LSAT on Saturday.

All in all, I’m guessing I’ve put in 150+ hours of study toward this Saturday’s LSAT exam. While I doubt I could ever feel completely ready for it, I think I’m as ready as I’m going to be. I’ll study a bit more between now and Saturday morning, but I’m not sure I’ll learn anything new.

Back in July,

NCAA Week 6 Picks

Pac-10

Oregon State at #15 Utah
I tip my cap to the Beavers for ambitiously scheduling trips to Penn State and Utah in the same season.

NFL Week 4 Power Rankings

1. (3-0) NY Giants (2)
The good news is that they’re alone in first place now. The bad news is that they are in a ridiculously good division that is going to have one really good squad missing the playoffs. We’ll see how they do without Plaxico this week.

2. (3-1) Washington (11)
I was quick to write them off before the season started, and thought my suspicions had been confirmed when they lost pretty easily in week one to the Giants. They have looked incredibly impressive since, and are following an arc similar to what we saw early out of the eventual champions last year.

3. (3-1) Dallas (1)
It’s been a rough schedule to open up, and they finally took a loss…but watching that game, nothing tells me that this team isn’t elite. They do need to shore up the pass defense a bit, though.

4. (4-0) Buffalo (5)
The Bills are showing a scary tendency to play down to the level of their competition. They were great the first two weeks, but seem to be believing their hype and the big point spreads the last two weeks. Still, they’re avoiding the upsets; this is a far cry from the team that was finding creative ways to lose last year.

5. (4-0) Tennessee (8)

I’m taking the plunge.

So…if all goes according to plan, I’m going to go to law school next year.

Why are you doing this?

Glad you asked, even if I don’t really know where to start.

Here it is, though:

Nice bye week for the ‘Hawks.

Arizona stays on the east coast between their games at Washington and New York to stay adjusted to the time zone difference, and naturally doesn’t bother waking up and playing until the second half of this morning’s game. I really thought they’d win that game, as I don’t think much of the Jets…but I was ecstatic to see them get pounded the way they did. After the last two losses they’ve suffered, I think we have every reason to hope they’ll see similar results over the next couple of weeks against the Bills and Cowboys. Significant also is the injury to Anquan Boldin, who got hurt in the final minute of today’s game…it was a scary helmet-to-helmet collision, and I certainly hope nothing too serious happened (knee injuries to other teams I don’t bother feeling bad about, but head/neck injuries are a whole different matter).

NCAA Week 5 Top 25

1. (4-0) Oklahoma (2)
That is a good team that the Sooners just dominated, and they’re a very deserving new #1 in the nation.

2. (5-0) Alabama (9)
Unbelievable the way they jumped out to an insurmountable lead against Georgia, at Athens no less. I really thought this team was too young and inexperienced to look that good, but they’re very much looking like an elite team already.

3. (4-0) LSU (6)
They don’t win in the prettiest way, but they’re obviously great too. They’ll get a chance to prove it after the bye week as they head to The Swamp.

4. (4-0) Missouri (5)
Took the week off and had to be happy at seeing USC and Florida go down.

5. (5-0) Penn State (7)

The Office season five premiere: “Weight Loss”

At long last, The Office is back. The season premiere? Meh, kind of a mixed bag. Definitely plenty of good moments, but my immediate reaction was that it had enough good moments to make a really good half hour episode, but stretched it out over an hour into an episode that had its share of jokes that fell flat.

What was good? Well,

NFL Week 4 Picks

Buffalo at St. Louis
Scott Linehan benched Marc Bulger in favor of Trent Green this week. I enjoyed seeing this described as “rearranging deck chairs,” because that’s essentially all he’s doing on this sinking ship. Some coaches, when their jobs are threatened, have their players rally around them. The Rams, in this case, seem to be doing the exact opposite.

NCAA Week 5 Picks

Pac-10

#1 USC at Oregon State
Some Pac-10 teams might be able to at least give USC a few problems, but Oregon State is not one of them.

NFL Week 3 Power Rankings

1. (3-0) Dallas (1)
Pretty hard to dispute this team as the best thing going right now, they’ve taken out two top teams en route to the 3-0 start.

2. (3-0) NY Giants (3)
I expected an easier time for them too, but the Giants notched a nice win against a desperate and scrappy team.

3. (2-1) Philadelphia (5)
The injuries to McNabb and Westbrook are certainly a concern. Kudos to the Eagles for being able to win with both missing significant time in this game.

4. (2-1) Green Bay (4)
They were clearly the inferior team on Sunday night. Even this early on, that was a crucial loss in the race for home field advantage throughout the playoffs. As the Packers are the clearest favorite to win an NFC division at this point, I don’t think it’s too early to have that conversation.

5. (3-0) Buffalo (7)

Blah…Gary Rogers out for the season.

WSU quarterback Gary Rogers is out for the season due to a fracture he suffered in yesterday’s game. That’s really a rough turn of events. In the short-term, I don’t think it’ll make the Cougs any worse really, I was advocating benching him in favor of letting one of the younger guys develop, and I still would be if he was healthy…but I feel bad for the kid.

Good, good. I wasn’t ready for this season to die so early.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, 0-3 is extremely likely to ensure that your season is over by the end of week 17. Thankfully, the Seahawks didn’t even flirt with that possibility this week, jumping all over the Rams and never leaving me with the sense that we might lose. Stubborn old Mike Holmgren insists on throwing the ball no matter who we’re lining up at receiver, and things actually looked pretty good at wideout this week. Billy McMullen looked good, Michael Bumpus did as well (aside from having questionable hands at times), and rookie tight end John Carlson continues to impress.

