The staff has another week to the good with a combined record of 27-21. Overall, we are up to 293-311. The crawl back to .500 for the season is continuing. Dwindling time is the enemy though. Individually, only Tom was below .500 at 3-5. I had a second consecutive 4-4 showing with CDA joining me at that mark. VU ‘04 and Import came in at 5-3. Stan led the way with a very nice 6-2 pick set. Import has a 5-game lead over the tied duo of VU ‘04 and CDA. I am solidly in 4th with Stan trying to catch up while Tom rides caboose.

Last week, Florida let us all down by allowing a backdoor cover by Tennessee. Auburn also laid an egg, as they are apt to do, to make four of us losers. Those were the only games with more wrong picks than correct ones. The South Carolina-Kentucky and Georgia Tech-NC State games were evenly split. Coastal Carolina, Tulane, and Alabama rewarded 5 of us with wins. For completeness, Arkansas should have won outright but managed to blunder the game away to Missouri via a walk-off FG, but they did cover the 3-point spread for 4 winners.

This week, we are somehow split 3-3 over Vanderbilt’s game against THEM. Tom, VU ‘04, and CDA should be banned. Well, Tom and VU ‘04 since Vox/SB Nation has already jettisoned CDA. Hilariously, Florida is the unanimous pick while being a 23-point favorite over reigning national champs LSU. VU ‘04 and CDA are in lock step except for two games, so they are limited in how much swing there can be there, but they vary from Import on 5 (VU ‘04) and 3 (CDA) games.

By the way, the Pitt-Georgia Tech game, which was evenly split also, is currently in the 4th quarter with Pitt up by 10 with just under 10 minutes to play. Pittsburgh has the ball 2nd and goal from the 11, and the game has gotten really weird with some dumb penalties on the last handful of plays. The game is on the FoxSports network of regional networks and somehow also on ESPN3, which is available through WatchESPN.com to anyone who has ESPN in their cable/satellite package.

Also, I took some liberties this week by adding Army-Navy and Coastal Carolina-Troy. The addition of Army-Navy is almost required because ‘Merica. Coastal’s game was added because a certain insider was sure on Monday that Jamey Chadwell was going to be Vanderbilt’s next head coach which would make their game intriguing for all of us. Oh well, they are fun to watch anyway.

The Rules

1. Normally, the picks are for all SEC games with one dealer’s choice where I get to choose another game to make us pick. This year, it is going to be all SEC games, one dealer’s choice, and the Campbell Fighting Camels game! Why? Because I said so.
2. 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 with more states making it legal.
3. The lines will be taken from Oddshark’s consensus spread some time Monday, so they may not match what is listed at the time this article is published.

The Standings

The Picks

GAME	DotP	Stan	Tom	VU04	CDA	Import
Tennessee (-15) @ Vanderbilt
Georgia (-13) @ Missouri
Alabama (-32) @ Arkansas
LSU (+23) @ Florida
Auburn (-6.5) @ Mississippi State
Pittsburgh (-6.5) @ Georgia Tech
Navy (+7) @ Army
Coastal Carolina (-13.5) @ Troy
North Carolina (+3) @ Miami