Round 2 picks - Byrum edition

First of all, I can't believe I got called out for going 0-3 in the first round by a guy who went 1-2. That's like a kid from Iowa making fun of South Dakota. At the end of the day, they both suck - they're just irrelevant homes for a few white people (a lot like this blog, *rimshot*).

In fact, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge my great start to this pick ‘em competition. In case you didn’t know, I went 0-3. And when picking against the spread, going 0-3 is just as unlikely and hard to do as going 3-0. So yeah…I got that going for me. I expect a strong bounce back performance with this round of picks.

OREGON ST. +2.5 over Brigham Young

I’ve been a fan of the Beavers all year (*immature chuckle*). Seriously though, they’ve got some good wins this year over solid Pac-10 opponents and two of their losses are “quality” losses – tight ones to Cincinnati and Oregon. I’m a big fan of miniature running back Jacquizz Rogers, and his brother James is really good too. By contrast, BYU only played two teams all year (TCU and FSU) with as much talent as Oregon State. In both of those games, they got drilled. I think OSU is the better team, and they’re getting points. You always like those situations when making picks.

CAL -2.5 over Utah

Cal has been an extremely inconsistent team this year, making them very difficult to bet on. In some games they have looked great (e.g., back to back quality wins over Stanford and Arizona), but other times they have looked awful (e.g., getting drilled by Washington immediately after those quality wins). I think they’re getting running back Jahvid Best back for this game, which should help their cause. If you didn’t know (cough, East Coast bias, cough), Best was one of the best players in the country early in the year and then he missed the last month or so due to one of the scariest/exciting collisions you’ll ever see in football (google the highlight if you haven’t seen it). I feel bad for calling it “exciting”, but it really was – in the same way that people tune into NASCAR races for the crashes. Anyways, Utah has played exactly three quality teams this year (BYU, TCU, & Utah). They lost all of them. The streak continues against the Golden Bears.

NEVADA -14.5 over Southern Methodist

This game features two incredibly different yet similar offenses. They’re similar because both teams score a lot of points. But they’re completely opposite because Nevada runs for over 300 yards a game while June Jones-coached teams generally like handoffs about as much as they like taking exams. In general I am opposed to taking teams giving up more than two TDs, especially in bowl games. I also hate picking teams nicknamed the Wolfpack. However, I am going to make an exception here because I’ve actually seen two Nevada games this year and they covered for me both times. That’s good enough for me.