The full opening weekend of college football was just as ridiculous as Week 0. SEC teams massively underperformed in most cases, which had interesting effects on the pick ‘em. The best record this week was 5-6, shared by Shawn and myself. Texas A&M gave up a late TD to Texas State that made that game a push, which saved Import who was the lone one to take the Bobcats. Kentucky won by more than 11 fairly easily in the end after a slow start. Ole Miss helped CDA and myself by only losing by 5 instead of 6. Missippi State sputtered against Louisiana-Lafayette and only won by half of the spread, which gave Shawn the only right pick in that game. Alabama started slow then crushed Duke to beat the spread. A favored Game Penis squad lost outright after being an 8-point favorite to Tom and VU ‘04’s advantage.

Shawn, VU ‘04, and I all looked really dumb after Georgia State beat THEM as a 26-point underdog. Only Shawn had Georgia beating the spread, and he was right after the offense sputtered a few times too many. 04 and I had our faith in LSU’s new spread offense rewarded ... or maybe we just thought it did not matter what LSU did against Georgia Southern. Import and I got some War Eagle Odd Year Luck as Auburn looked set to settle for a late FG to win the game but not beat the spread. A jump ball TD pass made the Tigers the right pick though. Like Tennessee, Missouri not only failed to win by more than 2 TDs as expected but failed to win at all. Finally, Stanford won by more than necessary.

This week, we have all had to figure out how much Week 1 told us about each team and how teams that struggled or hit Rocky Bottom will respond. Only I think Tennessee responds well enough to beat some Mormons by more than 3 points, and I bet nothing would change if the game was a pick ‘em or even had UT has 3 point underdogs. We all expect Vanderbilt to at least lose by less than 8.5, so maybe the predictions will be more rosey this week. New Mexico State also gets a lot of love thanks to a ridiculous spread of 54 points that the Crimson Tide need to cover. The rest of the games have a pretty good mix As always, peep the rules before sliding down to see the full standings and picks for this week.

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 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
Vanderbilt (+8.5) @ Purdue
Tulane (+19) @ Auburn
West Virginia (+13.5) @ Missouri
Texas A&M (+18) @ Clemson
Southern Miss (+16.5) @ Mississippi State
New Mexico State (+54) @ Alabama
BYU (+3) @ Tennessee
LSU (-4.5) @ Texas
Eastern Michigan (+14) @ Kentucky
Arkansas (+7) @ Ole Miss
Nebraska (-4.5) @ Colorado