The Man of Cheese With His Picks 11/29

Welcome to college football rivalry week. Wait a minute… wasn’t last week college football rivalry week? Only in a sport like college football – where National Championships are won by avoiding a difficult non conference schedule (I’m talking to you West Virginia and Ohio State) – can there be two rivalry weeks. But I guess having two rivalry weeks is better than one, right? I mean last week we enjoyed the Iron Bowl, KU – Mizzou Border War, Texas – Texas A&M, and many more. This week we get more classics like USC – UCLA, Stanford – Cal (The Big Game) , Oregon – Oregon State (The Civil War), and or course Army – Navy. Add in conference championship games, and we have a full Saturday of action.

Before we break into my picks this for this week, did anyone catch the end of the Auburn – Alabama game late Saturday night? You may have missed it due to the Mizzou – KU contest that was being played simultaneously, but if you didn’t catch Auburn’s Jerraud Powers getting his hand mauled by a police dog after defending a John Parker Wilson pass, now is your chance to see it.

I wonder what the conversation must have been like when Powers got back to the sideline with a bloody hand.

Trainer: Ouch Jerraud, let me tape that up. What happened? Did you get your hand caught in a face mask or something?

Powers: No!!! I got #@$%’ing mauled by a #@*$’ing dog you jackass!!!

I can’t say I’ve ever seen that on a football field before, but I think this sport needs more of this.
On to the games…

College Football

Army (+14) at Navy (in Baltimore, MD)

Remember when this use to be one of the greatest games on the college football calendar? If you answered yes to that question, then you also remember when stamps cost 5 cents. Seriously, this game stopped being exciting when both teams stopped wearing leather helmets, but it still draws a sell out crowd, and a national TV audience each year.

I will take some time to watch this game this year. What can I say… I’m old school. I like to see a well executed option play. Army hasn’t won a game in this series since 1998, and most of the recent games between the two have been lopsided Navy wins. With this game being played in Navy’s backyard, the streak will continue.

Navy – 42

Army – 24
Tulsa (+7) at Central Florida

A rematch from October 20th when Central Florida beat Tulsa 44 – 23. That win started UCF on a 6 game win streak in which they out scored their opponents by a combined score of 255 – 124. Tulsa comes into this game having won every game since their defeat at UCF, but they haven’t looked as impressive as UCF. Let me get this straight… UCF beats Tulsa by three touchdowns just 6 weeks ago, and the spread on this game is only 7 points? Does someone know something that I don’t? Obviously!!! But I still love Kevin Smith to carry UCF to a Conference USA Championship and a berth in the Liberty Bowl.

UCF – 45

Tulsa – 34
NFL

Bangles (+7 ½) at Steelers

The Steelers haven’t looked to impressive the past few weeks, and the Bangles are starting to show a little life. Hopefully the grounds crew in Pittsburgh will have the field in better shape than it was on Monday night. I think Pittsburgh will be a little flat after a short week and could be caught looking ahead to next weeks match up with the Pats.

Steelers – 24

Bangles – 21

And Finally… The Brian Fantana Sex Panther Pick of the Week!!!

“60% of the time – it works every time”

Browns (+1) at Cardinals

I love everything about the way the Browns have been playing lately. Derek Anderson has his offense in moving the ball, and the Browns defense is making enough plays to win games. The Cardinals found a way to drop a huge game against the 49ers last week. I’ll take the Browns to win this one on the road.

Browns – 27

Cardinals – 24
Last Week

Not the best week for TMOC. SMU finally showed something on the road against Memphis. Memphis won, but didn’t cover. Auburn held on to a 7 point win over Bama, and gave me my only win of the week. The Eagles played their best game of the season without McNabb (Better start packing your bags for an off season move to Chicago Donavan) and almost put an end to the Pats undefeated season. And even the Sex Panther was a bust last week. I said the Vikings lacked offense without Peterson, but I really didn’t count on Manning tossing 3 touchdowns for the Minnesota. And to cap it off, the degenerate gambler special went down in flames as well. 0-4 at the Aqueduct!!! A bad weekend to go not pick underdogs.

Sometimes it’s just not your week. Congrats to LWN for a solid week with his picks.

Last week

1 – 3

Season

4 – 3 – 1