How The West Was Won: Stacking Up The Pac-12 Expats In Week 12

Welcome back to the nation’s finest Substack newsletter dedicated solely to amateur football exploits located west of Denver International Airport (according to a poll of friends, family and paid emissaries).

While I am back in the saddle in the Valley of the Sun after a much-appreciated sojourn to the ocean, my brain is still wandering the expanse of nothingness between L.A. and Phoenix, as it tries to remember basic tasks like “how to water plants” and “cooking food so I don’t starve.”

Luckily for all of us, my fingertips and synopses still fire correctly, so I’m able to gather enough intellectual muster to put together this week’s picks newsletter in the midst of the everpresent chaos that surrounds us.

Enough about me, though, you’re here for one thing and one thing only; that being the discussion of some mediocre football on the gridirons of America’s western flank, so let’s not waste time on pleasantries and get down to business.

Last Week: 8-5 Straight-up/5-7 ATS

Season: 67-29 Straight-up/50-43 ATS

Spread: CSU -10.5

Our Pick: CSU wins, 24-10

For the first time in seven years, my dearly beloved Colorado State Rams will compete in a bowl game, thanks to rattling off four straight wins over the little sisters of the poor known as San José State, Air Force, New Mexico and Nevada.

Last week, CSU managed to smother the Wolf Pack in what might be the nation’s worst “Air Raid” offense, throwing for all of 157 yards while being outgained by 114 yards (441-to-327, to be exact) by one of the nation’s most anemic offenses.

Did that kill CSU, though, you ask? Hell no. The Rams bashed their heads into the brick wall that is Nevada’s defense over and over again until the Wolf Pack relented, forcing two UNR turnovers and winning comfortably in spite of their offensive mediocrity.

This week, the Rams come home to host The Border War against the Mountain West’s ass-ugly little brother, as Wyoming staggers into Fort Collins with a 2-7 record and losses to Utah State, San José State and San Diego State in their last five games.

Still, the Rams are only good at snatching inexplicable defeat from the mouths of assured victories like this one, so I fully expect them to puke their way through 60 minutes of the worst football anyone’s ever seen on Friday night.

Spread: Washington -3.5

Our Pick: UCLA wins, 24-20

The Jedd Ari Fisch Bowl takes place in Seattle on Friday night, as the current Washington head coach takes on the only program with the courage to make him an interim head coach for all of two games.

The Bruins have suddenly looked like a competent football team of late, banishing Rutgers, Nebraska and Iowa to hell (or the Midwest, which are two in the same actually) to move to 4-5 for the year.

That development is great news for the two-dozen or so Bruins fans that care enough to fight standstill traffic on The 10 (or The 134) to watch UCLA play glorified road games at the Rose Bowl each weekend, but is terrible news for fans of the world’s greatest meme like yours truly.

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Come Friday, I’m a changed man. I’m going with the Bruins to fly in the face of adversity and get back to .500 for the year, adding Fisch to the list of hell-banished head coaches that includes luminaries like … Greg Schiano, Matt Rhule and Kirk Ferentz.

Spread: Arizona -1

Our Pick: Houston wins, 28-24

Discussing the woebegone 2024 Arizona Wildcats’ football team has gotten too depressing to warrant my time and effort, so I’ll keep this blurb short and sweet.

The Wildcats will lose to the equally hapless Cougars in mind-numbing fashion come Friday night. Get the bourbon ready, Arizona fans, you’re going to need it.

Spread: Colorado -11.5

Our Pick: Colorado wins, 38-20

Welcome to the Bold New World of conference realignment, CU & Utah football fans. Both the Buffaloes and Utes get to experience the tingling sensation that’s sweeping the nation’s flyover states — that being FOX’s “Big Noon Kickoff,” which is spurring a surge in hatred towards the three-letter network and early morning binge drinking.

This week, the red-hot Buffs’ of CU get to host a rudder-less Utah team that has looked more like Utah State than the Utes teams we’ve come to know of late.

With Zach Wilson’s little brother slinging the dumbest passes seen since the toe-headed wonder’s brief stint in New Jersey, it’s no wonder that the Utes are staring down a five-game losing streak.

