| 02 September 2011
So we’re here.
By my count it’s been roughly 39,622 days since Cam Newton held up the crystal ball, Gene Chizik wore that goofy leather jacket, and Auburn was named National Champs. In actuality it might not have been quite that long. It sure seemed that way though.
But after all the off-season drama, we are indeed here. Football is upon us, with Wisconsin’s beautifully methodic beat down of UNLV last night highlighting things, and serving as an appetizer to this weekend’s full slate of games. Like you, I couldn’t be more excited.
As for this weekend preview you’re reading right now, for those of you who are new, it’s pretty straight forward: I make my picks against the spread on the biggest 10 games of the weekend, and do it in the laid-back and goofy way that only I can. College football is supposed to be fun, and I try to let these previews reflect that. At the same time, I certainly hope that along with the fun, I’m dropping opinion and insight as well (Note, I may be upping the ante and picking more games, maybe 15 or so, once conference play begins. We’ll see).
Anyway, we will get to the picks momentarily. But first, a few quick announcements.
The primary one is that for the first time, I’m opening up this preview to you, the fans. Yes, I will be posting my picks every Friday morning, but I’m really hoping that you’ll send along your thoughts too, so I can post your picks alongside mine, in a segment that I'm calling "The Fan's Take." The one thing that I’ve noticed through the years, is that when I do these previews, you all hit me with incredibly insightful and intelligent comments and e-mails, and this year, I figured that if anyone wanted to actually share their picks beforehand, why not let them?
So here’s the deal: Every Monday I will go ahead and let you know what 10 games I plan on previewing for the following weekend’s preview. With that, you’re all welcome to send me your own picks, which I’ll post right alongside my own in this preview. As you’ll see below, one fan even took me up on that this week.
And finally, the last announcement is that for the first time, my website is teaming up with Amazon.com, as a sponsor for the weekly pick ‘em. As I’ve mentioned before, all I ask is that if you’re using Amazon.com at any point, go ahead and click the link to the right-hand side. From there, a percentage of any purchase you make goes back to this site, to keep everything up and running. It doesn’t affect your purchase at all, but does help me out more than you know.
Anyway, enough small talk. And for the first time in 2011…
Let’s get to the picks!
TCU (-4 ½) over BAYLOR: Friday, 8:00 p.m. ESPN
I’m not a savvy enough gambler to come up with a fancy nickname for a given scenario, but with that said, what do you call it when a team with a ton of questions comes into a game as a heavy favorite, against a feisty team that can beat them (if a lot of things go right), only all of a sudden everyone decides the feisty team will beat them, and the spread gets swung by close to a touchdown because of it, despite the fact that heavy favorite is still a significantly better team? Have we come up with a name for that? Because if not, we should.
Whatever it’s called, that’s what happened here, and I’m not buying it. Baylor’s defense wasn’t all that good last year, and while TCU’s offense is down Andy Dalton at quarterback, it’s not like he was doing it entirely by himself last year. I seem to remember Ed Wesley and Antoine Hicks helping out a little.
Casey Pachall isn’t Dalton, and might never be. But add him in with this defense, and it'll be enough for the Horned Frogs to get a win Friday night.
Northwestern (+3) over Boston College: Saturday, 12:00 p.m. ESPNU
Heading into this game, everyone’s worried about Dan Persa. Will he play? Won’t he? Did he hurt himself picking up a 7 lb. dumbbell? I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, but what I do know is this: There might not be a player who’s more important to what their team does than Persa is.
So with that, I know what you’re thinking: “Aaron, if Dan Persa’s so important, and he might not be playing, why the heck would you pick Northwestern? AT, you soooooo crazzzee!”
