Week 3 College Football Picks

It’s Week 3 of the college football season and there are some enormous matchups on Saturday, even with the multiple cancellations due to Hurricane Florence (stay safe everyone). Let’s jump right in…

Tennessee over UTEP (at Tennessee)

The Vols, after a shaky start, blasted ETSU last week in a win that will mean absolutely nothing for their season going forward. Neither will the game tomorrow, unless they lose of course, which would be absolutely horrific, considering UTEP has been outscored 82-34 and outgained 851-687 through the first two weeks. This isn't even an average Group of 5 team and the Vols should be able to dispatch them with relative ease and head into next week's match up with Florida on a two game winning streak.

If they did manage to lose somehow, it’s not a “Phillip Fulmer is waiting in the locker room to fire Jeremy Pruitt the second he steps in there” game, but it would be the worst opponent to beat the Vols since Wyoming defeated them in 2008 during Fulmer’s final year as coach. Plus, we’d all feel really awful about Pruitt and the program going forward because not even Butch Jones or Derek Dooley lost games like this.

#5 Oklahoma over Iowa State (at Iowa State)

Last year the Cyclones went into Norman and gave the Sooners their only loss of the regular season. I thought Iowa State would be better than 2017’s 8-5 record because they had 15 starters coming back, but last week’s offensive showing at Iowa was abominable; 3 points, 188 total yards, and only 19 rushing yards. 19!!!!

Oklahoma has blasted their first two opponents and new QB Kyler Murray might be the Heisman winner if they held the vote today. I like the Sooners big here; the defense isn’t great, but maybe better than last year, and the offense is so good that I don’t see anyone really being able to slow them down this season. Definitely not Iowa State. And even if they could make them work a little bit, I have no confidence in their offense to get to even 20 points.

Quick Tangent: Cyclones head coach Matt Campbell might have missed the best opportunity of his career to get a big time job. Iowa State is one of the worst Power 5 jobs in the country, a place that had won a combined 11 games from 2013-2016. Winning 8 games there like they did last season is like winning 11 games at a major program. Campbell’s problem was that any school who tried to hire him after 2017 would’ve owed Iowa State $9.4 million, and I don’t think any program wanted to be on the hook for something like that unless they were getting a coach like Nick Saban or Urban Meyer. So as he got passed over for job after job, eventually he threw up his hands and signed another deal with Iowa State that extended him long term, but also brought his buyout down to $7 million after this season. Realistically, 8 or 9 wins is really the best you can ever do at Iowa State. They’re never going to have the players to compete week to week in the Big 12, and even the best game planner can’t scheme well enough to make up for their lack of talent. If Campbell ever wants to win a conference title, appear in the college football playoff, and make a crap ton of money, he’ll need to leave. The problem is that if he’s already peaked, and his offense isn’t going to get any better than it did last week, then it could be a really difficult season in Ames, like 3-8 level bad. And if that’s the case, and it continues, his name is going to fall out of favor as his 8 win season gets further away and passes out of athletic director’s memories.

Wisconsin over BYU (at Wisconsin)

I think this is the best Wisconsin team since Bret Bielema departed for Arkansas after the 2012 season. It’s a loaded roster with a potential Hesiman winner at running back in Jonathan Taylor and one of the best coaching staffs in the country. I wasn’t sure about Paul Chryst when he got there before the 2015 season due to his 19-19 record at Pittsburgh, but all he’s done since he showed up was go 36-7 (22-4 in conference play), capture the Big Ten West title the last two years, win two consecutive New Years Six Bowl games, and finish in the Top ten in 2016 and 2017.

The only real hole I see on this team is at quarterback; Alex Hornibrook has such a weak arm that I’m not even sure he’s actually left-handed. His delivery looks awkward and slow and I don't think anyone is scared when he drops back to pass. They really need to play from ahead every week because he hasn’t proven that he’d be able to throw his team back into a game if they were down 14 entering the 4^th quarter, or needed a touchdown tying drive in a big spot. I don’t think they’ll face too tough a test from BYU this weekend, but the Hornibrook thing would be something to keep an eye on as they enter conference play because I suspect it will come back to bite them at some point.

#17 Boise State over #24 Oklahoma State (at Oklahoma State)

Next Saturday is the 11 year anniversary of Mike Gundy’s “I’M A MAN! I’M 40!” rant, the greatest coaching performance in front of the media in the history of sports. For fun, here’s the rest of the top 5.....

5. "The Bears are who we thought they were…. AND WE LET THEM OFF THE HOOK!!!"

After blowing a 20 point halftime lead to the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football, Cardinals coach Dennis Green appeared in front of the media and uttered the unforgettable and yet utterly confusing “The Bears are who we thought they were…. AND WE LET THEM OFF THE HOOK!!!” line, which included a hard smack of the podium. The best thing about this is that it’s been almost 12 years and I still have no idea what he was talking about. You thought they were a team that would let you get a 20 point halftime lead? Is that what “who we thought they were” means? What?