Come Saturday, I see CU adding a fourth straight win and moving within a half-game of Zach’s alma mater (BYU) in the Big 12 standings, with Wilson’s bone-headed little brother doing god’s work for the nation’s leading ‘Tech Bro’ factory in Boulder.

Spread: Cal -9.5

Our Pick: Cal wins, 28-24

After losing four games by a whopping nine points (in total), the Bears are looking more and more Golden by the week, shellacking poor Oregon State, 44-7, before outlasting Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, 46-36.

Those two wins catapulted Cal to 5-4 for the year, leaving Justin Wilcox’s band of football misfits a single victory away from the program’s first taste of bowl season since last year’s instant classic in the Shreveport standard known as The Independence Bowl.

For those that blacked such football mundanities from their collective cortexes, the 2023 Bears lost to Texas Tech in North Louisiana, 34-14, capping off a 6-7 season that few outside of Strawberry Canyon will remember.

This weekend, we see Wilcox and the Bears matching their win total from a year ago, with Cal exacting a bit of comeuppance over their newfound ACC brethren from Syracuse on Saturday afternoon.

Spread: Hawaii -2.5

Our Pick: Hawaii wins, 28-10

As an unabashed bandwagon supporter of the “Fighting ‘Bows” since my high school years of staying up until god knows when to watch Colt Brennan sling 50+ passes a game on Fox College Sports, I’m loving the Rainbow Warriors’ 2024 surge.

Year Three of the Tommy Chang era in Honolulu has seen Hawaii surge from 3-10 in 2022 to 5-8 a year ago, with this year’s team sitting at 4-6 after beating Nevada (34-13) and Fresno State (21-20).

Sure, Hawaii fell to earth a bit last weekend when they ran into the reality that is the UNLV Rebels in Sin City, with UNLV leaving Las Vegas with a 29-27 victory over our beloved ‘Bows.

This weekend, a 22-man salve known as the Utah State Aggies waddles into the Rainbow State, though, which is where Chang and company can get back on track.

Given the fact that UH needs to beat Utah State and New Mexico on Nov. 30 to finish 6-6, I’m expecting the ‘Bows to come out firing, with the Aggies being on the receiving end of a 50th State ass-kicking come Saturday afternoon.

Spread: Louisville -20.5

Our Pick: Louisville wins, 28-3

Few elements of today’s football landscape make me sadder than watching America’s only good mascot (the Stanford Tree) having to dance his ass off in front of dozens of apathetic nerds in Palo Alto.

That’s exactly what the nation’s most personable tree is doing, however, as Stanford has fallen in the forest of the Atlantic Coast Conference, with no one around to hear a sound.

That long-running humiliation continues apace this weekend, with No. 19 Louisville rolling in and chopping away at the hallowed husk that is Stanford’s tree-centric football apparatus.

Spread: Oregon State -3.5

Our Pick: Oregon State wins, 17-14

Speaking of teams that have be torn asunder of late, we have two shining examples squaring off against one another on Saturday, as the plucky Oregon State Beavers and washed Air Force Falcons tangle in Colorado Springs.

For Oregon State, a promising start to the season has soured like milk left out in the Colorado sun, with four straight losses to the dueling Nevadas (UNR & UNLV), with a 37-point loss to the Golden Bears and an 11-point defeat at the hands of San José State adding to the team’s ongoing nightmare.

For Air Force, years of gaming the rules to exact revenge on fellow service academies Army & Navy has ended, with the Falcons having their wings clipped this fall.

The Falcons are at risk of posting their worst win percentage in a 12-game season since going 2-10 in 2013, sitting at 2-7 for the year after going 29-10 between 2021 and 2023.

TL;DR: I *think* Oregon State snaps their nightmare of a losing streak, but only because Air Force could lose to a high school team right now.

Spread: USC -9

Our Pick: USC wins, 34-31

In a heavyweight battle of perennial underachievers, we have USC heading to the Corn Belt to play Nebraska.

Both teams took whatever goodwill they had after strong starts and set it ablaze, with Lincoln Riley losing five of his last seven games, including losses to such luminaries as Maryland (lol), Michigan (lmao) and Washington (things of that nature).

This weekend, the only thing that can save the balding wonder from Texas’ down under is the Curse of Frank Solich, which continues to haunt Nebraska’s dreams each fall.

