There’s Other Footbaw: 2018 WK 3

I’d like to pat myself on the back for pointing y’all in the direction of the MSU-ASU game. Had you followed my brilliant advice, you’d have seen a great upset. Granted, if you followed my advice you’d also have watched UGA kick USC’s ass. But failures don’t follow you on resumes, only success! I’m also taking credit for calling both the UK-UF and Aggie-Clemson games as games to watch in primetime. Truly I am an oracle and you should listen to me. (Note: No one should listen to me about anything ever)

The games this week aren’t much more exciting on paper than they were last week. There’s a few more chances for upsets, but we’re not quite into the meat of conference play.

Florida State (-3.5) @ Syracuse 1200 ET (1100 CT), ESPN

Don’t look at me that way. All the early games are total trash. This is, hilariously enough, the only early shift game that might stand to be a matchup. FSU bungled their way to victory over Samford. Samford lost first round in the 1-AA playoff last year, but FSU has entirely too much talent for that crap. Well, they should, anyway. They’re a bad football team. Meanwhile, Syracuse QB Eric Dungey is a senior and showing it with two great starts. This is the same QB who decided to make my life miserable when I went to the LSU game last year. This kid can throw and the Syracuse offense will keep them in the game. I have full faith Syracuse could give us the upset we wanted last week... and at a 3.5 point spread, it’s not much of an upset.

Backup Game: The real question here is if you had to choose between UT getting upset by UTEP or PSU losing to Kent State here as the hilarious early upset game, which do you choose? Otherwise, go outside or play some more cornhole or something. There’s nothing on.

(#12) LSU (+10) @ (#7) Diet Bama 1530 ET (1430 CT), CBS

SEC and LSU homerism win out here. LSU has had two strong games, including an impressive win at a neutral site over Miami. They’ve still not proven to me that they’ve got enough of a passing threat to pull of something like winning at Jordan-Hare against a top-top Auburn squad. The ten point spread only makes sense in that the game is at Auburn, but this game could be another classic. It’s hard to see this game ever getting out of reach, even if Auburn controls it all the way.

Backup Game: Technically a backup-backup since you’d be turning to this after Vandy-ND and LSU-Auburn fails to be interesting... but (#17) Boise State (+3) @ (#24) Oklahoma State is my choice for non-Conf GotW.

(#4) Ohio State (-12) @ (#15) TCU 2000 ET (1900 CT), ABC

Ohio State, like Notre Dame, could go 1-11 and the media would be screaming for them to be in the playoff. It’s just infuriating. The Buckeyes are almost certainly gonna hand TCU their butts in Fort Worth. Let’s be honest though, it’s the only game of interest this time slot. TCU could surprise, but I’m pretty sure I predicted TCU would beat Oklahoma last years, and was wrong both times.

Backup Game: (#22) Southern Cal (+3.5) @ Texas 2000 ET (1900 CT), FOX. Only because while Texas is total trash, Southern Cal looked like trash too against Stanford. Enjoy watching Southern Cal keeping their Top 25 ranking even if they lose because “it’s not just about W/L gais!”

(#23) Arizona State (-4.5) @ San Diego State 2230 ET (2130 CT), PAC12

Your Pac-12 Degenerate Game of the Week! Despite stupid Sports Illustrated power rankings that somehow have Penn State at 8, Michigan State at 22, Houston at 24, and Arizona State NR, Arizona State is actually a top25 team right now. Bottom of that to be sure, but how you can argue for MSU to be in there or Penn State to be top 10 is beyond me. Houston is one of those “safe” HAWT TEAK picks that people stick in there to make it look like they’re open to the little guy. Anyway, ASU has a great opportunity here to show they’re worthy of their poll rankings with a good win over a solid SDSU squad. It’s not going to be a cakewalk, and it’s the perfect wind down the evening falling asleep on your couch covered in beer cans and chips Pac-12 game.