Johnny Football Comes to Baton Rouge: SEC Week 13 Previews
The end of the college football season is upon us, but we’re still nowhere near deciding who’s going to go to the National Championship Game: Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State, or upstart Baylor.
But while College Gameday and the country’s talking about Baylor’s trip to Oklahoma State (by the way, we’re taking Baylor, but under the 10 point spread), the best of us should be emotionally exhausted with the scorefest in Baton Rouge when Johnny Football comes to visit LSU.
Here’s our predictions
Texas A&M at LSU
THIS is going to be one heck of a game. We’ve got one of the best quarterbacks ever to play college football (Johnny Manziel), a future NFL first round quarterback (Zach Mettenberger), three NFL-ready wide receivers (LSU’s Odell Beckham Jr and Jarvis Landry, and A&M’s Mike Evans), one of the best running backs in college football (LSU’s Jeremy Hill), and two of the most unpredictable offensive coaches you’ll ever see in LSU’s Les Miles and his counterpart Kevin Sumlin. It’s going to be awesome.
And if you love defensive football, you might want to avoid this one. Because at the moment, both sides can’t play it. But then CAN score points. And with this game in the late afternoon at Tiger Stadium, it’s going to be noisy.
BOTTOM LINE: LSU is a 4-1/2 point favorite. We’re going to take LSU, because we think they’ve got a LITTLE more defensively. And we think they’ll win by a touchdown in a high-scoring classic.
Missouri at Mississippi
The maths is pretty simple: If Missouri wins its next two games, it’s going to Atlanta to play in the SEC Championship Game against the winner of the Alabama-Auburn game, which happens over next week’s Thanksgiving Break. Unfortunately, the games are tricky: a road trip to upset-minded Ole Miss and a home game against Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M at home.
Anyway, Missouri has the weapons: It’s got quarterback James Franklin returning from injury, and two exceptional wide receivers in L’Damian Washington and Dorial Green-Beckham, as well as one of this year’s best pass rushers in Michael Sam.
Ole Miss, on the other hand, is on fire after beating LSU a few weeks ago, and quarterback Bo Wallace and his own wide receiving trio of Donte Moncrief, Laquan Treadwell and Ja-Mes Logan, as well as rushing star Jeff Scott, can put up points with anybody.
BOTTOM LINE: Missouri’s a 2-1/2 point favorite. We’re going with Missouri to beat the spread in another tight game. By a field goal.
Mississippi State at Arkansas
There’s nothing to split between these two sides…..because both sides are really, really poor. Arkansas hasn’t recovered from losing a ton of talent last year (although watch out for running back Alex Collins), and Mississippi State may have caused four turnovers against mighty Alabama, but they dropped a number of passes against the Crimson Tide that could really have made their 20-7 a heck of a lot closer. In fact, all they did was make a lot of people in Vegas very unhappy indeed.
What might be interesting is how Mississippi State’s offense plays – they put up 41 at A&M and have been showing a little sign of life.
Anyway, so why have we picked this? Because it might we one of the day’s closest games.
BOTTOM LINE: Mississippi State’s a 1-1/2 point favorite. We’re taking Mississippi State in one of the most unentertaining games of the year.
VANDERBILT AT TENNESSEE
Tennessee’s hasn’t had the worst season thus far, and we expect a fired-up UT side ready battle Vanderbilt for victory in the ‘Tennessee Challenge’ (they should have a trophy for this one, we believe).
We still worry about the Tennessee quarterbacking situation with Joshua Dobbs at the helm, but we still don’t think that Vanderbilt – who struggled to score on Kentucky’s defense last week – is that good themselves, aside from Jordan Matthews. Vandy’s ‘D’ is going to have to deal with Marquez North….if Dobbs can get to him.
This one’s going to be pretty close.
BOTTOM LINE: Tennessee – a 2-1/2 point favorite – wins by 7 in an unexpectedly close, great game.
KENTUCKY AT GEORGIA
Georgia lost (yet) another heartbreaker this season when they were defeated by their own failure to bat down a last minute heave from Auburn’s Nick Marshall, but you really can’t blame this one on head coach Mark Richt, offensive co-ordinator Mike Bobo, or quarterback Aaron Murray. You can blame it (mostly) on Todd Grantham, Georgia’s defensive co-ordinator.
On Senior Day, the faithful at Sanford Stadium are going to say goodbye to Murray (amongst others) , and hope to hang 40 or 50 on Kentucky while they are it.
On the other hand, Kentucky’s still got no SEC wins, and they didn’t look all that great against Vanderbilt.
BOTTOM LINE: Georgia – a 24 point favorite – wins by 35.
GAMES WE DON’T CARE ABOUT IT THE TEAMS WILL WIN BY A TON…..
GEORGIA SOUTHERN AT FLORIDA, CHATTANOOGA AT ALABAMA AND COASTAL CAROLINA AT SOUTH CAROLINA