Obviously, I'm writing this before tonight's Ole Miss / Florida State game. There's so much that happened this weekend already that changed the landscape of college football going forward this season... I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk about all of it. Some things went exactly as we thought they would - and some went the complete opposite. It's tough to state anything for certain after only 1 week of action (and not even a complete week at that), but here's what I'm thinking after digesting everything we witnessed from Thursday through Sunday night.1. The SEC did not show up*
Now, I'm not sure if this is just because of who the teams were playing, and they thought they could cake walk through games, but going 6-5 (before the Ole Miss game tomorrow night) is not what anyone envisioned coming out of this weekend. And the scary thing is that the SEC is currently 3-2 against ranked teams. So of the 5 losses, 3 were to unranked teams.
Now, the LSU loss to Wisconsin isn't completely reputation damaging. If Wisc comes out and plays well for the rest of the season and possibly wins their division in the B1G, then this game won't even matter. The problem with LSU is the exact same problem they had last year: Brandon Harris is atrocious. Let's not sugar coat this. The kid is not a good quarterback. At all. He can feed on lesser teams, but in big game situations, when good teams dare him to throw, he makes awful decisions and costs his team games. Case in point with the game yesterday. Game on the line, he gets rushed out of the pocket, and rather than keeping calm, he literally fires a pass directly into the hands of a Wisconsin safety. The pass didn't get within 5 yards of the LSU receiver he was (we think) trying to throw it to. This really does make you wonder what they worked on in the offseason, because, as it looks right now, this is Les Miles' last year in Baton Rouge.
2. Big 12 already out of the playoff race?
Oklahoma's loss to Houston yesterday was devastating. And not just for Oklahoma. This was the conference's champion and playoff representative from last season, and they came out and laid an egg in a huge non-conference game against a Group of 5 team. I do understand that Houston isn't just any Go5 school, but the bottom line is this - when the team picked to win your Power 5 conference gets beat by double digits against a school from the AAC... that is never a good thing.
The Big 12 has enough problems of their own right now, but this did not help. Even if Oklahoma runs the table, if Houston ends the year at 12-1 and they're AAC Champions, how do you let the Big 12 Champ into the playoff over them? See the predicament?
Normally a school in Oklahoma's position would hope that a non-conference team that beat them would win out, so as to make their schedule look better... but in this situation, OU and the rest of the Big 12 needs to hope that Houston implodes somewhere in their schedule.
3. Is Houston a legit playoff threat?
I think, at this point, you have to say yes. They're going to be ranked probably in the top 8 this week in the AP poll, and, even though their schedule is pretty weak in the middle of the year, you saw what the playoff committee did with an unbeaten Memphis last year in the opening rankings, and they'll do the same with Houston this year.
The AAC is an above average Group of Five conference, which will help. Games with respectable opponents always help. The game against Louisville on Thursday, Nov 17 looks like it could be massive. If Petrino's bunch can get by Florida St on Sept 17th and Clemson on Oct 1st, there's not a lot in their way of going into that game at Houston undefeated. Even if they only win one of those games, that could be a top 10 matchup. Houston needs Louisville to be great in order to help their case, and they need the AAC to step it up. That's going to matter, big time, for Herman's bunch.
4. ACC - Can Louisville challenge for the title?
Louisville intrigues me. I don't know that they can do what they did against teams like Clemson and Florida St, but if they can pull off those 2 wins, there's not a lot standing in their way towards a fight on the road with Houston in November. It's possible that they could end up playing 3 top 5 teams over the course of the season, and not another single ranked team the rest of the way. Find a way to come up big in the big games, and Petrino could get this offense to the ACC Championship game.
5. Notre Dame vs Texas is what's great about college football.
This is why people love college football. Every game feels like it has National Championship implications. Every game is about survival. Brian Kelly could have won this ballgame had he stuck with Kizer at QB for the entire game - Zaire was awful for the 1/4th of the game that he was in. Playing him is what basically got ND in the 31-14 hole in the 3rd quarter. Kizer was outstanding in getting them the lead back, but man, the Irish defense could not stop Texas at all. It looked like Cal out there. Secondary was shoddy, they couldn't stop the run... It was impressive to see a Charlie Strong team play like that. He admitted as much after the ballgame, saying that his style of play won't win anymore, and he never thought he'd be so happy about winning a game after giving up 47 points. Makes sense.
Picks
We've both been pretty terrible to start off the season with our big game picks, but there's a reason we didn't gamble on these. Before the Ole Miss game, we're both sitting at 2-5-1 on the season thus far. One of us is going to be on top of things after tonight's game between Ole Miss and Florida St. Chris has Ole Miss to cover, and I've got Florida St, so somebody is going 3-5 this weekend.
| Gary | Chris | |||
| South Carolina 13 @ Vandy 10 (-3.5) | Vandy -3.5 | 0-1-1 | S. Car +3.5 | 1-0-1 |
| Clemson 19 (-7.5) @ Auburn 13 | Clemson -7.5 | 0-2-1 | Clemson -7.5 | 1-1-1 |
| LSU 14 (-10) vs Wisconsin 16 | LSU -10 | 0-3-1 | LSU -10 | 1-2-1 |
| Georgia 33 (-3) vs North Carolina 24 | UGA -3 | 1-3-1 | UNC +3 | 1-3-1 |
| Alabama 52 (-11) vs USC 6 | Bama -11 | 2-3-1 | USC +11 | 1-4-1 |
| Oklahoma 23 (-10) @ Houston 33 | Oklahoma -10 | 2-4-1 | Houston +10 | 2-4-1 |
| Notre Dame 47 (-3.5) @ Texas 50 OT | ND -3.5 | 2-5-1 | ND -3.5 | 2-5-1 |
| Ole Miss vs Florida St (-4.5) | Florida St -4.5 | Ole Miss +4.5 |
Gambling Picks
The games we gamble on will usually be different from the "big game" picks that we make. There's a reason for that - the gambling picks are ones we feel the most comfortable about. So it makes sense that both Chris and I went 4-1 in our opening week. Here's hoping we can pull that off every week.
| Gary's picks | Chris's picks | ||
| SoCar 13 @ Vandy 10 (U 42) | 1-0 | SoCar 13 @ Vandy 10 (U 42) | 1-0 |
| App St 13 (+21) @ Tenn 20 OT | 2-0 | S. Car 13 (+3.5) @ Vandy 10 | 2-0 |
| Kansas St 13 (+15) @ Stanford 26 | 3-0 | Kan St 13 (+15) @ Stanford 26 | 3-0 |
| Georgia 33 (-2.5) vs North Carolina 24 | 4-0 | UNC 24 (+3) vs UGA 33 | 3-1 |
| Clemson 19 (-7.5) @ Auburn 13 | 4-1 | Houston 33 (+10) vs Oklahoma 23 | 4-1 |
SEC Fantasy picks
Chris didn't fare so well in his week 1 picks. Mine could have been better, but Tennessee's awful performance pretty much sealed it for me.
| Gary's | Chris's | |||
| Week 1 | ||||
| QB | KY Drew Barker | 34.42 | TN Josh Dobbs | 11.28 |
| RB | Miss St Brandon Holloway | 14.8 | AR Kody Davis | 2.4 |
| WR | TX A&M Christian Kirk | 6.9 | TN Josh Smith | 0 |
| Defense/ST | Florida | 18 | Florida | 18 |
| 74.12 | 31.68 |
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