Predictions 101 — Week 7 at BetLM

Predictions 101 — Week 7

For those of you who won­dered if we sold our col­lec­tive soul to the devil in return for that blis­ter­ing start to the sea­son, you’ll be inter­ested to know that we went 6–6 in Week 6 vs. “the number.”

It’s some con­so­la­tion to remain unde­feated, but after that ridicu­lous run, a .500 week has us feel­ing like Mike Stoops instead of our boy Dabo Swinney.

On the bright side, the only blem­ishes on our 10–2 straight-up mark were a pair of upset stabs (Texas Tech over A&M, and Ten­nessee over Georgia).

After 72 games, we’re 47–21-2 (two games weren’t on the board) and 55–17.

TOP 10 GAMES (Thurs., Oct. 13, thru Sat., Oct. 15)

1) No. 11 Michi­gan at No. 23 Michi­gan State­Sat., Oct. 15 — noon ET, ESPN

This pre­dic­tion comes cour­tesy of Marc Doche (@MDoche) from the P101 satel­lite office in Bur­bank, Calif. Break­ing away from his usual focus on thor­ough­breds, he hand­i­caps our fea­tured race.

After five games at the Big House to open the sea­son, which included a mirac­u­lous escape against Notre Dame mixed in with four blowouts against second-tier com­pe­ti­tion, Michi­gan (6–0, 2–0 in Big Ten) hits the road for the sec­ond straight week after post­ing a con­vinc­ing win at Northwestern.

Despite aver­ag­ing 257 yards per game on the ground — with quar­ter­back Denard Robin­son account­ing for a buck twenty — we’re not sold on the Wolver­ines’ abil­ity to matric­u­late the ball down the field against well-rested Michi­gan State (4–1, 1–0), which allows just 64 rush­ing yards and 10 points per game.

Robin­son is still uncom­fort­able when forced to throw (nine inter­cep­tions, includ­ing three last week) and there’s no open spaces in a Spar­tan sec­ondary that’s allow­ing just 109 yards per game through the air.

With ten­sions high as Michi­gan State hopes to retain the Paul Bun­yan Tro­phy for the fourth con­sec­u­tive year, expect a low-scoring bat­tle where the Spar­tan offense, led by effi­cient senior quar­ter­back Kirk Cousins and his 65% career com­ple­tion aver­age, moves the ball just enough against a Wolver­ine defense that allows twice as many yards as the col­lege ver­sion of “Gang Green.”

The pick: Michi­gan State 23–14

2) No. 6 Okla­homa State at No. 22 Tex­as­Sat., Oct. 15 — 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN

Among many superla­tives in last Saturday’s 70–28 dis­man­tling of Kansas, the Cow­boys forced four turnovers. That means Okla­homa State (5–0, 2–0 in Big 12) has come up with 14 take­aways in its last three games.

That trend doesn’t bode well for Texas (4–1, 1–1), which gave up enough points on offense (three of five turnovers returned for touch­downs) to lose to Okla­homa (55–17) last week.

The young Long­horn quar­ter­backs — Case McCoy and David Ash — are in for a long after­noon. There’s absolutely noth­ing to indi­cate that they’ll be able to trade punches with ultra-veteran Cow­boy QB Bran­don Wee­den (28th birth­day on Fri­day), who directs an offense that aver­ages 51 points and 577 yards per game.

The pick: Okla­homa State 38–20

3) No. 18 Ari­zona State at No. 9 Ore­gon­Sat., Oct. 15 — 10:15 p.m. ET, ESPN

This pre­dic­tion comes cour­tesy of Shane Hedani from the P101 satel­lite office in Mau­naw­ili, Hawai’i. “Coach Hedanz” has the option to pre­dict the out­come of Ore­gon games until he is wrong about one of them.

As Nike U awaits word on LaMichael James, the Ducks face their tough­est com­pe­ti­tion since the opener ver­sus LSU with­out their All-America tailback.

One might think that it would be a mas­sive relief for Ari­zona State (5–1, 3–0 in Pac-12), which is a field goal away from being unde­feated, to play Ore­gon (4–1, 2–0) while it’s with­out the nation’s lead­ing rusher, but it really isn’t.

Kenyon Barner could start for most schools. The Ducks are truly a team that has a “1″ and “1A” in the back­field. In addi­tion, the emer­gence of De’Anthony Thomas and the re-emergence of Josh Huff will allow Chip Kelly to open up his play­book even fur­ther in front of the hos­tile home crowd at Autzen Sta­dium. To put things plainly, Ore­gon will score.

ASU quar­ter­back Brock Osweiler is greatly improved from last year and in full com­mand of the Sun Devil offense. We don’t expect the 6-foot-8 giant to throw four INTs as Steven Threet did last year against the Ducks, but he didn’t look com­fort­able on the road last month at Illi­nois, which sacked him six times and picked off two passes.

