Weekend Picks

Made while watching Brady Quinn throw the ball to everyone but Braylon Edwards, who happens to be on my fantasy team...

Last week: 6-1
Season: 48-11

Georgia at Kentucky
Nothing helps cure a thrashing at the hands of your biggest rival in the SEC like a giant helping of Kentucky Wildcats. While the Kentucky defense has been respectable (minus the Florida disaster), the offense has the firepower of the Polish Army circa 1939. And I fully expect Mark Richt and Georgia to treat the Wildcats much like Germany treated Poland.

Georgia is at least playing to spend the first few days of January in warm, sunny Florida and not freezing their tails off in Nashville or Dallas. Kentucky is all but booked for Nashville so they'll be playing not to have half a hundred dropped on them, which is a real possibility. Nothing says we're not as bad as you think like a 50 point win over Kentucky.

Arkansas at South Carolina
Welcome to the least intense conference battle in the history of sports. The schools are a little over 900 miles apart, have no memorable history, and didn't know one another existed until they both joined the SEC in 1992. Amazingly, after their win over Tulsa, Arkansas is only two wins away from being bowl eligible. With South Carolina, Mississippi State, and LSU left on the schedule, their best chance for two wins comes this week and next week against State. In order to get those two wins, they'll need Casey Dick to play like whoever this person is that he's become (667 passing yards, 3 TDs, 2 INTs in the last two games). I don't think he can keep it up, but I also thought Tulsa would score 50 points on Arkansas. So what do I know.

South Carolina is threatening to fulfill my prophecy of finishing third in the SEC East and should move closer to that destiny this weekend. They've won five of their last six and are really playing well on defense. Spurrier, of course, is still upset his offense is not lighting up the scoreboard, but someone should remind him he's playing with a quarterback known more for his moronic behavior than his ability to throw a catchable forward pass. Let's work on cutting down the community service hours, then we can focus on dissecting the 2-3 roll-up zone. Baby steps Steve, baby steps.

Wyoming at Tennessee
The last time Wyoming ventured into SEC country they smacked around Ed Orgeron's hapless Ole Miss team. And yes, smacked and hapless are the correct words there. It was, without a doubt, the worst college football game I've ever attended. I don't see the Cowboys repeating their success this weekend, but it has more to do with how bad they are and not Tennessee. Not that the Wyoming team of '05 was the New York Giants, but that Ole Miss team was awful and it was piloted by the Shrimp Boat Captain, which automatically makes any team 60% worse than they actually are.

Tennessee-Martin at Auburn
Be careful, the Skyhawks are 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the Ohio Valley Conference. The sad thing about that sentence is that I'm not sure if I'm joking or not. This game will have a fun rating of -53 (however you rate fun). Auburn comes within a game of being bowl eligible.

Alabama at LSU
Nick Saban! Baton Rouge! Revenge! Hate! Booze! Drunken Revelry! Fights! Anger! Shirtless Fat Guys! A Little More Booze! Armageddon! It's Alabama and LSU, next on CBS!

If you take out "Nick Saban" and possibly "Armageddon," this is pretty much just another LSU home game. LSU has won the last five meetings, but in those previous five meetings the Tigers have had much better defenses. This LSU defense is clearly not very good against competent offenses. However, the good news for LSU is that Alabama's offense is not exactly Florida or Georgia's offense. I look for LSU to load up against the run and dare John Parker Wilson to have the game of his career. And I don't think he can beat them.

I know LSU got torched by Florida and Georgia, but both of those teams have quarterbacks about ten levels above John Parker Wilson. It's like the old AFC East when the Patriots were trotting out Tom Brady and the Colts had Peyton Manning under center, while the Jets hitched their wagon Chad Pennington's star. Wilson is a decent college quarterback, but he's not in the same sentence as those other guys. I think this will be the one game of the season he'll have to have his top game in order for Alabama to win. LSU's defensive line and linebackers are good enough to shut down the running game, so it will most likely be John Parker Wilson versus the LSU secondary.

If Jarrett Lee takes a break from running the turnover machine, LSU has a really good chance to win this one. And if John Parker Wilson plays like John Parker Wilson, LSU has a good chance to win. In a close one, I'm taking LSU.

Florida at Vanderbilt
Just a little over a month ago, Vanderbilt was undefeated and hosting GameDay. Now they've lost three straight and are streaking to another season without a bowl appearance. And, even better, they're about to be the next victim of Florida's buzzsaw. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bobby Johnson era!