This is unequivocally the
best on paper weekend of the college football season so far, and there’s a good
chance no other Saturday will top it the rest of the regular season. We’ve got
ranked teams clashing in the Big Ten and the Big 12, the SEC East championship
game, and to top it all off, LSU-Bama! Holy crap! Ladies, get ready to be
ignored by your husbands/boyfriends tomorrow. If you wanted to go to a pumpkin
patch picking, I hope he already took you because you won’t be able to get him
off the couch for about 12 straight hours.
Let’s start here, though…
Charlotte
at Tennessee
I feel obligated to
mention the Vols, though there’s a pretty good chance I won’t watch a
single second of this game because it’s Charlotte,
there’s nothing to be learned from what happens, and there will be about a
million other more interesting games going on at the same time. The 49ers are
4-4, haven’t beaten or lost to anyone substantial, and if the program folded
tomorrow I’m not sure anyone would be up in arms about it. Winning tomorrow
will do nothing for Jeremy Pruitt, and it certainly won’t take the sour taste
out of every Vol fan's mouths after how they blew the South Carolina game last
Saturday, in what was a very Butch Jones-esque fashion. The Vols should take care of
business tomorrow and follow that up by getting the fun task of dealing with the ninth-ranked
Kentucky Wildcats next Saturday, who could be the division champs when that game is played. Wow.
If they don’t win? My
god. Get ready for an all-time rock bottom column from me. I’m going to sound
suicidal and they might have to stick me with about 500 horse tranquilizers to
calm me down.
Prediction: Tennessee
Louisville
at #2 Clemson
I’ve not been a believer
in Clemson all season (and I’m still not), but the one thing they’ve been able
to do with consistently this season is beat the hell out of crappy ACC teams.
They’ve won their last three conference games by a combined score of 163-20 and
just dealt Florida State their biggest home loss in school history. Meanwhile,
this might be the worst Louisville team in the history of the program, and the
only thing that’s been more embarrassing for Cardinals' coach Bobby Petrino than
the team he’s fielded this year was when he got into that motorcycle accident.
Louisville
has played only one Power 5 opponent to less 24 points the entire season. 1!
Out of 6 chances!
Clemson is going to rip
Louisville’s chest open and yank their heart out like in the Temple of Doom.
Prediction: Clemson by 45
#20
Texas A&M at Auburn
I have no feel for this
game either way. The Aggies were starting to
get some long shot playoff buzz until they went into Starkville and got blasted
by Mississippi State, a team that literally looked afraid to throw the football
the week prior at LSU. On the other hand, there’s Auburn, who has lost three
times, is saddled by an overpaid coach (Gus Malzahn) with a flagrantly high
buyout ($32 million!), and is trotting out a senior quarterback who gets donkey brains from time to time and all the sudden forgets the very
basics of the position. I like A&M’s future better, but that has no bearing
on how tomorrow will turn out. In situations like this, I’d oftentimes side
with the coach who needed the game more, and you’d think that’d be Malzahn,
except for the fact that, again, HIS BUYOUT IS $32 MILLION, meaning he isn’t getting
fired after tomorrow unless he gets caught with a wild animal in his bed or
starts cooking crystal meth in an RV and becomes the real life Heisenberg. I
guess I’ll take the Tigers here because they’re coming off their bye week,
while A&M is playing its second consecutive road game. I don’t feel good
about it though!
Prediction: Auburn
#13
West Virginia at #17 Texas
In what is playoff
elimination game for WVU, the winner of this game is going to be whichever team
sucks the least amount on defense. I was going to comment here and say
something like, “Wow, isn’t it crazy that West Virginia has only given up 30
points or more twice all season? Maybe I’ve been too hard on their lack of
defensive prowess” until I took a closer look at their opponents and reminded
myself that they haven’t played a single team that is currently ranked. Here’s
their wins: they beat Tennessee, who is awful; Youngstown State, who is an FCS
team; Kansas State, who is 3-5; Texas Tech, who put up 34 on them despite the
fact that they’re coached by Kliff Kingsbury, the "most beautiful man in college sports"; Kansas, who hasn’t had a winning season since 2008;
and Baylor, who is 4-4 and has been torched a million times already this
season. Their only loss was to Iowa State, who held them to 7 offensive points
and basically did everything but introduce them to The Gimp. I think this is a
very torch-able defense that’s lucky they’ve played one of the worst
schedules of any Top 25 team, and them holding Texas to under 30 points tomorrow seems
less likely than me being able to get a date in high school.
Of course, the Texas defense
is abominable too; Oklahoma State went up and down the field on them last
Saturday, and they almost blew a 21 point lead back in October to Kyler Murray
and Oklahoma. Will Grier should be able to do whatever he wants against the Longhorn
defense, and this one is probably going to come down to whoever has the ball
last.
Another important detail
here; we’ve never had a greater instance of the “Head Coach Nightlife Bowl”
than this one. Tom Herman allegedly visited a strip club with shamed former
Ohio State wide receivers coach Zach Smith when they were both on a recruiting
trip together back in 2014, while Dana Holgorsen had several alcohol-related
incidents back in 2011, including being tossed out of a casino due to his drunkenness. Of course, to be fair, every time I see Holgorsen, I just assume he’s
had a few too many based solely on how his hair looks.
Will this have any
bearing on how the game turns out? Nope! But I just thought it was worth
mentioning. Get ready strip clubs of Austin, Texas, Tom Herman is going to be
ready to party!
Prediction: Texas
#14
Penn State at #5 Michigan
The Wolverines haven’t
allowed more than 319 yards in any game this season, and have given up less
than 300 yards six times, including in each of their last five games. We could
be talking about one of the greatest defenses in the history of college
football here, particularly if they can hold Penn State QB Trace McSorley in
check tomorrow, a guy who accounted for 461 yards all by himself against Ohio
State back on September 29th.
