Sept 25th predictions

Already on Thursday night, #20 Miami (my rankings - yes, I am that presumptuous) thumped #22 Pitt 31-3 in a battle of what was my only ACC top 25 squad against the only Big East top 25 squad. I've got GT knocking off NC State at home in a tough ACC battle today, while Va Tech wins on the road in Boston College. There's really only even one other Big East squad on my radar at all, truly a terrible conference right now, but that team is West Virginia. I didn't rank them this week because they should've lost to Marshall, but fact is they're 3-0 and travel to Death Valley tonight to face an underrated LSU team (my #7 compared to #15 nationally). Should be an entertaining game, but LSU is too fast on defense and too good at home to lose this one, though West Va may still end up taking the undeserved BCS spot at year's end.

Nothing exciting happening in the Big 12 today as both Oklahoma and Texas will probably struggle a bit more than they should with Cincy and UCLA while they sleepwalk through the game and prepare for next week's Red River Showdown. What else is new though - these teams are already sleepwalking through the season. The Big 10 is even less exciting with every team playing a home game against some crappy non-BCS opponent. The best opponent is Temple playing Happy Valley, and while I love the Owls squad and almost ranked them in the top 25 this week, I don't love them *that* much.

The big non-BCS game of the day is Boise State at home against Oregon State. I always like the Beavers especially in big games, but come on, Boise will roll at home like they always do. I'm intrigued to see what Jacquizz Rodgers can do against the Broncos, and he *could* be a one man wrecking crew on their national title hopes and launch himself into the Heisman discussion (where he should already be), but Boise should push 9 men up to stop him and make Oregon State's new QB beat them. And he won't. I do think another freshman QB will have some success today though as BYU regains some luster and takes care of soon-to-be MWC opponent Nevada in a minor upset. But today's big action happens in the Pac 10 and the SEC.

Stanford hits the road today to play Notre Dame, and you have to love the concept of Luck vs the Irish. I'm done picking Notre Dame to be real, and I believe in Stanford. I don't know how Notre Dame scores enough points to keep up with the Cardinal 30-40. Cal travels to Arizona and I think both teams will reverse fortunes some from last week and provide quite a scare to the home team, but I'll still say Stoops' boys stay undefeated. But the big game is a late one today with point-per-minute Oregon, my #2 squad in the nation, travelling to Arizona State. Will they find an angry squad that should have won in Wisconsin last week, or a team still disappointed and ready to roll over? I'm going with the former here. ASU's defense is quick and will limit the Duck offense, and I think a Pac 10 theme this year (like usual) will be home teams knocking off better road teams and knocking each other out of the title picture. I almost ranked Arizona State even after last week's 1 point loss, and they'll definitely jump there if I'm right this week.

I'd love to say I really believe Kentucky has a chance at Florida, and I do like how their offense matches up, but I can't pick them on the road. South Carolina and Auburn is a matchup of top 25 SEC teams, and I'm becoming a believer quickly in this Auburn squad. This might be one of those ugly looking low scoring SEC games with turnovers and tough defense, and that probably favors SC a bit, but I'm sticking with Auburn for the win. And then we get our game of the day, matching my #1 Alabama on the road at #6 Arkansas in a game I've been exciting about all week. We have what's probably a top 5 defense in the country facing what seems to be a top 5 offense, and that is always exciting, though the defense usually wins. But is Bama really a top 5 defense? I'm not so sure with the losses they had this offseason, and they have played a big pile of nothing so far. I can't honestly decide if Bama may have been playing vanilla defense to hide their cards, which is a very Saban move and I'm afraid it's true, but I actually just think they're a bit overrated. I think Arkansas will put up the points today in the biggest home game in quite awhile, and I'm not sure Alabama can keep up. If the Hogs score earlier, that negates the Tide rushing attack a bit and puts all the pressure on Greg McElroy or however you spell that crap. And I don't care if he hasn't lost since 8th grade, I think he's going down today anyway. I'm picking the home team. WOO PIG! Hogs win and my #1 and #2 teams in the nation go down today, and chaos ensues. Oh baby.