Predictions and Prophecies
By Queen Carioca
Come in and have a seat. Close the tent flap behind you as once again I glance into my crystal ball.
My overall record to date…
Big 12 Prophecies: 22-for-26 (85%)
Other College Prophecies: 3-for-5 (60%)
Here are this week’s prophecies:
With Missouri off to the SEC and now out of the picture, Charlie Weis says Kansas State should be the JayHawks primary rival. Geography agrees. But how can you have a rivalry without a cool name to go with it? College football is brimming with them. Teams play for everything from an Iron Skillet to a Little Brown Jug. Iowa and Iowa State battle each year for the Cy-Hawk trophy.
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Why can’t KU and KSU square off in the Wild-Hawk Bowl or the Jay-Cat Classic? Just a thought . . . Weis has quickly made Kansas competitive again (starting 1-3 with the three losses by an average margin of 7 points) but the Jayhawks still have miles to go before they can throw a legitimate scare into a well-rounded Top 10 team like K-State, especially on the road. With Kansas allowing 4.7 yards per carry and 186 rushing yards per game, KSU’s Collin Klein (32 rushing TDs in his last 17 games) and underrated RB John Hubert (431 yards) are frothing at the mouth over this opportunity. Kansas State 38, Kansas 13
Just when you thought the dust had finally settled in Ft. Worth, another major crisis hits the TCU roster. A Frogs squad that has lost 20 players for varying reasons since late last year was dealt another major blow this week when starting quarterback Casey Pachall was arrested for DWI and subsequently suspended from the team. Into the fire goes relatively untested freshman Trevone Boykin. In limited action this year Boykin has posted solid numbers, connecting on 9 of 10 for 74 yards and a score with an additional 122 yards on the ground. Boykin is a product of West Mesquite High School where he was ranked as the no. 5 dual-threat quarterback in the country as a senior two years ago. Boykin has tremendous upside and if anyone can make lemonade out of the latest batch of rotten lemons handed to the Frogs, it’s Gary Patterson. Am I uncomfortable with the notion of picking a frosh QB in his first start with only a sagging running game (TCU is 78th nationally on the ground) to help him against Paul Rhoads’ 18th-ranked ISU defense? You bet. But something tells me upstart freshman DeVonte Fields (5 Sacks, 8.5 TFLs) and the Frogs defense will recognize the situation and swell up just enough against the Cyclones struggling O to help Boykin out. TCU 23, Iowa State 17
So what are Oklahoma fans more concerned with? The fact that a year ago in Norman – just as the world was about to become their oyster – the Red Raiders marched into Memorial Stadium and proved unstoppable, racking up 572 yards to topple the top-ranked
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Sooners? Or is that trumped by their concern over the three losses Texas Tech has dealt OU in its last three trips to Lubbock. A year ago the Red Raiders hex on the Big Red indeed spilled over into Norman, setting the stage for an upset that neither side was really ever able to overcome. Texas Tech didn’t win again in 2011, dropping its final five, while OU lost two more games including a 44-10 pounding at the hands of rival Oklahoma State. When the Sooners last won in Lubbock they did so on the strength of dynamic quarter back play (Jason White: 394 yards & 4 TDs) and an opportunistic defense that forced turnovers (5 picks of Tech QB B.J. Symons). The same hallmarks will have to carry the day once again if OU hopes to snap the streak and return home with a win. Landry Jones has looked…mortal. That’s not at all what Sooner fans were expecting when he announced that he’d be returning for his senior season. So frustrated has Sooner Nation become that many have called for back-up Blake Bell. In the not so distant past such chatter about Jones, the OU record holder for career passing yardage (no. 6 on college football’s all-time list), would have been condemned as blasphemy. But that time has passed. Both Jones and Sooners OC Josh Heupel are in the crosshairs. Simply put: the OU offense needs to produce to survive this, and that production has to start this weekend against the Raiders no. 1 ranked defense. Early season or not, it still feels strange to type those words. Bob Stoops recognizes what’s at stake. For so many reasons, this is for both OU and for Texas Tech – a team still striving for legitimacy under Tommy Tuberville – so much more than just another early October conference game. I’ve never been sold on OU in their road whites. Under Stoops when the Sooners leave Norman they are a very pedestrian 63-31. That said, I’m not ready to write off Landry Jones yet. Dom Whaley and Damien Williams will breach the Raiders front seven enough to set the table for a handful of key play action strikes from Jones to Kenny Stills and freshmen studs Sterling Shepard and Trey Metoyer. The Sooners have never in their long history suffered consecutive conference losses in the same season. That won’t happen Saturday either. Oklahoma 31, Texas Tech 24
Texas starting tailback Malcolm Brown (ankle) is out and WVU’s Shawne Alston (thigh) isn’t making the trip. It always matters when a pair of productive horses are stuck in the stable, but with Texas still able to lean on the talents of Joe Bergeron (255 yards & 5 TDs) and highly-touted freshman Johnathan Gray (157 yards); and with the top-ranked passing game (442/game) in college football at West Virginia’s disposal, you get the sense that both offenses will find a way to make it work. The story of the week has been Geno Smith. At first, his early season stats were drawing comparisons to video games. Then, folks started suggesting it was if he’s playing without a defense on the field. Well, following his uber-preposterous stat line last week vs Baylor (45-51, 656, 8/0) is it safe to assume he’s now
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reached the point where we can combine the two and say Geno’s playing a video game that doesn’t have any defense on it either? West Virginia is 4-0 and Smith, a Heisman front-runner if ever there was one, is the toast of college football. But in many ways everything WVU and the senior signal caller have accomplished up to this point has merely been a prelude to what happens in Austin on Saturday night. Win at Texas and things get ratcheted up even further, and faster. No longer will the accomplishment be accompanied by an asterisk about the quality of competition. The ”yeah, buts” that have been attached to each of West Virginia’s early season achievements will be left in the dust faster than a linebacker matched up on Tavon Austin. The Texas Longhorns represent one of the biggest brands in college football, if not in all of sports. If you march into their house (where they’ve won 78% of their games all-time) on a Saturday night in primetime on national television and pull out the win, you’re almost immediately catapulted into the “it” club. And that’s why it won’t be easy. Forget what you’ve seen the last two years from this program. Mack Brown’s 2012 squad is ranked so high for a reason. They are talented, athletic and explosive at every turn. Make no mistake about it: Texas is back. Preventing the Horns from playing keep away will be no easy chore. Texas is no. 4 in the country in 3rd down success and has possessed the football for 35+ minutes in 3 of its 4 games. You sell out to stop the run and David Ash – the nation’s 2nd highest rated passer (behind Geno) - makes you pay for it with the quick passing game. As such, you’re left with only one alternative: force turnovers. That won’t be easy either against a Texas team that has given up the football just twice all year. WVU’s goal should be two takeaways, with a stretch goal of three. It will take that, and another mistake free explosive night by the West Virginia offense to pull this off. In Geno I trust - so long as West Virginia can keep him upright. West Virginia 38, Texas 35
Other prophecies this weekend beyond the Big 12:
Florida 20, LSU 17
South Carolina 30, Georgia 27
Notre Dame 34, Miami 20
Ohio State 31, Nebraska 27