Well, the reason I am picking the Wildcats is simple: I watched a lot of Boston College football last year, and sadly, I know what’s coming back this year. I know that the Eagles have lost Montel Harris to injury and Anthony Costanzo to the NFL. I know that they played a hodgepodge of quarterbacks last season, eventually settling on a kid named Chase Rettig, who sounds like someone more apt to wrap daddy’s Beamer around a telephone pole on a Saturday afternoon, than play major college football. And I know that the Eagles didn’t score more than 23 points in any single game once ACC play started last year. So I guess that when it comes to BC, I’ll take the same approach I did when my girlfriend promised not to bother me on Saturday while I'm watching football; essentially, I’ll believe it when I see it.
#PersaStrong or Persa-less, I’ll take Northwestern.
UCLA (+3) over HOUSTON: 3:30 p.m. Fox Sports
The most surprising storyline of the off-season had nothing to do with Saint Jim Tressel being outed as a liar. It wasn’t that a street agent named Willie Lyles had more contacts in the college football world than the best writer on the beat. It wasn’t even that Texas A&M umm, thinks that they’re actually good enough to play in the SEC every week (Sorry A&M fans, I had to do it). Nope, the biggest storyline came out last weekend, when Kirk Herbstreit picked UCLA to win the Pac-12 South Division. Wait, what?
Apparently Herbie is taking the move from Columbus hard, but still, my man, you gotta keep it together. We can work through this…
Actually, you know what? Screw it, I’m riding with Herbie. Maybe not for the season, but at least for this weekend.
After all, say what you want about Rick Neuheisel (for some reason, I really want to call Neuheisel “The Nooze.” Would anyone mind?)…
After all, say what you want about The Nooz, but early in the season he always seems to have UCLA playing well. In his first game on the job back in 2008, The Nooz led UCLA to an upset victory over Tennessee that all but ended Phil Fulmer’s career, and a year later followed that up with a victory over Lane Kiffin on Rocky Top. Last year, the Bruins upset both Texas on the road, and this same Houston team at home (Granted, they also lost to Kansas State and Stanford beforehand. But let’s not get the facts get in the way of a good point, ok?). Needless to say, The Nooz loves early season games the way the slightly overweight receptionist in your office loves chocolate. The problem of course is the whole, “Winning games in the Pac-10/12,” thing.
Well even on the road, The Nooz will strike again. It may only last a week, and may be followed up with UCLA losing by 30 to San Jose State next weekend.
But for a weekend, The Nooz will quiet the boo birds.
NOTRE DAME (-10) over South Florida: Saturday, 3:30 p.m. NBC
You know who’s most torn up on this game? It’s gotta be Lou Holtz, right? The poor guy has been put in the unenviable position of having to pick between his first born (Skip) and his first love (all things Notre Dame). If I had to take a guess, I’d guess Dr. Lou hasn’t been this torn up since Rece Davis told him that (much like Santa Claus), Touchdown Jesus doesn’t actually exist.
As for the game itself, while I’m excited to see what old Skippy has in store for year two in Tampa, I’ve got to ask: Isn’t South Florida getting just a little too much hype at this point? Granted that yes, the Bulls did beat Clemson in the Whatever-We’re-Calling-It-Now.com Bowl in Charlotte last year. But at the same time, beating that Clemson team is kind of like bragging about beating your little sister in a one-on-one hoops game. Clemson was so dysfunctional by that point in the season that.... well, I can't even come up with a clever analogy to finish that sentence. But they were indeed highly, highly dysfunctional. I can promise you that.
And really, above all, my biggest concern with the Bulls is this: Besides B.J. Daniels, where exactly are South Florida’s explosive plays going to come from? Outside of that Clemson game, it’s not like South Florida’s offense lit the world on fire (they scored more than 21 points just once in their last five regular season games). Not to mention they lost their top rusher and receiver from last year to graduation.
Expect this one to be close early, and for the Irish to open it up and win comfortably late. Also expect Lou Holtz to quietly high-five himself in the corners of ESPN’s Bristol studio when it happens.
OLE MISS (+3) over BYU: Saturday, 4:45 p.m. ESPN
Want to know the most important number in this game?
