2012 NWC Pick ‘Em Contest: Week 11

This is the place to be on Saturday.

It’s here! The final week of my terrible pick ‘em season. It’s been no secret that I’ve had a letdown of a season for the 2nd year in-a-row after capturing the 2010 crown. I’m like Saint John’s after their 2003 National Title, nothing but downhill. However, I’ve been finishing strong over the past two weeks as I’ve gone 9 out of 10 picks and had a perfect week 9 (my first of the season) to bump up my overall percentage to 78.9% (45 out of 57). That may not look too bad but in reality has me in the bottom half of the NWC pick ‘em field. It still stinks.

So we have one more chance at redemption and to have a nice 3 week flurry to wrap up the year. There are some tough choices this week so if you’re a team in one of those tossup games, and I pick you, that probably means you’re going to lose. It’s been that kind of season for old WC11. LET’S GET TO THE ACTION!

Northwest Conference Games of the week

#24 Pacific Lutheran (6-2) over (NAIA) Menlo (4-5) (at Menlo): Wow, nothing like having your Division III playoff hopes going into the last game of the year when you’re playing an NAIA school. A lot of you might say “this game doesn’t count” towards PLU’s playoff chances….but who are we kidding? If the ‘Lutes drop this game that moves them to 6-3 on the year and I think they’re out of playoff contention regardless of what the NCAA numbers say.

This is a tough one for the ‘Lutes as playing at Menlo can be a difficult place to play. Don’t sleep on their 4-5 record as the Oaks have lost games to a number of highly ranked and regarded opponents. (Linfield, Wesley, Marian (#1 NAIA), and St. Francis). I think PLU is a damn good team and will get it done, but I expect a 4 quarter battle against Speckman and his Oaks.

Whitworth (6-3) over Lewis & Clark (4-4) (at Whitworth): Whitworth is going to beat L&C this weekend to have a solid little 7-3 season but some of those losses where straight beat downs (PLU and Linfield). I do think Whitworth will be much improved next season just off the fact they’ll have a number of players back who suffered season-ending injuries during the early part of the season. For L&C, they have be reeling right now in suffering four straight defeats and soon to be five. Keith Welch has had some nice throwing days but hasn’t been nearly as effective on the ground this season. Rats in a romp.

Puget Sound (0-8) at Willamette (7-2) (at WU): Willamette should send off 25 seniors in style against Puget Sound and then will be left with the question of “What now?”. Willamette is losing their main receiving targets, most of their offensive line, their entire defensive front, and both safeties. Willamette got off to such a hot start there was talk of this being “Willamette’s year” to make some noise.  Then Willamette drop two in a row and almost lost to Pacific. The Bearcats might be looking at the middle of the pack next season as a number of NWC contenders are bring back a ton of firepower. Oh for this game, Willamette puts up a ton of yards and points and roll up UPS.

West Region Game of the week:

Pomona Pitzer (0-8) over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (0-8) (at PP): It’s the “somebody has to win” game of the season as the SCIAC’s pathetic 2012 comes to a close. It’s been a rough year for our Southern California brothers as the conference has been looking up in recent years to have the bottom fall out and lose any national confidence they’ve been building on in recent times. It doesn’t look good in the future either as Cal Lutheran is going to be running that conference for a long time and newcomer Chapman has immediately displaced some other members from the hierarchy. Some SCIAC’ers have stated that conference will regret allowing Chapman in and so that is looking to be true.

National Game of the Week:

#13 Heidelberg (8-1) over Baldwin-Wallace (7-2): (at Heidelberg): Big old Pool C game in the Ohio Athletic Conference (aka: Mount Union’s living room) were these two teams are playing to slide into the number 2 spot in the OAC which has traditionally been a default auto-bid due to Mount’s continual dominance in the division. I don’t know much about either team so I’m just going to take the home team with the better record (Heidelberg).

#9 Widener (8-0) over Delaware Valley (7-2): (at Widener) Another big game with playoff implications out in the East Region as Widener is trying to win the Middle Atlantic Conference outright over Delaware Valley. If Del Valley wins it would create a 3-way tie on top of the MAC and I don’t know who gets the pool A but I’m pulling Widener solely based on the fact on a few Del Valley players continually crying on twitter to D3football.com about not being “respected”. What a bunch of crap. Del Valley came into the season ranked near the top ten and proceeded to lose their first two games of the year. Del Valley had their chance to earn their respect and they blew it at the beginning of the season.  I'm pulling for Widener mainly on the basis of karma being served to Del Valley's twitter crying.