Week 3 Football Thread

Week 2 was more interesting than anticipated. Florida looks terrible again and Billy Napier is a dead man walking. Clemson came back from a big deficit against Troy, but they look awfully shaky. Indiana is 2-0 against bad competition but looks like a 1 year window. Illinois looks quite tough. Oklahoma State’s OANN loving head coach Mike Gundy talked shit about Oregon’s program and Oregon beat the living hell out his Trumpist ass, showing as much forgiveness as he shows immigrants being deported. Experience mattered a lot as Oklahoma defeated Michigan fairly easily in the game of the week. So all in all, an interesting week that didn’t quite tell us everything we need to know about evaluating teams at this point in the season, but told us a bit. Week 3 will clarify quite a bit more.

This week’s top 10 games, based on the Athletic’s ranking of programs from 1-136, in order of when they start, eastern time of course.

1. #10 Clemson at #33 Georgia Tech (+3.5), 12, ESPN. Clemson had to come back from 16-0 down at home against Troy. Cade Klubnik has been quite inconsistent at QB. LSU outclassed the Tigers. Georgia Tech has a nice win at Colorado. It’s a still a bit hard to tell what that means. So the real question is this–is Clemson actually a good football team? I kind of suspect they are not and will pick if not a minor upset, a very close game in Atlanta, with Georgia Tech on the points.
2. #57 Wisconsin at #22 Alabama (-21.5), 12, ABC. I don’t really care that Bama obliterated Louisiana-Monroe after losing to Florida State. Means nothing. Wisconsin is down and isn’t that good. If Alabama loses this game, DeBoer had better hide from the mob. But a three TD favorite. No. Taking Wisconsin there.
3. #9 Georgia at #24 Tennessee (+3.5), 3:30, ABC. The first really big SEC conference matchup of the season and this should be a fun one. Georgia probably is the better team. Tennessee hammered a seemingly bad Syracuse team and then destroyed a nothing in East Tennessee State. Georgia has played Marshall and Austin Peay to respectable but not huge blowout wins. It’s very hard to read much into any of these games. We are still so early in the season that quite a few teams have still played no one, but after this week it will just be Penn State and Indiana with their laughable non-conference schedules where we still don’t have a real read on the team. So this is a really hard game to make any kind of prediction on. I guess I will go Georgia by more than 3.5 here, but it’s a low confidence pick. I think people just don’t quite believe in Tennessee yet and maybe I don’t quite either.
4. #18 South Florida at #4 Miami (-17.5), 4:30, CW. You don’t often see one of the top matchups of the week on the CW. This spread makes zero sense to me. Miami does look pretty good. Their defense seems significantly improved from last year, when Cam Ward had to repeatedly save them. But South Florida beat the tar out of Boise and then just won at Florida. Being at Miami is not going to scare them. I don’t think they are going to win this game outright but it’s not impossible. Taking South Florida at +17.5 is a very easy call.
5. #47 Arkansas at #19 Ole Miss (-7.5), 7, ESPN. The Rebels won an early season conference game over Kentucky, but the Wildcats aren’t very good this year and it was only by a TD. Arkansas has played no one. Again, anyone betting on college football before week 4 is working on perception more than record. Given that Arkansas is probably pretty bad, I am taking Ole Miss with the points here because they at least will probably score a lot, but it’s also a low confidence pick.
6. #29 Texas A&M at #7 Notre Dame (-6.5), 7:30, NBC. How much do you read into a tough Notre Dame loss at Miami to start the season? That’s a hard question. Miami does look good and it was a tough road game. Then how much do you buy A&M’s 2-0 start, especially when they are whatever victories over UTSA and Utah State, neither by the scores you’d expect in these matchups. I suspect this means that once again, A&M is not actually that good. So I’ll take Notre Dame with the points here.
7. #37 Florida at #1 LSU (-7.5), 7:30, ABC. South Florida may just be a very good team but that’s still a bad loss for Florida. Meanwhile, Billy Napier’s seat is as hot as Donald Trump’s will be when he reaches Hell. Florida has the hardest schedule in the country, a murderers’ row over the next month. Even if you don’t think LSU is the best team in the country, and I do not, I don’t see this as close. LSU in a rout since I suspect there will be some early giving up coming from the Gators.
8. #16 Vanderbilt at #17 South Carolina (-3.5), 7:45, SEC. Vanderbilt is a nice story of a bad program becoming competitive against the giants. South Carolina hasn’t exactly dominated in early games against a bad Virginia Tech team and then South Carolina State. Even though they have LaNorris Sellers, a popular pick to go in the first round next year at QB, the offense has been stagnant. Meanwhile, the two teams already have an opponent in common in Virginia Tech and Vandy hammered them. The law of transitive property is never a good way to think about college football, but Vanderbilt has looked like the better team. So I take them +3.5
9. #53 Duke at #39 Tulane (-1.5), 8, ESPN2. Duke got absolutely hammered at home by Illinois last week. I was disappointed. Figured they’d be better. Tulane could be a competitor for the mid-conference playoff entry and its needs this win for that. It easily beat a horrific Northwestern team before barely hanging out against South Alabama, not a great sign. So I will take Duke +1.5 in a tight game. Probably Tulane isn’t that good and Duke isn’t that bad.
10. #49 Texas State at #30 Arizona State (-16.5), 10:30, TNT. This seems like it would be a blowout, but I don’t think so. Texas State has looked good this year, handling UTSA with ease last week. Arizona State just lost to Mississippi State and its QB Sam Leavitt has just been OK. This has the old Pac 12 After Dark vibes all over it. I take Texas State with the points and watch out for the outright upset.

Last week I was 4-6 against the spread (after starting 0-6!!!), making me 13-11 on the season.