As you may, or may not, have noticed, I didn't list my customary "10 games" pick'em last week and there's a reason. I was recovering from illness. I tried to do it for week 7 with little review due to my illness and the results were (in a word) terrible.
Try 3-7 ATS and 4-6 SU terrible.
It'd be easy to try and beg off sick and say that those results shouldn't count against my season totals but....I made the picks so they do. I'll be back next week with 10 games and updated season totals.
Texas College Football:
After Texas aTm's thumping at the hands of the fighting Sabans there's a lot of talk about "who's got the best team in Texas right now?" I think, going into the season, the consensus was that aTm had the hole-shot with Baylor acting as the heir apparent should the Aggies stumble.
Well, the Aggies have clearly stumbled leaving the top spot open. The obvious answer is to suggest that Baylor is now the top Texas program but their 41-27 loss to Couch Burnin' U has folks asking questions.
As I see it, the State's rankings go like this:
1. Baylor
2. TCU
3. aTm
4. UT-Austin
5. Texas Tech
6. UT- San Antonio
7. UH
8.Texas State
9. Rice
10. UTEP
11. North Texas
12. SMU
I don't think there's much argument regarding numbers one and two, after all, they've met on the field and TCU just demolished Oklahoma State. I still give the nod to aTm over UT-Austin because I think the talent advantage is still there. That said, ask me next year and I feel there's going to be a big shake-up with UT-Austin moving closer to the top of the chart.
5-7 is hard. I think Tech is overrated and that their coach is one of the reasons why. I still put UTSA ahead of UH because (put simply) they beat them soundly. UH is improving but they are a team with a ton of talent and zero college level coaching to speak of. Texas State gets the nod over Rice because I think they'll beat them head-up. The bottom 3 are interchangeable, but I truly believe that SMU is a huge mess right now and might occupy that position for the next few years.
Maybe not surprisingly, I see the top 5 as having way more volatility over the next few years than the bottom five. Whether you like them or not this UT-Austin team is playing hard for Coach Strong and I think he's going to build them back into a winner, provided the alumni give him time.
I still think the move to the SEC will be good in the long-term for aTm but that doesn't mean that Coach Sumlin is the one who's going to lead them. I think Sumlin will be gone after the end of either this year or next year and the Aggies will then have to decide if they want to be a football crazy Kentucky in the conference, or something akin to their old-role in the Big XII (which is where I think their cap is). In short, aTm will never be able to compete with the Alabama, Auburn and LSU's in the SEC West because they don't have near the resources or tradition to do so.
They should always have good seasons however, should beat a big team here and there, and they should compete for a division title once every 4-5 years. Just like it should have been in the Big XII. That it wasn't illustrates just how poorly ran the program has been running in recent years.
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