Please patronize our advertisers to help
keep theOzone.net free for everyone.

Interesting, Fun companies with interesting, quality products - and the-Ozone gets a piece of the action!

Football
Worldwide Leaderboard
By Tony Gerdeman

We finally had a bit of a rough week last week, though only one picker (Chris Martin) failed to hit the .500 mark—or the “Herbdoza Line” as I would like to start calling it now.

For what seems like the 80th week in a row, the ESPN Gameday game (Arizona State at Oregon) was also the game that nobody got wrong. Once again, the “biggest matchups” were also the easiest games to pick. This should almost be the last week of that, however, as more interesting games will start coming. This will then force the cream to rise to the top, which means that I will continue my downward spiral towards markmaydom.

Kirk Herbstreit is still bringing up the rear, but he's closing the gap and with one good week could pass Lee Corso, Stewart Mandel and Matt Hayes all in one fell swoop.

I've said before that the Big Ten Network guys have the easiest road because they only pick the biggest games, and those have been the easiest to pick, which is why I almost find myself rooting for Dennis Dodd to overtake Gerry DiNardo for good. Almost.

Easiest Pick

This was a toss up between Arizona State at Oregon and Oklahoma State at Texas. Even the guys who like to pick upsets because they think it makes them look smart stayed away. That's when you KNOW the picks have no possible chance of being wrong.

Toughest Pick

Michigan at Michigan State. Fourteen pickers picked this game, and the picks were split evenly seven for the Wolverines and seven for the Spartans. David Pollack was the only ESPNer to get this pick right, and Chris Martin was the only BTNer to get it wrong.

Best Pick

This goes to Stewart Mandel for picking a 3-2 Virginia team over a 6-0 and 12th-ranked Georgia Tech team. Mandel went with the old adage of taking the team with the bye week against Paul Johnson's flexbone offense. It worked yet again. An honorary mention goes to me and Kirk Herbstreit for taking the Buckeyes against Ron Zook. We knew the Zookening was coming. We tried to warn you with our sandwich board signs and cowbells, signaling that the end was near, but you wouldn't listen!

Worst Pick

That goes to the three of us (me, David Pollack and Mark May) who took Florida over Auburn. We were stupid, I admit it. I especially admit to the part where Mark May was stupid. Charlie Weis fooled us with his shiny spittle-covered Super Bowl rings.

Best Week

Dennis Dodd went 8-2 and had the best week. He's really having a tremendous picking season. His picks against the spread this season would have made him a large fortune if he was so inclined.

Worst Week

Chris Martin went 2-3 to win the worst week of the week award. He chose offense at every turn, and the Spartans, Aggies and Buckeyes showed him that defense cannot be ignored. But what else would you expect from a former Northwestern cornerback?

Quotable

“Charlie Weis is going to turn this offense around.” – Mark May. Yeah, he turned the offense around and then parked it back in the garage and ran a hose from the exhaust pipe to the driver's side window and everybody went night night. Florida “amassed” 194 yards and scored six points in their loss to Auburn last week.

“I'm going with Little Brother. I think Michigan State is physical enough to stop Denard Robinson. If you can make him be a quarterback and not an athlete, you can win the ballgame.” – David Pollack. Robinson threw for 123 yards on 9-24 passing and only rushed for 42 yards in the Wolverines' 28-14 bullystomp from the Spartans.

“I think that this time Little Brother has to give Big Brother the ball back. The Wolverines will go into East Lansing and come away with the victory.” – Desmond Howard. Yeah...not so much.

“I believe the Buckeyes are really gonna come out there and play a high-spirited contest, but just too much firepower for Illinois. They're gonna win this game. I think it'll be very close.” – Desmond Howard. I honestly didn't know if he was picking Ohio State or Illinois here. Only later in the show did he finally clarify for me that he was picking the Illini.

“[This will be] the first time in four years that Michigan matches the intensity of Michigan State. I think they find a way to win it in the fourth.” – Kirk Herbstreit. Yeah, Michigan matched the intensity of Michigan State. Just like Taylor Lewan's face matched the intensity of Will Gholston's fist.