If you guessed 35.2 (the number of points per game Ole Miss allowed last year), you’d be wrong. If you guessed zero (the number of combined sexual partners of BYU’s entire starting offense), you’d be wrong as well.
Nope, the most important number is 98. That’s the temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, that it’s expected to reach in Oxford on Saturday. Factor that in with humidity and the late afternoon start-time, and we could be looking at 120+ degrees on the field by kick-off. To put that in perspective, even Houston Nutt’s hot-seat isn’t that warm.
And it’s for that reason alone I like Ole Miss. This will be a high scoring game, yes. But with the Rebs physical offensive line, Brandon Bolden and their 12th man (Mother Nature), I think eventually BYU’s defense gets worn down, and the Rebs pull away late.
Also, after last year’s opening clunker against Jacksonville State, Ole Miss can’t possibly come out flat again to open the season. Can they?
East Carolina (+20 ½) over South Carolina (at Charlotte) : Saturday, 7:00 p.m. ESPN3.com
I’ve been worried about South Carolina all summer long, and this isn’t exactly the kind of game that’s going to calm my fears. What we have here, is the Gamecocks on a neutral field, against a team that can score points in bunches (East Carolina was sixth in the country in points last year), with South Carolina playing conservatively because Georgia is on the schedule next week, and the very real possibility that they’ll be juggling two quarterbacks. Not to mention that Steve Spurrier is probably going to try to sneak in 18 holes before kick-off, so who knows where the hell his focus will be.
If Noah Webster had the definition of a “Trap Game,” in his first American Dictionary, this would be it. The Gamecocks win, but it’ll be close.
Fresno State (+9 ½) over CAL: Saturday, 7:00 p.m. Fox Sports
Quite frankly, I have no idea what to make of Cal. None. I know they’re starting quarterback last played at Buffalo (and wasn’t very good), and that their home games aren’t actually at home this season. I know that Jeff Tedford seems to have gotten worse each year, while (not coincidentally) the rest of the coaching around him the Pac-12 has gotten better. And I also know that for the first time in a long time, I can’t name Cal’s starting running back heading into the season. In other words, I don't know much about Cal football. But of the things I do know, none of them are good.
Not that I know much more about Fresno. But at the same time, what I do know is that for whatever reason, the Bulldogs always seem to play well in season openers against good teams. They pulled Butch Jones’ pants down in his first game as coach of Cincinnati last year, and traveled to Rutgers two years ago and beat the Scarlet Knights in their opener too.
Granted, those two teams (Cincy and Rutgers) ended up being worse than expected, so maybe it wasn’t a “Fresno is good thing,” as much as was just a “those two teams sucked,” thing. Still, there’s something about Week 1 and Fresno that I’m kinda liking here.
Give Pat Hill a summer to prepare his football team…and his mustache, and it seems like a safe bet that they’ll at least cover the points Saturday.
Georgia (+3) over Boise State: Saturday, 8:00 p.m. ESPN
From strictly an X’s and O’s standpoint, I’m just a little bit more excited about Oregon-LSU than I am this one. But from a cultural, “Where do these two teams stand, 
and what do they mean in the big-picture of college football” standpoint, Boise-Georgia takes the cake.
What I find most interesting is that the more people I talk to, the more seem to be leaning toward Boise…if only because they’re terrified of Kellen Moore. For a small-school quarterback, Moore has reached the rarified air of, “Whatever I do, I’m not betting against this guy. I’ve seen him do it too many times before.” Quite frankly, it seems like most people would rather light their money on fire than wager against Moore.
Luckily for me, I have no money. Which is why I’m rolling with the ‘Dawgs.
Look, I’m not saying that Aaron Murray is better than Moore, or even necessarily that Georgia is better than Boise (I found it interesting that when I interviewed Georgia beat writer Seth Emerson this summer, he believed that the Broncos were the “more talented” team). But with that said, I need to see what Moore looks like without his two biggest security blankets, Austin Pettis and Titus Young, before I can feel totally comfortable with the Broncos this season.
