Well, that was certainly ugly.....

Well, what do we now know after week 7 of the season?  We know, or we SHOULD know that the euphoria after the opening weekend against Illinois was misplaced.  Ron Zook and the fighting Illini are terrible as they illustrated yesterday against Indiana.  However, is the season over as many have stated on various Missouri message boards since about 10:00 pm last night?  Unfortunately, the jury is out on that one.  I've seen nothing from the rest of the Big XII north that convinces me that someone is going to run away from the rest of the pack.  If you look at the standings you might be surprised to see that Bill Snyder and the Kansas State Wildcats sit at the top with a 2-1 conference record.  Yep, the same K State that suffered a 52 point thumping at the hands of Texas Tech a week ago.  The entire conference, with the possible, and yes I said possible exception of Texas is badly down this year.   I believed they were head and shoulders above the rest of the league, but a 3 point win against a Sam Bradford-less Oklahoma team that currently stands 3-3 doesn't lead me to believe that they are actually the 2nd best team in the nation.  Any discussion about whether the SEC or Big XII is the best conference should officially be suspended until next year at least.  We can now debate whether we're better than the Big East or the Pac 10.  Right now, I'd have to say probably not. 

Last night we witnessed some head scratching play calling from David Yost as he chose to abandon a running game that had had some success in the first half and leave a gimpy Blaine Gabbert alone in the backfield to face the Okie Light pass rush.  We also saw the best argument for simply getting rid of the instant replay in college football as the replay official completely blew what I, much of America, and the television announcers thought would be easily overturned calls on fumbles.  Why pay the money for a replay official when he doesn't appear to know what he's looking at?  I'm not saying those calls would have changed the outcome, but they did drag an already too long game on by 15 minutes to still get the call wrong.
The biggest question for me this week involves our sophomore quarterback Gabbert.  The kid is an absolute warrior that just shouldn't be on the field right now.  Before the game, Gabe DeArmond of PowerMizzou stated that Blaine was limping badly as the team headed out the tunnel.  It wasn't obvious in the first half, but was painfully so in the second when the wheels came off the offense.  Both Derrick Washington and Devion Moore had had some success in the first half, but were MIA after the break.  My suggestion, and I have no doubt this won't happen would be to sit Gabbert this week against Texas.  Give that right ankle an extra week to heal against a team that we don't have a snow balls chance in hell of beating anyway, and save him for the 5 winnable games remaining on the schedule.  5-3 is going to be good enough to win the north so why not give ourselves the best chance to get there?
For the week, I finished a miserable 4-5 straight up and an even more miserable 3-6 vs the spread.  For the season I'm now 51-19 straight up but fell below the .500 mark against the spread at 33-34.  And yes, I'll state again that I don't gamble.  I predicted us to lose against the Cowboys but to cover the 7 point spread.
In other games I thought that Baylor would cover the 3 point spread actually beat Iowa State straight up.  They wound up falling to the Cyclones 24-10.  That being said, Baylor could mail the rest of their season in and still manage to finish 5th in the south.  Last place was officially reserved by Texas A&M.  I predicted that they would fail to cover as 5 1/2 point favorites but still best K State.  The Wildcats managed to sneak by and win 62-14.  Mike Sherman, the Aggies have plenty of money to buy out your contract and I doubt you'll see the end of the season while employed in College Station.  
I predicted kansas would cover a 10 point spread and win at Boulder against the hapless Golden Buffaloes.  However, Dan Hawkins came out of his coma long enough to bench his son and play the former backup Tyler Hansen.  The Buffs responded with a 34-30 win over the pre-season favorites.  Coming up next is a pissed off Oklahoma team with nothing to lose.  Party hearty this week Sparky.  I think the Sooners would like nothing better than leaving a quarterback lying motionless on the turf in Lawrence.
I thought the 10 point spread of Nebraska over Texas Tech was ridiculous and predicted the Red Raiders to not only cover but to win.  They didn't let me down.  The Huskers found that it isn't quite as easy to make up for a deficiency in speed when the game isn't played in a monsoon.  I think Bo Pelini has done a pretty good job in Lincoln of getting more out of Bill Callahan's recruits, but they simply aren't going to be fast enough to keep up in the Big XII against the better teams, even in a down year.  If they intend to restore the order, they're going to have to address this issue.
Iowa is starting to look for real to me now.  I'd predicted them to fall to Wisconsin and it looked promising as the Badgers jumped out to a 10-0 lead.  It was all Hawkeyes from then on though.  Dare we start thinking Rose Bowl?  Why not after watching Ohio State pull a face plant at Purdue?
I'd discussed the Cincinnati/South Florida game from last Thursday.  The Bearcats definitely appear to be the best team in the Big East and expect another rousing BCS game against Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl this January.  Woo haw!

Finally, even Southern Cal couldn't save me as they failed to cover the 10 point spread, but did prevail over Notre Dame 34-27.  I predict both teams will move up 3 spots in the rankings as a result of this game.  God I hate the Irish.  But, it does give me one last chance to the USC cheerleaders which is right now my highlight of the week.
Somehow I'll find the strength to get my predictions together for next week by Thursday or so.  Right now I think I'm going to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head.