The latest on Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy's incident with a taxi cab driver from ESPN.com: 

Mississippi Rebels coach Andy Kennedy has filed a defamation of character lawsuit against the man who accused him of assault and a witness to the alleged incident, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

The suit, filed Friday, seeks more than $25,000 from cab driver Mohamed Moctar Ould Jiddou and Michael Strother, a valet who told police he witnessed the incident.

The criminal complaint, filed Thursday in Municipal Court after Kennedy and Mississippi basketball operations coordinator Bill Armstrong were arrested, alleged that Kennedy assaulted Jiddou and "punched victim with a closed fist while shouting racial slurs."

Kennedy pleaded not guilty to the charges and vehemently denied the accusations. He was charged with misdemeanor assault; Armstrong was charged with disorderly conduct.

Kennedy's attorney, Richard Katz, said Friday that the statements made by Jiddou and Strother might do permanent damage to Kennedy's coaching career, according to the Enquirer. He also alleged their statements to police and the media have not been consistent.

****
MY TAKE: The whole situation has been unforutnate for Kennedy. What a way to spoil your return to the town where you got the start. Still, the former UC coach could have done himself a huge favor by staying out of The Lounge, a downtown nightclub, until after 1:00 in the morning on a game night. I am sure his players had a curfew that night. You need to lead by example and once again a coach/athlete who is the public eye has failed to do so. The whole situation could have been avoided if Kennedy had just stayed away. I don't have a tough time seeing the cab driver looking for some money in the deal and fabricating some of the story, but regardless Andy should've known better. Has he not learned anything from his mentor Bob Huggins...wait I guess he did because at least he decided to get in a cab when leaving a bar.

College Hoops cincinnati, cincinnati bearcats, ole miss, andy kennedy

The bowl games finally start this weekend. Fellow GetSportsInfo.com writer, Jeremy Fischer, and myself have put together our picks including how confident we are in them. In case you've never done a pick 'em game like this before, here's how it works. In addition to picking who you think will win the game, you assign a number to that pick as to how confident you think that pick is going to be right. There are 34 bowl games this year (way too many in most people's opinion, but that's beside the point), so the max number of confidence points you can give to one game is, yep, you guessed it, 34. The game you are least confident in you assign one point too, and fill in everything in between.

A lot of office pools are done like this and make it much more challenging than simply picking a winner for each game. As J-Fish states when it comes to doing a pick 'em game like this, "I have seen many strategies and I prefer the one that calls for using the higher confidence points on the bigger BCS games." He goes on to give his reasons as to why.

"Right or wrong, the larger conference teams get more coverage. The more information that is out there, the better informed pick you can make. The more informed you are, the more confident you'll be about a particular selection." Makes sense right? So picking the BCS bowl games really isn't as difficult as picking some of the more obscure games like the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl between Southern Mississippi and Troy that provide more difficulty in not only picking who will win, but deciding how confident you are in that pick.

J-Fish goes on to say, "Unless you fancy yourself as the next Jimmy the Greek, don't over analyze. The amount of games will definitely lead to paralysis-by-analysis." In my opinion, when it comes to picking some of the lower level bowl games, its almost more of a gut feeling when making that selection than anything else.

With all that said, let's get to the picks. What you'll find below is the bowl schedule starting with the first game on the docket all the way to the National Championship game on January 8th. With each pick you'll see both J-Fish's pick as well as my own with a little bit of analysis and how many confidence points (#) we have assigned to the pick we've made. Let's get to it with a look at the BCS games.

January 1st
ROSE - Penn State vs. USC
JFISH: USC (34) - Too much defense.
DICO: USC (32) - Too much USC! PSU hasn't seen anything like the Trojans this year. Ask OSU how things worked out for them. Plus this is a "home game" for the Trojans.

FEDEX ORANGE - Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech
JFISH: Cincinnati (22) - 1st BCS bowl berth will drive the Bearcats.
DICO: Cincinnati (10) - Special teams could be the difference in this game. Mardy Gilyard for the Bearcats is one of the best in the country in the return game. A chance to finish the season in the Top 10 will push the Bearcats to a win.

January 2nd
ALLSTATE SUGAR - Utah vs. Alabama
JFISH: Alabama (32) - Utah hasn't faced a defense like this.
DICO: Alabama (33) - See JFISH's comments...the Utes will have a hard time stopping the 'Bama offense as well.

January 5th
TOSTITOS FIESTA - Ohio State vs. Texas
JFISH: Texas (33) - Too much speed on defense, and the Horns will be playing angry because of the whole BIG XII, BCS screw job.
DICO: Texas (31) - QB Colt McCoy will be too much even for a good Buckeyes' defense. Terrelle Pryor will see what team speed on defense is all about against the Longhorns.

