Another week of college football is upon us. I can't believe it is already week 7, this is the middle of the season already. You wait all summer long for it to be football season and when it gets here you snap your fingers and it's mid-season and your wanting it to slow down so that you can enjoy it more. And it always seems like fall is busier than any other time of year. You want to enjoy the nice weather, watch football, go here, do that, work picks up, school is back in session. Then you put off the honey-do list on Saturdays because you want to watch football and the list of stuff to do grows longer. It's a great time of year, but it is fast-paced to me.
I'm glad the schedule makers kind of staggered the starts of the SEC games this week. Still, it starts out with Vanderbilt at Georgia with no other games on. This is my #8 vs. #10 so I'm not anticipating much unless Vanderbilt plays great and is in contention for the upset late in the 4th quarter. I don't really think that will happen with the game in Athens, I expect Georgia to win by two touchdowns and a field goal. LSU is playing McNeese State so that's a win. And Tennessee has a bye when they should be playing Alabama since it's the third Saturday in October.
The big game for me is Mississippi State at Florida. There are a ton of variables in this game but the bottom line is State has a chance to win. I fully expect that the game will be in doubt with 5 minutes to play in the 4th quarter. Florida's offense and defense has been suspect the entire season. They are sorely missing Dan Mullen and Tim Tebow as well as a host of players that left for the NFL. Mississippi State isn't going to blow anybody's socks off and they are far from dynamic on offense or stifling on D, but what I can say is they play to their potential and they are solid. Coming off a 3 game win streak the Dawgs are confident and I know they know they can win the game in the Swamp. Florida is coming off two straight losses and so it will be real interesting to see how they respond. I never thought I would do this, but I'm going to predict Mississippi State to go into the Swamp and pull out an ugly, hard fought victory...21-20.
Alabama seems to always struggle with Ole Miss and the new Black Bears are obviously coming off a bye. It will certainly be interesting to see how Alabama's players respond to Nick Saban's ridiculous expectations. If I was a player at Alabama I would be pissed that he is so mad at them for losing one game after winning 29 consecutive regular season game and 19 straight overall. Winning coming off two tough games against ranked opponents and going on the road to face another ranked team is a feat that only one other team has accomplished so I am anxious to see how well they play after being lambasted for Saban's unrealistic goals. All that said about Bama I expect Ole Miss to come out and probably take a lead, maybe into halftime. In the end I Bama will win but the 21 point spread is too much. Should be 10-14 on the spread.
South Carolina is going to Kentucky in what has trap written all over it. All the South Carolina players are hearing how great they are this week and they are high as a kite and now they have to travel to Lexington to face a talented team who is hungry for a win. The cards are heavily stacked against the Gamecocks for this game. They are 5 point favorites which tells you Vegas is seeing this game similar to how I'm viewing it. If Steve Spurrier can get his offense geared up like they need to be to run with the Wildcats then I give him more props than I do for beating Bama. I was all prepared to pick South Carolina to lose this game 31-20 until I heard that Locke isn't going to play due to injury, without that key weapon I don't see UK being nearly as effective on offense and they will ultimately come up short in what Spurrier is called the most important game in South Carolina history, 24-21.
The biggest game of the weekend is Arkansas at Auburn. Think about this: if Arkansas wins then they will have beaten Auburn, who beat South Carolina, who beat Alabama, who beat Arkansas...so all four of those teams which are now ranked around the top 10 will have all played a round robin and beaten each other leaving LSU as the top dog in the SEC for at least a week. But of course there will be many more games to play to sort it all out. In this game I would say it is sort of a trap game since if they win the game next week vs. LSU will be much bigger than this, but Arkansas is ranked in the Top 10 and so I think maybe last week's game at Kentucky was the 'trap' Auburn escaped. Ryan Mallett is still throwing a lot of interceptions and I don't expect him to be without any in this game. Auburn being at home and hungry to make a statement that they are the best team in the SEC will give them the motivation to play mentally tough and stick it to the Hogs. I think Auburn gets out to an early lead, Arkansas comes back, Auburn extends the lead, and it goes like that all day with plenty of scoring. 34-28, Auburn.
I don't even know why I pick 6 national games, who cares about these other worthless conferences and they're unexciting football? Oh well, I throw out some picks for this week. Nebraska over Texas, Wisconsin over Ohio State, Colorado over Baylor, UNC over Virginia, Iowa over Michigan, and Texas A&M over Missouri.
JB
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