Preposterous

Much, much better! 

After a tough 3-4 last week, I managed to get all -- yes ALL -- seven of my picks right on Friday. 

Let's break down the games: 

• Charlotte Country Day at Charlotte Catholic: My pick: Catholic. This is one of the oldest and best rivalries in Charlotte, the battle for the John Cook Cup. Country Day has dominated the series the last few years, winning the last four, but Catholic has looked very, very strong this year. This ended up being the game of the week, and possibly of the year, with a classic finish. Catholic scored a touchdown on a desperation pass with time expiring to force overtime. After two overtime periods, Catholic took home the cup, 35-28. 
• Rock Hill South Pointe at Independence: My pick: South Pointe. I've picked against traditional power Independence in both of their games so far this season. I don't think the Patriots are that bad, I just think the teams they are playing are that good. They faced Mallard Creek (my pick for the best team in Charlotte right now) in the first week and South Pointe, who has the top recruit in the nation, Jedaveon Clowny, this week. This was another close game, but a blocked punt helped South Pointe take home the victory 34-27. 
• Morganton Freedom at East Burke: My pick: Freedom. Both of these teams were 0-1 and not in my coverage area, so I didn't have much to go on with this pick. It's also a big regional rivalry (the game is called "Fat Friday"), which means anything can happen. I had to go with quality of loss in that first game, and Freedom lost to Hibriten, a quality 3A team. Luckily, I was right and Freedom rolled 47-0. 
• Waddell at Hough: My pick: Hough. Normally, I would never pick a first-year school to win over anyone but another first-year school, but Hough has the perk of great early scheduling. They won their first game convincingly over fellow new school Rocky River in their first game and got to play Waddell, a team that is struggling to produce this year. They took advantage, winning 16-0. Next week they have the chance to make it to 3-0 when they play Garinger. 
• East Rowan at Concord: My pick: Concord. Concord fell hard at the beginning of last season, losing their first six games. But this is a much more experienced Spider team and they're showing it, starting 2-1 with the one loss coming to a very strong Marvin Ridge team. The Spiders had no problem with East Rowan, beating them 33-6. 
• South Iredell at West Iredell: My pick: South Iredell. I'll be totally honest, I really don't remember why I picked this team. With teams I don't know about, I do whatever research I can about their record so far, how they did last year and how good their competition has been. I guess my reasoning worked as the South Iredell Vikings improved to 3-0 with a 28-14 win over West. 
• Providence Day at Swain County: My pick: Providence Day. Providence Day is one of the schools in my area that I haven't seen in game action yet. But I know they have one heck of a running back in Josh Covington and an improving quarterback in Price Litton. They beat Swain last year, so I expected the same. Also, it's my girlfriend's alma mater. Providence Day won in a close one, 26-20. 

That solid week takes me to 16-5 overall after three weeks. 

In short: not too good. 

I knew this week would be a struggle for me with a lot of teams I wasn't terribly familiar with. I really didn't think it would be this bad. 

• Catholic at Providence My pick: Catholic. Winner: Catholic, 38-13. This is one I actually did well on. Still haven't seen either of these teams play live, but I have a lot of confidence in that Catholic running game. It didn't hurt that Providence made every mistake they possibly could. 
• Rock Hill South Pointe at Rock Hill Northwestern My pick: Northwestern. Winner: Northwestern, 42-20. This game, played on ESPNU on Saturday afternoon, had me worried. It was the difference between having a kinda bad week and an awful week. And it didn't look good for Northwestern in the beginning. Then Northwestern QB Justin Worley (committed to Tennessee) went insane in the third quarter, throwing five touchdown passes. 
• First Assembly at Charlotte Christian My pick: First Assembly. Winner: Christian, 24-6. I way underestimated Christian here. I didn't have a lot of confidence after seeing them last week, but it looks like the Knights worked hard in practice and are ready to go. And from what I've seen, WR-turned-QB Simms McElfresh had a solid game, which is very good for the Knights. Still surprised that First Assembly scored so little (their lone score came in the fourth quarter).
• Piedmont at Porter Ridge My pick: Piedmont. Winner: Porter Ridge, 42-16. Never underestimate a quality running back, I guess. Can't find the stats now, but I'm pretty sure Porter Ridge's Javonte Truesdale had another really good game. 
• South Stanly at North Stanly My pick: South Stanly. Winner: North Stanly, 25-7. I guess history lied to me. Big time. 
• Lincolnton at South Point My pick: South Point. Winner: Lincolnton, 43-42. I don't even feel bad about missing this one.  This game ended in overtime, with Lincolnton going for two and making it after scoring a touchdown. Two great teams and a great game. 
• East Mecklenburg at Vance My pick: Vance. Winner: Vance, 46-6. I felt very confident in this pick and I was right. East Meck just has too many issues right now and they're going to struggle this season. I think coach Jeremy Buck can build something there, but it's not going to happen immediately. 

So for those of you playing at home, that makes me 3-4 on the week and 9-5 overall. We'll see if I can get that record up on Friday. 

Each week, I have the sublime pleasure to pick the winner of seven high school football games in the Charlotte area. I've decided I'm going to post them here.

If you're really into high school football, there's a huge preview section that the Observer does each Friday that you can check out online at http://www.charlotteobserver.com/preps.

And if you want to see my beautiful face, I film a Prep Insiders video each Wednesday afternoon with Observer prep writer Langston Wertz Jr. and my community news colleague Sergio Tovar of the Lake Norman News and Cabarrus News.

Now that we have that out of the way, onto the picks! Last week I went 6-1, missing my one underdog pick, South Meck over Charlotte Catholic. Let's see if I do better this time.

