College Football Live Thread - Weekend Nine

Sportsline.com Scoreboard ^ | Thursday 26th of October to Sunday 29th of October 2006

[MikefromOhio]

Weekend Eight was the weekend of near-misses and close calls. Texas, Cal and Notre Dame all escaped their games with wins. Texas won on a last second field goal in Lincoln against Nebraska, while ND drove 80 yards for a winning TD pass from Brady Quinn. Cal, however, had to go to overtime to defeat a steadily improving Washington team. It was business as usual for most of the top 5, with West Virginia, Auburn, Michigan and Ohio State all rolling to relatively easy wins. Unfortunately ND’s narrow win and subsequent drop in the polls prompted whining from Charlie Weis, which is rebutted by ESPN columnist DJ Gallo here. Needless to say, putting Florida and Tennessee aren’t the biggest transgressions this past weekend. Having to come back against a mid-tier Pac10 team, with their backup Quarterback at the helm, at home, late in the 4th quarter, IS a problem for ND.

This week’s match up of the week pits Georgia and Florida in the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party”. This is a fun game every year to watch.

Saturday, October 28th, 2006 – 3:30 PM on CBS

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Georgia at (9) Florida (-13.5)

The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party pits Georgia against Florida. Generally this game is played in Jacksonville. Florida has all of the advantages on paper, but more than one good team on either side has been upset here before. Georgia could get back into SEC contention with a win here while Florida needs a win to hold serve to get to the SEC championship game. In the end, I think Georgia’s lack of offense will hold them back from winning this game. They will need points on every possession and the Florida defense is too good to allow that.

Florida 24 – Georgia 14

Thursday October 26th, 2006 (ESPN Thursday Night Game)

(10) Clemson (-4.5) at Virginia Tech

Clemson has a chance to take absolute and total control of the ACC with a win. This has been the type of game that Clemson has lost in the past. After winning a game that many thought they wouldn’t, they have a history of laying an egg the next week. Not this year.

Clemson 32 – Virginia Tech 24

Friday October 27th, 2006 (ESPN2 Friday Night Game)

UTEP at Tulsa (-14)

Tulsa has played one decent team (BYU) and lost. Look for Tulsa to roll over UTEP, although this game should be interesting for a while.

Tulsa 42 – UTEP 24

Saturday October 21st 2006 (in ranking order)

Minnesota at (1) Ohio State (-27)

Ohio State 38 – Minnesota 3

Northwestern at (2) Michigan (-30)

Michigan 45 – Northwestern 10

(3) USC (-10.5) at Oregon State

USC 37 – Oregon St. 13

(4) West Virginia BYE

(5) Texas (-10.5) at Texas Tech

Texas 34 – Texas Tech 20

(6) Louisville BYE

(7) Auburn (-19) at Mississippi

Auburn 38 – Mississippi 13

(8) Tennessee (-3.5) at South Carolina

Tennessee 28 – South Carolina 20

(11) Notre Dame (-13) at Navy

ND 38 – Navy 17

(12) Cal BYE

Louisiana Monroe at (13) Arkansas (NL)

Arkansas 49 – LA Monroe 6

(14) LSU BYE

(15) Boise St BYE

Illinois at (17) Wisconsin (-21.5)

Wisconsin 52 – Illinois 13

Buffalo at (18) Boston College (-35)

BC 48 – Buffalo 0

(19) Oklahoma at (23) Missouri (-2)

Mizzou 24 – Oklahoma 17

Oklahoma St. at (20) Nebraska (-5.5)

Oklahoma St. 28 – Nebraska 27

Miami (FL) at (21) Georgia Tech (-5)

Georgia Tech 32 – Miami 16

Baylor at (22) Texas A&M (-4.5)

Baylor 37 – Texas A&M 24

(24) Wake Forest (-8.5) at North Carolina

Wake 34 – North Carolina 10

Portland St. at (25) Oregon (NL)

BY REQUEST (FReepmail me to have your team included)

New Mexico at Colorado St. (-6.5) – Saturday, October 28th (Mountain West Conference)

Every time I pick against New Mexico, they win, and every time I pick them, they lose. I don’t know anymore.

