It’s a truly amazing time of the year in the sports world. The NFL season is halfway through, basketball is just getting started and fall college sports are winding down to their championship seasons.

This is the time of the year where the clocks go back, it’s darker and cooler and we get to curl up in the warmth of our rooms and watch sports all day and all night. From now until April, every weekend will be filled with sporting events from bowl games to national championships to March Madness. So sit back and enjoy the ride.

Now onto my winners and losers for this weekend in college sports.

Winner: Men’s Basketball

Is it that time of the year already? The No. 21 Stanford men’s basketball team makes its regular season debut tonight in Maples Pavilion against Harvard, continues on Saturday against Northwestern State and caps the weekend off on Sunday with UC-Santa Barbara. Stanford looked good on Monday in an exhibition tune-up and tonight starts its quest to return to the NCAA tournament. All the non-conference games are critical for the team as an extremely tough Pac-10 schedule awaits them in January. Expect Stanford to roll to three victories this weekend.

Loser: California

At the beginning of October, this game seemed like it was going to be the game of the year in college football. Now, unranked California welcomes USC to town in a game with major Pac-10 implications. Cal had lost three in a row until beating Washington State last weekend, and USC looked sharp in beating down Oregon State.

John David Booty is back for the Trojans and made his presence felt last weekend. Four years ago, Cal pulled off a huge 34-31 upset in triple overtime over then-No. 3 USC in a game that put coach Jeff Tedford on the map. Cal won’t be as lucky this time as USC is trying to keep their BCS bowl hopes alive and is beginning to look like the Southern Cal of old. Cal loses, which, if you want to really stretch, makes this year’s Big Game all the more exciting to look forward to.

Winner: Women’s Basketball

The No. 7 Women’s basketball team is on the East coast this weekend for a pair of non-conference games, highlighted by Sunday’s clash with last year’s NCAA finalist, Rutgers. Stanford will sorely miss Brooke Smith down low, but sophomore Jayne Appel and senior Candice Wiggins are back for a team that was upset last year in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

The team should have no trouble with Yale on Friday and will beat Rutgers on Sunday. Though Rutgers is a great team and has a great coach in C. Vivian Stringer, Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer knows how to prepare her squad for tough non-conference games. Expect the women’s team to also go through the weekend undefeated as they make a national statement early in the season.

Loser: Texas

This is the upset special of the weekend. Texas Tech heads into Austin to take on the Texas Longhorns in a crucial Big 12 battle.

Texas has been slowly climbing the rankings in the past few weeks, but none of the Longhorns’ wins seem too impressive. Meanwhile, Texas Tech’s passing attack is one of the most feared in the nation. Graham Harrell hooking up with Michael Crabtree is the Tom Brady-Randy Moss combination of college football. Harrell has tossed 38 touchdowns this year and Crabtree has hauled in 18 of those. Texas hasn’t looked too sharp in the last few weeks and Texas Tech is a good 7-3 squad with all of their losses coming in Big 12 conference play. Even though Texas is playing at home, look for Texas Tech to be the spoilers on Saturday.

Think your prognostication skills can match Danny’s? Let him know at dbelch1@stanford.edu.