Kentucky Coach Apologizes To Shane Beamer And Other CFB News

Teddy Heffner on our sister station Fox Sports 1400 has me on Friday mornings around 9:15 to discuss the biggest college games of the week. If you want to pick the games as well you could win a tailgate package from Mathias Sandwich shop if you beat me! Teddy will give you the details on how to enter. Here's the games he's picked for this week along with the point spreads and the tie break question at the bottom. Would love to hear you analysis of my analysis so let me know on social media @kellynashradio

Last week I correctly called for the upset of Kentucky by the Gamecocks. That led to my favorite video of the week with Shane Beamer mocking Mark Stoops by putting on the "stupid sunglasses and dancing". Today Mark Stoops addressed that. See his comments in the Kentucky preview.

I couldn’t have been any wronger on TN vs LSU.

Even though I called for FL State to beat to NC State my bet was a winner as the Wolfpack couldn’t cover the 3 point spread.

I also was correct on Clemson, Miss State, North Carolina and Texas winning in a blowout. 6-1 is a good week. This week Teddy went up from 7 games to 8, so I’ve increased my chances already of beating last weeks total wins. 

Clemson FL State +3.5

Clemson is only a slight favorite on the road this week. Dabo will have to reverse the trend of slow starts. If they get down a couple of scores on an ABC Saturday night game that Seminole fan base will make it extremely hard to come back! Even if it’s a tie game at the half that could spell trouble. Last week State took a 17-3 lead into the half and laid a complete egg in the second half. They probably don’t do that at home. Their second half was so abysmal that they had 1 1st down the 2nd half till their final drive. However their biggest problem was the 2 interceptions thrown in the second half. Clemson on the other hand blew out BC as expected, but the first half was a nail bitter for Tiger fans. Clemson pass D is the worst it’s been in decades. Currently ranked 104th in the nation. FL State may not be quite good enough to exploit that ranking 42nd on pass offense. I think Clemson does enough to survive this and wins 24-17.

 

Alabama- TN +7.5

This is a monster game! CBS 3:30 sold out Neyland stadium! Battle of undefeated SEC rivals. TN QB Hendon Hooker made LSU look stupid last week, but so did Brian Kelly. This week’s opponent is the best in the business. Nick Saban is impossible to bet against. But the bigger question is can he win by 8 or more points especially with a backup QB, or at the best a starter who has missed a few weeks with an injury? Wednesday’s SEC Teleconference Saban said Bryce was practicing a bit. That has to be a bother for the TN D who has to prep for both QB’s. I think that negates the homefield advantage. I look for TN to get an early lead but Bama to do Bama things and pull this out. However I will take the points and TN 28-24.

 

Penn State Michigan -7

I’m surprised it’s only 7 points. Michigan is better on offense (29th-38th) and defense (5th-38th) and they’re playing at home. Last week they committed a season high 10 penalties and beat Indiana by 3 touchdowns. I expect fewer penalties and a few more points. IU sucks on D ranked 108th, and they scored 31. Iowa has the 9th ranked D and they scored 27. Penn State hung a grand total of 17 last week against the 1-4 Northwestern wildcats. So I’ll go 35-21 this week

 

OSU TCU 3.5

Another huge game! This one features #8 OSU and #13 TCU! This could be the game of the year for the Big 12as the only 3 other ranked teams are #22 Texas, #19 Kansas and #17 Kansas St. Home team gets 3 so the odds makers are saying these 2 teams are about equal. The computer played this game 1000 times and TCU won 570 of them. This really is a pickem battle that should have a ton of points. TCU D ranked 93rd. OSU is 103rd. TCU O is ranked 3rd and OSU is 21. So based on having the higher ranked offense and defense and playing at home I’ll take the horn frogs. 42-38

 

NC State Syracuse 3.5

#15 Syracuse is lighting teams up on the average of 440 ypg! NC State has the best D in the ACC except for Cuse! Syracuse has a stifling top 10 D. Syracuse is a better team on paper. #18 NC State also will probably play this game in Syracuse with a 5’10” walk on QB who transferred from Charleston Southern named Jack Chambers. These kinds of QB’s scare me. The undersized overlooked. Think Perry Orth. They have a chip on their shoulder and they didn’t get this far by making mistakes. He led 3 scoring drives in the 2nd half comeback win over FSU last week. Jack is a winner. However that comeback came exclusively on runs as he completed 0 passes. Whether it’s an injured Devin Leary or the grad assistant Jack Chambers. The superior Syracuse D will limit their scoring and I expect a 28-17 type of final.

 

UNC Duke +7

They have been playing games against each other since 1888! Duke dominated the series till the 1970’s. UNC has completely dominated the 2000’s except for the 3 years that Daniel Jones was the Duke QB. Since 1990 Duke has won 6 games and 3 were Daniel Jones 2016-2018. Duke is coming off a loss to lowly GA Tech. Duke has a good D only allowing 19 PPG but UNC is averaging 42 PPG! I’m going 38-28 Tarheels.

 

Miss State Kentucky +7

Will Levis practiced both Monday and Tuesday so he should be back this week for Kentucky at QB. He makes a ton of difference for the Wildcats. I heard one analyst say Will doesn’t play D so his absence had nothing to do with South Carolina scoring 24. As I explained last week his absence would lead to more 3 and outs which gives the opponent more tries to score. I also believe that ridiculous trick play they opened with isn’t in there if Will is starting because they would be confident that he could drive it down our throats. So that first TD was a gift. Meaning we only scored 17. We had a grand total of 356 yards which usually translates to around 20 points or less. With Will back Kentucky moves the ball and saves their defense some snaps. Levis also helps Chris Rodriguez as the D can’t stack the box like we did. I call for the Wildcats to end their 2 game skid and rebound with a win a home against a highly ranked Miss State. Currently #18 in the polls. I think they’ll drop out of the top 20 leaving Kentucky with a loss.

Side note Stoops now admits that he was taking a shot at Beamer when he said back in July at the SEC media days “I talked years ago about climate versus culture. It’s easy to change a climate. You just change a uniform, talk a little game, dance around, put on some stupid sunglasses. You can change a climate. But you have to change a culture at the core.”

When asked how he felt now, “It just makes me go back to being me and being very vanilla. I kinda stay in my lane and keep my head down and do my job. … If I have something to say about Shane Beamer, I’ll say it. I have a lot of respect for him. We have spoken twice. They kicked our butts. If they want to dance around, they should.”

 

LSU Florida -2.5

The swamp makes all the difference here. If it was in death valley I’d say LSU wins. Night game makes it even wilder! Since 2010 9 of these games have been decided by a possession. LSU despite falling apart after 2019 is still coming in with a 3 game win streak against the Gators. Both teams have great athletes on a big stage makes it a must see game on ESPN. 

Tie Breaker: Total points Alabama

Not sure if he meant AL or Bama and TN combined. But I have bama winning 28-24 which equals 52 total.