• Charlotte Catholic (1-0) at Providence (0-1): This is a fun non-conference rivalry between two schools just down the street from each other. It pits Catholic's strong running game against Providence's passing game, lead by senior Chauncey Concepcion. I have to give the edge to the ground game. My pick: Catholic. This is also the South Charlotte News game of the week. Read our preview here.
• Rock HIll South Point (1-0) at Rock Hill Northwestern (0-0): I don't know much about these teams, but I know this is a huge matchup. It's actually going to be featured on ESPNU Saturday at 4 p.m. It features two top recruits, Northwestern QB Justin Worley and South Pointe DE Jadeveon Clowny, the top recruit in the country. Should be a heck of a fun game. My pick: basically a toss up, but I take Northwestern. 
• First Assembly (1-0) at Charlotte Christian (1-0): What a fun private school game. First Assembly won last year's N.C. Independent Schools Association Division II championship and Christian has been in the past three NCISAA Division I title games and won it in 2008. But Christian has a lot of questions, especially at quarterback, and struggled to a one-point win last week. First Assembly looks fired up about this game. My pick: First Assembly. 
• Piedmont (1-0) at Porter Ridge (1-0): This is a game outside of my coverage area with teams I'm not familiar with, but I do know that Porter Ridge's running back Javonte Truesdale had a huge game last week, rushing five times for 209 yards and four touchdowns, including a kick-off return. While impressive, Piedmont recorded a 40-0 shut out last week, so their defense might be a bit stronger. My pick: Piedmont.
• South Stanly (0-1) at North Stanly (0-1): This was an interesting game to pick, a county rivalry between two winless teams. With nothing better to base it on, I looked at history: South won the game 38-0 last year and went 8-5. North was 3-8. My pick: South Stanly.
• Lincolnton (1-0) at South Point (0-1): South Point won the 3AA championship last year and they host a 2A school in Lincolnton, the 2007 2A state champs. South Point has the worse record, but they lost to a quality school in Clover (S.C.). My pick: South Point. This was the only unanimous pick from all five prognosticators this week. 
• East Mecklenburg (0-1) at Vance (0-0): East Meck had a strong season last year, going 8-5 and making it to the 4AA regional semifinals where they lost to eventual champion Butler. But East Meck lost a lot from last year, including a head coach (Greg Hill, who is now at Gastonia Ashbrook), a quarterback (Olen Little to graduation) and a star running back (Ron Howard, redistricted to Butler). It's a lot for new coach Jeremy Buck and the Eagles to overcome, as evidenced by their 43-7 loss last week to West Charlotte. My pick: Vance.

Feel free to agree with me or blast me in the comments. I can handle it.

I'll be at the Ardrey Kell at North Mecklenburg game tonight, so you can follow @SouthCLTNews on Twitter for live game updates.

All weekend I kept hearing about Cee Lo Green's new song on Facebook and Twitter. "What's all the fuss about?" I wondered. Then I finally Googled. 

Cee Lo's latest song has gone totally viral and it's obvious why: it has a great, provocative title ("F*** You") and it's catchy as hell. 

Check the song out below accompanied by awesome word art. Looks like Cee Lo's new album will be out in October. If the rest sounds anything like this, I WILL be buying it. 

Last night a buddy took me to a concert with some bluegrass band that he liked.

Two hours later, they weren't some bluegrass band: they were Cadillac Sky. And I really, really likedd them.

The group, hailing from Texas, is a five-piece bluegrass band (typical instrumentation: guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bass, some drums) that put on an incredible, high energy live show. Their albums, while good, don't really do their stage show justice. This is one of those bands you have to see live.

The highlight is their guitarist, a dude named Dave with an epic beard and stage presence coming out of his ears. He worked his tail off on stage and the crowd ate it up.

They're going to be around North Carolina and Virginia for the next couple months, so check them out if you can. Until then, here are a few songs of theirs that I've gotten into recently.

If you're anything like me (and let's hope for your sake you're not) the summer has been way too slow in the sports world. The World Cup was a fun distraction, but other than that I've been going through withdrawals during these hot months.

(Note: I know baseball season is going on, and I love going to baseball games, but watching regular season MLB games is on par with watching old women play bridge to me. Wake me up in October.)

It's also meant that I haven't had high school sports to cover for the South Charlotte News. It's allowed me to branch out and do some fun stories, but I miss heading out to the field on Friday night.

But never fear, sports fans, August and September are soon upon us! And I've been milking the upcoming football season for all it's worth.

Since this will be my first season covering football in the South Charlotte area, I'm excited to see all these storied programs take the field in person. The Southwestern 4A (the public conference I'll be covering) is arguably the best conference in North AND South Carolina. The private school state championship should be renamed the Charlotte Invitational. Over the past ten years, only one team from outside of Charlotte has won the NCISAA state title (Raleigh's Ravenscroft, 2000). The three other teams that make up the rest of the titles are schools in my coverage area: Charlotte Latin, Charlotte Christian and Charlotte Country Day.

Over the past few weeks I've been working with one of my writers, Jay Edwards, to compile football previews on all the area teams. If you're from the Charlotte area or just love good high school football, check out what we've done so far. We will publish two more each Wednesday until the first week of the season, August 18. I'll add them to the list as they publish.

Enjoy!

• Charlotte Catholic (and the rest of the MEGA 7)
• Providence High
• Charlote Christian
• Charlotte Country Day
• Myers Park
• Providence Day
• East Mecklenburg
• Charlotte Latin
• Ardrey Kell
• South Mecklenburg
• Butler, Independence and Rocky River

Photo: Charlotte Latin quarterback Sam Spence, taken by Corey Inscoe.