How many weeks in a row can we break even as a staff? For the third week, the record was even, this time at 30-30. The full-season record for the collective is at 111-133. Individually, VU ‘04 led the way at a Vegas-shattering 8-2. Meanwhile, Import went 6-4! It is his second straight week winning more than losing, which has — combined with others faltering — gotten him to 3rd in the standings. Tom and I were both even at 5-5 while CDA and Shawn limped in at 3-7.

Without going through each game, there were some notables. Vanderbilt nearly got into backdoor cover range thanks to Randall Haynie’s Pick 6. Ole Miss mayyy have gotten screwed by some Pac-12 replay officials who chose not to review a potential scoring play. Even with the TD, the Rebels would have had to convert on a 2PT conversion then win in OT to matter though. Auburn won outright as a 4-point underdog. Kentucky totally let Shawn, VU ‘04, CDA, and I down. The other 4-staffer fails were South Carolina-Missouri (same group of 4) and San Jose State-Arkansas (Shawn, Tom, CDA, and Import). Meanwhile, Tom was the only one dumb enough to pick Michigan.

This week there are only 5 games through a mixture of open dates, one FCS game, and four SEC-SEC games. In fact, Vanderbilt is the only one playing outside the conference. Oh, and my dumb self forgot to include an OOC Game of the Week. Some of the reasoning for that will be included in a recap of my week that has been demanded by VU ‘04 to be made public.

The Rules

1. All SEC games against FBS competition will be picked. FCS games are excluded since lines are often not available until very late in the week or even the morning of the game.
2. One other game, typically a matchup of Top 25 teams, will be part of the picks.
3. The picks will be made AGAINST THE SPREAD. Too many games are easy to pick heads up. Also, this will serve as a PSA for why you should not get into sports gambling if Tennessee (or wherever you reside) makes it legal.
4. The lines will be taken from ESPN Oddshark (because ESPN was not updating by Monday morning) sometime Monday, so they may not match what is listed at the time this article is published.

The Standings

The Picks

GAME	DotP	Shawn	Tom	VU04	CDA	Import
Northern Illinois (+6.5) @ Vanderbilt
Mississippi State (+11) @ Auburn
Texas A&M (-23) @ Arkansas
Ole Miss (+35) @ Alabama
Kentucky (+4) @ South Carolina