Evan Dennison, you traveled from Mt. Olivet to Mt. Orab, Vanceburg to Brooksville covering local high school sports in your seven years here working for the Ledger and on behalf of all sport fans in our area, a big Thank You. Writing for local sports is not a very easy task. You need to have not only full knowledge about a particular sport but also an intense interest in your coverage area. A combination of knowledge and interest makes the writing of any sports article not only interesting, but also informative for the readers. Evan, you did that as you covered all schools on both sides of the river.

On a personal side, Evan gave me a chance to keep a tradition going with Punk’s Picks and you installed the Throwback Thursday pic so I could share pics of great teams, players and coaches from yesteryear. Your columns about athletes in our area that overcame obstacles were so inspiring to so many readers. Evan, thank you for everything that you’ve accomplished here covering high school sports and good luck to everything you will write about in the future.

The answer to last week’s trivia question was that Jim Thorpe played for the Cincinnati Reds and he is a member of the NFL Hall of Fame and he won two gold medals in the Olympics. The first to answer were Andy Crosby, Tom Sims, Ronnie Berryman along with Mallory Denham and Tom Posey.

Last week: 12-8 (196-64 YTD, 75%)

This week’s picks:

The only games that are played this weekend outside of Buffalo-Akron, are the conference’s championship games.

Buffalo over Akron: Buffalo with their high-powered offense will be a challenge for the Zips.

UTSA over North Texas: North Texas has a decent defense, but I still pick the Roadrunners to win this one by a touchdown.

USC over Utah: A huge game for USC as not only for a Pac-12 title but a chance to be in the National Playoffs.

Toledo over Ohio: The Rockets travel to Athens to play the Bobcats, I take the Rockets by two.

TCU over Kansas State: TCU had not been defeated this year, but this will a big test, but I pick the Horned Frogs.

Troy over Coastal Carolina: Troy can score in bunches, and this will be a high scoring game, I pick Troy.

Georgia over LSU: The Bulldogs if you have not noticed, they are good and the Dogs by 14 in this one.

Boise State over Fresno State: Boise State is perennially good every year in this conference and no different this year.

Tulane over UCF: The Green Wave went to Cincinnati last week and beat the Bearcats and I pick them to win the AAC championship.

Clemson over North Carolina: Both teams were stunned last week in upsets, but I take the Tigers by five.

Michigan over Purdue: This could be a letdown game for the Maize and Blue after last week’s big game in Columbus, but the Big 10 trophy will go to the Wolverines.