For the past four years I have yet to spend an entire New Year's Eve with my wife.  Last year was the first time we got to see the ball drop together, as she made it in about a minute before midnight.  This year is rare.  Neither of us have to work after six tonight, which means we will be spending the evening together.  I'm pretty excited by that, it's got me in a good mood, and because of that, I figured I would post some picks.  Hopefully these will help people out in their decision making today.

College Football

Air

But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother, they're here.

Every year the Ringling Brother Circus come to the United Center, and the clowns head west for their annual beating.  The 2-8 Bulls haven't disappointed us with this year's effort with their only win coming against the hapless Clippers. At least they'll be in New York on Saturday so they should walk away with a win. The real question is which game would you rather watch the Pre-Season N.I.T. championship game on Friday or the thrilling Bulls v/s Knicks game on Saturday.

Greetings from lovely Baltimore, Maryland where the city motto is, "At least we're not Detroit!" Actually the Inner Harbor and the area immediately surrounding the convention center seem pretty nice. Not that I've seen much of the city what with the 14 hour days and all. Since I knew I wouldn't get to see many games I thought I would give you a review of one of my favorite books about college football. But first just let me say I was waaayyyyy off about the defense of the Native American Peoples of the District of Columbia.

So without further ado, I give you Big Ten Country

Go grease lightning you're burning up the quarter mile
(Grease lightning go grease lightning)
Go grease lightning you're coasting through the heat lap trial
You are supreme (Uh huh!)

The chicks'll cream (Uh huh!)

For grease lightning
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go

The Bears got the ball back with 1:52 left on the clock, no timeouts, trailing 16-12, and 97 yards of turf to cover.  Brian Griese did a masterful job of running the two minute drill and it helped that Philly went with the soft prevent (yourself from winning) defense. The

Here's a quick preview of some quality games and interesting stories heading into college football's big weekend.

Watch the firework show
Missouri and Texas Tech square off in what should be one of the highest scoring entertaining games of the year. Both offenses rank in the top 5 nationally and neither has what you would call a shutdown defense. Chase Daniel and Graham Harrell should put up huge numbers slinging the ball all over the field. I'll take Mizzou in a close one.

Big East gone batty
With South Florida

We're gonna have a good time tonight
Let's celebrate, it's all right
We're gonna have a good time tonight

Let's celebrate, it's all right

Cellllebraation! (Woohoo!)

This weekend Brett Favre broke another record and I have heard nary a word about it. Where's the pomp? Where's the circumstance? Why wasn't the game stopped for the ensuing celebration? Why wasn't Dan Marino doing the happy dance on CBS? It's un-American that we not celebrate every one of Favre's great achievements damn it! Momma, apple pie, turducken,

Devastated. Shocked. Dismayed. I ran the complete gamut of emotions Saturday night as UCLA incredibly lost to a terrible 0-5 Notre Dame team at home in the Rose Bowl. Instead of staying angry and riled up though the one overriding feeling that stayed with me, and I think most Bruin fans would share the same sentiment, was this: resignation. Plain and simple, UCLA football will never have sustained success under Karl Dorrell.

Yes, I know he was forced to play MacLeod Bethel-Thompson at quarterback. Injuries are part of the game of course, but being forced

There are a lot of picks that are up in the air, but only one category is really winning consistently week after week, and it's an underdog category, which I like.  The favorites killed me last week, and if I could avoid those whenever possible, I am all for that.  The following picks have a 24-14-2 record through 3 weeks.

Fresno State +3.5
Tulane +6.5
Maryland +3
Iowa +9.5
Temple +3.5
Houston +11
Oklahoma State +6.5
Nebraksa +7
Baylor +8.5
Purdue +7
Buffalo +5
ULM +2.5
Idaho +7
East Carolina +4
Florida

Before we get to this week's Contenders and Pretenders, I felt it necessary to comment on Mike Gundy's rebuttal to The Daily Oklahoman's Jenni Carlson column.

If you are reading this, you've seen, read or heard the tirade. In fact, you probably have heard numerous people comment on the explosion in question. Look no further than Accuscore's Zach Rosenfield.

I have been on the receiving end, not directly, as a college football beat reporter. Most of the time, the thing that ticks of coaches more than anything is when "journalists

By now you've all probably heard about O.J. Simpson and his, how should I put this...extracurricular "exploits." Well, he was released from jail today, and it would seem with his past that one would want to distance themself from such a controversial figure. Well one place that doesn't seem to see it that way is USC, where of course the former running back went to school. There was a great article about it today in the LA Daily News (read about it here).

Here's a quick quote from