Ore­gon, which will use mis­di­rec­tion on offense as it did in last week’s vic­tory over Cal, has too many weapons, even with LMJ out. Von­taze Bur­fict, the mean­est man in col­lege foot­ball, can’t keep track of them all.

After a first-half shootout, the Duck defense will get key stops to take con­trol and get separation.

The pick: Ore­gon 45–27

4) No. 20 Bay­lor at No. 21 Texas A&MSat., Oct. 15 — noon ET, FX

The “Bat­tle for the Bra­zos” has been dom­i­nated by the Aggies in recent years, win­ning 22 of the past 25 meet­ings. But as is the case with every rivalry — not just ones enter­ing a 108th year — it’s mostly about who has won the most recent game … and this might be the last one of this series for a long time.

With Texas A&M (3–2, 1–1 in Big 12) bolt­ing for the SEC next sea­son, Bay­lor (4–1, 1–1) won’t be fac­ing the Aggies in the fore­see­able future, putting some extra impor­tance on this bookend.

A&M’s well-known pen­chant for let­ting oppos­ing quar­ter­backs get on a late roll will have the Kyle Field faith­ful on edge as Bear trig­ger­man Robert Grif­fin III is out there doing his thing.

“RG3″ leads the nation with a stun­ning com­ple­tion per­cent­age of 80.3 and ranks sec­ond in pass­ing effi­ciency (212.9).

With quar­ter­back Ryan Tan­nehill and the run­ning back duo of Cyrus Gray and Chris­tine Michael, the Aggies have the fire­power to fight back, but the ques­tion is … how big a lead is enough?

Last year, that was Baylor’s prob­lem as a 30–14 half­time advan­tage evap­o­rated. The Bears were shutout in the sec­ond half and expe­ri­enced lots of prob­lems on spe­cial teams, result­ing in a 42–30 loss.

The pick: Texas A&M 37–34

5) No. 1 LSU at Ten­nesseeSat., Oct. 15 — 3:30 p.m. ET, CBS

After los­ing stand­out wide­out Justin Hunter (knee injury) three games ago, Ten­nessee (3–2, 0–2 in SEC) now has quar­ter­back Tyler Bray (bro­ken thumb) on the shelf. That’s dev­as­tat­ing to a team that can­not depend on its run­ning game at all. The Vols rank 114th in rush­ing offense and are fresh off a 20–12 loss to Geor­gia that saw them rush for minus-20 yards.

Senior Matt Simms is a capa­ble sig­nal­caller, but even the second-coming of Pey­ton Man­ning would have a tough time against this Tiger defense, which has tons of qual­ity at every level.

LSU (6–0, 3–0), on the other hand, is rush­ing for 183.5 yards per game and has 17 scores on the ground.

All of the Tiger vic­to­ries have been by at least 13 points. There’s no rea­son to believe this one will be any different.

The pick: LSU 32–9

6) Florida at No. 24 Auburn­Sat., Oct. 15 — 7 p.m. ET, ESPN

The Gators spent the past two weeks get­ting torn apart by Alabama (38–10) and LSU (41–11). Now they hit the road to visit the defend­ing national champs.

We could fill your head with thoughts about how bad Auburn (4–2, 2–1 in SEC) is on defense and other mind-numbing stats about both teams. But some­times it just comes down to how these young peo­ple deal with spe­cific moments in time.

In this instance, Florida (4–2, 2–2) just wants this stretch of games to be over with. Not only due to its bru­tal­ity, but also because they have next week­end off.

The young Gator team won’t have the focus nec­es­sary to be suc­cess­ful at Jordan-Hare Sta­dium. They’ll be think­ing about next week.

It’s just like you in your cube at work when those TPS reports are due just before your vacation.

The pick: Auburn 27–20

7) No. 19 Vir­ginia Tech at Wake Forest­Sat., Oct. 15 — 6:30 p.m. ET

Hokie quar­ter­back Logan Thomas is com­ing off a spark­ing 23-of-25 per­for­mance that saw him pass for 310 yards and three touch­downs in last Saturday’s 38–35 vic­tory over Miami (Fla.).

Thomas’ coun­ter­part, Tan­ner Price, also had a great game last week, com­plet­ing 21-of-35 for 233 yards and three scores in a 35–30 win over Florida State, which gave Wake For­est (4–1, 3–0) its best con­fer­ence start since join­ing the ACC in 1953.

How­ever, with all due respect to the quar­ter­backs, this game will come down to who can run it.

Wake For­est might be able to get that done, rely­ing on run­ning back Josh Har­ris, who ran for 214 yards and a pair of touch­downs in last year’s loss to Vir­ginia Tech (5–1, 1–1). Mean­while, the Demon Dea­con defense, which allows only 102 rush­ing yards per game, can keep close enough tabs on Hokie run­ning back David Wil­son, who leads the league with 767 yards on the ground.

