College football predictions: Week 7

College football’s Week 7 arrives, with more interesting games, including matching top-25 teams. South Carolina at LSU. OU-Texas. Stanford at Notre Dame. And the rescheduled classic — Texas A&M-Louisiana Tech in Shreveport, La.

OU vs. Texas at Dallas: Sooners 34-24. Always pick the winner from the year before. I think it was Mack Brown who articulated the reasoning for my system: “It usually goes in cycles because the fans of the losing team are so hard on the kids and the coaches that they get a little bit uptight, then you’ve got to figure out how to win it again, get it back, and then the ballgame is the same way. It’s just a game that goes back and forth because whether we like it or not, it’s one that is really, really important to the fans, and therefore it’s important to the coaches and the players because they live with this game.”

OSU at Kansas: Cowboys 44-24. Charlie Weis has taken to practicing underclassmen only on Sundays. Reminds me of another odd-fit coach, Howard Schnellenberger, who didn’t beat OSU in his first year.

Texas-El Paso at Tulsa: Golden Hurricane 45-19. Boy, we had high hopes for the Miners after their spirited performance against the Sooners, but the truth is, UTEP mostly stinks.

Kansas State at Iowa State: Cyclones 26-24. Big 12 Upset special. KSU has won four straight in the series, by scores of 38-30, 24-23, 27-20, 30-23. And none of those games were in Ames. Is there some reason this game won’t be close, too?

West Virginia at Texas Tech: Mountaineers 51-31. Wouldn’t have shocked me to see a shocker here. Then I saw Texas Tech play live. Not a bad team. An improved team, over last season. But not all that spirited.

TCU at Baylor: Bears 37-21. Casey Pachall’s demise has answered the question of who will finish ninth in the Big 12. So now we know the bottom in the Big 12. It’s the top eight that gets confusing.

Iowa at Michigan State: Spartans 19-17. Here’s how bad the Big Ten is. These two cruddy teams have a combined winning record in conference play: 2-1.

Wisconsin at Purdue: Badgers 30-20. The Leaders Division title game. (No, I didn’t know that it was the Leaders Division; I had to look it up.) With Ohio State and Penn State ineligible, one of these two will be in Indianapolis in December.

Northwestern at Minnesota: Wildcats 34-23. Northwestern let one get away at Penn State, but the Big Ten’s Legends Division is still anybody’s ballgame. Anybody but Minnesota.

Illinois at Michigan: Wolverines 37-20. Illinois isn’t awful, but Tim Beckman’s first Illini team isn’t very good.

Ohio State at Indiana: Buckeyes 49-30. What a win this would be for Kevin Wilson, who almost got one last week against Michigan State.

Duke at Virginia Tech: Hokies 35-31. I actually thought about the Blue Devils for a minute. Really.

North Carolina at Miami: Hurricanes 37-34. Miami has been blown out at Kansas State (52-13) and against Notre Dame in Chicago (41-3). But only three teams remain unbeaten in ACC play — Duke, Maryland and Miami, which is 3-0.

Maryland at Virginia: Terrapins 21-19. Talk about hard games to pick. Bad on bad.

Boston College at Florida State: Seminoles 48-10. Florida State still smarting from its loss at N.C. State, but don’t expect the Seminoles to win out.