Sorry for the tardiness, y'all. I've been exhausted this week. Not because of work, but because I've spent my evenings staying up late. So many shenanigans, you wouldn't believe. Or MATLAB programming, one of those. I may need to re-consider my late night activities and their relative "wild-ness."

Also, there's lots of cute girls at work, so that tends to keep me up as... [ahem]. Moving on!

I make a quick draft of these posts on Sunday (so I don't have much to do come mid-week). Because of that, the Tuesday night game between North Texas and LouisianaLafayette is not factored in here. It probably doesn't matter, but just a FYI.

And the rest of the Big Ten:

Some thoughts:

In a stunning development, the Big 12 is now better rated than the SEC. I'm not being sarcastic here, the SEC usually runs away with this. But with Oklahoma and Texas Tech residing at #2 and #5, and Kansas State not too far behind, the Big 12 is pretty clearly ahead of the SEC (except Alabama). Hell, the SEC is even getting the benefit of Texas A&M as well, which should really be split half-and-half between them.

This is partly a way for me to segue into another points: the SEC is solid (South Carolina and Florida are pleasant surprises for their levels of performance), but only Alabama is exceptional. F(ri)cking Saban and his "Process." On the plus side, at least we can point to the SEC's best team as have dirty, dirty players:

Guess Michigan State and Alabama have a lot in common. (HINT: I'm definitely just referring to Nick Saban)

When the heck did Oklahoma get an offense? A fairly large reason for my skepticism on Oklahoma before the season was due to how much their offense fell off last season when Ryan Broyles went out, as well as Landry Jones still being their quarterback. Less than stellar games against UTEP and Kansas State (they rated just about average offensively for those two games) did nothing to soften those doubts.

But over the last two weeks Oklahoma has simply destroyed two solid defenses in Texas Tech (#6 AdjDef) and Texas (#44 AdjDef)... well in Texas' case, a defense that was supposed to be solid. I don't know if I can live in a world where Landry Jones is having legitimate success as a quarterback. Oklahoma plays Kansas this week (and well, the Big 12 the rest of the year), so we may not get a better picture on this until bowl season. Meh.

Thanks Holgo! And here I was worried about West Virginia screwing with my rankings. West Virginia's crappy defense finally caught up to them, though I'm going to make a criticism of their offense right now, which really didn't do much last Saturday.

I have the West Virginia offense only ranked 18th, which does seem pretty low (F/+ has them 5th, for example). The things is, the Big 12 makes everyone looks good offensively. Examples:

West Virginia scored 31 on Maryland. Connecticut scored 24 (non-con, but still a good example).

West Virginia scored 70 on Baylor. TCU scored 49 (without their starting QB).

West Virginia scored 48 on Texas. Oklahoma scored 63.

This isn't to say West Virginia has a bad offense, just that it may be getting propped up a bit more than it deserves by whatever the Big 12 calls defense. Combined with a definitely bad defense, and I'm glad that they finally fell down.

Colorado is 123rd. Idaho and Massachusetts are 124th and 125th, respectively. I don't bet actual money-things, but I did take Arizona State last Thursday despite the large spread. Happy to say I came out on top with that one.

PICKS TIME

And the rest of the Big Ten:

I took New Mexico over Air Force for Stupid Upsets. Finger's crossed! Also, I better start working my way back up the OTE Predictions leaderboard. I was very upset at LSU victory last Saturday night.