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I think you meant this week :D

At least you aren't 0-11 which I think I am Didn't you win the Carolina game?

Aside from a couple SEC teams, there's no team in the country that has really played anyone if you take away their 2 toughest games, especially with nearly half the season to go. There's a big difference between the rest of the teams for Texas and other teams rest of the teams. Let's take 2 non SEC teams that are the closest to Texas (ND and California) ND: 2 toughest games: Georgia Tech, Michigan Rest of Games: Penn State, Michigan State, Purdue, Stanford Texas: 2 toughest games: OSU, Oklahoma Rest of Games: North Texas, Rice, Iowa State, Sam Houston State, Baylor California: 2 toughest games: Tennessee, Oregon Rest of Games: Minnesota, Portland State, Arizona State, Oregon State, Washington State Texas has had 4 teams so far that are terrible-North Texas, Rice, Sam Houston State, Baylor ND has one: Stanford (Michigan State still gets rewarded in the computers since 3 of their 4 losses were to top 10 teams) California has one-Portland State That's the difference-Texas's terrible games really drive down their SOS at this point in the season.

Philly? Rams? It's 24-21 Seattle over the Rams, and Philly is tied 17-17 with the Saints.

See, I don't understand this line of thinking. WHO CARES if a WC makes/wins the World Series? They were obviously a good team to begin with, and if the other teams were truly better, they'd prove it. Second place teams win championships in the NFL, NBA, and NHL. Why is it such a travesty when it happens in baseball? I think the problem is that it happens so often in baseball. A WC team in the NFL who had to go on the road for all 3 games has only ever won the SB once in the NFL (last year's Steelers). In basketball, a team ranked 5-8 has only won 1 title (I'm pretty sure about this stat-I know the #6 ranked Rockets in the mid 90's were the lowest seed to ever win the title). Baseball has had a few wildcards win the WS in just over 10 years. WC's are just as likely as the 1, 2, or 3 seed to win in MLB, while that hasn't been true in either the NFL or the NBA.

6 pm, I believe. ESPN projected a top 5 of OSU, USC, Michigan, Texas and West Virginia if I remember correctly. Wow, I thought Michigan would be ahead of USC. If Florida had won, USC was supposed to be clearly ahead of Florida-so I'm not surprised that they would be ahead of Michigan either. One computer ranking I saw this morning had USC 1, Michigan 2, OSU 3. Note on the computer ranking-not overall BCS projected ranking I saw, but just one of the individual computer rankings.

6 pm, I believe. ESPN projected a top 5 of OSU, USC, Michigan, Texas and West Virginia if I remember correctly. Don't they come out tomorrow? No, this year they decided it would be better if the BCS standings came out on Sunday instead of Monday-I'm not sure if that 6 p.m. number is right though, I haven't heard exactly what time though, so it could be right.

Don't expect a lot of company. Sure, we'll start out with just a few, but there will always be room for cub fans ;) I'll save you a window seat so you can keep building the autograph collection. Funny, but it was just a few days / weeks ago that I was firmly against Lou. Same with me that I was completely against Lou. After doing some research into him, I'm fine with him. I wasn't actively rooting for Piniella to get the job (my top preference was probably Bochy) but I think that the commitment to winning now makes this a good sign.

Well, at this point it is simply that they are undefeated with a better schedule then Louisville and WV..I'd put them #3 behind OSU and Michigan now-I just can't see who else would be above them right now based on their performance (even though I think USC might get beat by several teams right now)

A couple of interesting twists and turns in the Florida-Auburn game. Auburn had a first down at the Florida 7 when the tight end fumbled, and Florida recovered at the 3. On the next play, Florida got called for holding in the end zone, Auburn collects the safety, and gets the ball with good field position. 10-5 Florida right now.

Cincy marches all the way down the field, but stalls in the red zone-Louisville holds on, 23-17.

Alabama catches a TD in OT to beat Ole Miss, and Cincy has to try to drive 92 yards to beat Lousiville in just over 2 minutes.

Not anymore! :D 10-3 Cincy with 6 minutes to go in the 1st half. (Reason for Smiley-I'm looking for one of WV or Lousville to lose, and then for the loser to beat the other team when they play each other)

Indiana wins! A great win for their program. Georgia misses a field goal-1 point Georgia lead, Vandy ball on the 20, 5 minutes left.

That was one unbelievable INT by the Indiana linebacker-3 minutes left, I'd love to see them hold on here! No timeouts for Iowa.

