Friday, October 11, 2019

Tennessee's Bowl Game Hopes Are On Life Support, Plus Week 7 College Football Picks


This might be the best college football weekend of the year thus far, as we’ve got two top 11 matchups between heated rivals (Texas-Oklahoma, Florida-LSU), plus the once every two years event where Nick Saban travels to Texas A&M and attempts to not sweat his hair plugs out.
As always, we’ll start with Tennessee. Unfortunately.
-
The Vols host a very beatable Mississippi State team tomorrow at noon, a game that for most of Tennessee’s football history would be imminently winnable. The Vols haven’t played the Bulldogs since they lost to them in 2012, a game that spawned that immortal Derek Dooley picture above, but before that, they had beaten them six times in a row and nine times out of ten.
(Side note: the fact that Tennessee hasn’t played one of their conference opponents in seven years is a damn joke. Butch Jones began building brick by brick more recently than the Vols have played Mississippi State. Hell, the Bulldogs haven’t been to Knoxville since 2008! Phillip Fulmer was the head coach then. Get it together SEC. Let’s start playing nine conference games. I’m not old enough to remember when the Vols would play Auburn every year, but I also know that was a fun rivalry that the fans from both sides would look forward to. Now, since Tennessee played them last year, the Tigers won’t be back on the schedule until 2025. 2025! What the hell is that? Even worse, Tennessee won’t be at Auburn again until sometime in 2030s. The league and the fans really think that its acceptable for their teams to go 15 years between road games at one opponent? Stop with this “gauntlet" nonsense and actually give your fans and television viewers matchups that they want to see. You do that when you play nine conference games. The fact that Alabama-Ole Miss was the best SEC game and thus got the CBS slot a couple weeks ago is a joke. The television partners are probably the ones that are going to have to start demanding more marquee matchups, because the TV money speaks louder than anything.)
Mississippi State comes into this one off their bye week after they got shellacked at Auburn by 30+ on September 28. Meanwhile, the Vols (or mostly, their fans) are fresh off patting themselves on the back after they played one decent half against Georgia, only to get run off the field in the second half and not being competitive at all after the intermission. Brian Maurer gets the start at quarterback for the second straight week; it’ll be interesting to see if Pruitt sticks with him the entire time or opts to bring Guarantano in for no reason at all.
Vol fans, hell Jeremy Pruitt even, are staking a lot on incoming freshman Harrison Bailey being the guy at quarterback. That’s a lot of weight on an 18 year old guy's shoulders, particularly before he’s even set foot on campus. Maurer is an unknown at this point; maybe he’s the guy, maybe he’s not, but I wouldn’t bet on him being the starter in 2020 if Bailey is ready to play/is decent.
If Tennessee was 3-2 like they realistically should be, I’d feel pretty confident about this one, especially considering the Bulldogs aren’t a good squad and will be fighting like crazy just to get to 6-6. Instead, Tennessee is 1-4 and haven’t even been able to put together a single good half from start to finish yet this season. Don’t give me the first half of Georgia last week; they were down by 12 at halftime.
Who the Bulldogs decide to go with at quarterback is still a mystery; both Tommy Stevens and freshman Garrett Shrader have played well at times, though it was the latter who showed more signs of life against Auburn two weeks ago, as he passed for over 200 yards and ran for 89 and a touchdown. Tennessee will probably see both under center, though Pruitt said earlier in the week that he doesn’t think there’s much of a difference between the two based on what he’s seen on film. Of course, this is same guy that couldn’t figure out how to beat Georgia State despite having superior talent AND having the game in his own stadium in front of his own fans, so maybe we don’t have a great reason to trust his evaluation.
If the Vols are going to get it turned around and make a push for a bowl game, this would be the week to do it. At Alabama next Saturday is going to be a predictable slaughter, but there isn’t a “scary” game on this schedule outside of that one. South Carolina only has two wins, and they’ll be coming to Knoxville. Kentucky is terrible, Vanderbilt is even worse, and while Missouri is definitely a better team, they haven’t beaten anyone of quality yet this season, and the most signature moment of their year was losing on the road at Wyoming. Of course, the Vols have never beaten a Will Muschamp-coached team, and Vanderbilt has knocked them three years in a row (I know, and yes, General Neyland rolls around violently in his grave every time that is brought up) They’ll have to find a way to go 5-2 in their last seven, and one of those is already a definite loss at Alabama, meaning they really need to go 5-1 to get to 6-6. Who out there realistically believes, based on what they’ve seen so far, that this team can do that? 3-9 feels way more likely, unless Brian Maurer is Josh Dobbs 2.0. And even then it's still a longshot.
