Week Zero / Week One Thread

[Dawg83]

Well, we’ve very nearly made it, friends. With a decent looking Week Zero and a somewhat underwhelming Week 1, I figured let’s go ahead and combine the first couple of weeks to get the discussion going.

 

Week 0 games of note: TCU vs North Carolina in Ireland, NC State vs Virginia, Memphis vs UNLV, plus Southern Cal and Florida State both in action…. I’m not a huge Week 0 guy but there’s enough meat on the bone this weekend where I’ll definitely be tuning in for some of those games.

 

Now, onto the games with more of a rooting interest here…

 

Skipping ahead to next Sunday night, let’s talk Ole Miss vs Louisville in Nashville. Rebels are a 7 point favorite as I type this 13 days out. I am fascinated by this matchup. Both fanbases will likely travel very well for this one. It’s not really Game 1 for Golding but it kinda is, and it’s against a really savvy veteran coach in Jeff Brohm who has a good team of his own. We’ve had 9 months of nothing but Ole Miss-LSU talk, and so the natural question has to be can OM avoid the lookahead trap? Do we know what we have yet in Golding as a head coach and program builder? I think the answer to that question is no….But you know what you have at QB, and that’s worth a whole lot. I think it will be close, because Ole Miss played a ton of close games last year and I don’t that changes with a coaching change, but I’m taking the Rebels to outlast Louisville for the W. I will give UL the cover though. Ole Miss 34, Louisville 30.

 

State vs ULM - Dogs currently a 28.5 point favorite. ULM really struggled last year and for Jeff Lebby’s sake this needs to be an improved State team, so I will be disappointed if it’s not a comfy State win. I kinda think State will be out to make a statement on both sides of the ball and play aggressive. The Kamario Taylor era gets one tune up and then it’s right into the fire. I’ll be on hand for this one so looking forward to being back at Davis Wade. I have State taking this one 51-14.

 

LSU -9.5 vs Clemson - the Kiffin era begins with a big Saturday night home game. I think we are getting close to the end of the Dabo era and I’m pretty high on this LSU team so I will give the Purple and Gold Tigers a 14 point win here.

 

Auburn vs Baylor - game being played in Atlanta because John Cohen is insistent on being like his idol Larry Templeton, I guess…. AU a touchdown favorite. A lot of USF flare on this Auburn team, but I’m a big fan of Alex Golesh and could see AU being one of the most improved teams in the SEC this year. I have Auburn taking this one by 17.

 

USM opens against Alcorn…. I don’t know just a ton about USM but I watched Alcorn last year and they were probably the worst FCS team I’ve ever seen in person. ESPN is telling me USM is a 21 point favorite, I think they’ll cover easily.

 

A bit of a dull Week 1 overall, but I’m sure we will have an upset or two somewhere. If you made me pick an upset special, a couple I’ve got my eyes on early on are Toledo over Michigan State and a real long shot pick is FAU over Florida.