Every Friday morning I join Teddy Heffner host of "Talking Sports" on Fox Sports 1400. Teddy gives away tailgate package from Mathias Sandwich shop to someone who can beat our picks. The picks include point spreads so for example if a team is a 10 point underdog and they lose by 9 then they have won. If you'd like to text your picks to enter get them in before Saturday noon on the Talking Sports Text Line at 803-315-3292. Now here's this weeks games and my picks.
I’ve been on a roll this year hitting on about 80% of the games and had another winning week going 5-2 as you can see from last week’s predictions.
I don’t even make you call a toll free line! LOL!
S Car at A&M -14
2-5 Gamecocks stumble into mediocre 4-3 A&M as a 14 point underdog! Oof! A&M will most likely look to exploit our 3rd from the bottom statistically pass defense. We allow on average 304 YPG in the air! The only teams worse are Colorado, Colorado State, and Stanford. A&M is also refreshed after 2 very tough losses, first to Bama then to TN. Now they have had a bye week and a get right game against the flailing Gamecocks D. A&M is a passing team too averaging 268 YPG in the air for 12 YPC. If the Gamecocks could shut that down the Aggies air attack they do struggle with the run being ranked 95th however with a respectable 4 YPC. Gamecocks offense will be seriously hampered. As of this writing at 5AM on Wednesday Coach Beamer has listed WR Ahmarean Brown as “doubtful” and top receiver Xavier Legette as “questionable”. The O Line which has struggled might be down 3 starters. right tackle Vershon Lee, right guard Trovon Baugh and left tackle Tree Babalade — are all questionable. I think when you combine the injury riddled offense with one of the worst pass D’s in the country and send them on the road, you should expect a shellacking. 14 is a huge number, but I’ll take A&M to cover.
Clemson at NC State -10
For the last decade or so folks would tune in to “The Textile Bowl” to see if Clemson would be Clemsoning. Far superior talent and an undefeated record should be double digit cake walk. But NC State gets up for this game. Shoulda beat them in 2016 but lost in OT after missing a 33 yard FG. . Coulda beat them in 2017 Did beat them in 2021. Now when they’re both 4-3 and playing at home can the Wolfpack do it again? Yes! Will they? Dave Doren says Clemson has an elite run game (they don’t). Ranked 53rd. Plus they’re known as WRU so the passing game is fire (it’s not) ranked 45th. Overall it’s the worst Clemson offense most can remember in the Dabo era basically tied with Maryland at 423 YPG. NC State isn’t great on D either surrendering 332 YPG but 6th worst in the country at 5.47 YPP! Clemson’s D is elite ranked 7th in the nation. NC State is putrid ranked 97th. Clemson has also gained 6 fumbles and 6 interceptions. I feel like their D will score or set up at least one short field. I’ve been burned by the Tigers a lot but I’m going to go with them again this week.
Georgia vs Florida +14.5
The worlds largest cocktail party returns to the neutral field in Jacksonville. I think Saturday will reveal who Georgia really is. Georgia has been accused of slow starts and sleep walking after close games with S Car, Auburn and Vandy. They laid the hammer down on Kentucky though in a home win. Now without their future first round superstar Brock Bowers they take on a good but not great Florida team. It’s the Gators though in Florida. You can’t claim they don’t have your full attention. We should see the best Georgia has to offer on Saturday. Both teams enter the contest off a bye week so they have had plenty of time for scheming. I’d say that advantage goes to Kirby and the dawgs. Georgia has won an amazing 34 regular season games in a row! If you count post season they’re 40 and 1. This season they’ve scored more than 40 in four of their 6 games. Florida has done it twice. Once against McNeese St and… the 41 against South Carolina. I’d look for Georgia to hold the Gators to around 24 and win the game in the mid 30’s. So while Georgia wins I have FL covering.
