Week 13 College Football Picks: Vols Make A Bowl Game? Will Michigan Exorcise All Their Ohio State Demons?

It's Thanksgiving Weekend, and I hope everyone out there ate so much yesterday that they never even want to look at food again. The good news is that we've got a ton of great college football this weekend, starting today!

Let's start with this though...

Tennessee at Vanderbilt

The Vols are underdogs in all eight SEC games for the first time in program history, and need to beat Vanderbilt tomorrow to make a bowl game AND avoid their first three game losing streak to the Commodores since 1926.

Obviously, this is a big game for Pruitt and the program going forward. It’s your instate rival and de facto little brother, and like I mentioned before, there’s a bowl appearance on the line, and with it, extra practice time, something this program could desperately use, particularly the offense, which will have every starter back next season, assuming no one gets kicked off the team in the off-season for throwing hands at “The Bar: Knoxville” or attempting to rob a Pilot.

I think Jarrett Guarantano and Marquez Callaway will end up playing tomorrow, which sounds like a good thing unless you’re a member of the ever-growing, “Jarrett Guarantano sucks” fan club. Hell, the guy has beaten two ranked teams this season despite taking more of pounding than John Cena in The Marine. I’m not sure what else we can really want from him. He’s being forced to quarterback a completely average football team left by Butch Jones, backed by a wildly inconsistent defense, and oh yeah, half the time he doesn’t have any time to throw because he’s got pass rushers on their way to take his head off after a second and a half. They win tomorrow if he starts. Keller Chryst? Come on. Chryst's atrocious performance against Mizzou’s horrible pass defense should tell you all you need to know about his abilities as a quarterback on this team.

I think we should also all acknowledge how good of job Jeremy Pruitt has done this season with what’s he inherited. He stepped in on the heels of the worst season in Tennessee history, with a hellacious schedule, an abominable offensive line, and a roster that would go on to be the underdog in 9 of their 12 games, and yet, they’re just one win away from making a bowl game and giving themselves a chance to finish with a winning record. Look, one potential 7-6 year doesn’t mean that Pruitt is going to win the SEC at Tennessee, or make the playoff, or become a roaring success, but I also think the job he’s done hasn’t gotten the love it probably deserves from the public at large. Remember how bad we were feeling about a year ago at this time, when John Currie was in the middle of botching the hell out of the coaching search, Greg Schiano almost got the job, the national media was taking pot shots at the program, the team went 4-8, we didn’t know who was going to take the job, and we had no idea if they were ever going to get things figured out down there again? Or where we were two years ago, when Butch Jones didn’t win the East AGAIN despite having the most talent in the division for the second year in a row? There was just no hope. Things were horrible, as bad as they’d ever been, and there didn’t seem like there was ever going to be a light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t know if Pruitt is going to be the second coming of Nick Saban; I hope he is, but we don’t know. But at least we have hope now. At least we have the idea of a future where the Vols get back to national prominence. Pruitt has brought us that so far. And he’s done a very good job this season.

Prediction: Tennessee

Friday

#14 Texas at Kansas

The Longhorns can clinch a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game with a victory over a 3 win Jayhawk team that just fired their head coach. I don’t envision them having any problem doing that. The good news for Kansas? THEY’RE ABOUT TO GET LES MILES-ED. GROW THAT GRASS LONG AND GOOD!!!

Prediction: Texas

Arkansas at Missouri

The Razorbacks are a loss away from a 2-10 record and the worst season in school history. They haven’t won an SEC game since October 28^th of last year, and they've lost 15 of their last 16 in conference. Nothing has gone right in Fayetteville since Bobby Petrino’s infamous motorcycle wreck and this picture.

I can’t envision a scenario where they go into Missouri and win today against a Tiger team that laid 50 on Tennessee last Saturday with an NFL quarterback and offensive playmakers all over the field.

