @ Notre Dame – Catholics battling against each other

Auburn @ LSU (9) – can LSU start a new home night game win streak?

South Florida @ Pittsburgh (20) – I debated for a while about what the final game should be and this is the best one even if it doesn’t look like it. USF is 5-1, Pitt is 6-1. And beside, the other game to include would’ve been USC at home against Oregon St or Arkansas at Ole Miss. So of three stinkers, this is the least smelly.

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week 7

I proudly reverse jinxed the hell out of UT and Duke. Until Saturday, Duke had lost to NC State 11 straight times and hadn’t won an ACC road game in nearly 6 years. So I’m proud to have reverse jinxed my beloved Blue Devils even if it meant losing points in TCCFP. Oh, and Tim Tebow proved once again to be the Son of God.

Last week Jeff only missed one game at it was valued at 2, so he wound up with 51pts. This is the second week in a row that he was the weekly scoring leader and he’s now in third overall. But the larger point is that everyone is pretty much bunched together. Also, important note: THERE IS A THURSDAY NIGHT GAME SO GET YOUR PICKS IN BEFORE THEN

Weekly Scores: Jeff 51pts (9-1), Jared 45 (8-2), Shuler 41 (8-2), Spears 39 (8-2), Mao 39 (8-2), Derrick 31 (7-3), Trey 29 (8-2), Jim 13 (5-5), Bryan 7 (5-5)

Totals (now we have a game on our hands)

Mao – 162

Trey – 146

Jeff – 142

Jared – 140

Spears – 128

Derrick – 118

Shuler – 106

Jim – 90

Bryan – 79

 

Our teams (Duke and UT have byes so they can celebrate their wins)

Ohio St (7) @ Purdue

Northwestern @ Michigan St – Bryan, I’m starting to hate that we have to pick NW games

Wake Forest @ Clem(p)son

Virginia @ Maryland

Virginia Tech (4) @ Georgia Tech (19) – instant classic

 

College GameDay Game

Oklahoma (20) v Texas (3) – the Red River Shoot Out is played in Dallas, TX

 

Filler

Cincinnati (8)@ South Florida (21) – Thursday night game

South Carolina (22) @ Alabama (2) – SC might be sneakily good

USC (6) @ Notre Dame (25) - Two pretenders to the throne

Iowa (7) @ Wisconsin – the Big 11 has a lot of teams with fraudulently good records (but they’re still better than the ACC)

The Procrastinator

Real quickly, I just want to mention that Michael Orr (Mao), Betsy Neely, Brad Wright, Jim Hunt, myself and an assortment of others do a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter that gets emailed out to people. The newsletter is called The Procrastinator and it’s full of articles about culture, travel, politics (don’t be alarmed), and sports as well as occasional works of fiction and funny Onion-esque satire articles.  The bottom line is that it comes out on Friday (once or twice a month) and you then read it at work while waiting for the week to end. Hence, it helps you procrastinate at work until the weekend (get it?).

Then if you want, you can steal our written ideas and present them as your own when you are at a weekend social engagement and people will think you’re both funny and insightful. So, there is one coming out this Friday and if you want to read it (or comment on it in this box after you’ve read it or even write something for it next time) let me know so we can add you to the mailing list.

Now go to the post below and make your week 6 picks.

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week 6

Once again a weird week of upsets made points management (ie where you valued the games you missed) invaluable. Clearly, all of you except Jim and myself are aware of this skill because despite going a week best 7-3 on his picks, Jim only got 13pts, which tied him with Mao who went 5-5 and put Jim second in weekly points as Jeff’s 6-4 record earned him 17pts. Meanwhile, I pulled out a 6-4 record but only racked up 5 measly points, just two points better than Jared who was 4-6 on his picks. Unbelievable.

Before we get onto the picks, I’ve decided that just as a friendly and interesting twist, anyone that looks at the point spreads should let the group know at the end of their weekly picks about what they consider to be the ‘lock of the week’. For instance, last week I should have mentioned that BC was +6 at home against an average FSU team. The week prior UVA was +20 at Southern Miss! These were money in the bank for anyone who follows college football. Therefore, this week if you check the spreads, try to find one that you think is a sure winner and just let everyone know about it.

Last week’s scores: Jeff 17pts (6-4), Jim 13 (7-3), Mao 13 (5-5), Bryan 11 (6-4), Shuler 11 (5-5), Spears 11 (5-5), Trey 5 (6-4), Jared 3 (4-6), Derrick -3 (4-6)

Totals:

Mao – 123 (back in first after a 1 week hiatus)

Trey – 117

Jared – 95

Jeff – 91

Spears – 89

Derrick – 87 (at least Ohio St is walking through the Big 11)

Bryan – 72

Shuler – 65

 

This Week’s Games (4, maybe 5, really good ones):

 

Our teams (Clem(p)son has a bye)

Georgia @ Tennessee – “Crompton” – (verb) to throw something behind a moving target

BC @ VT (5) – both can go back to the Big Least for all I care

Miami of Ohio @ Northwestern

Wisconsin @ Ohio St (9) – is 5-0 Wisconsin for real/is OSU goin to choke at home again?

