Beans' Weekly Winners: Week 3

Penn State (-27.5) at Syracuse, 3:30pm
It's nice to see Penn State and Syracuse renewing an old rivalry. The two schools met every season from 1922 to 1990, but the series ended when Penn State joined the Big Ten. At that time Syracuse was a perennial bowl-bound program. To put it nicely, things have changed. In losing their first two games to powerhouses Northwestern and Akron, the Orange have yielded 72 points. Numbers like that against teams like those does not bode well for the Orange. Amidst all sorts of controversy, this Nittany Lion team is currently firing on all cylinders, coming off a 45-14 drubbing of Pac-10 fairy Oregon State. College sports are strange -- sometimes teams in the middle of crazy circumstances, like having multiple players dismissed from the team, can re-focus and energize an entire team. JoePa has managed to turn this negative into a positive for the players who remain on the team. Taking games with such a big number can be a crap shoot, but the perfect storm of Penn State playing well and Syracuse being so bad is too good to pass up.

Wisconsin at Fresno State (+2), 10:30pm
After beating up on two cupcakes at home, Wisconsin is taking it to the road where they'll meet a very good Fresno State team and a frenzied Fresno State crowd ready to welcome their Bulldogs for the first time. The Badgers bring a very inexperienced quarterback to the west coast with them in first year starter Allan Evridge. Evridge was not tested in either of the first two games as RB PJ Hill put the Badgers on his back. Fresno State is going to pack eight and nine men in the box and force Evridge to put the ball in the air. Despite only sacking Rutgers QB Mike Teel once in the opener, Fresno State put enough pressure on Teel to force him into making mistakes. Look for the Bulldog defense, along with a wild crowd, to force Evridge to make some bad decisions and turn the ball over. The Fresno State offense is too talented to let those opportunities slip away. Wisconsin had issues on the road last season, going just 2-3, and the Bulldogs see this as a statement game. Look for Fresno to begin to state their BCS case with a double-digit win.

Iowa State (+13.5) at Iowa, 12:05pm
Yes, it's back. The annual Cy-Hawk Trophy game has been a pillar of success for The Weekly. The Cyclones are the underdog for the third straight year, and for the third straight year The Weekly is all over them. After losing 15 straight contests from 1983 to 1997, the Cyclones have bounced back to win 7 of the past 10 meetings. Iowa State has covered against Iowa in each of the past four seasons and has won the game outright as a double digit underdog twice. This is a heated rivalry between two programs which have been disappointments in recent years. A Weekly rule of thumb is to take points in rivalry games, this is one of those games. Cyclones cover for the fifth straight year.

Ohio State at Southern Cal (-11.5), 8pm
These are the two most talented rosters in college football, coached by two of the best coaches in college football but there are too many question marks for the Buckeyes as they head to the west coast. RB Beanie Wells is doubtful, now he's ok, now he's doubtful again. Is this Jim Tressel or Bill Belichick? We have no idea what to expect the Buckeyes to get out of Wells and anything less than 100% won't be enough to lift the Buckeyes. Ohio State QB Todd Boeckman has not fared well against ranked opponents in his career, seven TD passes and seven INTs in just four games. The super-fast USC defense will cause Boeckman problems like he's never seen before. Even worse for Ohio State is that the offensive line has underperformed in its first two games and can ill afford to have that happen again or else you're going to see LBs Rey Maualuga and [you know we had to do it... ex-Bergen Catholic star] Brian Cushing in the backfield all night long. For those of you thinking you're going to see a lot of Diaper Dandy Terrelle Pryor, think again. Tressel has been very, very cautious in his use of Prior in the early goings, claiming he isn't ready. If he wasn't ready for the Ohio game, we can't see him getting significant time in the Southern Cal game. At best you're going to see him used the way Urban Meyer used Tim Tebow during The Stud Muffin's freshman year. USC has won its last seven meetings versus Big Ten opponents by an average of 28 points. We don't expect a huge Trojan blowout, but we do see them winning handily.

Good luck. Many Hundos.