Prediction: Missouri (by a thousand)

#6 Oklahoma at #13 West Virginia

Assuming Texas wins (and they will), the winner of this game will play them in the Big 12 Title Game, while the loser’s season is over until whatever bowl game they end up in at the end of December. The forecast for tonight in Morgantown sounds lovely; it’ll be 37 degrees at kickoff. Will that effect anyone? I doubt Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray (who is from Texas) has played in too many games colder than this one, if at all, but I could say the same for WVU’s Will Grier (who is from North Carolina), though it’s not like there’s snow or high winds to contend with either. Dana Holgorsen’s…. hair?, or whatever we’re calling that stuff on his head isn’t going to get frozen to his head, so I don’t think it’ll make a huge difference. My bet would be that the quarterbacks are the best players on the field all night, and that neither of these teams will be able to stop the other, which will inevitably lead to the classic Big 12 game where its 45-44 or 51-50 and whoever gets the ball last will win. I’ll take the Sooners here only because of Murray and plays like this one against Kansas last week.

Disaster area for the Big 12 though if OU loses because they’re the last shot for the conference to make the playoff. Of course, I can’t see the Sooners beating both Texas and West Virginia in back to back weeks because of how bad their defense is. They almost lost to inferior teams in Texas Tech and Oklahoma State in back to back games the last month because they couldn’t stop them, and eventually it doesn’t matter how great your quarterback is because you’ll just get outscored by someone.

Prediction: Oklahoma

#16 Washington at #8 Washington State

The 111^th Apple Cup is one of the biggest in the history of the rivalry, as it’s for not only the Pac 12 North Title, but also a must-have win for Washington State if they want to keep their playoff hopes alive. We’ll talk about hurdles for programs more when we get to the Michigan section of this, but let’s not ignore the big brother-little brother stuff in this game either; Washington has beaten the Cougars the last five times, all by double digits, and they lead the all-time series 72-32-6. For comparison, Tennessee leads the all-time series with Vanderbilt 75-32-5, and we all know how much better of a program the Vols have been historically, which tells you about the kind of dominance that Washington has had in this series.

Like sure, I think Washington State is better. They’ve won four of their last six conference games by double digits, put up 55 points in the first half last week against Arizona, and are a dumb loss to a really awful USC team away from being undefeated. Washington has had an uneven, disappointing three loss season and their senior quarterback Jake Browning has seen his completion percentage plummet by 4 points from last year while his turnovers have gone up significantly. The Cougars should win here, right?

Washington State feels like one of those teams that finishes with a playoff-worthy record but still gets left out, leaving us to always wonder for years to come what could’ve been. We’ll get some more Mike Leach “expand the playoff!” talk, everyone will grumble that we need this thing to go to 8 teams, and the best Washington State team maybe ever ends up in the Rose Bowl, finishes close to the Top 5, and leads to my kid 25 years from now (if he still wants anything to do with me at that point) looking up surprised from his phone and asking me about how in the world did crappy Washington State go to the Rose Bowl and finish ranked in the Top Ten. They’re going to be the 1994 Montreal Expos of college football teams.

Prediction: Washington State

Saturday

Georgia Tech at #5 Georgia

The Yellow Jackets have quietly had a decent year (7-4) in what has been an incredibly lackluster ACC. Part of the reason it’s been quiet is because they run a 1950s offense and have a head coach that is the most plain man in America. Even his name “Paul Johnson” is boring. He might as well be “Bill Smith”. Regardless, Johnson has actually done a half decent job recently against the ‘Dawgs, winning two of the last four against them. Not that that’ll mean anything for tomorrow, of course, or that it means Johnson is a real long-term answer there as a head coach. That job, despite the rigorous academic standards, should be better than it is. It’s in a state with a ton of high school football talent, they have some tradition there already, and they’re in an awful ACC division. Johnson feels stale there; the offense isn’t exciting, and you definitely can’t win a conference championship in 2018 unless you throw the ball. Why can’t Georgia Tech be a program on the level of Virginia Tech? Isn’t that a better job on paper? I think so.

