Friday, September 7, 2018

Week 2 College Football Picks


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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