I’ve been riding the Michigan
bandwagon for at least the last month, and I don’t know why I’d jump off now.
The Wolverines, coming off their bye week, have had 14 days to prepare for this
game, and it’s not like Penn State’s defense is good enough, particularly in
the back end, to challenge what has been at times a sloppy Michigan offense. I
like the Wolverines by double digits here.
Prediction: Michigan
#4
Notre Dame at Northwestern
This feels like the
blowout of the weekend and I’m not sure why any Notre Dame fan would be scared going
into this one. Sure, Northwestern pounded Wisconsin last week, but are we sure
the Badgers are even good? They lost to BYU at home and looked like they didn’t
even belong in the same conference as Michigan a few weeks ago. Plus,
Northwestern lost to Akron back in
September, needed a miracle comeback to beat an awful Nebraska team three weeks
ago, and only beat Rutgers by three points on October 20th, who
might be the worst team in the entire FBS. Meanwhile, since Notre Dame switched
quarterbacks to Ian Book before their 4th game of the season, they’ve
won all but one of their games by at least three touchdowns. When the Irish are up 35-10 in the 4th quarter you’re
going to remember reading this and think to yourself, “Wow that Matt guy is
pretty smart, isn’t he? Of course, he roots for Tennessee every week, which is
basically like lighting yourself on fire and then attempting to put it out with
gasoline. So… maybe he’s not that smart?”
Prediction: Notre Dame
#7
Oklahoma at Texas Tech
The Red Raiders have
given up 40 or more points four times already this season, which is an
abominable recipe for them going against OU’s Kyler Murray, who has already led
the Sooner offense to six 40 point performances so far this season. Could Oklahoma
go for 70 tomorrow night? Against that putrid Red Raider defense, why the hell
not?
Side note: earlier in
this space I made reference to Kliff Kingsbury being the most beautiful man in college sports, and
I thought I should revisit that here for a second. Here’s the thing about ole Kliff;
he’s supposedly the best looking college coach in the entire country, but that’s
about as prestigious as being the most beautiful woman in a West Virginia
holler. Not a whole lot of competition there.
Ladies, if Kliff was just a
normal guy who worked in your office, you wouldn’t give him a second look. He’s
just like Justin Timberlake in that respect. If JT couldn’t sing and dance he’d
never get a date unless his mother set it up for him. Just like me in high
school, actually.
#6
Georgia at #9 Kentucky
This is arguably the
biggest home game in the history of Kentucky football, with the winner clinching
the SEC East and the loser all but eliminating themselves from playoff consideration.
My “favorite” thing about
this game was the interview Kentucky’s Benny Snell gave to Bleacher Report
yesterday, where he said a bunch of outlandish things, including, “We’re not a
basketball school anymore”. Um, yes, Benny, you guys still are. You haven’t won
an outright SEC football title since 1950, and this is your first half decent season in
over a decade. Meanwhile your basketball team is perennially ranked in the Top
5 and has won eight national championships. But sure, a single 7-1 start
totally makes you a football school now.
But Snell’s most
eye-popping quote came when he was discussing recruiting rankings and those who
make them. “Why do they get to say who gets five stars and who gets three
stars? That whole ranking system at the camps, it’s like you’re put through a
slave process. It’s like, ‘Who’s the best slave? He’s good at speed, well, then
he gets a 5-star. He’s not? Well, you get a 3-star’”. Jesus, someone cut his
mike off! Only in 2018 America could a football player compare his recruiting process
to slavery and get no push back from anyone. Yes Benny, you’re absolutely right,
getting evaluated by recruiting “experts” so you can go play on national TV every
week and get a free education is exactly like slavery. It’s just like a slave
auction! What an awful, horrible take. No player will say a dumber thing in any
sport this season or maybe even next season. My god.
As far as this game, I think Georgia wins by double digits and Kentucky struggles to move
the ball most of the day. They’ve had some absolutely abominable offensive
performances so far this season against defenses that are worse than what the ‘Dawgs
will trot out there tomorrow. The Wildcats didn’t run a single play in Texas A&M
territory when they played in October, and they scored only 9 offensive points
last week against a Mizzou defense that everyone’s moved the ball on all
season.
Prediction: Georgia
#1
Alabama at #3 LSU
Here’s all you need to
know about this game; when asked this week if his team would choose to receive
or kick should they win the opening coin toss, Nick Saban responded by saying, “To
be honest with you, I hope we elect to kick ass, is what I hope we do”. Well
alright then! Good luck Tigers!
Here’s the other thing
LSU has to worry about: unless Ed Orgeron rises out of the swamps of the Bayou
with an entire team full of swamp men who run faster and jump higher than
everyone on the Alabama side, it feels like they have no shot tomorrow. I’ve
been wrong about a ton of stuff with Coach O so far, but what I’m sure I’m
right about is the fact that he’s never going to beat Saban in a game. And it
definitely won’t happen with the quarterback he has. Joe Burrow has been good
in spots for the Tigers, but slow, statuesque pocket quarterbacks haven’t
exactly been Saban’s undoing. Think about the guys that have given Saban
trouble, or even beaten him while he’s been at Alabama; Johnny Manziel, Deshaun
Watson, Cardale Jones, Cam Newton, Nick Marshall… are you seeing a pattern
here? It’s all guys who are just as much a threat with their legs as they are with their arm. Burrow runs about as well as I do and that’s with me getting fatter and fatter
by the day.
Look, I want this to be a
good game. And hell, maybe LSU is the first team that can actually challenge
Tua's air attack, but the Tide have wiped the floor with everyone on their schedule for a
reason, and I’m betting that’s what will eventually happen this weekend.
Prediction: Alabama
Enjoy football this
weekend!
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