January 8th
FEDEX BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP - Florida vs. Oklahoma
JFISH: Florida (26) - Tebow/Harvin will find a way.
DICO: Oklahoma (22) - Bradford leads the most potent offense in the country. Even with the loss of DeMarco Murray at RB, the Sooners won't miss a beat. Expect a high scoring affair.

COMPLETE PICKS (ALL 34 GAMES) 

College Football college bowl game pick 'em, bcs, national title, wake forest, navy, colorado state, fresno state, memphis, south florida, byu, arizona, southern miss, troy, boise state, tcu, hawaii, notre dame, florida atlantic, central michigan, west virginia, north carolina, wisconsin, florida state, miami (fl), california, northern illinois, louisiana tech, nc state, rutgers, missouri, northwestern, maryland, nevada, western michigan, rice, oklahoma state, oregon, houston, air force, oregon state, pittsburgh, boston college, vanderbilt, kansas, minnesota, lsu, georgia tech, south carolina, iowa, georgia, michigan state, nebraska, clemson, penn state, usc, cincinnati, virginia tech, ole miss, texas tech, kentucky, east carolina, utah, alabama, buffalo, connecticut, ohio state, texas, ball state, tulsa, florida, oklahoma, butch davis, pat white, noel divine, jahvid best, chase daniel, lesean mccoy, jacquizz rogers, shonn greene, javon ringer, knowshon moreno, matt stafford, mardy gilyard, graham harrell, michael crabtree, colt mccoy, terrelle pryor, tim tebow, percy harvin, sam bradford, demarco murray

It was a weekend (plus Thursday) of upsets in college football. In one weekend a handful of possible national title contenders (USC, Wisconsin, Florida) saw their hopes (possibly) crushed. A Cinderella story (East Carolina) went back to just that, a fairy tale, but this one is without a happy ending. Teams that were on the rise (Wake Forest and Clemson) were slapped back down. A team on the cusp of the top 25 was "upset" at home as well when Miami (FL) lost to North Carolina. College football is a crazy game and with the BCS still structured the way it is, one loss can kill a season, which makes every game matter during the season. A lot of teams found that out the hard way this weekend.

UPSET SPECIALS

Oregon State def. No. 1 USC 27-21
Sanchez throws a costly interception at the Beavers' 30 yard line with less than three minutes left. Jacquizz Rodgers runs all over the Trojans for 186 yards and two scores. Result is a loss for the number one team in the country.

Ole Miss def. No. 4 Florida 31-30
Blocked extra point and a big stop of Tim Tebow by the Ole Miss defense on a 4th and one helped them pull out the victory.

Michigan def. No. 9 Wisconsin 27-25
Wisconsin jumped out ahead of the Wolverines, but Michigan scratched and clawed their way back. A big illegal procedure penalty on a successful two point conversion by the Badgers kept them from tying the game and taking it to overtime.

Navy def. No. 16 Wake Forest 24-17
The Demon Deacons were a team on the rise, starting the season unranked. They'll still compete for the ACC title, but any hopes of a BCS bowl game may be lost now.

Maryland def. No. 20 Clemson 20-17
The Terps went into the half down 17-6 and with just 99 yards of offense. The second half was a different story as they outscored the Tigers 14-0 and put up over 200 yards of offense. Maryland is a team on the rise and will likely be in the top 25 when the new rankings are released. The Tigers, on the other hand, could be out after being ranked in the top 10 at the beginning of the season and now having suffered their second loss of the season.

Houston def. No. 23 East Carolina 41-24
The Cinderella season for ECU may have come to an end last week with the loss to NC State. This week, it just came crushing down on them. From BCS buster to busted, the Pirates will be out of the top 25 after this weekend, and will likely not make it back in this season.

There is also an "upset" in the making taking place as I write this as Alabama is crushing Georgia 31-0 at halftime. I expected that to be one of the best games of the weekend and other than the UC game this afternoon, this was the game I was looking forward to watching the most today. Fortunately there is a good game taking place right now as Penn State is leading Illinois 21-14 just before halftime.

Top 5 going into this week
1. USC
2. Oklahoma
3. Georgia
4. Florida
5. LSU

Top 5 after this week (in my opinion)
1. Oklahoma
2. Alabama (assuming they hold on to win vs. Georgia)
3. LSU (assuming they hold on and beat Miss. St.)
4. Missouri
5. Texas

College Football usc, oregon state, florida, ole miss, michigan, wisconsin, navy, wake forest, maryland, clemson, houston, east carolina, miami (fl), north carolina, penn state, illinois, alabama, oklahoma, missouri, texas