Game Day #2

What a week for the Big 12! After commish Bob Bowlsby claimed collusion by ESPN led to OU and Texas leaving the conference…the league raided the AAU of UCF, Cincy, and Houston to go along with BYU to rightfully get the league back to twelve teams.

But I think all of this is good in the long haul big picture take.

Who in their right mind isn’t tired of watching OU beat O State every year? Mike Gundy doesn’t have to go thru this anymore beyond November 27th circa 2021.

The new Big 12 is going to be a nice football league and a monster basketball league. Fran Frascilla who along with Ron Franklin let me sit at their table back on that winter day in Norman when Kevin Durant came to Norman would absolutely be going ape-shit crazy about what this league is going to be from a basketball standpoint.

But we still have a Big 12 football and basketball season to be played here in the present.

Last week was SEC week, this is Big 12 week with what I think are the two best games in the land being played in Big 12 country this week:

Texas at Arkansas in a throwback Southwest Conference game which will be a future SEC rivalry while Iowa plays at Iowa State.

Two very tough games to pick spread-wise. Texas on the road with a quarterback who’s never played on the road is a seven point road favorite over Arkansas.

Why is Texas favored? Because they may have the best running back in the country in Bijan Robinson who last week got 20 carries and 169 yards against ranked Louisiana.

Tom Herman never gave Bijan the ball twenty times in a game last season. Steve Sarkisian did it right out of the gate and thus we have a Heisman hopeful in Austin to go along with Spencer Rattler in Norman and running back Bryce Hall in Ames.

The students are camped out in Fayetville as I write. No one in the state will ever forget the ’69 Game of the Century between the two teams which led to the Horns winning the national championship. This is a big game for the Razorbacks as well. Seven points on the road is tough to swallow. So I called the most ardent OU fan I know in my son Chris who hates the Texas Longhorns with an unbridled passion and asked him for his take. He didn’t even hesitate which is not like him. His take was…Texas and give the seven….Bijan is a beast.

In Ames we have two top ten teams going at it in a series which has been tough on Iowa State for the most part in recent years. Iowa State though is a home 4.5 Vegas favorite despite their struggle with Northern Iowa last week.

For the Cyclones they didn’t have Charlie Kolar last week and Bryce Hall was held to 69 yards. Brock Purdy wasn’t anything special either. Iowa looked good beating Indiana, but keep in mind they had two pick sixes which accounted for the inflated margin.

This is a huge game for Iowa State and the new Big 12 moving forward. This is a chance for Bob Bowlsby’s new league to beat a ranked Big Ten team.

4.5 is tough to give though considering Iowa has the nation’s #3 ranked defense. So…I’m going to go with Iowa State winning the game, but not covering the 4.5 points.

Hope you have a great Game Day watching your favorite college team today.

Boomer!

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