Georgia is going to win tomorrow by at least three touchdowns though. The ‘Dawgs haven’t been challenged since they got blown out by LSU back in October, and I can’t imagine that an offensively-limited Yellow Jacket team is going to figure something out against them that no one else has the last month and half. 

Prediction: Georgia

#11 Florida at Florida State

The Gators have won 8 games this season despite the fact that their quarterback Feleipe Franks can’t complete passes more than five yards downfield. Meanwhile, FSU made perhaps the worst hire of any blue chip program this past off-season in Willie Taggart and is on their way, with a loss tomorrow, to their first losing season since 1976. The Seminoles have lost every game they’ve played against a ranked team this year by at least three touchdowns. Good lord. I think Florida is over-ranked at 11^th but I also know they’re significantly better than whatever the hell Taggart is going to trot out there tomorrow.

Prediction: Florida

Auburn at #1 Alabama

Alabama is a 24 point favorite in tomorrow’s Iron Bowl, which is the second largest spread in this game since 1980, only behind the 2012 game when the Tide were a 34 point favorite (yes, Alabama did cover that day).

The largest margin of victory in this rivalry? 1948, when the Tide won 55-0 at Legion Field in Birmingham. Alabama quarterback Ed Salem was the star that day, as he threw three touchdown passes, ran for a score, kicked seven extra points, and played safety on defense. What a legend.

The reason I mention all this is because I think we could be talking about an all-time ass kicking in Tuscaloosa tomorrow, one that would normally get Gus Malzahn automatically fired… if he didn’t have a $30 million-plus buyout. I don’t know if it’s going to be 55-0, but I don’t see any way Auburn scores against a Tide defense that’s only given up 10 points in the last 12 quarters, particularly with as bad as Tiger QB Jarrett Stidham has looked this season. You thought Jake Browning had regressed this year? Stidham’s completion percentage has dropped by five points, his yards per attempt have plummeted by more than a yard, and his yards per game have fallen by almost twenty.

Oh, and no, Tua won’t see the field in the fourth quarter again this week.

Prediction: Alabama

South Carolina at #2 Clemson

Will Muschamp and South Carolina have lost the South’s longest uninterrupted college football rivalry by 49 and 24 the last two years, and come into tomorrow’s game at Clemson as 26.5 point underdogs. I’m going into this one feeling the exact same about it as I do about the Iron Bowl; it’s going to be an all-time ass kicking. Muschamp is a middle school football coach who realistically wouldn’t be qualified to coach on that level. Unless Clay Helton gets fired at Southern Cal (and we’ll get to that in a minute) Muschamp is going to head into 2019 on the hottest seat in all of America. Here’s the first seven weeks of their season next year: UNC in Charlotte, home for Charleston Southern, home for Alabama (gulp), at Missouri, home for Kentucky, bye week, at Georgia. Doesn’t that feel like 3-3? Here’s their final seven weeks: home for Florida, at Tennessee, home for Vanderbilt, home for Appalachian State, at Texas A&M, bye week, home for Clemson. They could/will lose to Florida, Tennessee, A&M, and Clemson. How do they do better than six wins? I don’t see a road map for that, which makes me think he’ll get fired, maybe after the Tennessee game, god willing the Vols can actually beat Muschamp for the first time ever.

Here's the thing, you know those South Carolina people are looking up the road at Clemson and wondering why the hell the Tigers are going to make the playoff for the fourth straight year while they’re spending every season floating around .500. Sure, part of that is because Clemson plays in an atrocious conference, which makes their path to the playoff easier, but again, the Gamecocks haven’t been close to them on the field when they’ve played the last two years, and they aren’t going to be close tomorrow either.