4. Kevin Borseth, Michigan woman’s basketball coach

I always thought this one was underrated, if only for the entrance alone, which was nothing more than a hard slam of notes onto the podium. He then yelled with the ferocity of a man who had mixed an entire gallon of coffee with about nine lines of cocaine to a crowd of what couldn’t have been more than three or four reporters. This was always the funniest part for me; you’ve got this maniac losing his freaking mind about offensive rebounds in front of a tiny crowd of reporters (because there’s no way the Michigan women’s basketball team is getting covered by 50 people) and yet, he's so passionate, just this bald guy who looks like he might be a real life alien, screaming his lungs out about a sport that so few people care about. What are those reporters thinking? They went to a women's basketball game that probably almost bored them to death. It's slow, no one is playing above the rim, and then all the sudden this zany guy comes into the postgame with more energy than was on the court the entirety of the night. It’s all just so hilarious.

3. “You Play To Win The Game! Hello?! You Play To Win The Game!”

Former Jets and current Arizona State coach Herm Edwards is always good for a quote or two, but this one was by far his best. This one works because of the cadence of his voice and the way he articulates each word. It was almost like he had a period between every word; YOU. PLAY. TO. WIN. THE. GAME. Just perfect. I also like how he answered the reporter’s question by using the word “win” five times and the word “play” six times.

2. “Playoffs? Playoffs?”

The most famous answer ever by a coach in front of the media. This one works again because the cadence of Jim Mora’s voice, the way it almost cracks in disbelief at the absurdity of his Colts team being able to make the playoffs. This one was so great that people now come up to Mora in public all the time, imploring him to say “playoffs” to them. That’s when you know you’ve uttered something special.

1. “I’M A MAN! I’M 40!”

This one is the perfect mixture of absurdity and hilarity mixed into one. You’ve got Gundy bringing the newspaper out, calling everyone liars and garbage, talking about how everyone should be ashamed of themselves, the disingenuous “where are we at in society” nonsense, and finally, the climatic “COME AFTER ME! I’M A MAN! I’M 40!” I have no idea what the point of sharing his age was, but it enabled what would’ve been remembered as a strange shouting fest into an incredibly quotable moment that has defined Gundy’s coaching career.

Anyway, I like Boise State to upset OK State this weekend. The Broncos are in the conversation for the best Group of Five team in the country and a New Years Six Bowl Game, while the Cowboys have had a lot of roster turnover from last year’s team.

#1 Alabama over Ole Miss (at Ole Miss)

After the Rebels Week 1 demolition of Texas Tech I thought this might be a challenging game for the Tide. I’m not so sure now, considering the fact that Ole Miss gave up 41 points to Southern Illinois last Saturday. Southern Illinois? Not encouraging. Not a hot take here at all, but Alabama is going to roll through them and win by at least 4 touchdowns.

Texas over #22 USC (at Texas)

I’ve pushed all my chips in on the “Clay Helton is a position coach masquerading as a head man” bandwagon. The guy looks like he should be selling tube socks or insurance you don’t want door to door. If he didn’t have Sam Darnold carrying his sorry ass the last two years, he’d have been fired by now, maybe even after the 2016 season. In his three games as a head coach against Power 5 teams without Darnold, his teams have scored a combined 19 points. 19! That’s just over 6 a game. Geez. I’m not the world’s biggest Tom Herman fan either (though he’s loved at the strip clubs), and the Texas defense is still pretty awful, but I don’t think it’s going to matter all that much since the Trojan offense strikes out more often than I did with all the girls at my high school.

#4 Ohio State over #15 TCU (at Jerry World In Arlington)

I’m fairly certain Gary Patterson has a very good team this year at TCU, I just happen to think there’s a substantial gap between the top four or five teams in the country and everyone else right now. This Ohio State team has a chance to be the best Buckeye team since the national championship winning one from 2014, and they don’t appear to have been effected by any of the controversy surrounding Urban Meyer. Dwayne Haskins looks like the real deal at quarterback, and the roster is loaded up and down with NFL guys. TCU doesn’t have that. Ohio State wins by two touchdowns.

#7 Auburn over #12 LSU (at Auburn)

The game of the weekend in my view. I don’t really trust either of these squads because one is coached by a real life swamp monster from the Bayou (LSU) named Ed Orgeron, while the other has a ridiculously talented team every year that hasn’t lived up to expectations since 2013 (Auburn). I have no confidence in Auburn, but all the important matchups go in their favor; they’re at home, they have the better quarterback (Jarrett Stidham is NFL caliber; Joe Burrow is not), and the better head coach in Gus Malzahn, though, to be fair, picking Malzahn over Orgeron is like saying you’d rather be stabbed than shot.

The loser of this game is probably eliminated from the SEC West race, while the winner will still have a difficult road to Atlanta. Both of these squads play Georgia AND Alabama this year, with Auburn playing both of them on the road. So this is basically a must win for them if they want to avoid the probable chance of losing three conference games for the fourth time in Malzahn's six seasons.  

LSU could definitely win, and they'll have the edge against Auburn's offensive line, but the idea of them ever winning the West while they're coached by Ed Orgeron is such a hilarious proposition that Dane Cook could use it to revitalize his stand up career. Even if they win tomorrow, I can't see them beating both Georgia and Alabama by overcoming the head coach+quarterback math equation. They're just inferior in both those areas. 

Enjoy football this weekend! You deserve it!