Week 5 big 12 Picks
Photo by Sarah Phipps, The Oklahoman
I’m feeling weirdly optimistic after OSU’s showing last week in Waco. If you’d told me that OSU would be 2-2 four weeks into the season–and that I’d feel optimistic–I’d have asked you what you were smoking. Strange but true.
Last week: 4-1 (.800)
Overall: 22-10 (.687)
Kansas 31, Texas Tech 44. Most people with brains would say that this game will be over a couple minutes after it starts, but I have a niggling feeling that it won’t be–based, I suppose, in the fact that Tech’s defense has about as much stopping power as a wet paper sack. On the other hand, KU is a wet paper sack, so there’s that.
No. 13 Baylor 44, Iowa State 30. Another game I think may be closer than Vegas does. ISU has a fantastic running back in Lawton native Mike Warren, and Baylor’s run defense is fairly porous.
No. 22 Texas 28, Oklahoma State 34. Strange stats dominate this series’s more recent history. Texas has won their last eight trips to Stillwater, with OSU’s last home victory coming all the way back in 1997. Yet the Pokes have taken four of the last six meetings between these two teams, with all their wins coming in Austin. Texas’s main strength on offense comes on the ground–which is good for the Pokes, who’re pretty strong there (which isn’t saying much considering how bad OSU’s secondary has been; they were at their worst last week against Baylor). Texas hasn’t been too strong against the air themselves; I think Mason Rudolph will have a field day. The big question: can OSU get through a whole game without a 90-minute lightning delay?
Kansas State 27, West Virginia 24. When the season started, who thought that this would be a game pitting two of the only three teams in the conference to have actually looked solid all the way through the season’s opening quarter? I’m surprised West Virginia didn’t break into the rankings this week, after beating BYU. Bill Snyder is 4-0 in his career against West Virginia; I think the Wildcats leave Morgantown with a victory, putting them in the Big 12 driver’s seat.
Oklahoma 38, No. 21 TCU 41. I’m very tempted to go with OU in this one, a game that looked like a primetime national matchup before the season started, but which has lost most of its luster. This feels like the kind of game that OU wins–I’m thinking of last year when the Sooners lost to a bad Texas team and rebounded by throttling K-State 55-0 in Manhattan–but this year, I’m not so sure. Especially after the Sooners have burned me twice this year (I picked them against Houston and Ohio State). Regardless of who wins, it should be a close one. Since the Horned Frogs joined the Big 12, the four games between these two squads have been decided by a grand total of 15 points.
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