College Football Pick’em: Week of 9/14

After last weekend, it’s official: The regular season college football machine is firing on all cylinders as we chug on toward Week 3. Well, unless you’re Auburn or Notre Dame, who are probably thanking their lucky stars right now they limped through last weekend’s games. And oh no, now there are “just” seven Southeastern Conference teams in the Top 25 rankings — though Auburn did plummet 12 spots after barely holding off an Football Championship Subdivision team they were predicted to beat. Though it’s true the Pacific Coast Conference has had a somewhat quiet start to the regular season, thankfully our Trojans handily beat a team we paid $1.1 million to come play us, and we have been improving each week just in time for our first conference game against the Farm.

Now it’s that time again where I talk about that darn model thing. But after getting all excited about the stuff we added to the model last week, I promise to keep this section short and sweet. We expected our predictions for Week 2 to be somewhat shaky with the addition of new data. But rather than a complete bloodbath, we came out mostly unscathed with a 76 percent accuracy for the week. Sure, this drops our week over week average to 78 percent, but when you consider that many NFL pundits average approximately 61 percent accuracy when, you know, their livelihood focuses on knowing all about football, I’d say we are doing quite well.

See? Nice and short. Now let’s check out the predictions!

Day	Time	Home Team	Away Team	Home Team Odds	Away Team Odds	Spread
Thu	04:30 PM	Louisville	Clemson	8.82%	91.18%	16.5
Fri	07:00 PM	Arizona State	New Mexico	99.5%	0.5%	-20.5
Sat	01:00 PM	Indiana	Western Kentucky	68.55%	31.45%	-8
Sat	02:00 PM	Washington	Utah State	89.07%	10.93%	-16.5
Sat	03:00 PM	Georgia	South Carolina	87.86%	12.14%	-16
Sat	04:00 PM	Arkansas	Texas Tech	79.6%	20.4%	-12.5
Sat	04:00 PM	Colorado State	Colorado	1.68%	98.32%	19
Sat	04:00 PM	Old Dominion	North Carolina State	47.03%	52.97%	1
Sat	04:00 PM	Texas State	Southern Mississippi	25.05%	74.95%	9.5
Sat	04:30 PM	Kentucky	Florida	45.46%	54.54%	1.5
Sat	04:30 PM	Texas	California	4.03%	95.97%	18
Sat	05:00 PM	Iowa	Pittsburgh	90.93%	9.07%	-17
Sat	05:00 PM	New Mexico State	Texas-El Paso	61.47%	38.53%	-5
Sat	05:00 PM	Oregon State	San Jose State	99.18%	0.82%	-20.5
Sat	05:00 PM	Penn State	Rutgers	80.53%	19.47%	-13
Sat	05:00 PM	San Diego State	South Alabama	54.59%	45.41%	-2.5
Sat	05:00 PM	Southern California	Stanford	98.92%	1.08%	-20.5
Sat	05:00 PM	Texas Christian	Southern Methodist	90.45%	9.55%	-17
Sat	05:00 PM	Toledo	Iowa State	61.16%	38.84%	-5
Sat	05:30 PM	Washington State	Wyoming	98.52%	1.48%	-20
Sat	06:15 PM	Alabama	Mississippi	97.47%	2.53%	-19.5
Sat	07:30 PM	Fresno State	Utah	1.41%	98.59%	19.5
Sat	07:30 PM	UCLA	Brigham Young	66.84%	33.16%	-7.5
Sat	09:00 AM	Army	Wake Forest	21.32%	78.68%	11
Sat	09:00 AM	Florida Atlantic	Buffalo	72.98%	27.02%	-10
Sat	09:00 AM	Maryland	South Florida	0.67%	99.33%	19.5
Sat	09:00 AM	Michigan	Nevada-Las Vegas	78.86%	21.14%	-12
Sat	09:00 AM	Michigan State	Air Force	64.29%	35.71%	-6.5
Sat	09:00 AM	Minnesota	Kent State	98.15%	1.85%	-20
Sat	09:00 AM	Missouri	Connecticut	44.12%	55.88%	2
Sat	09:00 AM	North Carolina	Illinois	26.42%	73.58%	9
Sat	09:00 AM	Oklahoma	Tulsa	92.99%	7.01%	-18
Sat	09:00 AM	Texas A&M	Nevada	97.03%	2.97%	-19.5
Sat	09:30 AM	Duke	Northwestern	3.27%	96.73%	18.5
Sat	09:30 AM	Syracuse	Central Michigan	92.97%	7.03%	-18
Sat	11:00 AM	Oregon	Georgia State	86.83%	13.17%	-15.5
Sat	11:30 AM	North Texas	Rice	1.69%	98.31%	19
Sat	12:00 PM	Eastern Michigan	Ball State	11.84%	88.16%	15
Sat	12:00 PM	Kansas State	Louisiana Tech	63.12%	36.88%	-6
Sat	12:00 PM	Massachusetts	Temple	0.5%	99.5%	19.5
Sat	12:30 PM	Louisiana State	Auburn	83.85%	16.15%	-14
Sat	12:30 PM	Miami (Florida)	Nebraska	99.55%	0.45%	-20.5
Sat	12:30 PM	Miami (Ohio)	Cincinnati	0.81%	99.19%	19.5
Sat	12:30 PM	Notre Dame	Georgia Tech	70.72%	29.28%	-9
Sat	12:30 PM	Ohio State	Northern Illinois	96.21%	3.79%	-19
Sat	12:30 PM	Oklahoma State	Texas-San Antonio	73.32%	26.68%	-10
Sat	12:30 PM	Purdue	Virginia Tech	66.15%	33.85%	-7
Sat	12:30 PM	Wisconsin	Troy	97.42%	2.58%	-19.5