With Tennessee, I’ve learned to always expect the worst.
Prediction: Mississippi State
Now, onto the rest of the slate….
Bet The Mortgage Pick Of The Week
I’m just going to start doing this every week since I’ve hit on them two weeks in a row and made everyone thousands of dollars, except for myself, since I didn’t take on my own gambling advice. Like always, I’m an idiot.
This week, it’s #9 Notre Dame, who is at home and favored by 10.5 over USC. The Trojans have lost 7 of their last 11 under Clay Helton, who is assuredly going to get fired sometime in November, if not sooner. Meanwhile, the Irish have only lost two games over the last two seasons, to Clemson in the playoff last December, and on the road at Georgia by six a few weeks ago. 
USC is ready to roll over here; they have nothing to play for besides Clay Helton's job security, which is funny, because if I was on that team, I’d probably love a coaching change. I mean, why continue to be coached by a high school janitor when you can be coached by Urban Meyer next year? Are we sure there isn’t a rich USC booster who is paying the players to tank? “Hey Kedon Slovis, you want 50 grand? Make sure you throw about four or five balls right into Notre Dame’s hands tomorrow. 50 isn’t enough to embarrass yourself on national TV? Fine, fine… does your mother like diamonds?”
Meanwhile, Notre Dame has a lot to play for because they still feel like they have an outside shot of making the playoff again. Losing to a crappy USC team kills any chance of that. Every Irish win this season has been by at least 15 points, and some of those wins are against teams like Virginia, who are better than the Trojans.
Prediction: Notre Dame 35, USC 14
South Carolina at #3 Georgia
Will Muschamp has beaten Georgia, his alma mater, just once in seven tries as a head coach, and is 0-3 at South Carolina against them. He’s going to be 0-4 after tomorrow when his team gets slaughtered by about four touchdowns.
That’ll drop him to 2-4 in his pivotal fourth year. I say pivotal, because not only is he going to get fired if he has a bad year, but there’s also a pretty good chance he’ll never get a head coaching job again, at least not at the Power 5 level, if he gets fired. This would be two pretty big swings and misses and two places, Florida and South Carolina, who have high expectations. Assuming Muschamp needs to be 6-6 and make a bowl game to keep his job, he’d need to go 4-2 against this slate: home for Florida, at Tennessee, home for Vanderbilt, home for Appalachian State, at Texas A&M, home for Clemson. Three of those teams are ranked, and the other three are pretty winnable, meaning he’d need to take care of business in all of his winnable games and pull at least one upset. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the Gamecocks to win at A&M, or for them to beat Clemson in the last week of the season, meaning the Florida game at home next Saturday is key. If he were to lose that one, they’d drop to 2-5 and ole Will might be getting his walking papers as he’s coming off the field. Again, this is assuming that he just needs to go 6-6 to keep his job. Are we sure the powers at South Carolina would be okay with one 9 win season in four years? Another year around .500? They’ve got to be looking down the road to Clemson, a team in their own state that has won two national championships in the last three seasons and been in the playoff four years in a row and wonder, “Why the hell are we not even close to that?” So I think he gets the axe sometime in November, maybe even before the Clemson game.
Prediction: Georgia
#1 Alabama at #24 Texas A&M
Are we sure Nick Saban didn’t petition the SEC to get this game moved to October because he was tired of the hair plugs jokes? Or did he make a deal with God to get the weather changed for this one, because the high in College Station tomorrow is only 69 degrees. It will be in the 80s the entirety of next week, but today and tomorrow are unseasonably cool there.
Hair plugs aside, I envision this game playing out like a lot of other Alabama games this season, where the Tide score a ton of points, probably in the 40s or 50s, but give up a lot of yards and look bad on defense for large stretches. The South Carolina game is a pretty good blueprint for how this one will go; Alabama scored 47 points and got a career day from Tua, while holding South Carolina to only 23. However, they gave up 459 yards to the Gamecocks and benefited from a questionable call that brought back a fake field goal TD.
Saban lost to A&M in 2012, but since then has won the last six, and four of them by double digits. There is a team, probably LSU, that will be able to truly take advantage of Alabama’s shaky defensive personnel, but it won’t happen tomorrow, particularly not with Kellen Mond under center for the Aggies.
Prediction: Alabama
(Side note: Why the hell is this game the CBS matchup and not Florida-LSU? Who makes these decisions for CBS, someone with a head injury? LSU-Florida is going to be electric; Alabama-A&M will be over sometime in the third quarter. I swear, please make me the college football scheduling czar. I’ll fix the conference play crap and I’ll even start doing the TV schedule)
Florida State at #2 Clemson
This used to be one of the great rivalries in college football every year; now, it’s just sad. Clemson has won the last two years by a combined score of 90-24, and gave Florida State their worst home loss ever last year.
