The Big 5 College Football Games of Weekend #7

Week 7 has some solid matchups all around but it truly centers on two games. The battle in the swamp between Florida and LSU and of course the Red River Shootout between #1 Oklahoma and #5 Texas.

5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish at North Carolina Tar Heels
Surprisingly Notre Dame is 4-1. They've won all their home games and lost all their road games (1). This week the Irish fly down to Chapel Hill to face freshly ranked North Carolina lead by Butch Davis. I'm betting The Pick: Tarheels by 6

4. Missouri Tigers at Oklahoma St. Cowboys
The other two undefeated Big 12 teams facing off is much more under the radar. Probably because the Cowboys haven't played anybody good and no one expected much from them this season. And I don't expect much from them this weekend. The Pick: Mizzou by 13

3. Penn State Nittany Lions at Wisconsin Badgers
So Wisconsin went from a top ten team to basically out of the BCS picture in the span of 6 quarters. This weekend they get to host undefeated Penn St. who can still contemplate and dream about a national title trip. Well until sunday morning when they will be contemplating how they just lost to the Badgers. The Pick: Sconsin by 2

2. Louisiana State Tigers at Florida Gators
In an effort to eliminate all of the undefeated SEC teams, the LSU Tigers get to bring their perfect record to the Swamp and face of against Tim Tebow and his crew while they are not firing on all cylinders. Despite LSU's edge on defense, I say the Tebow finds away to avoid the Gators second loss of the season. The Pick: Florida by 6.

1. Oklahoma Sooners vs. Texas Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl
The Red River shootout comes this year with neither team having a signature victory under their belt. Unlike in years past when the Longhorns faced off against the Buckeyes, they have played a mostly cake early schedule. Same goes for Oklahoma whopse toughest challenge was TCU, whoopdie-do. Regardless, this matchup could easily provide a National Title representative. The winner could potentially cruise through the remainder of the season and find themselves challenging for the crystal ball in January. But I'm sure Mizzou will have something to say about that.The Pick: Sooners by 4.

Numbers On Steroids: Mickey Mantle

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids. Time to look at my dad's favorite athlete of all time, Mickey Mantle. Averages Say: What's with the mysterious dip at 27 and then the uptick? At Bats Per Home Run Says: That's a mighty jump from 22 to 24 Explaining As If It Was the 90s If you take a look at the numbers there are two time frames which in the 1990s would be questioned. First would be the incredible leap he took from his first year in the big leagues to his first MVP season in 1956. His batting average jumped 50 points. His slugging percentage jumped 90 points and he hit 15 more homers than his previous high. This wouldn't merrit a conviction nowadays though because the young age he...

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This Is Why the New York Mets Can't Win Anymore

It's pretty simple why the Mets can't win games anymore and are morphing into the second worst team in the National League, they can't score runs. The below chart shows exactly whats happenned to their offensive output since each of the major devastating injuries. The blue line shows runs scored for each game through out the season. The pink line shows the average runs the Mets scored when they had everyone, the yellow when they were missing Delgado, the light blue when they were missing Delgado and Reyes, and finally the purple when they were missing Delgado, Reyes and Beltran. In the abscence of Reyes, Delgado and Beltran the Mets are averaging barely over 3 runs per game. In stark contrast, with everyone on the roster the Mets were scoring just over 5 runs per game. That's a wholesale difference and why their roster now equals a lot of losses and a day by day progression further out of a playoff spot.

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