No. 15 Ole Miss at No. 2 Alabama (Spread: -19.5)

After a week out of the spotlight, ESPN’s College GameDay is back in Tuscaloosa as Alabama hosts Ole Miss this weekend. Readers will likely recall that Ole Miss was the only team to beat Alabama during the regular season last year. And while it is true that Ole Miss has averaged 74.5 points in their past two games, they’ve also only played an FCS team and a non-power five conference team. Despite their impressive final scores and other statistics, Ole Miss’ weak strength of schedule means that Alabama is a 19.5 favorite in our model. Nonetheless, this will be an interesting matchup, as a largely unproven Ole Miss team faces off against the ’Bama powerhouse.

No. 18 Auburn at No. 13 Louisiana State (Spread -14)

Remember when the Associated Press projected Auburn in the National Championship? Oh boy, it’s been a rough period for Auburn since their high preseason aspirations. It’s true, Auburn is still undefeated, but after squeaking by Jacksonville State last week, many are questioning whether Auburn is even capable of winning the SEC. And now the Tigers are traveling to “Death Valley” where they haven’t won since 1999.

As fun as it is to bag on Auburn for its early season issues, there is no question that this is not going to be a cakewalk for LSU. Last week, LSU very much looked liked a team just starting their season, especially with six Tigers making their first career starts and playing seven freshmen. Our model has LSU as a 14-point favorite, but they need to get rid of the sloppy penalties, especially against a more high-powered team like Auburn to pull out their first home win.

Stanford at No. 6 USC (Spread -20.5)

Ah, the infamous Stanford-USC game. While the spread seems to indicate that this should be yet another easy game for USC, Trojan fans should be wary of playing the Farm, regardless of what a college football writer’s model might say.

History aside, it’s important to point out the signs of improvement we’ve seen each game from USC. In particular, I want to give a shout out to our offensive line who, after giving up five sacks to Arkansas State, made sure Kessler had a much more enjoyable evening last weekend. They did not give up a single sack against the Vandals and enabled Kessler to throw for 410 passing yards.

This will be an interesting conference opener for both teams. For Stanford, this game is an opportunity to try and get their season back on track after a slow start. For USC, this game will be an opportunity to show that the first two games weren’t just flukes and that they deserve a spot in the top 10.

Side note:
While we’re on upset alert, another potential upset-alert matchup is No. 19 BYU at No. 10 UCLA. Though BYU rolled UCLA 59-0 back in 2008, the UCLA team today is quite a different beast. BYU has been able to keep their undefeated start going with both wins coming from last minute Hail Marys, and they have quite a few offensive options, but they will be going up against a fast, tough UCLA defense. This should be a good game to catch the tail-end of after the USC game.