Georgia Southern @ unc – overrated (clap clap, clap, clap, clap), overrated (clap clap, clap, clap, clap)

Indiana @ Virginia – two once proud basketball schools face off as Groh attempts to save his job and infuriate uva fans world wide

Duke @ NC St – $100 says I talk myself into Duke and then regret it

GT (22) @ Florida St – GT has to win this one if they want to compete for a BCS bowl

 

Filler

Alabama (3) @ Ole Miss (20) – is Alabama for real and, depending on the UF game, are they the best team in the SEC?

 

College GameDay Game

Florida (1) @ LSU (4) - can Tebow (Football Jesus) overcome the unstoppable force that is LSU at home in a night game?

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week Cinco

No one picked Iowa or Oregon so that threw all the scores into disarray. In fact, we broke the seal on someone getting negative points for their weekly picks as not one, but three people actually lost more than they got. On a happier note, congrats to the people who picked TCU (Mao,  Spears, and Jeff) since that was a 50/50 game that was decided on a late fourth quarter touchdown and congrats also to the people who actually did their research to find out that Washington was all hype and no substance (Mao, again, and Me). P.S. I kicked ass last week.

Last Week’s Scores: Trey 25 (7-3), Jared 15 (6-4), Mao 13 (6-4), Derrick 13 (5-5), Spears 9 (5-5), Jeff 7 (5-5), Jim -5 (5-5), Bryan -9 (5-5), Shuler -17 (4-6)

 

Totals:

Trey – 112 (your new leader)

Mao – 110

Jared – 92

Derrick – 90 (same top 4 from last week)

Spears – 78

Jeff – 74

Jim – 64

Bryan – 61

Shuler – 54 (negative 17 for last week might be a record of some sort)

 

This Week’s Games:

Our Teams

Virginia Tech (6) @ Duke – why do we always have to start ACC play against VT?

UVA @ unc – the bowtie bowl

Clemson @ Maryland

Northwestern @ Purdue

Ohio St (9) @ Indiana

GT (25) @ Mississippi St – the refs last week tried to make GT lose, another anti-option conspiracy

Auburn @ UT – remember when these teams were good?

 

Fillers

Oklahoma (8) @ Miami (17) – great game potential, should be the Game Day game

LSU (4) @ Georgia (18) – I don’t know who the QB for either team is, which is a problem (for me and them)

USC (7) @ Cal (24) – anyone who works out fears dropping the bar on their throat or chest, let’s hope that kid is ok

 

The College Game Day Game is allegedly Florida State @ Boston College but this is such a ‘who effing cares’ game that I refuse to include it in our slate of games. I mean really, is ESPN having it at BC just to promote the ESPN: Boston thing? I don’t get it and I refuse to believe that there isn’t something sinister going on with this selection as the Game Day site. Once again ESPN is proving to be a horrific sports media outlet and it pains me that they would drag Kirk and Lee down into the gutter with them.

Total Consciousness College Football Picks, Week 4

My internet (ie the person’s internet I was stealing) is no longer functioning (they moved or got wise to my using of their internet), so I’m doing this in a coffee house and getting dirty looks from the staff bc I don’t actually drink coffee. Just want you to know what I go through for you people.

Last week’s scores: Shuler 41 (9-1), Trey 41 (8-2), Mao 39 (8-2), Bryan 37 (7-3), Jim 35 (8-2), Derrick 35 (6-4), Jared 33 (8-2), Jeff 29 (7-3), Spears 27 (7-3)

OK and here are the totals so far and the slate of games for this week. As always check my math on the weekly and cumlative scores:

Totals:

Mao – 97

Trey – 87

Derrick – 77

Jared – 77

Shuler – 71 (from last to 5th)

Bryan – 70

Spears – 69

Jim – 69

Jeff – 67

 

Our Teams (UVA has a bye)

Unc (22) @ GT – One loss and GT is unranked all of a sudden, just more anti-option predjudice

Minnesota @ Northwestern – Boring game #1

Miami (9) @ VT (11) – This should be the game day gam

TCU (15) @ Clemson – Almost impossible to pick

Illinois @ Ohio State (13) – Easy pickins

NC Central @ Duke – Duke coverer the spread last week

Ohio @ Tennessee – UT also covered the spread last week and if it weren’t for having a crap QB they could’ve won

 

Fillers

Washington (24) @ Stanford - The two Pac 10 sleeper picks square off

California (6) @ Oregon – Oregon lost their running back, while Cal’s is a future NFL top 10 pick (and flop)

 

Game Day Game

Iowa @ Penn State (5) – Boring game #2