Beat My CFB Picks To Win A Prize

Friday Mornings Around 9:15 I jump on our sister station Fox Sports Radio to pick this weeks biggest games with local sports legend Teddy Heffner We have to pick against the spread. Those are the point spreads Teddy found earlier in the week so the current spread is irrelevant for our contest. Now if you'd like to pick your 7 and see if you do better than me, you could win a Mathias Sandwich Tailgate Special. You just text your picks to 803-315 3292 to be entered. You don't need to explain your picks like I do below.

This weeks games

USC +3 at Oklahoma 12:45 ESPN

The opening line from Charles Dickens' novel, "A Tale of Two Cities," is "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". I think that captures last weeks game against Alabama. LaNorris Sellers throws for 242 yards which is 1 yard short of what Robbie Ashford threw against Akron. Rocket Sanders had 16 carries averaging 4.9 YPC. The offensive line gave holes to run and time to pass. You only had 6 penalties for 49 yards which isn’t great but about the best you’ve done all year.  The Defense held Alabama to just over 300 yards of total offense. And yet we blow a coverage with less than 2 minutes left in the game on 3rd and 8 to give up a TD. We lose 3 fumbles! We miss a wide open receiver to tie the game with 43 seconds left. Literally almost threw it in the stands! If you watch it again you’ll see it hits a security guard in the head.   Last week we talked about Cam Smith and his line about what Gamecocks changed to beat TN in 2022, “nothing just drop ya nuts”. The Gamecocks dropped their nuts for the Alabama game but came up short. That season they dropped them again for Clemson and won. I believe the nuts remain lowered for this historic first trip to Norman. The Oklahoma D was gouged last week for 6.7 yards per play. Our offense isn’t Texas’ offense so don’t get your hopes too high. Gamecocks are tied for 91st in the country. But our D is pretty freaking good ranked 20th. That’s up 2 spots from last week because as we know, when Offense plays better, it takes pressure off the D. Last week the Cocks held the ball for 4 minutes longer than the Tide. So our D is actually better than #20 IMO. Oklahoma is playing a backup Freshman QB and has 5 receivers out! They’re almost in a must win situation. They will be Underdogs in 4 of their last 5 games. Mizzou, Alabama, Ole Miss & LSU.  Recruiting for a coach who took over one of the premier programs and turned it into a 7 win team will be very challenging. He’s not supposed to be building anything but reloading every year like Lincoln Riley did. Riley never lost more than 2 games per season his 5 years as HC. He left with a record of 55-10. He had replaced Bob Stoops who for 16 years only lost 3 games in a season twice. Venables has been coach 2.5 years and has 12 losses. His seat is hot and will become scorching if he loses this game at home. I believe he should invest in some asbestos pants. The Gamecocks have had a problem with turnovers. The last time they won the turnover battle in an SEC game was Kentucky. LaNorris spoke about it this week. I believe they will have that fixed. I believe our D will overwhelm the Freshman QB and subpar O line. Lots of tackles for loss and rushed passes. Coach Venables addressing the offensive problems said Tuesday; "We've got to find ways to get the ball in the end zone. And we're not going that right now, and that's a problem. So, there's fundamental issues. There's decision-making issues. We've got to get it all cleaned up. None of it's any good. Nobody wants to hear it. We've got 6,000 excuses, and none of them are any good.” Vegas agrees placing the over/under at 40.5. So 3 TD’s or any combo to 21 should win. My money is on the Gamecocks!

Virginia +21 at Clemson -20 Noon ACC Network

The most interesting part of this game is the return of Tony Elliott to Clemson. The Tigers are an SEC type team mowing down ACC talent. The Cavs pass D is 112th while Clemson’s passing is elite. It’s ranked 23rd but that’s only because they sucked so hard against GA in week 1. The last 5 games Clemson has put up 243 points which is 48.5 per game! Which is what they did last week beating Wake 49- 14. Virginia beat Wake last month 31-30. They have also held every other team in the 20’s this year. So I’m expecting Clemson to be a little lower than their recent average. I’ll put them around 38 this week. That makes it pretty hard to cover 21 so I’ll take Virginia to lose but cover

