The Telepathic Tabernacle - Week 12

The Telepathic Tabernacle once again had a split personality last week - only in reverse this time - as the TeleTab brought in a respectable ["Respect the Tab's Authoritah!"] 4-2 week in the Against The Spread [ATS] Division where Dr. Jekyll moved after making the bed nicely with mints on the pillows, cut corners and everything in the Straight Up [SU] Division for the last two weeks. But that meant that Mr. Hyde - who had previously been shacking up in the ATS guest room, was now making it Occupy SU - and the SU came in with a dreadful 3-3 mark last week, reflecting its tenant change. The first game of the week should have been a tip-off as Colorado won their first Pac-12 football game ever and, since it was an upset, easily covered the spread to give the Tab an expected win in the ATS but a surprise loss in the SU. USC torched the Hussies as expected and that brought a triple winner - ATS, SU and Gem of the Week goodies - while Utah continued the parade of winners in the next game over UCLA. When California made it three in a row in both divisions with their win over Oregon State, the Tab was looking like it was going to be a good week in both divisions. But Stanford could not handle Oregon's defense and Arizona State could not handle Connor Halliday and that took down both games in both divisions. The Tab still holds a slightly above average 71% success rate in the SU at 55-22 for the year - not horribly pathetic but not agreeable to the internal organs either. The news is better in the ATS where a 46-31 mark translates into a 60% success rate and that is smack-dab on the gold standard that the Tab shoots for at the end of the year. If the Tab can hold on to that success rate for two more weeks, it will officially be a successful 2011 season for the Tab! Meanwhile, as mentioned above, the boys of Troy's crushing victory over the Hussies collected another Gem of the Week for the Tab and kept the Tab above the equator at 6-5 on the year.

Week 12 has another full plate of conference games but unlike last week when there were several candidates to choose from for the eventual Gem of the Week candidate, this week, there is only one that stands out above the fray. Oregon/USC is not good enough for Gem status and rivalry games such as those between the Arizona and Bay Area schools this week, are always advisable to stay far, far, far away from if it can be accomplished. That leaves Washington/Oregon State, Colorado/UCLA and Utah/Wazzu as the viable candidates and while the 4/20's are getting two touchdowns, played better last week and it is against the Bru-jobs - it is also a road game, and the 4/20's have not played well in one of those since forever. The Ootes appear to be the stronger team in the Oote/Wazzu matchup but is Halliday going to have two consecutive off-the-charts performances? The Tab's magic eight ball says "all signs point to no" but the Tab does not want to completely diss the eight ball's magical powers, so the prudent thing to do here is to stay away from this game as well. That leaves the Hussies and Riley's Rodents. Groan. The Tab does not like taking either of these teams - especially since it is Jekyll Week for the Rodents - but the cyclical nature of college football says that the Hussies will rebound from last week's predicted demolition after they wound themselves up too tight for the Nikes the week prior and override the Jekyll-ness of Riley's Rodents as the Trees did a few weeks ago. Besides, they only have to cover a point and a half - the Tab's wombat mascot could do that! So, the Tab selects the Hussies to win and cover as this week's Gem of the Week. The rest of this week's cocky sons of beehive hairdos….

STRAIGHT UP

Washington over Oregon State

Utah over Wazzu

UCLA over Colorado

Oregon over USC

Arizona State over Arizona

Stanford over California

Last Week: 3-3

Overall: 55-22

AGAINST THE SPREAD

UW [-1.5] over OSU

Utah [-3] over Wazzu

Colorado [+14] over UCLA

USC [+16.5] over Oregon

Arizona [+14.5] over ASU

Cal [+20.5] over Stanford

Last Week: 4-2

Overall: 46-31

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