“I think not only do they play inspired, I think Braxton Miller's creativity is big in this game. I think Ohio State goes on the road and beats Illinois.” – Kirk Herbstreit. Nobody is more creative with 20 consecutive handoffs than Braxton Miller, boy!

“Remember that simple windbreaker that has been holding back the Zookening? It's shown as much flexibility as the Incredible Hulk's purple pants. Could this finally be the week that the windbreaker gives way and the inner Zook comes bursting out at the seams?” – Tony Gerdeman. Could I have been anymore spot on?

Notable

ESPN went 33-18 last week (65%), which is a very far cry from their 38-7 the week before. For the year, ESPN is 210-104, which is a .669 winning percentage.

CBS is 92-32 (74%) on the year and the BTN is 85-26 (77%).

I think I would be undefeated if I would just stop picking against Kansas State. I finally picked them to win this week—against Kansas—but if they lose, then me and Bill Snyder are going to have some serious words.

ASU  at Oregon

S. Car at Miss. St.

Michigan at MSU

Rutgers at Navy

Baylor at TAMU

Miami at UNC

Okla St at Texas

Ohio St at Illinois

Florida at Auburn

KSU at TT

UGA at Vandy

GT at UVA

Clem at Maryland

FSU at Duke

David Pollack

Oregon

MSU

TAMU

Okla St.

Florida

Lou Holtz

Oregon

Mich

TAMU

Okla St.

Auburn

TT

Mark May

Oregon

Mich

Baylor

Okla St.

Florida

KSU

Desmond Howard

Oregon

S. Car

Mich

Rutgers

Baylor

UNC

Okla St.

Illinois

Auburn

KSU

Clemson

Lee Corso

Oregon

Miss. St.

Mich

Rutgers

TAMU

UNC

Okla St.

Illinois

Auburn

KSU

FSU

Kirk Herbstreit

S. Car

Mich

Rutgers

Baylor

UNC

Okla St.

OSU

Auburn

KSU

UGA

GT

FSU

Bruce Feldman

Oregon

S. Car

Mich

TAMU

Okla St.

Illinois

Auburn

TT

GT

Clemson

Dennis Dodd

Oregon

S. Car

MSU

TAMU

Okla St.

Illinois

Auburn

KSU

GT

Clemson

Stewart Mandel

Oregon

MSU

Baylor

Okla St.

Illinois

Auburn

KSU

UVA

Matt Hayes

Oregon

Miss. St.

MSU

UNC

Okla St.

Illinois

Auburn

Tony Gerdeman

Oregon

MSU

TAMU

Okla St.

OSU

Florida

TT

GT

Clemson

Gerry DiNardo

Oregon

MSU

TAMU

Okla St.

Illinois

Teddy Greenstein

Oregon

MSU

TAMU

Okla St.

Illinois

Chris Martin

Oregon

Mich

Baylor

Okla St.

Illinois

 

	Record for the Week	Record for the Year
Gerry DiNardo (BTN)	4-1	34-9 (79%)
Dennis Dodd (CBS)	8-2	48-13 (79%)
David Pollack (ESPN)	4-1	35-10 (78%)
Lou Holtz (ESPN)	4-2	31-9 (78%)
Chris Martin (BTN)	2-3	26-8 (76%)
Tony Gerdeman	6-3	52-17 (75%)
Teddy Greenstein (BTN)	4-1	25-9 (74%)
Desmond Howard (ESPN)	7-4	40-16 (71%)
Bruce Feldman (CBS)	6-4	44-19 (70%)
Matt Hayes (TSN)	4-3	37-20 (65%)
Lee Corso (ESPN)	7-4	42-26 (62%)
Stewart Mandel (SI)	6-2	37-23 (62%)
Mark May (ESPN)	3-3	24-15 (62%)
Kirk Herbstreit (ESPN)	8-4	38-28 (58%)

Donate by Check :

Ozone Communications
1380 King Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43212

Help us bring you more Buckeye coverage. Donate to the-Ozone.

Click here to email this the-Ozone feature to a friend...or even a foe.

(c) 2010 The O-Zone, O-Zone Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, rebroadcast,rewritten, or redistributed.