Smoking Musket College Pick 'Em Gauntlet Week Five Results, Plus More Bye Week Predictions

The Smoking Musket Pick ‘Em Gauntlet is an online college pick ‘em game where we will try to pick the winners of the weekly Big 12 contests plus Yahoo! editors' selected games (usually the games involving the top 25 teams). We do pick against the spread (when available). There are usually 20-30 games to pick each week and each correct pick is worth one point. The winner (excluding Musket staff) will be the person at the end of the regular season who has the most correct picks/points. Points are cumulative, so don't worry if you happen to miss a week or two. We will award the winner a WVU Nike T-shirt at the conclusion of the games in December.

All participants are subject to the Official Rules as determined by SB Nation.

We actually filled the first group, so we had to open a second league to fit everyone in. The second league will serve solely as an extension of the first league, and is not a standalone league. If you are in the second league, you are still competing with those in the first league.

Our game, as in the past, will be hosted by Yahoo! Fantasy. GAME LINK

Group Name: The Smoking Musket II

Group ID: 10963

Group password: LetsGo

We have 24 games to pick this week, at 7:30 PM ET on Friday. Deadline for each pick is 5 minutes before kickoff.

Here are the leaders (top 10 and ties) after week 5. Congratulations to DD Dream Picks All Heart picks for winning week 5 (all you win for this is kudos).

We’ve got another bye week this week, but we have to keep the prediction train rolling. So, let’s take a look at the Red River Shootout (It’ll always be the Shootout, I don’t care what you say.) Again, predictions are in no particular order:

John Radcliff

If Oklahoma is smart, they pull out all the stops to win this game. It's not often you get the chance to make sure your biggest rival's coach is fired and the program is set back three years to allow for the next guy to get his pieces in place. But that's what Oklahoma is looking at. Whether you like Charlie Strong or not, he's a good coach. I find it hard to believe that Texas is ready to fire him. The results so far haven't been great, but not every rebuild happens overnight. If they feel like they hired the right guy, they should stick with him. But that's not really possible now unless Texas wins this game and the majority of the rest. In a game with little defense, Texas doesn't have the offense to keep up with Oklahoma.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 55
Texas 35

John Lowe

Maybe Charlie Strong will end up at LSU somehow...

Final Score:
Oklahoma 48
Texas 28

SmithFire13

This game seems to always end up the exact opposite of what it should. Texas is slumping with Charlie Strong under fire, so I just assume that means UT will win.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 24
Texas 33

BartiumusPrime

The Red River Shootout never goes as planned, so it makes sense to pick a struggling Texas team to beat an OU team that has underwhelmed this season. However, that is the storyline over the past few years, so it makes sense, which means that I should pick the result that doesn't make sense. Make sense?

Final Score:
Oklahoma 45
Texas 31

abpriddy

Chaz Strong seems to coach best with one foot in the grave, but I think his luck runs out and Big Game Bob dumps a large shovel full on the soon to be former Longhorn coach. Someone call Susan Sarandon........we gotta dead man walkin'!

Final Score:
Oklahoma 49
Texas 35

Will Hirsch

Oklahoma struggled early but they're starting to figure things out. Playing Texas is motivation enough for the Sooners.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 31
Texas 28

WVUIE97

Neither one of these defenses are doing well right now, Charlie Strong is fighting for his job at this point and these RR shootout games almost never make any sense. Which means UT takes down OU 12-9. Not really. I do really think these two defenses are going to be stretched in this one. OU wins in a shootout and Strong crowd surfs his way out of Austin on a post-game pink slip.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 50
Texas 35

statsboyandi

Charlie Strong taking over the defense isn't going to change much.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 49
Texas 31

sb1wvu

The game is close through three, but OU puts it away in the 4th.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 42
Texas 28

WVUNite

47, 50, 49. Those are the scores of Texas' Power 5 opponents this year. With Mayfield, Perine, Mixon and a host of talent, there is no way that Oklahoma scores less than 45 points in this game. Even more, Texas' offense is slowly getting in its own way. This will be a typical "no-defense" Big 12 game but OU will come out on top.

Goodbye Charlie Strong, maybe you can crowd surf your way to some AAC job.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 49
Texas 33

Michael Miller

It's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of the Red River Shootout. Now, a wise man would choose the Sooners, because he would know that only a great fool would pick a slumping Texas team on the verge of losing their head coach. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose Longhorns. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose Oklahoma.

Final Score:
Oklahoma 31
Texas 35