Come Saturday, I don’t think USC will cover the gaudy nine-point spread that Vegas placed on them, but I do see them beating Nebraska in what might be the most lol-worthy game of the year in college football.

Spread: Boise State -13.5

Our Pick: Boise State wins, 27-20

America should be forced to watch the nation’s leading source of backfield energy play football, simply so Heisman voters will do the right thing and pick Ashton Jeanty as the award winner in 2024.

Jeanty has flown in the face of the ongoing adversity that is the eight-man box this year, galloping his way over, around and through defensive linemen, linebackers, safeties and cornerbacks galore, while making Boise State’s middle school-sized QB (Maddux Madsen) look like a competent gunslinger.

Come Saturday, Jeanty runs into one of the finest gridiron minds in America, though, with Ken Niumatalolo and his football sorcery on full display in the South Bay Area on CBS Sports Network.

I’m going with the Broncos to win and move to 9-1, but there’s no way in hell that I’m going to say that Niumatalolo and the Spartans won’t at least cover the spread against Boise State at home come Saturday afternoon.

Spread: Kansas State -8.5

Our Pick: Kansas State wins, 27-17

I really wanted to pick Kansas State to wipe the turf with Kenny Dillingham’s smug face, but I can’t deny that the spunky aging Millennial has turned ASU’s fortunes around this season.

Dillingham and the Devils are 7-2 this year with consecutive wins over Oklahoma State and UCF, but face a gauntlet in going to Bill Snyder Stadium to play Kansas State on Saturday evening.

I think ASU’s defense keeps this one tight for much of the game before the Wildcats wear the Devils down, moving K-State a win closer to BYU and CU in the Big 12 standings with winnable games against Cincinnati and Iowa State on the docket for Chris Klieman’s bunch.

Spread: Oregon -14

Our Pick: Oregon wins, 32-21

We all know that guy who goes out of his way to ensure that a slight margin of victory in whatever contest you’re competing in turns into a one-sided romp.

That’s Oregon head coach Dan Lanning, who knows every byrule in the football rulebook verbatim and is happy to use those obscurities to beat you over the head with a shovel.

While such rule following is annoying for outsiders, you’ve got to respect the level of cold-hearted hating it takes to execute it as well as Lanning has in Eugene.

Come this weekend, we’ll see how well that mastery of hating travels, as Oregon heads to the House of Bounce known as Camp Randall Stadium to play a reeling Wisconsin team.

While the Luke Fickell era has been far from pretty in Madison so far, there’s no denying that Wisconsin is a tough place to play at, which means Lanning and company will probably hang 50 on the Badgers just for the memes.

Spread: Washington State -12.5

Our Pick: Washington State wins, 38-24

There’s no way in hell that I’m going against Jake Dickert and the Washington State Cougars from here on out.

Between our nation’s leading beefy big boy QB (John Mateer) and Dickert’s smash-and-dash playcalling, Wazzu is ranked 18th nationally and fully in play for an at-large CFP bid, which would be especially sweet in the wake of the yearlong back-stabbing known as the fall of the Pac-12 Conference.

While I respect the turnaround job that Bronco Mendenhall has already done in Albuquerque in his first year in the Duke City, I’m going with the Cougars to Coug It up a notch in the shadows of Nob Hill come Saturday night, with Washington State moving to 9-1 for the year with a win over the rising Lobos from New Mexico.

Spread: UNLV -20.5

Our Pick: UNLV wins, 31-9

Saturday’s CBS Sports Network finale is a bit of clanger this week, as 7-2 UNLV gets to host a 3-6 San Diego State team that appears miles from their former selves under Sean Lewis’ watch.

The Rebels stabilized things a bit last weekend, pulling off a 29-27 win in Sin City over Hawaii to move to 7-2 for the year after blowing a golden upset chance against No. 17 Boise State the week before.

With two losses by a combined total of eight points to their detriment and having survived the nation’s strangest QB controversy in the whole Matthew Sluka ordeal, UNLV appears set to run where last year’s 9-5 team walked, with a win over the 3-6 Aztecs at home being the next step in that program-wide evolution under head coach Barry Odom at the off-Strip commuter school known as the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.