College Football Week 6

Columbus Day weekend is always a good time to evaluate the college game as most of the pretenders have been smoked out (Florida, Texas, Big East) while the contenders (Bama, OSU, Boise, Oregon) and surprise teams (Michigan, MSU, Pac-10) look to continue their early season success. Below are the picks for this week coming off two nice weeks and what would have been two great weeks if underdogs NC St. and Stanford would have been able to hold big leads late in last week’s games. The best thing about college football is there are at least 30+ games on the schedule for next week.

Michigan State @ Michigan (-4.5): Two surprise teams of the year put their undefeated records on the line. Stating the obvious like Brent Musburger would say “Herbie, something has to give in this game”. Michigan QB Denard Robinson has been as spectacular as a Real World/Road Rules challenge girl fight and in the process is the leader in the Heisman race and has saved Rich Rod’s job. Robinson as he has been all year will be forced to make a ton of plays to make up for a defense that has been one of the worst in all of D-1. Michigan State has been one of the most balanced teams in the country and the RB combo of Edwin Baker and Le’Veon Bell will keep Robinson off the field and allow QB Kirk Cousins to have success off play action. The pressure will be on the Mich St. defense and specifically LB Greg Jones to slow Robinson and I think this game will come down to a field goal making Mich. St + 4 and a hook the play.

Alabama @ South Carolina (+7): Bama faces their third straight SEC ranked opponent and for the second time in that stretch they are on the road. The Tide defense made the biggest statement of the year last week when they dismantled and embarrassed Florida making this an ideal “trap” game. South Carolina will try to pound the ball with RB Marcus Lattimore and load up to stop the run on defense. Their ability to run the ball and stop the run makes this team the best Spurrier has had at South Carolina and maybe the best team in the SEC East. I would subscribe to the “trap” theory against any other coach but Nick Saban. He will have his team ready to play and a no team will dominate his defense on the ground and South Carolina QB Stephen Garcia does not have the game to beat this defense on his own. Bama RB Mark Ingram is running the ball as well if not better than his Heisman winning year last year and as we have been saying all year the SEC West is dominate while the SEC East is pedestrian making Bama -7 the play even on the road.

FSU @ Miami (-6): At one time this was the biggest and best rivalry game of the year and it is nice to see both teams ranked again for this year’s matchup. Miami has been riding a Randy Shannon defense that has brought back memories of defenses from the glory days and QB Jacoby Harris has only needed to make a few plays usually to WR Leonard Hankerson to win this year with that defense. The Canes will need to do a much better job of protecting Harris as he has been harassed into 8 INT’s in the last four games and FSU, specifically DE Brandon Jenkins will continue that trend. FSU will try to establish the run with RB’s Jermaine Thomas and Chris Thompson and QB Christian Ponder will need to play like he has the previous three weeks and not as he did at Oklahoma for FSU to stay close on the road. FSU has to be fired up after last year’s last second loss in Tallahassee and the past nine matchups between these two teams have been decided by an average of 4.1 pts. I like this game to come down to the wire and Miami should make enough plays to win at home but 6 points is too many making FSU the play. Can’t pick against FSU this week with famous alumni Jenn Sterger and her “Greg Oden like” Favre pics, that only John Madden could positively identify.

Texas A&M vs. Arkansas (-5) @ Texas Stadium: An intriguing matchup of two of the best quarterbacks in the country who can put up points in a hurry. This game could easily be higher scoring than a basketball game between these two schools. Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett should bounce back from his poor performance against Alabama with the game in doubt and the Texas A&M defense is the perfect defense to rebound against. It is hard to believe that A&M was a good team who was tough to play against and built around their defense, almost as hard to believe as coach Mike Sherman being a fairly successful NFL coach. QB Jerrod Johnson is reason enough to watch A&M’s games and he will put on a good show, but he is like Rick Nash in Columbus and eventually his team will let him down. Arkansas -5 is the play and with it another chance to take an SEC west team out of conference.

Pittsburgh @ Notre Dame (-6): The Big East enters play this week with no team ranked in the Top 25 and with their best out of conference wins being UConn and WVU at home vs. Vandy and Maryland respectively. No wonder this conference is actively reaching out to TCU since only a big fish addition will allow the conference to keep their automatic BCS invitation with a review scheduled for 2012. Pittsburgh has been the biggest disappointment in the conference and it always did seem overly optimistic to count on a Wannstedt coached team to make noise nationally since only Bernie Madoff has stolen more money over the years than the mediocre Pittsburgh coach. How the Notre Dame defense fares against a Pittsburgh offense that is as unimaginative as Boston College will go a long way in determining how long Brian Kelly’s rebuilding process will take. ND should score points and that should be enough against any Big East team this year making ND -6 the play.

Boston College @ NC ST (-9.5): Tom O’Brien’s new team is the play, even after their fold up last week they are in better shape than his old team.

Clemson @ UNC (-2.5): Good spot for Clemson as more suspensions hit Butch Davis’ crew this week.

Auburn (-6) @ Kentucky: The SEC this year can be summarized with Jim Morrison’s quote “The West is the best.”