TN at Kentucky +3.5
Identical 5-2 records yet TN is ranked #21 and Kentucky is not. Wildcat fans will say this is the Rodney Dangerfield effect on Kentucky football. We get no respect I tell ya! But the reality is they got absolutely crushed by Georgia and once Mizzou woke up in the second quarter after spotting Kentucky they boat raced em too whooping them by 17 points. Quite honestly though TN should be embarrassed to have lost to a mediocre FL team and then go up 20-7 at the half on Bama and lose by 2 TD’s. Kentucky has an elite rush defense ranked that is only one of 15 teams holding offenses to less than 100 on the ground. TN has been struggling to pass so they will go to the ground where they have had a ton of success being ranked 7th with 216 YPG running. This is the battle in my mind. Can the very good Kentucky rushing D slow the very good TN run game? Factoring in Kentucky had a bye week to prep and TN just came off the loss at Bama and I’ll take the home underdog to cover.
Duke at Louisville -4
The Cardinals are coming off a pretty substantial road loss to Pitt where they won every stat but the score losing by 17 and being skunked in the second half. Some believe the loss in part was because of a key lineman getting hurt in warmups before the Pitt game. He’s had knee surgery and will miss the rest of the season. Duke is coming off a 4th quarter meltdown where they had a 3 point lead before giving up 21 unanswered in the 4th to FL State. Duke also suffered a major injury when QB Riley Leonard injured his ankle. He is now listed as day to day. I’m going to say losing the QB is a bigger deal than an O lineman although that can be quite significant to the entire line. I’m making this pick with the assumption Riley is out and the backup produced 0 points last week in the second half. I’ll take the Cardinals
Oregon at Utah +7
Utah isn’t the team we thought this year. Last year against ranked opponents they scored 43, 32, 42. This year they have scored 14 and in a great win over free falling USC 34. Southern Cal by the way almost as bad as the other USC on D with both outside the top 100. But back to the Utes. They will probably not storm anyone out of the game this year. In fact their offense is now ranked 98th. It’s the 12th ranked Utah D keeping them in games. They’re also opportunistic through 7 games causing 11 turnovers. But they will have their hands more than full with the #2 ranked Oregon offense! The least the Ducks have scored this season is 32. That came in their only loss to #5 Washington. The spread worries me but I’ll take the Ducks to cover.
Miss State at Auburn -6.5
Frustrating year for both teams as 4-3 State comes to 3-4 Auburn. The Tigers have been close losing late to Georgia and last week letting a halftime tie with #12 Ole Miss get away losing by 7. Auburn doesn’t have a pass game this year with none of their receivers catching balls on average more than 2 yards down the field. They are 106th in total passing. So it’s up to the run game. And Miss State isn’t bad against the run holding opponents to 127 YPG. That’s 46th in the nation. Auburn has 186 YPG that includes 219 against GA. However the rest of their SEC opponents have done a much better job including last weeks loss to LSU which held them to 139. State is coming off one of the ugliest wins in recent memory defeating Arkansas 7-3. Neither team threw for 200 yards and both barely hit 100 yards rushing. The game featured 0 scores the last 43 minutes. State went 1-10 on 3rd down! Most of this is probably because QB Will Rogers went out October 7th with a shoulder injury. He isn’t expected to play this weekend so the Vandy transfer Mike Wright will probably play. Both offenses then are inept and the defenses aren’t great. I’ll take Auburn simply because Hugh Freeze is a great coach and Zach Arnett is still figuring it out.
Tiebreaker:
Total combined rushing yards of USC & Clemson. Tigers average 165 and Cocks average 93. A lot that is because of the sacks. Last week Gamecocks took 6 sacks. This week they face the team tied (with Penn State) for most sacks in the nation so I wouldn’t expect much of an improvement. A&M also a top 20 rushing D allows only 105 YPG. I’m giving us 85 for the day. Clemson is facing a very good rushing D as well with NC State only allowing 126 YPG. Clemson averages 165 YPG. Last week they only got 31 on the ground against the U. Other than Charleston Southern and Wake Forest haven’t 200 in a game. I’ll give them 150 making my total for both teams 235.
Photo: Isaiah Vazquez / Getty Images Sport / Getty Images