The pick: Wake For­est 24–23

8 ) No. 8 Clem­son at Mary­land­Sat., Oct. 15 — 7 p.m. ET, ESPNU

It’s coun­ter­in­tu­itive, but maybe the Ter­rap­ins would have pre­ferred Tiger quar­ter­back Tajh Boyd not sus­tain a hip injury in last Saturday’s 26–14 vic­tory over Boston Col­lege. That’s because if the super soph is able to play against Mary­land (2–3, 1–1 in ACC) as expected, Dabo Swin­ney is apt to have him hand off to run­ning back Andre Elling­ton more than usual.

That’ll prob­a­bly work out just fine for Clem­son (6–0, 3–0), which will be going against a defense that ranks last in the ACC against the run, hav­ing allowed an aver­age of 196 yards per game on the ground and a total of 13 rush­ing TDs.

Mary­land is tougher ver­sus the pass, yield­ing just 211 yards per game through the air and only one aer­ial score all season.

The Ter­rap­ins have ques­tion­able quar­ter­back­ing and a brew­ing QB con­tro­versy only com­pli­cates mat­ters. The recently stingy Tiger defense won’t mind harass­ing either Danny O’Brien or C.J. Brown.

The pick: Clem­son 32–19

9) No. 2 Alabama at Mis­sis­sip­piSat., Oct. 15 — 6 p.m. ET, ESPN2

The big ques­tion is if the Crim­son Tide will allow the Rebels to cross the goal line. No one else has in the last seven quar­ters of play against Alabama (6–0, 3–0 in SEC).

Ole Miss (2–3, 0–2) doesn’t seem like a likely can­di­date to break that trend, espe­cially on the ground. The Rebels rank 99th in the nation in rush­ing offense. That doesn’t match up well with the Tide, which has given up only one rush­ing touch­down all sea­son and is allow­ing just 3.2 yards per play.

The pick: Alabama 35–3

10) No. 15 South Car­olina at Mis­sis­sippi State­Sat., Oct. 15 — noon ET, SEC Network

Now that Con­nor Shaw has sparked and taken over the Game­cock offense from Stephen Gar­cia, many Bull­dog fans are inter­ested in some­thing sim­i­lar, after backup quar­ter­back Tyler Rus­sell got the job done in relief of Chris Relf in last week’s 21–3 vic­tory over UAB.

Who­ever gets the call for Mis­sis­sippi State (3–3, 0–3 in SEC) doesn’t fig­ure to get much going against South Car­olina (5–1, 3–1), which boasts the nation’s third best pass defense (allow­ing only 128.5 yards per game through the air).

The pick: South Car­olina 26–19

TWO MORE YOU SHOULDN’T IGNORE

We’re 9–2 on these vs. “the num­ber” (Presbyterian’s game at Cal wasn’t on the board, that was just for laughs).

So, that’s why you shouldn’t ignore them … in case you were won­der­ing. Maybe some of you should be look­ing here first.

USC at Cal­i­for­niaThurs., Oct. 13 — 9 p.m. ET, ESPN

The Golden Bears have dropped their last seven games to the Tro­jans and scored a total of just 20 points in the three most recent defeats.

But this isn’t your father’s USC. This is Lane Kiffin’s and his father’s USC. That USC (4–1, 2–1 in Pac-12) has a shock­ingly limp defense.

Look for Keenan Allen to have a big night for Cal (3–2, 0–2), steal­ing some of the spot­light away from another sopho­more wide­out by the name of Robert Woods.

The pick: Cal­i­for­nia 31–27

Indi­ana at No. 4 Wis­con­sin­Sat., Oct. 15 — noon ET, ESPN2

Most peo­ple for­got or never knew that the Hoosiers and Bad­gers were tied up at 10–10 in the sec­ond quar­ter of last year’s meet­ing. Drop­ping 83 points on some­body will tend to make those kind of tid­bits melt away.

As if that 63-point lam­bast­ing at Camp Ran­dall Sta­dium wasn’t bad enough, Indi­ana (1–5, 0–2 in Big Ten) has to go back to the scene of the crime, this time as the Home­com­ing pinata.

We don’t sub­scribe to the opin­ion that Wis­con­sin (5–0, 1–0) turned it on unnecce­sar­ily a year ago. It just kind of ended up that way. Defen­sive TDs and third-stringers get­ting overly excited will lead to that sometimes.

This time around, how­ever, with a Heis­man Tro­phy head­liner under cen­ter and Michi­gan State to tune up for, Bret Bielema has excuses to be unwor­ried about anybody’s feelings.

The pick: Wis­con­sin 59–13

Related Posts:

• Sun­day Morn­ing Obser­va­tions, Week 14: There Is LSU. and Then There Is Every­body Else.
• Eccle­stone Gives US Another Week to Save GP
• Janikowski Is the AFC Special-Teams Player of the Week
• Sun­day Morn­ing Obser­va­tions, Week 13: Super­stars Step Up on Rivalry Saturday
• Tex­ans Already Rule Out QB Schaub for Week 12 vs. Jaguars

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