5 for Saturday

2-3 Last Week

Mississippi State (-5.5) @ Auburn 12:21 PM ESPN 3, SEC Network
Last year's matchup ended in a 17-10 victory for Auburn in one of the most impressive defense performances of the season against Auburn.  This year Cam Newton is gone, but so is Miss St. DC Manny Diaz. I'm taking Miss State by a touchdown in 24-17 game.


Alabama (-10) @ Penn State 3:30PM ABC

Penn State has a punchers chance especially with this game being at home.  This game should feature heavily on the ground with neither teams quarterback or backups quarterback being trusted.  I think Bama will roll.
South Carolina @ Georgia (+2.5) 4:30 ESPN

Georgia needs this game so I'm going to pick them two weeks in a row.  South Carolina is a team that will be good but i expect a slow start to the season.  Steven "I swear I'm sober now" Garcia is not truseted by Spurrier but he's going to need to go the full 60 if the Gamecocks are going to win.
TCU @ Air Force (Pickem) 3:30 Versus

TCU looked atrocious on defense last week, and they don't get any breaks with the triple option of Air Force.  I'm taking Air Force in this pickem.


Notre Dame @ Michigan (+4.5) 8PM ESPN

The first night game in Michigan history is going to be a real endurance test for me.  I will be driving out Friday and getting up early for College Gameday saturday morning and hanging around campus until kickoff. Look for me in row 70 in the corner of the endzone, I swear you will see in what will be the largest crowd in the history of Michigan football.

Michigan proabably deserves to be slight dog in this one, but if history is any indicator you always take the dog to win outright in this matchup.  Notre Dame is coming off a tough opening loss to South Florida in which they doubled up the Bulls in yardage.  Notre Dame needs to win this football game to get their season back on track.  The most reassuring sight to Michigan fans was seeing Denard in the shotgun about 70% of the time against Western Michigan, resembling a good portion of last year's prolific offense.  The defense on the other hand still looked pretty bad in week one.  If not for forcing key turnovers and a missed Western kick they score 20 points in three quarters.  The true litmus test comes against Notre Dame though so we'll reserve judgment on both sides of the ball.

Tommy Reiss is likely to start at Quarterback for Notre Dame after Dayne Crist was given a quick hook last week.  While he has played fairly well going back to last year, if it were me I'd play the more seasoned Crist.  Michigan gets back Troy Wolfolk at CB and Ricky Barnum at LG so they should be healthier than last week.

I have a weird feeling about this game but I'm going to play the historic numbers here and ultimately go with my heart.