The 2016 College Football season heads into week 4. Each and every week the tide of the season can drastically change. Every loss in college means much more than it does in pro football. What games should you keep your eye on this Saturday. I will now attempt to pick the winners of some of the college games that caught my eye based off of the spreads. If you agree of disagree tweet at me @treydaubert to let me know where I’m wrong for my NFL week one predictions. *All spreads are courtesy of oddsshark.com
12:00 P.M. ET: #13 Florida State At South Florida (USF +5.5)
Sure Florida State just got shredded against Louisville by 43 but giving up just 5.5 points looks almost too good to be true. Florida State is still a talented team that does have an impressive win on their resume over Ole Miss. If they can beat Ole Miss by 11 they sure can beat USF by 6. That isn’t to say South Florida isn’t a good football team. USF has the 5th highest scoring offense in college right now and will lean heavily on running back Marlon Mack who is probably a 4th – 5th round prospect. Teams that get humility the prior week usually bounce back to form. I like Florida State in this one.
12:00 P.M. ET: #12 Georgia At #23 Ole Miss (UGA +7)
There isn’t many times where the higher ranked team is the underdog. In this instance there is a good reason for it as Ole Miss has lost two close games to Florida State and Alabama. Ole Miss is going to have the clear advantage at quarterback with Chad Kelly who will almost certainly go in the top 3 rounds baring character concerns. Georgia at times can be a bit offensively challenge leaning on a true freshman quarterback Jacob Eason. He’s going to be a good one but he probably isn’t ready for his first true SEC showdown. Ole Miss hasn’t shown much defensively giving up 45 to Florida State and 48 to Alabama. Look for Georgia to kill the clock and lean on Nick Chubb and the ground attack for most of the game. Take Georgia and the points.
12:00 P.M. ET: #11 Wisconsin At #8 Michigan State (WIS +4.5)
This game seems like it is almost impossible to call. Both teams almost have identical numbers in terms of season averages. Both teams also have one great quality win on the season as Wisconsin defeated LSU and Michigan State defeated Notre Dame. It appears the Big 10 is as good as ever. One big disadvantage Wisconsin has is their star running back Corey Clement will miss the game due to an ankle injury. For a team that relies so heavily on the run I’m not so sure Wisconsin can recover from this. Michigan State looks to be getting better quarterback play from Tyler O’Connell than they did a year ago with Connor Cook. Michigan State was too impressive in their win over Notre Dame to not take them in this game. Swallow the points and take Michigan State.
3:30 P.M. ET: #19 Florida At #14 Tennessee (FLA +5)
Florida has 11 straight wins over Tennessee as all the evidence points in the direction of Tennessee changing their recent misfortunes. Florida will be rolling into this game with unproven senior quarterback Austin Appleby replacing the injured Luke Del Rio. I’m not sure that even offensive genius Jim McElwain can work around this one. Florida probably has the edge defensively but Tennessee is far more superior offensively. The Volunteers have the better quarterback (Josh Dobbs), runningback (Jalen Hurd), and receivers (Josh Malone, Preston Williams). Head coach Butch Jones basically needs to not beat himself here at home. Then again that’s something he has been prone to do in the past. Tennessee looks like the obvious choice only giving up 5 points against a back up quarterback.
8:00 P.M. ET: #7 Stanford At UCLA (UCLA +3)
Something doesn’t feel right with this game. UCLA is just too talented to not be ranked in the top 25. Stanford is only giving up 3 points to an unranked team? I think Vegas is trying to tell us something here. The one huge advantage UCLA has is at quarterback where Josh Rosen will likely be the first overall pick in 2018. Stanford looks to have a stronger defense and better interior line play on both sides of the ball making this pick tricky. Give me 3 points at home with UCLA. This is a good football team that has already been battle tested losing to a really good Texas A&M team in overtime.
9:00 P.M. ET: #17 Arkansas At #10 Texas A&M (ARK +6)
This is really a clash of two styles heading into this game Arkansas is a run oriented team while Texas A&M is quite the opposite. The Aggies of course have the edge in terms of experienced players. Texas A&M has about 5-6 receivers on the team that will be drafted, a quarterback in Trevor Knight who has a bowl game win over Alabama, and the best player in college football pass rusher Myles Garrett. Arkansas hasn’t faced a ton of adversity thus far only taking out TCU as their only real test on the season. Take Texas A&M in this one. Coach Kevin Sumlin has these guys rolling.