Beyond that, though, we’re getting a higher quality of running out of Julius Jones than we’ve gotten since 2005.

NCAA Top 25 (Week 4)

1. (2-0) USC (1)
No action this week, they’ve already had two bye weeks. They get the national spotlight again on Thursday, as they’ll be headed to Corvallis to impose their will on Oregon State.

2. (3-0) Oklahoma (3)
Bye week here too. They’ll play their toughest opponent yet next week, with TCU coming to town…it’s not a Red River Shootout level of challenge, but they need to show up to play or TCU will fight them to the end.

3. (4-0) Georgia (4)
The athleticism of the Bulldogs just jumps off the screen. Most teams would have a difficult time at Arizona State, but the result of this one was obvious in the first quarter.

4. (3-0) Florida (5)

NCAA Week 4 Thoughts

Cougs

It was pretty sloppy at times, and it was rough to see two quarterbacks go down, but it was nice to see Marshall Lobbestael do so well in his first snaps as a freshman quarterback. Kevin Lopina and Gary Rogers have both been pretty bad (hopefully neither injury is as serious as they appeared), so handing the keys over to the Lobster might be the best thing at this point. We’re going to take a lot of thumpings this year, but getting him some reps for the future could be valuable, if it turns out that he has what it takes to be our quarterback of the future. Beating Portland State doesn’t prove much of anything, but I’m glad to see the team get to enjoy any kind of win; there probably aren’t going to be many more this year.

ACC

Like I mentioned last week, this week’s action inevitably cleared up the ACC picture a little bit. Wake Forest and Virginia Tech are now the frontrunners early in conference play.

NFL Week 3 Picks

The first two weeks certainly matter a lot, but it isn’t until week three that we can start calling anything a must-win for anyone. Teams that are 0-2 are running out of chances to say, “it’s early.” In the 15 years of the salary cap era, 78 teams have gone 0-3 and only two have made the playoffs (source). More than usual this year, teams with high expectations are facing that scary possibility: Seattle, San Diego, Jacksonville, Minnesota and Cleveland, all of whom I had penciled in for the playoffs, are 0-2. While a couple of them (Seattle and San Diego) have games they should be able to take care of this week, I’d be willing to bet that at least one of the Jags/Vikings/Browns trio will be crossing the point of no return.

Onto the picks…

Koren Robinson back in the fold

Desperately trying to keep the season from slipping away, the Seahawks signed Koren Robinson, who came up with the team and last played here in 2004.

Robinson’s personal problems with alcoholism are well-documented, and have largely caused the downfall of his NFL career…he’s now claiming 25 months of sobriety, a new marriage and fatherhood, and I’m sure we’re all rooting for him to have put those demons behind him for good. For what it’s worth, the personal endorsement of Matt Hasselbeck carries great weight with me.

And quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, Robinson’s quarterback from 2001-04 in Seattle, told Ruskell that Robinson had turned his life around. Hasselbeck saw Robinson during a weeklong Christian retreat in Dallas last winter and was impressed.

“I don’t know about the football side of it at all. I haven’t seen him play in a long time,” Hasselbeck said Monday. “But, I guess what I care about more is that he grew up and really matured and got his life turned around in the right direction. … I’m proud of him.”

So, good for him. From a football standpoint,

NCAA Week 4 Picks

Pac-10

Arizona at UCLA
Both of these teams failed to show up in week three; UCLA’s loss looked uglier on the scoreboard, but at least they lost to a great team. Arizona, meanwhile, handed New Mexico their first win of the season.

NFL Week 2 Power Rankings

1. (2-0) Dallas (2)
The waters seem to be parting nicely for Dallas. They’re going to have a dogfight against their tough division, but I can’t see a better candidate for best team in the league at this point.

2. (2-0) Pittsburgh (1)
There’s nothing in the world ugly about any win on the road against your strongest division rival.

3. (2-0) NY Giants (5)
Expectations were played down for this team by everyone, myself included, but I see no reason that they couldn’t run out to a 6-0 start.

We’re becoming “that” team.

Most seasons, there is some team that gets ravage by injury so badly that there’s just no reasonable way to expect them to be able to win many ballgames. Sadly, it feels like the Seahawks are becoming the ‘08 edition of that team. Our personnel on offense is just too depleted, and while the season isn’t over by any stretch, things are getting really dicey now.

Regardless of our injuries, this is a team we could’ve beaten, and we didn’t get it done. Next week, we play another team in St. Louis that we can beat. Our backs are officially against the wall; if we can’t beat St. Louis, it’s really hard to see us recovering and turning this into a successful season. If we can beat them, we get the bye week and hopefully the opportunity to get some wide receivers back from the injured list, and things might brighten up. Right now, though…pretty rough.

NCAA Top 25 (Week 3)

1. (2-0) USC
Their toughest competition between now and the end of the season appears to come in mid-October against Oregon and Arizona State. If they’re undefeated after that, I really doubt they can be stopped.

2. (3-0) Missouri
This offense is just ridiculous. I can’t see a significantly stronger Heisman candidate than Chase Daniel right now.

3. (3-0) Oklahoma
Who will be the first team to hold them to less than 50 points? They’ll certainly enter the Red River Shootout in four weeks with a top five ranking.

4. (3-0) Georgia
Road wins over Steve Spurrier have a hard time qualifying as “ugly.” Georgia has a heck of a gauntlet to run, but they’re mostly meeting the high expectations so far.

5. (2-0) Florida
Mostly just ranking based on hype and potential so far, though they’ve been good in their first two. They can legitimize this at Knoxville next week against a Tennessee squad that looked impressive this week.