Week 9 BTBS Picks!

I can feel it...POSITIVITY WEEK will rub off on the BTBS picks as well...

Last Week: Well, the good news is, I didn't do as badly as I thought I did.  An addition error and a transcription error led me to going 24-30-2 instead of the 22-32-2 that I thought.  Woohoo.  So much better.  For next year, I'll need to find the best way to transition from preseason projections (which were damn near dead on for a lot of teams) to the actual season's data when the actual season's data is a bit crazy at first.  I've got some ideas--not weighting strength of schedule as heavily for the first 2/3 of the season, things like that--but we'll see.  For the season we're still doing pretty well...but the last two weeks (49-58-3) have been brutal.

Anyway, we're turning the page on those craptastic weeks.  At a glance, I'm feeling a lot better about this week's picks, so uhh...hopefully that translates to success.  As always...Big 12 picks here...everything after the jump.

Mizzou is still projected to win out this year, but obviously the margins are shrinking.  The trip to Boulder projects as the toughest of the next four games (the numbers still hate K-State), which isn't great since we have no idea what's up with Mizzou's confidence or Blaine Gabbert's ankle.  Beyond that and the Texas-OSU tilt, though, no games are projected very close at all.  We'll see.  Making projections for ATM games right now is a fool's game, but "ATM by 16.5" looks as good as anything else...unless ISU forces another 8 turnovers, anyway.

All games after the jump.

• Can't find a line yet on Nevada-Hawaii...will add that to the table when one comes about.
• Vegas and the projections are much more in line this week, which a) makes me feel more comfortable with my projections overall, and b) makes for some tough picks.  Lots of games' projections are within a point or so of the spread, meaning a field goal here or a missed PAT there could make the difference...and that makes for iffy betting, no?
• Not too many baffling picks, though projecting Virginia to beat anybody by 29.9 requires a bit of a leap in logic.  Meanwhile, Cincy is projected close to Syracuse because of some of the adjustments I'm making in the way I calculate home-field advantage.  Syracuse tends to play much better at home than on the road (everybody does, but 'Cuse is extreme about it), so they get an extra boost.  But with a rather unsettled QB situation at Cincy and the fact that the Orange have been at least a bit salty at times this year, I guess it's not out of the realm of possibility that the game could be close.
• Not a lot of big games on this week's schedule, though UT-OSU could be pretty epic.  In all, it looks like Cincy and Texas are the most likely of the undefeated teams to lose this week...and they're still not tremendously likely.
• As always, my quick math could be wrong, but it looks like we've got eight "LOCKS" this week...though since "LOCKS" are actually doing worse than my overall picks, I should probably come up with a better name for them.  Maybe "BIGGEST DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPREAD AND PROJECTION, BUT DON'T TAKE THIS AS A LOCK BECAUSE APPARENTLY THIS DOESN'T MEAN A LOT" picks, or BDBSAPBDTTAALBATDMAL for short.