Peck's Picks (Week 2, NCAAF)
Peck
rough first weekend (although 2-1 on Thursday with Troy, South
Carolina, and Oregon St cushioned the blow), but I think we all
learned some important things about Virginia Tech, Louisville, and
Texas's defense (they suck, they really suck, and they don't suck as
bad as i thought they would, respectively).
Looking at the lines and it appears that Vegas is expecting a blowout-
heavy weekend (lots of BCS conference teams playing out of conference
games at home where they're favored by more than 2 and a half TDs).
With that said:
THURSDAY:
SOUTH CAROLINA -10 @ Vandy - Vanderbilt is riding high with a big win
on the road against Miami of Ohio a week ago. A home win against a
conference foe they upset last year COULD put them on a collision
course with a bowl game, which would be Vanderbilt's first since the
Taft Administration. However, Steve Spurrier's South Carolina
Gamecocks are riding high after a dominating defensive performance
against NC State on national television. One of the SEC's best
linebacking corps will frustrate Vanderbilt QB Chris Nickson and South
Carolina's WRs will embrace the appointment of QB Chris Smelley to the
starting job. South Carolina 30, Vanderbilt 14.
SATURDAY:
Troy/LSU OVER 44 - It's a night game in Baton Rouge, and the LSU fans
will be ready to celebrate the fact that they've survived Hurricane
Gustav with minor damage. Unfortunately, the Troy Trojans might not be
so lucky. LSU shouldn't just be undefeated by the time they travel to
Auburn on Sept 20th; they shouldn't have been remotely challenged by
then. Troy can manufacture some points in trash time, but LSU is going
to have their way with the Trojans secondary and the results will not
be pretty. Expect Les Miles to still be throwing the ball late, too:
LSU is still trying to figure out who will start at QB when they play
the Tigers in two weeks.
LSU 40, Troy 14
*UPDATE* - The LSU/Troy game has been postponed because of Hurricane
Gustav.
Ole Miss/Wake Forest OVER 47 - The week's most interesting out-of-
conference matchup features SEC dark horse Ole Miss traveling up to
take on Jim Grobe's Wake Forest Demon Deacons. After the horrid
showing the ACC made last week, it's tough to argue that Wake Forest
is (at the moment) the class of the conference (unless you'd like to
make the case that it's FSU becuase they didn't play at all last
weekend). If Ole Miss pulls off the upset in Winston-Salem, the ACC
should probably lose it's BCS-bowl berth. Making this even MORE
compelling is the fact that Ole Miss might very well be more talented
than Wake, with highly touted players at QB (Snead), RB (Eason, E.
Davis), WR (McCluster, Hodge), and the best offensive tackle in all of
college football (Michael Oher). Both of these teams can score, Ole
Miss has a secondary that can be exploited, and this game could
quickly devolve into a track meet full of big plays. Riley Skinner
looked excellent as he completely dismantled the Baylor Bears...now he
gets to play a team with an offense that can rise to the challenge.
Wake Forest 31, Ole Miss 27
CMU/Georgia *OVER* 56 - 27 passing TDs, 65.4% completion rate, 3652
yards through the air. 188 rushes for 1122 yards and 19 touchdowns on
the ground. Tim Tebow? Not quite. Those are the 2007 numbers of CMU
quarterback Dan LeFevour, who also became the 2nd player in NCAA D-1A
history to pass for 3000 and rush for 1000 in the same season. UGA's
gonna win this game, and they're gonna win this game by a lot. But the
defense is suspect, and CMU is going to be able to visit the endzone
quite a bit. UGA 48, CMU 27
WVU -7.5 @ ECU - A huge win over a slightly overrated Virginia Tech
program has put the ECU Pirates on the verge of a top-25 rating and
head coach Skip Holtz on the brain of several athletic directors
looking to make a change. Unfortunately, that won't do him much good
as he's gonna need his QB to play better and his defense to take on a
much tougher challenge in the speedy attack of the WVU Mountaineers.
ECU might score a few points, but they aren't gonna be able to get
close enough to pull off an upset. WVU 38, ECU 23
Florida/Miami Under 52.5 - Considering what the Gator Nation just did
to Hawaii, Miami's only hope in this game is that they run the
football and attack a UF front seven that was vulnerable last year
(not as vulnerable as the secondary, but unable to make big stops in
big games). Miami can't put the game in the hands of a QB who's never
played college football before, so their only chance is that a super-
athletic defense can match up and slow down Florida's attack enough to
give them a puncher's chance. It won't be enough to pull off an upset,
but they'll make the game competitive for at least a half before
falling too far back to dig themselves out. UF 28-10
Arizona St -14 vs Stanford - Stanford is the only team in college
football that opened this season with two conference games. Gutsy move
by coach Jim Harbough, but it may bite him as Arizona State's
explosive offense and senior QB Rudy Carpenter should be able to shred
a suspect Stanford secondary. ASU needs to run the football this week,
as they really struggled to move it on the ground against I-AA
competition last Saturday. I think they'll fix that situation and run
away with the game in the 2nd half. ASU 42, Stanford 20
THE PICKS:
SC -10 @ Vanderbilt
Ole Miss/Wake Over 47
CMU/Georgia Over 56
WVU -7.5 @ ECU
UF/Miami Under 52.5
ASU -14 vs Stanford