Paul Prattles On

  Welcome Back! Before we get into our regularly scheduled program, there are 2 games tonight! Here are my picks: Tuesday, October 20 Delaware @ WKU - The Fightin' Blue Hens lead this series 2-1, but those 2 wins were in 1981 and 1982, while WKU's win was 27-24 last year. Both teams are 3-4 this year, but have arrived there differently. The Hilltoppers began the season losing their first 3 on the road, but have won 3 of their last 4, and are 2-1 in CUSA. Delaware started the season 2-1, but have lost 3 of their last 4, and are 1-2 in the conference. WKU wins. Sam Houston @ Missouri State - These teams have met twice before, and both were played in Springfield; they have never met in Huntsville. The Bears and Bearkats are 1-1 against each other, so this game will give the series advantage to one team or the other. Mo State is 2-5/1-2 after a successful 7-6 1st season at the FBS level, and they are 2-1 at home. SHS is 1-6/0-3 with no FBS wins, and are 0-3 on the road. That's ...

  Welcome Back! We had a 3rd straight week of upsets, and I think the reason is fairly obvious. With NIL and unlimited transfers, it is much more difficult for teams to hoard talent as they used to do. In other words, a student athlete can easily transfer for more playing time rather than wait their turn on the bench, and that also increases their earning power. I think the top teams, like Ohio State and Alabama, have just as much starting talent as they have always had; they just don't have the depth, because those players are starting elsewhere, like at Houston or Auburn or Wake Forest. Anyway, while we don't have what I would call parity per se, it does mean that many of the teams with the best starters are just an injury or 2 away from being ordinary, or at best, just very good instead of excellent. It sure makes for an interesting dynamic. And lots of upsets! Here are my thoughts from Week 8. 1. Results from the SEC continue to be volatile, as you just never know which ver...

  Welcome Back! I had an absolutely brutal week, perhaps the worst I've ever had that wasn't the bowl season or a week with few games (like Week Zero or conference championship weekend). The problem was that there were many upsets. That's not entirely true; I picked quite a few upsets, but they were all the wrong ones! I finished at  37-25 for a winning percentage of 59.6%. Overall, I am 396-114, or 77.6%, another drop of 2.5% from the week before. There is no way I was going to sustain 80% for the year, but now it'll be difficult to stay above 75% this year. I was hoping I had a big enough cushion built up, but I've lost 5% off my percentage in just 2 weeks. There are only 56 games in total this week, 6 less than last week. By and large, conference contests are the majority of the games this week, which makes picking a winner that much more difficult (as I just demonstrated...). And I'm off to another slow start at 2-2. Sigh... There are some good games this we...