About Those Pics........

To start things off, I'd like to apologize to my one and a half readers for my absence. Being the president of a fraternity is a full time job that takes up a lot of my time. So is being a senior trying to graduate. Tack on two part time jobs (and chasing women) and my time is pretty much consumed.

That said, my "sports journalism" has suffered. I've been a somewhat passive observer of sports in recent weeks. While I would've called Pavlik over Taylor, I've been wrong about a lot.

In baseball, I probably would've taken Arizona and Colorado, but I also would've taken Boston and the Yankees. I don't see the Yanks getting past Cleveland at this point, as they still have to face C.C. Sabathia either tonight or in a Game 5 on the road.

For the record, I like Arizona and Cleveland to make it to the World Series.

In college football, my preseason ranking of most likely champions was awful. I had LSU at #5 and Cal at #12, one spot behind UCLA. Yikes. Double Yikes for my top four of USC, Texas, Michigan, and West Virginia. That said, I'm not too sold on LSU or Cal.

Maybe its because I've always considered LSU, and maybe the SEC in general, to be a tad overrated. Same for Cal, although I'm a big fan of Pac-10 football. If I had to pick two teams to go the 'chip today, I guess it would have to be LSU and Oklahoma.

LSU might take an L this weekend at Kentucky, if not I see them running the table. Meanwhile, I think Cal is going to end up sharing the Pac-10 title with Oregon. I can see them slipping up in one of these games, while Oregon will probably rebound and take the rest of the games on their schedule. Then again, this season has been so wacky, nobody has any business making any predictions.

(Speaking of which, for a bonus prediction I have Michigan rebounding to win the Big Ten)

My NFL pics were just as horrible as everything else. I had Philly over Dallas, Chicago at 10-6 with the rest of the division under .500, the Saints at 11-5, The Rams, yes the Rams at 12-4, Cincy at 12-4 and the Steelers at 8-8, and San Diego at 11-5.

To make things worst, I picked the Rams and Saints to meet in the NFC Championship game. Those two teams are 0-9 this year. I guess 60% of the time, I'm always wrong.

Barring injuries, this year's Super Bowl will feature the Pats vs. the Cowboys. They are far and away the best teams in their respective conferences, and the 2007 Pats will go down as one of the greatest teams of all time. They WILL go 16-0. Dallas might end up at 14-2 or 15-1.

Other things to watch for is the Bengals making a run, the Chargers firing Norv and A.J. Smith and bringing Marty back, Donovan playing for the Bears next year, and the two Super Bowl teams having top 5 pics in next year's draft. (New England has the 49er's first round pick next year while Dallas has Cleveland's.)

To paraphrase Diddy, I can't stop, won't stop making bold predictions at the risk of looking like a complete idiot.

As I sign off for now, and hopefully not another 2 weeks, peep this column from Jason Whitlock about the Jena Six. (I'm glad to see Jason on a more prominent site like FoxSports, although ESPN should've gotten rid of Scoop Jackson instead of him.) Although this issue is kinda off the map now, he hit it right on the head. I tried to explain the issues he pointed out to friends of mine, who immediately called me crazy.

To throw in my two cents, you can't take anything at face value and this story is no exception. Lost in drama is the fact that until we change the way sentences are handed out, racist and crooked DA's will be able to trump up charges on some and let others get off too easy. This was perhaps the biggest issue in the Jena Six and none of the protest did anything to address it.

For all that was said and done, the only thing we accomplished was getting a kid out of jail that probably deserved to be in jail. Its good to see people willing to stand up for something, but why this case? Genarlow Wilson could've used this type of support during his court ordeal, and even now as he continues to rot in jail over a consensual sex act between himself and a peer.