Understand that so much of what Moore did, and so much of who he who he was, was intertwined with Pettis and Young. Whenever Moore needed a big first down, he knew he could count on one of them to get open. Whenever he needed a big play, he could just chuck the ball downfield, and one of them (usually Young) would find their way under it. Hell, Moore had such a good connection with those two, half the time he could just turn blindly and throw the ball to a spot, and know his guys would be there.
Well with Pettis and Young now in the NFL, I need to see what the next guys are capable of at wide receiver are before I roll with the Broncos. Not to mention that I’m not sold on Boise’s running game one bit. Last year it never totally seemed like they dominated the line of scrimmage quite like they should’ve. Well this year, with a few new starters on that line, will they be any better?
For so long, years now, I’ve known exactly what’d I get out of Boise every single time they took the field. Well, for the first time in a long time, they have questions.
Georgia doesn’t.
LSU (+4) over Oregon (in Dallas): Saturday, 8:00 p.m. ABC
I really need you all to clarify something for me here.
To the best of my memory, for the past three years Jordan Jefferson has been awful. Like, “If I had to bet my life on him throwing one tight spiral in this entire game, I wouldn’t do it,” awful. And over that same time frame, everyone has continually hammered home the point that the Tigers were winning despite him, not because of him, and as recently as this spring, LSU fans were clamoring for Zach Mettenberger to be named starting quarterback.
Now after talking about this game for months, Jordan Jefferson is suspended and will not play Saturday. And all of a sudden, people can’t see LSU winning because of it.
Wait…WHAAAAAAT?
Look, I’m not arguing that Jefferson probably would’ve given LSU the best chance to win on Saturday. At the same time, at no point this summer did anyone sit down and think to themselves, “When LSU and Oregon play this Labor Day, I’m taking LSU. And it’s because of Jordan Jefferson!!!” It didn’t happen. Nope. Instead, you liked LSU to win this game for the same reasons I did, mainly that they’re bigger and more physical than Oregon on both front lines.
Well guess what? That hasn’t changed. None of LSU’s starters on either line have been suspended or suffered serious injury. They’re all going to play Saturday. Add them in with the best secondary in college football, and LSU finds a way to win this game. Les Miles will have this team prepared.
Geaux Tigers.
Miami over MARYLAND: Monday, 8:00 p.m. ESPN
As I mentioned in my National Championship Pick column on Wednesday, when you’re a fan, the relationship you have with the coach of your team becomes a lot like one you might have with a girlfriend.
Those first few years, everything is new, exciting and fun. You laugh at all his jokes, and say stuff like, “I love the way he crinkles his nose when he calls a fake punt.” You’re always smiling. You read every profile of him in the local paper. Simply put, you two can’t get enough of each other.
By about the fourth or fifth year, it’s similar to the one year mark of a relationship. You’re comfortable together. There are no surprises. You know he’s going to call a draw play on third and long rather than risk an interception. But it’s ok. It’s like you tell your friends, “He’s so stubborn! But that’s just how he is. I would never want to change him.”
Then finally, by the time a coach reaches about a decade at a school (think Mark Richt this year), you’re feeling about the same way as you do at the two-year mark of a relationship. Everything the guy does drives you nuts. You’ve already heard every quip at his press conferences and every excuse after a loss. Just the sound of this voice makes you want to put a plastic bag over your head. If anything, you two almost know each other too well.
So what’s the point in that whole ramble? Well, it’s that I just came out of 10-year relationship with Randy Edsall (And for those of you wondering, yes the kids are doing well). We had our ups and downs over that time, and I wish him the best at Maryland. I sincerely mean that.
At the same time, I also know this about him: Put Randy Edsall on a national stage, with real, tangible expectations, and the guy flops harder than a fat kid jumping off the diving board at your local swimming pool. It happened last year in the opener against Michigan, and in key Big East conference games over the course of the last decade. Please trust me on this one.