Prediction: Clemson

#7 LSU at #22 Texas A&M

If the Aggies lose tomorrow (and spoilers, yes, I think they will), they’ll have five losses for the fifth year in a row. Who does that sound like? Oh, that’s Kevin Sumlin, the guy they just ran off after last season because he didn’t win enough. You know what the great thing about Sumlin was though compared to Jimbo Fisher? He didn’t cost $75 million over ten years fully guaranteed. Sure, Jimbo is the better coach, but you bring him in after he had a bad year at FSU and you’re going to end up with the exact same results if you lose tomorrow.  

I think the Tigers are the best team in the country that’s been eliminated from playoff consideration. They lost on the road to a good Florida team and then to Alabama, which looks like one of the great teams of all time. A&M hasn’t impressed me on the back half of their schedule.

Prediction: LSU
#3 Notre Dame at USC
Anyone concerned about Notre Dame’s ability to travel across the country and take care of business in a must-win game should be reminded that they were in Southern California a month ago at a game in San Diego against a Navy team that’s arguably better than the USC team they’re about to play. The result? Irish by 22. They’ll win by at least that tomorrow.

Is this going to be Clay Helton’s last game at USC? “Sources” say that if he gets blown out he could be finished. Will he be? I have no idea, but I know what I’d do if I were the Trojans, and no, it doesn’t involve running it back with him in 2019.

My favorite thing about this story involves, of course, James Franklin, the epitome of “I take myself way too seriously” guy who had his second awkward/weird press conference this season, this time in response to questions about him and the USC job. When asked on Tuesday about rumors of him going to USC, Franklin said, “It’s the crazy, mad time of year where these types of things happen”. Great non-answer there coach. He came back the next day and clarified his statements and said that he had “all the plans in the world to be here and to be here for a long time” which again, isn’t really an answer either. Franklin is a hell of a coach but he also epitomizes the worst aspects of college coaching, where these guys demand all out loyalty from the athletes in their program while they’re at the same time having their agents constantly put out feelers to see what other jobs are out there. I don’t care if guys take other jobs, I really don’t, but my god, the hypocrisy of these coaches is astounding. Obviously he, or at least his people, have talked to someone at USC, thus the non-answer, and rather than just say “Yeah, we’ve talked” or “No, I’m not leaving”, he like halfway committed but left himself a million outs. I don’t care if he wants the USC job or not, but cut the crap about “We’re not an elite program yet” from earlier this season if you’re already looking for greener pastures.

Anyway, the Irish are going to roll here and make the playoff for the first time.

Prediction: Notre Dame

#4 Michigan at #10 Ohio State

This is the game of the weekend, hell, maybe the game of the entire year in college football to this point. It’s certainly the biggest game for Jim Harbaugh since the Super Bowl 47, and bigger than the OSU game back in 2016 that the Wolverines lost in overtime because it’s his fourth year now and everyone on this roster is his guy.

Plus, there’s a ton of baggage in this rivalry for Michigan based on how the last couple of years have gone; the Buckeyes have won the last six times, 16 of the last 20, and every time in Columbus since 2000.

Harbaugh has to win this one; he’s got the best defense in the country, Ohio State is a mess, and Urban Meyer looks like he just went through 6 straight months of Chinese water torture every time he’s shown on the sidelines.

Everything Harbaugh’s been building at Michigan the last four years is on the line tomorrow. All the talk, every win, all that money… it’s going to be meaningless if they can’t win this game.

I’ve been on the record for the last month saying that I think the Wolverines are going to win this game by three touchdowns. And they should! This isn’t a good OSU team, one that’s been bailed out multiple weeks only because Dwayne Haskins is a phenomenal quarterback. Michigan is going to roll into Columbus as a favorite with a better team with a division title, an enormous, program altering victory, and a playoff spot all on the line. There won’t be a more pressurized game for any team perhaps in any sport all year. That’s got to wear you down right? Make you tight? If things start off poorly, how will Michigan respond? The demons, the pressure… again, the Wolverines should win here. They’re a lot better. But geez… they better get off to a good start.

Prediction: Michigan (gulp).

Enjoy football this weekend! You deserve it!