Beans' Weekly Winners: Week 11

Oklahoma State at Texas Tech (-3.5), 8pm
As we said you're going to see some old favorites this week. We love, love, love the Raiders in this spot. Oklahoma State is way too good to be overlooked by anyone, so this is certainly not a trap game. For those of us who were lucky enough to watch Saturday night's game between Texas and Texas Tech (yes, it was that good) you noticed that it was an extremely emotional game. Those fans in Lubbock were wild and the team definitely fed off of their excitement. This week should be no different. They'll be playing under the lights against a top 10 ranked Big XII South rival for the second straight week and those fans won't let the Red Raiders experience a letdown. For years we've been talking about Tech's offense, but now they have the defense to match it. The D-Line has been phenomenal all year long, especially last week against Texas. The Raiders should be able to slow the Cowboy running attack just enough to put QB Zac Robinson in some third-and-longs, where the Raiders thrive. The Raiders can get pressure on the quarterback without blitzing and have a pair of ballhawking safeties in Darcel McBath and Daniel Charbonnet, who have each picked off five balls this season. That combination will make it really tough, even for a potent offense like Oklahoma State, to make any long conversions. We worry a little about the hook here, so maybe you want to buy a half-point, but we're confident that the Harrell for Heisman campaign will come out of Week 11 with another win for its cause.

Purdue at Michigan State (-10), noon
Lots of factors at work in this play. The Boilermakers are not just a bad road team, they are a terrible road team. They're 0-3 and have yet to be competitive on the road this season. The defense ranks 91st in the nation against the rush, allowing 176 yards per game. That sounds like a recipe for disaster against a run-heavy Spartan offense. Weekly Favorite and Michigan State RB Javon Ringer has recovered from a virus and is expected to be at 100% for Saturday. Ringer hasn't rushed for 200 yards in a Big Ten game yet this year, we think that will change. Michigan State is still alive for a Big Ten championship despite losing to Ohio State a few weeks back. If they can win Saturday and then stage an upset of Penn State next week they would be conference champions thanks to a unique tiebreaker system which The Weekly applauds. In the event of a 3-way tie between Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State, Michigan State would be awarded the conference title because they did not schedule a Division 1-AA opponent this year, while the other two purchased a couple of wins. Hopefully this would wake these schools up and force them to schedule some more challenging opponents. Anyway, this game will help set the table for Michigan State. Javon Ringer will personally account for more points than the entire Purdue team. Spartans win big.

Kansas (+1.5) at Nebraska, 2:30pm
Are we missing something here? Nebraska isn't a good football team. They have lost four of their past six games with the two wins coming over perennial Big XII cellar-dwellers Iowa State and Baylor. Kansas may have gotten lit up by Texas Tech and Oklahoma, but very few teams don't get lit up by Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Kansas QB Todd Reesing is the best quarterback that nobody cares about. Didn't this guy win the Orange Bowl last year? Doesn't this guy have 20 touchdown passes and over 2600 yards this year? Didn't this guy lead Kansas to a 76-39 win against Nebraska last year? Yes, yes and yes. Okay -- but now he's a one and a half point dog at Nebraska? Someone really mis-marked this line. Let's take advantage and hammer it. Kansas is tied for 1st place in the Big XII South and eyeing a showdown in the Border War with archrival Missouri for the division title. If they're going to trip up on their way to a division title it will be next week against Texas, not this week at Nebraska. Remember they hung 76 -- seventy-six -- points on the Huskers last year. The Husker D hasn't looked much better in 2008. Kansas hangs another 40 on the scoreboard and cruises to their 4th Big XII victory.

Cal at Southern California (-22), 8pm
Over/under 20.5 points against the USC defense over their final four regular season games? Sadly for their opponents, that's a legitimate question. The Bears' offense is going to have a long, long day at the office on Saturday. We could draw it out and talk about how USC has pitched three shutouts in its last four games and throw crazy stats out there like their opponents have averaged 7 points per game this year but it's really much simpler than that. A shaky offensive line + Nate Longshore as your quarterback + a pissed off USC defense = no points for Cal. The USC offense will grind out plenty of points. Until someone proves they can move the ball against these guys, we'll keep taking them. Look for something like Trojans 35 - Bears 3.

Good Luck. Many Hundos.