Week 3 Pick'em Games - Week 2 Results

[EMan]

It’s inevitable. Sooner or later (and these days it appears to be more sooner than later) we’ll have “one of those Saturdays”. We’ve all seen them. One of those college football Saturdays when everything is turned upside down. Not just one major upset that dominates the news cycle, but an abundance of insanity that signals “no lead is safe / no team is safe today!” And Saturday was one of those days! For instance…

Pittsburgh trailed Cincinnati 27-6 with less than 5 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter. Three touchdowns (and two MISSED 2-pt conversions) later, the Panthers had cut Cincy’s lead to 27-25 and they weren’t done yet, lining up for a game-winning 35-yd FG with 20 secs to go. The kick was good, and Pittsburgh escaped with a 28-27 win.

Or, how about OSU trailing Arkansas 21-7 midway through the 3rd quarter? A Cowboy rally led to a 31-28 OSU lead with 59 secs left in the game. But that wouldn’t hold up as the Razorbacks kicked a game-tying FG with 2 secs to go to send the game to OT. After BOTH teams missed FGs in the first OT, Arkansas failed to duplicate OSU’s second OT touchdown and the Cowboys prevailed, 39-31.

But wait! There’s more! Syracuse led 31-14 with 8:48 left in the game before Georgia Tech made things very interesting with a touchdown, an onside kick recovery, and another touchdown. But they weren’t able to pull off the daily double of onside kicks and Syracuse hung on for a 31-28 win.

And of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Northern Illinois’ dramatic upset win over Notre Dame in South Bend. Trailing 14-13, the Huskies picked off a Riley Leonard pass with 5:55 to go, then chewed up over 5 minutes of the clock, driving to the Irish 18-yd line, and with 36 seconds left kicked a game-winning 35-yd field goal.

And that’s just a few of the examples. We didn’t mention Iowa St.’s comeback win over Iowa in Iowa City when the Cyclones erased a 19-7 second half deficit and kicked the game-winning 54-yd FG with 36 seconds to go. Or Oregon’s game-winning FG over Boise St with 2 seconds left. Or Virginia rallying from a 13-pt deficit with two 4th quarter touchdowns to win 31-30 over Wake Forest. Or California going into Auburn and beating the Tigers 21-14. Etc, etc. In other words, it was a weekend rife with upsets and dramatic comebacks. Perhaps we shouldn’t be quite so harsh with the Sooners. After all, they did win!

Well, in all honesty though, there certainly appears to be more of a problem with Oklahoma’s offense than just the bad vibes of “one of those Saturdays”. But there’s no need to start that same discussion here. There are plenty of other threads on the board discussing those issues. So, for the time being, let’s just be grateful that Oklahoma is sitting at 2-0 and still has all their goals in front of them. It could certainly be a lot worse!

Meanwhile, our Week 2 Pick’em participants didn’t fare much better. There were 8, count ‘em EIGHT underdog winners in this week’s lineup. That’s 40% of the games! And boy, did that show up in our final standings. The best anyone could muster this week was 14 wins, and only two players managed to do that. And as you probably guessed, they were our top two players for the week. Sliding into first place this week was Wishbone, who garnered 155 points with his 14 correct picks. Well done, WB! That was one tough week to negotiate! Congrats on besting the rest of the field! Our Week 2 runner-up was SD-OU, 7 points off the pace, followed by crushcreekmont, walt, and a tie for fifth between bvillesooner2 and Oklahombre. We salute the survivors of this brutal week!

As far as the quest for our regular season championship goes, it’s just a matter of flip flopping our winners of Week 2. SD-OU is our current penthouse occupier, checking in with 307 total points to hold a 5-point lead over Wishbone. The rest of our Top Five has OU_Tom2 in third, with Triple Option and last year’s regular season champion, OU-Native in fourth and fifth respectively. You can see all the year-to-date standings by clicking HERE.

So, let’s turn the page to Week 3 and our next lineup of contests! Deadline for submittals this week will be 11 AM, Saturday, September 14th. You can access this week’s games by clicking on the “EMan’s Pick’em Contest” button at the top of the board, or by clicking HERE. This week our slate includes:

Georgia @ Kentucky
Oklahoma St. @ Tulsa
Arkansas St. Michigan
Tulane @ Oklahoma
Boston College @ Missouri
San Diego St. @ California
Air Force @ Baylor
Vanderbilt @ Georgia St.
Notre Dame @ Purdue
Alabama @ Wisconsin
BYU @ Wyoming
LSU @ South Carolina
Washington St. @ Washington
Colorado @ Colorado St.
West Virginia @ Pittsburgh
Texas A&M @ Florida
Memphis @ Florida St.
Indiana @ UCLA
Maryland @ Virginia
UCF @ TCU

Once again, remember to make sure you get your picks in by 11 AM on Saturday, September 14th. As a reminder, you can always go back before the deadline and change any pick you’ve made. Just use the “Review Pick” button on the Pick’em page to edit your selections. Good luck! And may your crystal ball be clear!

[OU Chinaman]

...CONGRATS WISHBONE! MY MAN! Great job in a treacherous Saturday of upsets.

[EMan]

Don't forget to get your picks in for this week.

[EMan]

Don't forget to get your picks in for this week. If you're not on the list below, you're not in yet...

Aries
Bixby_Sooner
Blue
Bronco
bvillesooner2
Chiefs16
cushcreekmont
Echo
EMan
Fiascosdad
Fly
gcruse7
humblesooner
IMAsooner
mthatch190
OldTimer
OU Chinaman
OU_Tom2
pippen
poh302
Professor
SD-OU
Soonerator
SoonerLynx
SwampSooner
Triple Option
walt
WishBone

[K2C Sooner]

I'm in under Oklahombre.

[EMan]

Just a few more hours left to get your picks in for Week 3. Here's the latest update of those that are in...

Aries
Bixby_Sooner
Blue
Bronco
bvillesooner2
Chiefs16
cushcreekmont
Echo
EMan
Fiascosdad
Fly
gcruse7
humblesooner
IMAsooner
mthatch190
Oklahombre
OldTimer
OU Chinaman
OU_Tom2
OUcharlie
pippen
poh302
Professor
SD-OU
Soonerator
SoonerLynx
soonerTroll2
SwampSooner
Triple Option
walt
WishBone