As promised, here’s
another edition of college football picks! I went 3-3 last weekend, and came
within a few Washington mistakes in the red zone of being 4-2.
As always, please don’t gamble on these picks,
unless you want some mob guy showing up at your house and breaking your legs with
a bat! Let’s jump right into this!
#18
Mississippi State over Kansas State (at Kansas State)
Mississippi State QB Nick
Fitzgerald makes his season debut in Manhattan tomorrow after serving a one
game suspension last weekend for a violation team rules. We learned almost
nothing about the Bulldogs last Saturday during their 63-3 pounding of Stephen F
Austin, but we might’ve learned something about K-State, who struggled mightily
with South Dakota and needed two late
touchdowns to eek out a 27-24 win.
If the Bill Snyder Era at
Kansas State was a stock, I’d be selling it for whatever I could get. The man
is 78 and has presided over a Wildcat team that’s gone 14-13 in conference play
the last three seasons, as opposed to the 27-9 record he had against Big 12
opponents from 2011-2014. He’s had an incredible tenure there, better than anyone
ever could imagined, but it’s starting to feel like it’s run its course. Which
raises the question of how you move on from a legendary coach that might’ve
hung around for too long. The Penn State-Joe Paterno situation took care of itself
in horrifying fashion, while Bobby Bowden eventually stepped down at FSU due to
fanbase pressure. The difference between those situations and this one though
is that K-State, without Snyder, is one of the worst Power 5 coaching jobs in the country. I
can’t see them ever being able to hire someone anywhere near as good as Snyder
again, and certainly not someone who is going to hang around for decades like
he has. Kind of feels like a "Till death due us part" situations at this point. I mean their freaking football stadium is named after him.
Regardless, I think
Mississippi State is better and will go in there and win on Saturday.
Nebraska
over Colorado (at Nebraska)
Scott Frost makes his
coaching debut for his alma mater against Colorado, a game I think he should
win. Frost seems like a very capable football coach, as evidenced by his 13-0 record at
UCF last year, two years into taking over a program that was 0-12 in 2015.
Nebraska is a more difficult place to win than it was 20+ years ago when he
quarterbacked them to a national title; everyone is on TV week to week now, there’s
no players in the state, and Lincoln is a cold weather city in the middle of
nowhere. Frost resurrecting the program, restoring it to glory, and competing
for Big Ten titles every year is totally plausible, but I wouldn't bet
on it. I think the brand is more powerful than what the program actually is at this point, and I suspect there’s an ever better chance in four years we’ll all be reading “Why didn’t it
work at Nebraska with Scott Frost?” columns. That doesn’t mean I think Frost is
a bad coach like Ed Orgeron, aka Cajun Hodor, I just think he’s stepped into a
really tough situation with unrealistic fan expectations. The school and
fanbase seem all in at this point though; I mean, the governor of the state
declared last Saturday to be “Scott Frost Day”. They want it to work so badly
in Lincoln; it at least should tomorrow.
#3
Georgia over #24 South Carolina (at South Carolina)
I pushed all my chips in
last week on the “Will Muschamp isn’t a good coach” take and the Gamecocks demolition
of Coastal Carolina did nothing to convince me. Muschamp and his beer gut could
silence a lot of critics by taking care of the Bulldogs tomorrow, and thus, ensuring a
stranglehold on the SEC East by the second week of the season, but I really see
this one playing out the sane way the game between these two did last year, a 24-10
Georgia victory. Muschamp, a Georgia
alum, has also been weirdly unsuccessful against them, going a paltry 1-5 in his head coaching career. This is a simple calculation: Georgia has
the edge at head coach (Kirby Smart vs Muschamp), QB (Jake Fromm vs Jake
Bentley) and overall roster.
Iowa
State over Iowa (at Iowa)
Iowa has won the last
three games in what is perhaps the dumbest named trophy in all of sports. The Cy-Hawk
trophy? Way to go guys, you really got creative there! Who was the genius that
came up with that one? “Hey guys, let’s just take the first part of Iowa and
Iowa State’s nicknames, push them together and call it the ‘Cy-Hawk Trophy’.
What do you think?” And then everyone oohed and aahed and they named the trophy
that and never thought about it again. It was the worst instance of pushing the
words together since Andy Bernard suggested “Dunder-Mifflin-finity” How about
literally anything else? The Corn Bowl? Far better name suggestion.
Regardless, I’m a
believer in Matt Campbell at Iowa State, and I think the Cyclones have better
players and will capture the… Cy-Hawk Trophy for the first time since 2014.
Tennessee
over ETSU (at Tennessee)
This isn’t even a hot
take: if Tennessee loses this game tomorrow, Phillip Fulmer should be waiting
in the locker room to fire Jeremy Pruitt the second he walks in there. Because
we know Pruitt isn't going to work at that point. Plus, former Tennessee assistant Randy
Sanders is now the head coach at ETSU, and he said this week that if the Bucs
beat the Vols, he’d be walking home up I-81 naked carrying the goalpost. I’m
not even sure Randy’s wife wants to see him naked at this point; I know I certainly
don’t. THERE’S A LOT RIDING ON THIS.
#25
Florida over Kentucky (at Florida)
The Gators have beaten
the Wildcats every year since 1987. 1987! That’s 31 consecutive times! I don’t
know how good Florida actually is, and I certainly don’t trust them at
quarterback (Feleipe Franks? Come on), but what I trust even less is the Mark
Stoops Era at Kentucky. OH HEY WE’RE KENTUCKY! WE’RE MAKING WAVES HERE BOYS!
WATCH OUT! WE’RE PUTTING OUT A TROPHY TO CELEBRATE OUR 1950 NATIONAL
CHAMPIONSHIP, A TITLE WE CLAIM THANKS TO… (squints…..) SOMETHING CALLED THE
SAGARIN RATINGS! HELL YEAH WE’VE GOT TRADITION NOW!! Stop. You’re Kentucky.
Pittsburgh
over #13 Penn State (at Pittsburgh)
The upset of the week. The
Panthers beat the Nittany Lions two years ago in Pittsburgh early in the season
and I think it will happen again. Pat Narduzzi is a good coach, particularly
offensively, and there’s a pretty good chance the Penn State defense
might just suck, as evidenced by the fact that they gave up 28 fourth quarter
points and 451 yards of total offense to Appalachian State last week. The
Nittany Lions feel like an 8-4 football team this year, at least right now.
#2
Clemson over Texas A&M (at Texas A&M)
It’s Dabo-Jimbo IX! If
someone was writing a fiction novel about college football in the South, they’d
be hard-pressed to come up with two better names for coaches than Dabo and
Jimbo. Dabo has won the last three meetings with Jimbo after losing four of his
first five tries against him. On paper, Clemson has perhaps the best roster in
the country outside of Alabama. Texas A&M isn’t close to that, and the only
reason this game might even be close is because it’s a road game for the
Tigers. I’m predicting a 42-17 thrashing by Clemson.
As always, enjoy football this weekend. And make sure to check out my massive 6000+ word NFL Meat Sandwich from yesterday if you haven't already!
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