Foss' Football Forecast, Oct. 7-9,2006

Last week was another good week with only one Pac-10 defeat overall. I thought the Huskies would melt in the Arizona heat, and I guess I have been underestimating them. Washington may be for real this season and starting to turn it around again after a dismal 2-9 season last year. I am surprised the Huskies are 4-1 so far as Coach Tyrone Willingham has them playing well, but their biggest test of the season comes this weekend in Los Angeles against the Southern Cal (USC) Trojans. I'll give the Huskies some credit this week and only have the Trojans winning by 10 this season against Washington.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by my Oregon Ducks last week. Playing a day game in Tempe Stadium isn't easy, but the Quack Attack rolled over ASU, snuffing out the Sun Devils, 48-13. I thought it would've been a much closer game. The Gang Green defense is back and playing well. The Ducks are getting some national respect and are up to 11th in the national rankings with another big game against 16th ranked California in Berkeley. Some have picked Cal to win the Pac-10 title this season, but I'm going with the high flying and high scoring Ducks to continue their roll in a close one. With a 4-1 week my overall Pac-10 record this season is now 25-6 for a 80.6 winning percentage.

My record in other national college games stayed undefeated with another 4-0 week picking winners to run my streak to 20-games. You may think I'm padding my stats by picking mismatches? Well this week I'm taking some chances going with some big games and historic big time football schools.

My NFL picks are back on track after another 5-0 week my record is a respectable 14-6 now for a 70 percent winning percentage. I've gone 10-0 the past two weeks. I'm back on the Chicago Bears bandwagon this week. I was hoping the Seahawks would've gave them a better game last week, in what could've been a preview of the NFC Championship Game, but the Bears defense shutdown the high powered Seattle offense, 37-6 in Soldier Field. Seattle needs to battle the rest of the season to gain home-field advantage again if they want to make it back to the Super Bowl. I still feel they are the team to beat, and am glad to see Pittsburgh struggling. The feel-good story so far this season is the resurgence of the New Orleans Saints as they have returned home to a surprising 3-1 start. They were undefeated until last weeks close 21-18 loss at Carolina.

On to the picks see below....
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Pac-10 Games:
NOTRE DAME by 14 over stanford
SOUTHERN CAL. by 10 over washington
UCLA by 10 over arizona
OREGON STATE by 7 over washington state
oregon by 3 over CALIFORNIA

others:
ALABAMA by 21 over duke
MICHIGAN by 10 over michigan state
IOWA by 10 over purdue
FLORIDA by 3 over louisiana state
texas by 10 over OKLAHOMA

Sunday, October 8, 2006:
NFL:
CHICAGO by 10 over buffalo
CAROLINA by 10 over cleveland
MINNESOTA by 10 over detroit
st. louis by 14 over GREEN BAY
INDIANAPOLIS by 14 over tennessee

Great games this week, enjoy!