Culture
College football Week 11 oddly specific predictions: Down go the Hoosiers!
Picking Penn State to lose to Ohio State does not deserve a victory lap. Losing big games is what the Nittany Lions do.
Like James Franklin, I deserved to get booed off the field last week after posting an embarrassing 4-5 record picking up straight-up winners. My 59-31 overall record for the season feels especially hollow when I’ve missed on four consecutive upset alerts to fall to 3-6 when sounding the alarm.
We’ll get to my hits and misses below, but first, here are this week’s picks. There are only two Top 25 matchups, but plenty of other intriguing games as conference races narrow.
Most passing yards
The one prediction I nailed last week was calling for Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart to lead all FBS passers in yards. This week, the numbers are screaming to go with Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, one of eight quarterbacks averaging more than 300 passing yards a game.
Travis Hunter went on Shedeur Sanders Podcast 🔥
Shedeur : “If I’m playing like you I’m talking crazy”
Travis : “I just hate when people say I’m not top 5 at Receiver top 5 at DB”
🎥 : @ShedeurSanders @TravisHunterJr pic.twitter.com/08WM84u5Pq
— We Coming 🦬 (@SkoBuffsGoBuffs) November 5, 2024
The Buffaloes are 3.5-point favorites at Texas Tech, which ranks 133rd in passing defense but is coming off its biggest win of the season at Iowa State. Joey McGuire’s team is also 7-2 in November games under his watch. Sanders will throw for 450-plus yards, including 150 to Heisman hopeful Travis Hunter. But Texas Tech wins a high-scoring game on a late interception.
Most rushing yards
Tennessee’s Dylan Sampson is one of only eight running backs averaging more than 120 yards rushing per game. His 19 rushing touchdowns are tied with Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson and Army’s Bryson Daily for second behind Boise State star Ashton Jeanty’s 20.
This week, I’m riding with Sampson to lead all rushers in yards because he’s facing a Mississippi State defense that’s ranked 124th against the run. The seventh-ranked Volunteers are 23.5-point favorites at home and have won their last three games by six, seven and 10 points in comeback fashion. This week, it will be a little easier. Sampson runs for a season-high 200-plus yards and three touchdowns and Tennessee wins by three scores.
Most receiving yards
FIU’s Eric Rivers led all receivers last week with 295 yards and three touchdowns in a win over New Mexico State. This week, I’m going with another receiver from the same area code to rack up the most yards: Miami’s Xavier Restrepo, who became the Hurricanes’ all-time leading receiver in last week’s come-from-behind win over Duke.
Fourth-ranked Miami is an 11.5-point favorite at Georgia Tech, which handed the Canes a devastating loss last season despite a career-high 12 catches from Restrepo. Restrepo gets revenge, connecting with Cam Ward 12 times for 200-plus yards in a 10-point Miami win in Atlanta.
Five big games
No. 3 Georgia (-2.5) at No. 16 Ole Miss
The Bulldogs have won 11 of the last 12 meetings with the Rebels, including last year’s 52-17 thrashing in Athens. Yet, there are reasons why the spread entering this one is less than a field goal: Carson Beck’s 11 interceptions and Ole Miss’ ability to post a gaudy stat line.
Dart’s 515 passing yards and six TDs last week against Arkansas, with a breakout performance from Jordan Watkins, provide more reason for me to stick with my midseason prediction. That is Georgia finishes 10-2, misses the SEC title game and still makes noise in the College Football Playoff. Give me Ole Miss on a late TD pass from Dart.
No. 11 Alabama (-3) at No. 15 LSU
The Crimson Tide are 29-10-2 all-time at Tiger Stadium and 3-1 against Brian Kelly at LSU. Kelly’s one win came the last time the Tide visited Baton Rouge. Both teams are coming off idle weeks, but with different results — Alabama crushed Missouri while LSU folded late at Texas A&M.
So, I’m not going against my midseason script. Alabama will beat LSU to stay on track to make the Playoff and Jalen Milroe will once again carve up the Tigers with his feet as he did a year ago. This time, he’ll run for 150 yards and two scores in a 10-point win.
Jalen Milroe highlights vs LSU 🔥pic.twitter.com/w0pPrlbAvj https://t.co/f4tk6CXW4h
— 𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙨 🎃 (@ThomasWrrld) July 16, 2024
No. 9 BYU (-5) at Utah
Few envisioned BYU being the top-10 team contending for a conference championship and Playoff berth when these two rivals met. But the Cougars very much deserve credit for where they are with impressive wins against two ranked teams — SMU and Kansas State.
The hard part is trying to determine if the Utes can muster any offense after they’ve averaged only 12.5 points over their recent four-game losing streak. The guess here is they can’t. Utah will be held to under 300 yards for the third time this season and BYU wins by a touchdown.
No. 17 Iowa State (-3) at Kansas
The Big 12 feels a bit disrespected after seeing only one team in the top 16 of the CFP rankings. But Iowa State and Kansas State have no one to blame but themselves following head-scratching losses last weekend.
At the start of the season, Kansas was everyone’s dark horse to win the league, and now Lance Leipold’s team needs to win its last four games to qualify for a bowl. Jalon Daniels has not been good enough to this point and he’s going to struggle against a solid Cyclones defense. Iowa State bounces back and keeps its CFP hopes alive with a seven-point win at Arrowhead Stadium.
