College Football, NASCAR Playoffs & Cold Craft Beer! 🏈 🏁 🍻

Some couples bond over cooking, travel, or binge-watching reality TV. We bond by trying to absolutely destroy each other in sports trivia, brackets, and fantasy standings.

Leesl: If you want to know what a shift in household power looks like, just ask Andy. While my Texas Longhorns were dropping the Red River Rivalry at the Cotton Bowl, Andy was quietly staging a multi-sport coup—slashing my NASCAR lead and snagging the college football lead right out from under me.

My husband has officially become a very dangerous man. He’s smiling too much, he’s talking too loud, and he thinks he’s got momentum. Let’s see how long that lasts.

Round 3 of Pigskins, Pit Stops, and Pints starts now!

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🏈 Pigskins: The CFB High-Five

College Standings: Leesl: 14-15-1 | Andy: 15-14-1 (Margin: +1 Andy)

Our weekly college football picking slate is a pure battle of negotiation. Each week, after a healthy amount of debating and back-and-forth, we lock in a fun, random mix of five games across the country to put our overall records on the line!

Andy: Week 6 gave me exactly what I needed—a 3-1-1 record to finally climb over .500 and swipe a 1-game lead! Big thanks to Oklahoma, Georgia, and Houston for coming through. Am I going to brag about being 15-14-1? Absolutely, because a lead is a lead! My only real disappointment was Texas A&M getting completely locked down in Missouri. But hey, I’ll take the top spot on the leaderboard any day of the week!

Leesl: Enjoy that 1-game cushion while it lasts, Andy—at 15-14-1, you’re hardly Lombardi! As for the Red River Rivalry, it took me a good three days to process that loss. Outgaining Oklahoma by nearly 150 yards and shutting down their run, only to give up defensive and special teams touchdowns was pure heartbreak. Turning the ball over like that was handing them the Golden Hat trophy on a silver platter. But that’s the beauty of college football—we’ve got a clean slate this week, and I’m coming straight for that #1 spot!

Here is the Week 7 Lineup we finally agreed on:

• Game 1: Arizona at Texas Tech — Leesl: Texas Tech | Andy: Arizona
• Game 2: Penn State at Michigan — Leesl: Michigan | Andy: Penn State
• Game 3: Utah at Colorado — Leesl: Colorado | Andy: Utah
• Game 4: UNC at Duke — Leesl: Duke | Andy: UNC
• Game 5: TCU at Baylor — Leesl: Baylor | Andy: TCU

Leesl: I hope you enjoyed your 1-game lead this week, Andy, because taking Arizona in Lubbock and TCU in Waco gives me prime opportunities to sweep you right back into second place!

Andy: I’ll take my chances with Arizona’s offense and Penn State in the Big House. Let’s see who’s smiling on Sunday morning!

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🏁 Pit Stops: The Playoff Pulse

Current Fantasy Scoreboard: Leesl: 17,887 pts | Andy: 17,812 pts (Margin: +75 Lone Star Racin’)

Andy: The race results from Charlotte were exactly what I’ve been hunting for since Windy City Racin’ took a checkered flag all the way back at Talladega in April. It has been such a dry spell that when the 50-point blowout registered, I literally rechecked the live leaderboard three separate times to verify the math. Yes, folks—I walked out of Charlotte with a massive 76-point weekly triumph. Led by a dominant showing from Christopher Bell, my squad landed four drivers inside the top 10. Sure, I benefited from some catastrophic, self-inflicted bad luck over at Lone Star Racin’, but you won’t hear me complaining. The comeback trail officially runs through Phoenix!

Leesl: You know it is going to be a miserable Sunday afternoon when two of your main roster drivers—Bubba Wallace and William Byron—get utterly annihilated in the exact same wreck on Lap 76. To make matters worse, Ty Gibbs decided to clip the wall later on, limping home to a painful 34th-place finish. Even though my team technically boasted four top 10 drivers—including the actual race winner, Chase Briscoe—there was simply no overcoming those three anchors dragging down my average.

Andy: And, on that note…back to the desert we go, where Windy City Racin’ is hunting for a definitive 2026 season sweep. During our spring trip to Phoenix Raceway, my squad swept the podium with a first, second, and third-place driver finish! Phoenix is a total drivers’ track—unlike modern high-banked ovals, its flat straights and minimal 9-to-11-degree turns put the race entirely on handling, heavy braking, and exit speed rather than raw, unadulterated horsepower. Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, and Chase Elliott have historically chewed up this flat mile. I’m riding the hot hand and locking in Christopher Bell to anchor our sweep this weekend.

Leesl: Don’t get too cocky over one decent weekend, Andy. The last time your team stumbled into a victory lane, I came back and won the very next race. History loves a repeat performance. And your spring break trip and magical podium sweep, my team answered by parking four drivers in the top 10, keeping your margin of victory to a teeny tiny little bitty 14 points. My lineup is built for flat-track success, heavily backed by Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Tyler Reddick, and Joey Logano. With only four races left on the schedule, Hamlin and the No. 11 car need a statement win to salvage my household pride, and I’m confident he’s delivering it on Sunday.

🏁 Our Official Playoff Rosters

• Leesl’s Lone Star Racin’ – These boots are meant for racing!
  • Hamlin, Logano, Reddick, Byron, Briscoe (winner 🏆), Wallace, Gibbs & Hocevar.
• Andy’s Windy City Racin’ – From second city to first place!
  • Elliott, Larson, Blaney, Bell, Keselowski, Suarez, Cindric & Preece.

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🍻 Pints: What We’re Sipping

The Spot: Delaney’s Irish Pub & Scratch Kitchen (McKinney, TX)

The Pour: 805 Blonde Ale by Firestone Walker Brewing Company

Leesl: For Andy’s birthday this past Sunday, we took our household rivalry to neutral territory: a corner table at Delaney’s Irish Pub & Scratch Kitchen. Squeezing a birthday celebration into an intense Bears vs. Packers game-day window is always high-risk, high-reward. Unfortunately for Andy, it was all risk. My Packers pick handed his beloved Bears a rough 31-7 drubbing, which is officially the worst birthday present I’ve ever given him.

Fortunately, Delaney’s incredible tap list was there to save the afternoon. They had one of our absolute favorite, go-to brews: 805 Beer on draft—a crisp, easy-drinking California Blonde Ale that we originally discovered during his birthday trip to San Diego last year. Finding it locally on tap was a total full-circle moment. The Bears may have let Andy down on the field, but an ice-cold pint of 805 made it a celebration worth raising a glass to!

👉 Need a reminder of why we love this McKinney local gem? Check out our full review of Delaney’s Irish Pub right here!

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Let’s Settle a Bet…

Who has the tougher weekend ahead: the Chicago guy trying to protect a razor-thin, one-game college football lead, or the Texas gal seeking absolute flat-track revenge in Phoenix after getting completely wrecked at Charlotte?

Let us know who you’re pulling for in the comments—Windy City or Lone Star—and don’t forget to tell us what you’re drinking this weekend.

Until next week—cheers to fast cars, tight spreads, and cold pints! 🏈🏁🍺