Yeah, Indiana is slowly starting to become more competitive. Lewis, the QB, is a redshirt freshman I believe-so he really has a chance to be good. James Hardy, their 6-7 star receiver, is a redshirt sophmore. The only thing is that he missed 2 games with personal reasons this year which has hurt him so far this year until this game, and since that is unknown what they were there is a possibility of them recurring. Terry Hoeppner has really instilled a different kind of attitude at IU right now though, and their young players will be fun to watch.

Yeah, I heard that the Navy QB broke his leg. That's terrible for them as he was probably the key to their season, and of course how terrible it is for him personally.

17-14 WV after a Syracuse TD now. Syracuse has to at least pretend that they are trying to stop the run though-WV has 200 yards on the ground already, and it's 3 minutes before halftime.

Well, WV responds immediately with a Pat White 69 yard TD run. 7-7.

I've been really hoping that Syracuse can challenge WV today-Syracuse takes the early 7-0 lead.

My biggest concern with Lou is not so much how he handles the offense - I don't think he views base clogging as a negative - but how he'll handle the pitching staff. As far as rookies, if the Cubs are 10 games out by next September and he still insists on playing, say, a Mabry-like player ahead of someone like Scott Moore...well, then, hopefully he'll drag Jim Hendry into the voidless MLB purgatory which he so richly deserves. By hiring Lou, I hope the Cubs mean business and are willing to take the steps necessary to go all out. PS: Please hire Chris Chambliss for hitting coach. I was talking to a big time Mariners fan the other day, and I got a scouting report on Lou. (This friend is also admittedly a big-time stats guy). He said that: 1)Lou picks his spots carefully when to lose his temper, and really does a good job motivating his players and working the umpires. 2)He has a good lineup construction, and that he knows not to bat people second who have no business batting 2nd (knowing I'm a Cubs fan, he quickly brought up that Lou would not leave a guy like Perez in the 2 spot). 3) As far as the pitching staff goes, Lou has shown an inability sometimes to know when a pitcher is done. He said that Lou did not have a tendency towards a short or a long hook, so he wasn't per se an abuser of pitchers, just that he struggled when to pull a pitcher if the pitcher was starting to struggle. 4) Lou expects everybody to respect him. He will play the most talented player available even if they are rookies, but if the player has the wrong attitude he will ride them very, very hard (he brought up the example of Bret Boone coming up and thinking he was just going to be the man as he was in previous stops, and Lou did not take very kindly to that). That along with some comments that Lou has made on the air elevated him to the Girardi level for me (as a manager with some things I liked and some things I really didn't like). Bochy would have been preferred by me, but apparently the management only gave Hendry the choices of Girardi or Piniella-and IMO, this is the right choice of the two if they are committed to winning now, and sign some high-impact players to back up that committment.

Oh, I'm not a fan of bunting normally either. Late and up or late and tied make it a little bit better I think because the big inning is not quite as important as that point as early in the game. Still though, it would have to be a hitter who knew how to put down a bunt and who was not a very good hitter otherwise.

Is there something wrong with that? I dont have a problem adding more runs to your lead. Why give away an out? You're winning the game. You're not trying to play for one or two runs. Why not just let the guy hit? Plus you run the risk of a poor bunt and the runner getting thrown out at third and then you still have runners on first and second but with one out. Best case scenario when you bunt in that situation is ending up with second and third with one out. The best case if you hit away is the bases are cleared and there are still no outs. I would bet that teams would misplay a bunt just as often as they would get the lead runner on a bunt-people misplay bunts all the time. I'm not sure if that would make it right to bunt (although when leading late, 1 to 2 runs becomes more important relatively than they are normally, especially when a team is up by only 1 or 2), but it is something that happens pretty often.

I'm not sure Tejada will be had for anything. I mean, at the deadline remember the deals offered? There were rumors that the Angels offered Santana and one of their top prospects, and that the Astros had offered Oswalt and another good player. The Orioles have rejected everything. If you add Prior to your deal, I think it would start to get closer to Tejada, but I still doubt they trade him. Angelos overvalues him like crazy, and has supposedly vetoed several deals to trade him.

Before I get to my picks, allow me to direct your attention to the Colts ESPN.com page. Indy was 17 point favorites at SF, 14 point favorites at Houston, and 16 point favorites at Jacksonville (absolutely insane spread considering the Jags were 12-4 last year) in 2005. If the Colts hadn't played prevent in the last 5 minutes of the Jacksonville game, then they would have covered all 3 spreads too unbelivably. They were up 26-3 with 5 minutes left against Jax. That was one great run-the Bears run is reminding me of that.