Ron Milhorn seems to have psychic powers

asper's Corner
Jeff Caspersen
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
September 18, 2007

Picking football games is hard.You just can't account for all the last-minute insanity that accompanies the grand game, which is why I must tip my cap to the voice of KMTS 99.1, Ron Milhorn. He's the runaway leader of the Post Independent's weekly football picking contest - through two of 13 weeks, anyway.

Rest assured the former USC Trojan football center has seven fierce competitors nipping at heels.

But what a two weeks it's been for the master prognosticator, who's correctly predicted the outcome of 20 of 22 games. I've been doing this thing at various papers the last five years and have never seen such dominance.

Somehow, the breaks - the oh-so-crazy breaks - are falling Milhorn's way.

Iowa State kicks a late field goal to upset intra-state foe Iowa. Then Iowa nearly takes the ensuing kickoff to the house, and may have if not for a slip and the Hawkeyes forgetting they should probably try a lateral or two.

Did I mention the Cyclones were 0-2 entering the game and 17-point underdogs? That's just not fair.

I and the entire picks panel got this one right, too, but did the Broncos really deserve to win Sunday's game? Mike Shanahan's cruelly timed timeout saved the Broncos from embarrassing defeat at the hands of the lowly Raiders.

That was just this past weekend. Glance back to the previous weekend and you see more Milhorn luck. In going a ridiculous 11-0, he picked correctly four games decided by a touchdown or less.

Perhaps the craziest of those came in College Station, Texas, where Texas A&M held on for a 47-45 win over Fresno State in not one, not two, but three, overtimes.

And then there was the wild finish to Monday Night's Ravens-Bengals game. Milhorn should mail a check to the official that called pass interference on Ravens tight end Todd Heap, negating a game-tying touchdown.

But, in his first blemish of the young season, Milhorn also suffered at the hands of last-second insanity.

Flash back to Sunday's 49ers-Rams game.

Jeff Wilkins made a 553Ú4-yard field goal kick that needed to travel 56 yards as the Niners held on to beat the Rams in the final minute. (A diehard Niners fan, I happily chose wrong on that one, and will continue to pick against my teams. My backing does little for them in the luck department.) The ball practically grazed the crossbar.

Milhorn is literally inches from a perfect season.

The beauty of picking football games is the craziness. Milhorn is just a handful of breaks from a spot in the middle of our football-picking pack - instead of at the front of it. Just like each of his seven pursuers is a bounce or two from mirroring his dance with near perfection.

But above all: Hopefully, akin to the Sports Illustrated or Madden cover curses, this column jinxes him.