Now that’s obviously not to say he can’t coach. But still, just go ahead and look over his resume. Virtually every, single big win he’s had through the years has come when no one has expected much from his team. Included were a bowl game over South Carolina; a win at Notre Dame near the end of the Charlie Weis era; and last year’s victory over West Virginia. They were all big wins. And they all came when everyone thought his team was going to lose.
Well in Monday’s game, no one expects much from Miami. They’re down most of their starting defense, and Jacory Harris. In theory, at home, Maryland should win this game.
But I know Randy Edsall. And I know this: Come Tuesday morning, Al Golden will be 1-0 as Miami’s head coach.
Now, for the first time, let’s hear what the fans have to say about Saturday’s games.
Here is the “Fan’s Take”:
Jeremy Hicks (@JMattHicks) from San Francisco writes in:
So everyone (read: ESPN) has picked my Aggies as the opening weekend's go-to upset pick. I've even heard rumblings about the Boise State/Georgia match-up (which if Georgia wins, it won't be an upset). While I have my opinions on both games (as you just read), if I was asked to choose one of those two match-ups as the best possibility for a potential upset I'd reply, in the words of my main man Herman Cain addressing his foreign policy with Libya: "Neither, and let me tell you why!"
I'm going out on a limb and calling TCU at Baylor. If you want an under-the-radar upset potential, it's this game. The Aggies are going to beat SMU by 14+. Georgia is going to beat Boise State. To me, those aren't nearly as big of a question mark as the blogs and pundits seem to think they are.
But TCU a) Has to go to Waco this year b) Is replacing five starters lost to the NFL draft, including stud QB Andy Dalton and three gamers on defense c) has to corral Robert Griffin III (who it seems will forever eligible), a dangerous dual-threat quarterback that's only gotten better each year. I'll admit, Baylor's defense is suspect due to losing DT Phil Taylor and changing schemes, but TCU's offense won't be as potent as last year either. Add in the fact that it's a Friday Night game, a national audience, and all of the pressure on TCU, you've got a recipe for an upset.
My call? Baylor 28, TCU 24. The MVP will be Baylor defensive back Ahmad Dixon with 6 tackles, a sack, and an interception return for a touchdown.
Matt Hubacher (@GamingIncCEO) weighs in on the same game:
Old SWC rivals TCU and Baylor square off Friday night in Waco. Everything came up roses for the Horned Frogs last year, but this year only 8 starters return for HC Gary Patterson (3O, 5D). Casey Pachall takes over for #winner Andy Dalton and the top three rushers (Ed Wesley, Matthew Tucker, and Waymon James) return to Fort Worth. On the defensive side of the ball, leading tackler Tanner Brock and 1st Team AA Tank Carder will yet again anchor TCU’s vaunted 4-2-5 scheme. Robert Griffin III is back at the helm of Art Briles’ offense, which averaged 31.2 ppg last year. Overall Baylor returns 8 offensive starters (WR Josh Gordon left the team after being suspended for violating team rules) and 5 defensive starters. However, the defense, which gave up 435 ypg and 30.5 ppg in 2010, loses its top 5 tacklers.
When looking at the returning starter numbers (13 vs. 8) coupled with Baylor enjoying a home field advantage, some might consider putting the Horned Frogs on upset alert. I don’t. Gary Patterson’s TCU squads are not a flash-in-the-pan; Patterson has been building this program for 11 years. TCU has finished as the nation’s best defense 5/11 years, and the next guys up will be ready to make that 6/12. On the other side of the equation is Baylor, who always seems to beat the teams they are supposed to beat (10-1 SU as chalk under Briles) and lose to the teams they are supposed to lose to (3-20 SU as doggies). Sure this TCU team isn’t going to be as dominant as last year’s Rose Bowl champs, but they most certainly have the defense and rush attack to handle RGIII and the rest of the Bears Friday night.
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