GA +3.5 at TX  7:30 ABC

#4 visits #1 Wow! IT’s like the first round of the CFB Playoffs. Kirby says "Texas is the most complete team that we've seen or faced this year and probably in multiple years when you look at what they're doing defensively, offensively and special teams,"Sarkisian says “we both learned from the best. Working for Coach Saban there's a lot of lessons to be learned. I think we both probably took some some pretty good notes of trying to build a build a program and an organization that could be sustainable, and not just one year, have a really good year and then be down for a couple, but be sustainable to where you're competitive and you're competing for championships year in and year out." So the coaches understand each other pretty well. They both have amazing athletes all over the field. Qwinn Ewers 1st game back at starter for the Longhorns went well as he throws for 200 yards completing 20 of 29. He will need to be a bit better this week and I think he knocked the rust off last week, so he will be better. Meanwhile GA losses a key weapon in RB Branson Robinson going down with a knee injury last week. Texas is the #1 ranked D in America. I will point out that they have played some pretty weak offenses though. Michigan, Oklahoma, and Miss State for big boy wins mixed in with CO State, UTSA and LA Monroe for the legit cupcakes. So this will be their first real test. Is Georgia D good? They gave up 41 to Bama and 31 to Miss State. There seem to be a lot of unknowns on this game. But everything seems to be going Texas way this year so I’ll take em.

Alabama -3 at Tennessee 3:30 ABC

Should be a big day for ABC! Leading into #1 vs #4 they’ve got #7 at #8! Not only that but this is a legendary rivalry of 2 of the biggest programs in the nation. The third Saturday in October is the date and unofficial moniker of this game which dates back to 1901. The cigar smoked by the victors was introduced in this game in 1950. The NCAA prohibited tobacco in the 1990’s so the teams hid it but every year since 2017 the winning school has self-reported the offense. The last 17 years Alabama has won 16 times. We all remember the scene in 22 when TN finally knocked them off. The computer simulations were run 20,000 this week and Bama won 53.6 percent of the games. Some fan used AI to create a fake video of Kalen Deboer saying Neyland is a sleepy environment and their fans are one of the quietest bases in the country. They know it’s fake but will use it to fuel even more chaos in that stadium. As for their offense RB Dylan Sampson is pretty special. He’s 2nd in the country with 15 rushing TDs and is averaging 116.8 yards per game. Nico has not hit his stride as hoped but he doesn’t have to for TN to win this game. As we saw last week a decent day from the QB, good D can beat Alabama. I’m taking the home underdog.

Kentucky +1 at Florida 7:45 SEC Network.

Both at 3-3 on the season. However FL lost QB Graham Mertz for the year last week so DJ Lagway has to step up. DJ threw two interceptions in the loss to Texas A&M and was 9-of-17 last week against the Vols. The Florida defense has to step up and keep the Kentucky offense off the field. However I believe Napier has lost his team after last weeks loss. Napier fell to 1-9 against Florida's main rivals in FSU, Miami, Georgia, Tennessee and LSU and is 14-17 in total. He will be fired and the players know that. Kentucky will take over the swamp and win by 10 IMO.

FL State +3 at Duke. 7 PM ESPN2

What a weird time! FL State underdogs to Duke in football! Duke's defense under head coach Manny Diaz has allowed 17.5 points per game which is a number that the Seminoles have struggled to hit all season. FSU QB Brock Glenn will make his fourth career start against Duke. He played pretty good in his first start of this year against Clemson throwing 2 TD’s and completing 23 passes for 228 yards. They have also had a bye week to prep for this game. Duke stadium only holds 35,000 fans so there’s not much of a homefield advantage. I’m rolling the dice and taking the Seminoles in an upset!

Benedict -11 at Allen 7PM ESPN+

Last year the Tigers took down the Yellowjackets 37-9. That was to complete back to back undefeated seasons! But that all happened under Coach Chennis Berry who left to be the HC at SC State. Coach Ron Dickerson hasn’t had the same type of success this season. Tigers are a shocking 2-4 this season losing their last 2. That makes this years Taylor Street Rivalry game seem winnable for Allen. But they’re not very good this year either having won only 1 game. They’re coming in off a 3 game losing streak. I would think passed on past performance, Benedict was able to recruit better players so I’ll take the Tigers.

Tiebreaker Cade Klubnik passing yards this week

Like I mentioned he’s going against the 122th pass D. In 6 games this year he’s thrown for 1528 yards. That’s 254 YPG. Last week a far less explosive Louisville team tossed 231 against VA. I’m going to put Cade at 275 this week.