The Wiesguy is a newcomer to the handicapping scene. Hailing from Toronto, Canada he is always sweet on the underdogs and you can often find his thoughts, musings and picks at moneydogs.blogspot.com.
New York was showing some signs of life before getting hammered by the Angels in the closing game of their 4 game set on Thursday. Prior to that they had won 4 in a row and 5 of 6 and things are slowly getting to a normal stage with 3B Alex Rodriguez in the lineup – if there is a normal.
A month ago it didn’t look like this series would be all that meaningful…but with Kansas City’s recent strong play they are actually in the conversation as it relates to the American League Central and certainly the Wild Card race.
The SEC is loaded with very good teams. Though there are some favourites in each division in Alabama and Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Texas A&M and LSU should all be good this season and one upset could easily shake things up from the expected path.
The MAC always gets overshadowed by the Big Ten and rightfully so.
I am in complete agreement with those who say the PAC 12 does not get enough respect nationally. Most polls have two teams – Oregon and Stanford – in their top 5 and I see no reason why USC could not finish the season in the top 10 as well, especially now that scheduling means they don’t have to all beat up on each other.
Conference USA is going to be the hardest one to completely get used to this football season. They lost a whack of their “brand name” schools to the American Athletic Conference to the point that nearly half the conference are new programs, with additions from the Sun Belt and the Western Athletic Conferences.
The Mountain West Conference was on the verge of becoming irrelevant but saved itself by welcoming back Boise State and San Diego State and opening their arms for the next round of WAC defectors like Utah State and San Jose State.
The Big 12 should offer an exciting conference race this year, the kind that just when you think you know who the winner will be they lose and you have to think about somebody else. There is talent in the league for sure but only one of the ten teams (Texas) is returning their primary starting QB from a year ago.
The UCF Knights are moving to a new conference and I think they are really going to thrive in the American Athletic Conference. With experienced coach George O’Leary’s defense first approach they were kind of like the anti-Conference USA team and the success speaks for itself – twice in the last three seasons they have won 10 or more games and they have won their last two bowl games.
After some nice years in the Mid American Conference, Temple returned to the Big East last season and was welcomed with a two win conference season. Now they are in the American Athletic Conference and the prospects don’t look much better under new coach Matt Rhule.
The Minnesota Twins took both ends of their Friday double header to distance themselves even further from the last place Chicago White Sox. We are through two thirds of the season and the Twins are proving to be closer to bad than horrible, with a great chance to extend their winning on Saturday afternoon.
The consensus is that this year’s Big Ten should be better than last year’s. Sure the Ohio State Buckeyes had a perfect season but it might have been the least impressive one in recent memory, and their inability compete in the Championship game or BCS allowed some other teams to step forward who really didn’t deserve it – we are looking at you Wisconsin.
The Big 12 should be one of the most competitive conferences in the nation this season. Usually a conference has one or maybe two legit contenders but this year in the B12 there are 4 programs that could reasonably walk away with the title.
There is little hope that the Jacksonville Jaguars are going to surprise and be good this season. The question is whether they are going to be bad, as bad as last year or worse.
Tennessee is a classic team that is not sure if they have a quarterback or not. The athletic Jake Locker has been outshined by other young signal callers and until they know whether he can be a legit pro or not it is going to be tough to know whether this current group can be a playoff contender.
Things went about as good as could be expected last season for the Indianapols Colts. They transitioned from one franchise QB to another about as seamlessly as possible and made the playoffs in the process. It was almost a little too fortuitous which is why almost nobody thinks Indianapolis can repeat that success against in 2013.