No. 25 Army (-5.5) at North Texas
The Black Knights are one of five remaining FBS unbeatens and are outscoring opponents by 26.6 points a game. The problem is six of those seven FBS wins are against teams with losing records. North Texas is by far Army’s toughest opponent yet. The Mean Green have the highest-scoring offense in the American Athletic Conference and lost shootouts at Memphis and Tulane in their previous two games.
Army coach Jeff Monken said Daily, his starting quarterback, could be back after missing the win over Air Force last week. I’m not sure it matters here. North Texas quarterback Chandler Morris puts up huge numbers every week and he will do so again (350-plus passing yards, three TDs) in an upset win.
Upset alert
Michigan at No. 8 Indiana (-14.5)
Indiana’s strength of schedule (82nd according to The Athletic’s Austin Mock) is why the undefeated Hoosiers were No. 8 in the first installment of the CFP rankings. They have two wins over P4 teams with winning records: Washington (5-4) and Nebraska (5-4).
You’d have to be a little crazy at this point to think Curt Cignetti’s team isn’t for real considering it is beating FBS opponents by 27.8 points a game. Picking against Indiana here is probably dumb considering Michigan’s offense stinks. But I said at midseason the Hoosiers wouldn’t make the Playoff, and I can’t chicken out now. Colston Loveland is the hero.
Week 10 report card
As mentioned before, my big victory last week was predicting Dart would lead all QBs in passing yards.
My pick to lead all rushers, Daily, was a late scratch from Army’s lineup against Air Force. The Black Knights still won, 20-3, as I said they would. They just didn’t cover the 22.5-point spread.
Outside of picking Ohio State to win, my only other victory was picking Oregon to handle its business and cover a 14.5-spread over Michigan with Dillon Gabriel throwing for more than 250 yards and three touchdowns. Gabriel threw for 294 yards and one touchdown, and the Ducks beat Michigan 38-17.
And now to a string of really bad predictions — and some accountability.
I picked Arizona’s Tetairoa McMillan to lead all receivers in yardage in a Wildcats’ upset over UCF. McMillan finished with six catches for 84 yards and a touchdown, and UCF obliterated Arizona 56-12.
I said Iowa State would score late on a Rocco Becht touchdown to remain unbeaten against Texas Tech. Instead, Tahj Brooks scored with 20 seconds left to rob Becht of his heroics, and the Cyclones lost 23-22.
I had Clemson covering a 10.5-point spread against Louisville with Cade Klubnik (250-plus passing yards, two TDs) and Phil Mafah (100-plus rushing yards, two TDs) doing work. Klubnik threw for 228 yards and a score and Mafah ran for 171 yards and two scores. But Louisville beat Clemson by 12.
I said Marcel Reed’s rushing ability would be the difference in a big road win for Texas A&M at South Carolina. The Gamecocks outscored Texas A&M 24-0 in the second half and rolled to a 44-20 upset.
I said Pitt would pull off a road upset behind its opportunistic defense (three turnovers forced) at SMU. The Mustangs destroyed the Panthers 48-25.
(Photo of Kurtis Rourke: Jordon Kelly / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
When a writer is praised for having a sense of place, it usually means one specific place — a postage stamp of familiar ground rendered in loving, knowing detail. But Kiran Desai, in her latest novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” has a sense of places.
This 670-page book, about the star-crossed lovers of the title and several dozen of their friends, relatives, exes and servants (there’s a chart in the front to help you keep track), does anything but stay put. If “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” were an old-fashioned steamer trunk, it would be papered with shipping labels: from Allahabad (now known as Prayagraj), Goa and Delhi; from Queens, Kansas and Vermont; from Mexico City and, perhaps most delightfully, from Venice.
There, in Marco Polo’s hometown, the titular travelers alight for two chapters, enduring one of several crises in their passionate, complicated, on-again, off-again relationship. One of Venice’s nicknames is La Serenissima — “the most serene” — but in Desai’s hands it’s the opposite: a gloriously hectic backdrop for Sonia and Sunny’s romantic confusion.
Their first impressions fill a nearly page-long paragraph. Here’s how it begins.
Sonia is a (struggling) fiction writer. Sunny is a (struggling) journalist. It’s notable that, of the two of them, it is she who is better able to perceive the immediate reality of things, while he tends to read facts through screens of theory and ideology, finding sociological meaning in everyday occurrences. He isn’t exactly wrong, and Desai is hardly oblivious to the larger narratives that shape the fates of Sunny, Sonia and their families — including the economic and political changes affecting young Indians of their generation.
But “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” is about more than that. It’s a defense of the very idea of more, and thus a rebuke to the austerity that defines so much recent literary fiction. Many of Desai’s peers favor careful, restricted third-person narration, or else a measured, low-affect “I.” The bookstores are full of skinny novels about the emotional and psychological thinness of contemporary life. This book is an antidote: thick, sloppy, fleshy, all over the place.
It also takes exception to the postmodern dogma that we only know reality through representations of it, through pre-existing concepts of the kind to which intellectuals like Sunny are attached. The point of fiction is to assert that the world is true, and to remind us that it is vast, strange and astonishing.
See the full list of the 10 Best Books of 2025 here.
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