FSU’s best chance here is the fact that Clemson has been sloppy most of the season, and Trevor Lawrence doesn’t even look close to the same quarterback that he was last year. This is not a dominant Tiger team, at least not yet, though they did have chance to potentially regroup and refocus on their bye week.
A Willie Taggart coached squad coming to town is a good recipe for any struggling team, and Clemson won’t even have to play that well to win by three touchdowns. The ‘Noles are irrelevant under Taggart, and there’s no momentum or energy around this program right now. It’s a good thing his buyout is $17 million! Because, you know, when you can guarantee 85% of the contract to a guy that should be working as a gas station attendant, you gotta do it!
Prediction: Clemson
#10 Penn State at #17 Iowa
Everyone is going to be off Iowa this week because of how badly they looked offensively last Saturday against Michigan. Of course, don’t forget about the fact that their defense was awesome and is still ranked in the top five in yards per game.
Penn State is still unproven. They haven’t played a ranked team this season, and in their toughest test of the year, Pittsburgh, they only won by seven and benefited from a few strange coaching decisions from Pat Narduzzi. Their destruction of Maryland is fresh in everyone’s minds, but I think we have ample evidence now to suggest that the Terrapins aren’t a good football team. So what does that victory even mean?
Kinnick Stadium, particularly at night, is a weird place. Iowa, under Kirk Ferentz, has always seemed to be able to get up for these big home night games (just ask Michigan in 2016 or Ohio State in 2017). Penn State was there in 2017 on a Saturday night and needed a late TD drive just to escape victorious.
This will be slugfest, even a rock fight at times, and it will be very low scoring, probably in the 14-10 range. The problem for Iowa is that I’m not sure they’ll be able to score. I mean, last week was really bad for them. They looked like it was the first time any of them had ever played their offensive positions for long stretches. Michigan’s defense had been getting taken apart at the line of scrimmage all season; suddenly, they were the ’85 Bears? No way.
Iowa’s defense will keep them in it, but Penn State will win close and late.
Prediction: Penn State
#6 Oklahoma vs #11 Texas (in Dallas)
Jalen Hurts’s first (and only) Red River Rivalry is tomorrow, and it is arguably the game of the day on paper, depending on how you feel about Florida-LSU.
This game has always been strangely competitive, and wasn’t hampered by Texas’s struggles earlier in the decade, as the Longhorns and Sooners have split the last six Red River Rivalries 3-3. Texas won last year on a late field goal, but not before Oklahoma battled all the way back from a 45-24 fourth quarter deficit to tie the game.
As for tomorrow’s showdown, it’s going to come down to whatever defense gets torched the least. Texas is the supposed more physical team, but LSU gashed them for 573 yards of offense, something Oklahoma is completely capable of doing. OU hasn’t played a great offense all year, unless you want to count Houston, who slapped up 31 points and 241 rushing yards against them back in Week 1. That rushing yards number is pretty eye popping; why couldn’t Texas gain 300 yards on the ground tomorrow?
We’re going to get another 48-45 type game, and I don’t have a great feel either way on this one. I’ll take Oklahoma only because I’d rather have Lincoln Riley than Tom Herman.
Prediction: Oklahoma
#7 Florida at #5 LSU
Who would’ve ever thought that Ed Orgeron would be the head coach of a team that’s strength was the offense? The Tigers are second in all of college football in yards per game, fifth in yards per play, third in touchdowns, first in third down conversion percentage, and second in passing yards per game. They’ve scored at least 42 points in every game this season, and Joe Burrow has become one of the Heisman front runners, which is incredible considering how disposable he looked last season.
LSU hasn’t played a quality opponent since they beat Texas on the road for the best win in college football so far in 2019, and Florida would certainly qualify as one after their impressive showing last week against Auburn.
This is the best defense the Tigers have faced all year. Florida is 19th in the nation in passing yards allowed per game, and 5th in scoring defense, only allowing 9.5 points per game.
Of course, this will be far and away the best offense the Gators have faced all season. They’re going to challenge the LSU offense more than anyone else has in 2019, but they aren’t coming into Baton Rouge at night and completely shutting down this attack either.
LSU’s defense got torched by Texas back in September, but Florida doesn’t have the offensive personnel to throw up 37 points in a game on the road against a quality opponent. Kinnick Stadium at night is supposed to be terrifying… how about Tiger Stadium at night? LSU is 89-12 in night home games since 2000. It’ll be 90-12 on Saturday.
Prediction: LSU
Enjoy football this weekend! You deserve it.

No comments:

Post a Comment