Colorado St. 28 – New Mexico 17

Baylor at (22) Texas A&M (-4.5)

A&M needs to play better defense against Baylor than they did against OK St. Baylor can score in bunches. If it can ever figure out the defense thing, they could be a dangerous team.

Baylor 37 – Texas A&M 24

Sunday October 29th, 2006 (ESPN Sunday Night Game) UCONN at (19) Rutgers (-19)

As UCONN proved last week against West Virginia, it has a problem stopping the run. Ray Rice should get close to 200 yards in this one.

Rutgers 35 – UCONN 10

[MikefromOhio]

College Football Ping.

Freepmail me to be added to this list.

[neodad]

(5) Texas (-10.5) at Texas Tech

Texas 34 – Texas Tech 20

Tech always plays the tough in Lubbock. This is an upset waiting to happen.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

Go Buckeyes. Playing Minnesota.

[PRND21]

...whining from Charlie Weis...

What a sad display. Bring back Gerry Faust!

[bwteim]

Rest easy, Mike - I've given up on predictions for the week given my interstellar record;)

I do like the Yellow Jackets taking the Hurricanes and...aw, what the heck, I pick the Dawgs over the Gators.

[SF Republican]

arrg you beat me; The best college game I was at was in Lubbock in 1976 it snowed Friday night, 80 degrees on Saturday afternoon. Rodney Allison Tech QB and Earl Campbell (needs no introduction) went up and down the field Tech won 31-28

[sean327]

"Every time I pick against New Mexico, they win, and every time I pick them, they lose. I don’t know anymore."

How do you think I feel as a New Mexico fan? This team has been so hard to figure out this season, but Coach Long has a history of getting his teams to make great end of season runs. Beating Colorado St Saturday will signal such a run is in progress. The Lobos might just sneak into a bowl this year!

[rockthecasbah]

Get ready for Trojans 2006: ACT II

Jarrett rested and healed

Chauncy on the ascendancy

Booty reborn

PC looking for redemption

[Yo-Yo]

At least Michigan State won last week! Had to perform the greatest comeback in the history of NCAA Division 1A football to do it, but a win is a win.

I don't think Coach Smith's career will have a similar comeback, however...

[PRND21]

Booty reborn

Hopefully with a stronger arm. ;)
Fight On!

[fightin bronco]

I like your GT pick over the disfunctional Hurricanes. Also, hopefully the Irish can cover this week and Weiss's whining will light a fire. Being a die-hard Irishman, I will have to say that Charlie Weiss is a legend in the Media's mind (Notre Dame has only beaten one ranked opponent this year, and will probably remain that way).

[Tall_Texan]

Fascinating how ESPN SportsNation has a poll on who wins between Oklahoma and Missouri. With over 12,000 responses, it's a 50-50 tie.

The dirty little secret is that some teams have already played their "12th game", the gimme game allowed this year due to a scheduling quirk and is almost always a major mismatch. Other teams have not. The ones that haven't will get a BCS computer shock when they embarass some little program and lose ground in the computer rankings for the privilege.

Watch that happen with Arkansas and Louisiana-Monroe this week.

[MikefromOhio]

They do, but I think Texas has gotten their road shock out of the way and will roll into Lubbock this weekend....

[MikefromOhio]

yeah...

I fully expect the score to be worse than what I predicted....

[rockthecasbah]

"You could tell at practice yesterday, it was different. It was different with Dwayne and Steve catching balls. John was all over everything we were throwing and he was right on the money. We were looking very good yesterday. That's a good sign and we'll see if we can bring that to the football game on Saturday."

PC

[MikefromOhio]

I've gotten so lit up in the past couple weeks that I'm going to quit thinking when I make picks and flip a coin.

[MikefromOhio]

That's fine that your offense may or may not find it's feet, but your defense is also statisically lagging.....

your tests are coming, believe me.

[MikefromOhio]

I think they have a good shot at a bowl if they can get 6 wins.

I don't think the Big Ten or the Big XII will have enough teams to fill all of their bowl tie-ins....

[MikefromOhio]

It might light a fire (we won't be able to tell, it is NAVY after all), but unless he's able to grow a faster defense or an offensive line, you guys are going to struggle against teams that you shouldn't....