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Football
Worldwide Leaderboard
By Tony Gerdeman

It was not a good week to pick college football games. Of the fourteen pickers that we are tracking, only six were over .500 for the week. We probably should've known something was up when Syracuse got the weekend started by destroying West Virginia—a pick that nobody got right, by the way.

ESPN didn't let us choose from a lot of games, so the losses carried a bit more weight this week. Look no further than Gerry DiNardo for proof of that. He was in first place after week seven, went 1-5 in week eight and has now dropped down to sixth place.

Mark May has now moved from 13th place to 11th. Next up in his sights is Matt Hayes. Godspeed, Matt. Godspeed.

An alert also needs to be placed with Stewart Mandel, who is in serious danger of being overtaken by Kirk Herbstreit. Herbstreit has been in the basement since it was first dug, and nobody wants to be the picker who lets him out. You would hope that the fact that Mandel  just got passed by Mark May would be incentive to start taking things more seriously around here.

Easiest Pick

Probably for the first time in the history of the university, Clemson was the easiest winner to pick last week. Eight pickers chose the game and all eight picked it correctly. We don't mind playing with fire. Danger is our middle name.

Toughest Pick

Of the eleven analysts who picked the Georgia Tech at Miami game (which Miami won), six chose Miami and five chose Georgia Tech. I probably would've gone with Georgia Tech, so I was wise for abstaining from this game.

Best Pick

This goes to Chris Martin, who was the only picker to take Michigan State over Wisconsin. Twelve pickers got it wrong, and one got it right. Martin is known for taking upsets because the one time he hits on it, he looks smart for doing it. Though, to be fair, I don't believe this is the first time he's had the best pick of the week, but my opinion of his strategy still stands. Honorable mention goes to Mark May and Desmond Howard, who were the only two pickers smart enough to not trust Notre Dame against USC. Stupid Irish.

Worst Pick

Gerry DiNardo felt the wrath of what happens when the Chris Martin picking strategy goes wrong. He was the only analyst to choose Washington over Stanford. The Cardinal ran for 446 yards and beat Washington 65-21, by the way.

Best Week

Matt Hayes had the best week, going an above average 6-2. I'd have to check the archives, but that might be the worst best week of the year. Hayes' only misses were misses for just about everybody else as well—Wisconsin over Michigan State and Notre Dame over USC.

Worst Week

As mentioned, Gerry DiNardo went 1-5 and easily had the worst week. The only game he got right was Penn State over Northwestern, and he had to pick against his nephew Jack (a defensive lineman for the Wildcats) to do it.

Quotable

“There's no gimmicks about USC. They don't have to bring out the lights for the first time in 21 years. Or the shiny helmets. Or grow the grass three feet to slow down USC. They just show up and play because they've beaten Notre Dame eight of the last nine times.” – Mark May. Was there ever any doubt that May would take USC, and Holtz would take Notre Dame? No, there was not.

“Cousins. This will be his best game of the year.” – Mateen Cleaves. Cleaves, a former overrated point guard for Michigan State, was the guest picker on Gameday and obviously went with the Spartans. He was right. Cousins went 22-31 for 290 yards and three touchdowns.

“I'm going with The U. I think their attitude gets it done.” – Kirk Herbstreit. I was surprised by this analysis, I thought for sure he would go with Miami's “swagger” or the “look in their eyes”.

Notable

ESPN went 21-20 (51%) on the week, but it can almost be forgiven on account of the overall difficulties of the week. Almost. After all, you're the Worldwide Leader, remember?

The fellas from CBS went 9-5 (64%) last week. The BTN conglomerate went 6-10 (38%).

If you are unaware, there is an early edition of ESPN Gameday on at 9 a.m. on ESPNU that features Desmond Howard and David Pollack. Combined this year they are 81-30 (73%) with their picks. By contrast, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso are a combined 89-64 (58%).

	Wisc at MSU	UNC at Clemson	Okla St at Mizzou	GT at Miami	Auburn at LSU	PSU at NU	Utah at Cal	USC at ND	Oreg St at Wazzu	Wash at Stanford	WVU at Syracuse
David Pollack	Wisc	Clem				PSU		ND
Lou Holtz	Wisc		Mizzou	GT		PSU		ND		Stan
Mark May	Wisc		OSU			PSU		USC		Stan	WVU
Desmond Howard	Wisc	Clem		Miami		NU		USC		Stan
Lee Corso	Wisc	Clem	OSU	GT	LSU	NU	Cal	ND	WSU	Stan
Kirk Herbstreit		Clem	Mizzou	Miami	LSU	NU	Utah	ND	WSU	Stan
Bruce Feldman	Wisc	Clem	OSU	Miami	LSU					Stan	WVU
Dennis Dodd	Wisc	Clem	OSU	GT	LSU					Stan	WVU
Stewart Mandel	Wisc		OSU	GT	LSU	NU		ND		Stan	WVU
Matt Hayes	Wisc	Clem	OSU	Miami	LSU	PSU		ND		Stan
Tony Gerdeman	Wisc	Clem	OSU		LSU	NU		ND		Stan	WVU
Gerry DiNardo	Wisc			GT		PSU		ND		Wash	WVU
Teddy Greenstein	Wisc			Miami				ND		Stan	WVU
Chris Martin	MSU			Miami				ND		Stan	WVU

Cumulative Results

	Record for the Week	Record for the Year
Dennis Dodd (CBS)	4-3	52-16 (76%)
David Pollack (ESPN)	2-2	37-12 (76%)
Chris Martin (BTN)	3-2	29-10 (74%)
Tony Gerdeman	4-4	56-21 (73%)
Lou Holtz (ESPN)	2-4	33-13 (72%)
Gerry DiNardo (BTN)	1-5	35-14 (71%)
Desmond Howard (ESPN)	4-2	44-18 (71%)
Bruce Feldman (CBS)	5-2	49-21 (70%)
Teddy Greenstein (BTN)	2-3	27-12 (69%)
Matt Hayes (TSN)	6-2	43-22 (66%)
Mark May (ESPN)	4-2	28-17 (62%)
Lee Corso (ESPN)	5-5	47-31 (60%)
Stewart Mandel (SI)	3-5	40-28 (59%)
Kirk Herbstreit (ESPN)	4-5	42-33 (56%)

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