COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEKEND PREVIEW

by WCT, The Ship of Fools

It's week eight in college football, and we are officially moving “down the stretch” in the season. Its no longer “early,” we are no longer trying to find out who is “for real.” Now, it is time to separate the men from the boys, the contenders from the pretenders, and so forth…

I’m sorry; they have recently decided that they are going to pay me by the cliché. Eh, it is what it is.

Lets go!

(This week lets try something different. Just for laughs, all game times will be Eastern.)

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (Noon) – I have only included this game in the rundown so that I can take an unprovoked shot at Dave Wann-stache. I can’t be the only one who laughed all the way to the bank as he made coaching gaffe after coaching gaffe in the final minutes of that Thursday game against Navy, can I? The coupe de grace was the final play of the game, when in overtime, he decided against kicking a 19 yard field goal to tie the game, and called a low-percentage pass play. Predictably, the pass was incomplete, and Pitt lost the game. As a gambler, when you see a coach like that on one of the sidelines, you bet on the team occupying the other one.

Tennessee at Alabama (12:30 pm) – Ranked team, underdogs on the road at an unranked team. As educated gamblers you should know to bet Alabama in this one Plus, the Vols, in their three road games so far, have lost by 14 at Cal, lost by 39 at Florida, and allowed a weak Mississippi State team to hang around into the fourth quarter. I think Tennessee might have been just teasing their fans when they destroyed Georgia a couple weeks back

Miami at Florida State (3:30pm) – Remember when this was the biggest game on the college football schedule? Remember when the field would be replete with NFL future stars? Remember when every game would feature a pre-game fight, as the road team would inevitably enrage the home team by stomping on their logo during warm-ups? Remember when you could land a job at a major media publication just by getting plastic surgery, dressing like a slut, and going to the game? Man, that might as well have been a hundred years ago. Now these two are fighting it out to see who wears the crown as “third best team in the state.” I defy you to find a definite NFL starter in this game, let alone star. Will they even bother to have a pre-game brawl? Who knows? I’ll take the ‘Canes.

Texas Tech at Missouri (3:30pm) – The winning quarterback in this game will have a huge Heisman bandwagon come Monday morning. To be honest, I have not seen much of Tech this year, but what is it about Graham Harell that makes him different from B.J. Symons? Or Sonny Cumbie? Or Cody Hodges? Or Kliff Kingsbury? I have never been a big believer of the “basketball on grass” approach that Tech takes to offensive football, plus I was pretty impressed by Mizzou even in defeat last week, so I will take Chase Daniel and the Tigers. And let the record show that I was on the on the Chase Daniel Heisman bandwagon two weeks ago!

Cal at UCLA (3:30pm) – I guess I should throw at least one Pac-10 game in there, huh? Lets try this one on for size. The sign of a poorly coached team isn’t always bad play, sometimes its inconsistency. UCLA wins games they should lose (see USC last year) and loses games they should win (see Utah this year, Notre Dame this year, bowl game last year, I could go on…). That means that they are very tough to predict. That also means that Head Coach Karl Dorrell should be renting and not owning. In the week following the inexplicable loss to Oregon State, Cal has hopefully instructed their quarterbacks that it isn’t a wise course of action to run around like a headless chicken when you have 6 seconds left and no time outs. I think this is going to be one of those games where UCLA plays over their heads and keeps it close, but I like Cal to pull it out.

Florida at Kentucky (3:30pm) – If you are a frequent reader, then you know that I love Kentucky. I’ve been driving this bandwagon since July. But I just can’t see them beating LSU and Florida in consecutive weeks. There has to be a let-down in the week following beating the then-#1 team in the country in triple overtime. Florida is also still alive to take the SEC crown, needing to win out and beat UK and South Carolina on the road to win the East Division. That is pretty good motivation for the Gators. Plus, the “experts” are just begging you to take Kentucky by installing UF as almost a touchdown favorite in Lexington. They don’t like giving away money at the casinos out there, so I’m not going to make the sucker bet and load up on the ‘Cats. I’m taking Florida and giving the points.

Virginia at Maryland (8:00pm) – This, I’m told, is a rivalry game. I see it more as another gambling opportunity. UVA, nationally ranked, getting points at unranked Maryland. A gambling novice would say “a ranked team getting points against an unranked team? Sign me up!” That is part of what I’m trying to do here people. Educate you all so that you don’t make mistakes like that. Plus I think that Maryland has been waiting to break through into the top 25 for a while now. The West Virginia game from last month was a lot closer than the score would indicate, and the big win at Rutgers knocked the Knights from the ranks of the unbeaten and off the BCS map. Not only that, but Virginia is on borrowed time after beating UConn by a single point in Charlottesville. That squeaker was one game after a narrow two-point win at Middle Tennessee State.

Michigan at Illinois (8:00pm) – Primetime football returns to ABC this weekend with a game in… Champaign, IL? I know, I’ve said it a thousand times already: Weird, weird year. Illinois had a nice little season going until last week. Six goddam points against lowly Iowa? This Michigan team reminds me a lot of this year’s New York Yankee team. Both looked like crap in the early season, were left for dead, and then turned their seasons around. The Wolverines re-entered respectability this week after bludgeoning Purdue reappearing on the AP top 25 (#24), but it remains to be seen if Michigan can turn themselves all the way around (after all they did look a little shaky against the likes of Northwestern and Eastern Michigan). I know this won’t make our anonymous heckler happy, but I will take Michigan to win comfortably at Illinois.

Auburn at LSU (9:00pm) – Speaking of turning the season around: The Auburn team that takes the field this Saturday will not even resemble the squad that was 1-2 after losing a home game to Mississippi F-ing State. This Auburn team will be playing with a lot of confidence after winning in Gainesville, crushing Vandy, and shutting down Darren McFadden and the Razorbacks in consecutive games. Granted, they only scored nine points themselves in that Arkansas game, but nobody’s perfect. That being said, I would not want to have to face a pissed-off LSU team right after their loss to Kentucky. This is a tough one to call, but I’m definitely putting all my money on the Tigers.

I kid, I kid…I think that LSU is going to win the game, but I think that 10.5 is too many points to give an improved Auburn team so I’m putting my money on the AUBURN Tigers.