Every game in Week 0 was much closer than expected. Florida State (-11.5) was the only team likely to lose, but Montana State won by 4 points instead of 12. SMU had to outscore Nevada 16-0 in the 4th quarter to beat Nevada by 5 points after being down 27.5 points. Hawaii beat Delaware State by 21 points instead of 39. Every current and former staffer guessed 2 of the 4 games, except me. I was 0 and 4. The commentators were 1-3.
Now, I'm not sure how I feel about adding FBS-FCS games to this. Four of the SEC teams playing FCS opponents are favored by 38.5 points or more, while Mississippi State is favored by 26.5 points over Eastern Kentucky. We're basically just guessing whether the favored teams will stumble in Week 1 like they did in Week 0, or if they'll actually prepare and try to hit weaker opponents to get an early result. The games expected to be the most competitive are Clemson (+13.5) vs. Georgia in Atlanta, Miami (-2.5) at Florida, Notre Dame (+3) at Texas A&M, USC (+4.5) vs. LSU in Las Vegas, and Virginia Tech (-13.5) at Vanderbilt. Oh, and in a departure from the “FCS teams are huge underdogs” trend, North Dakota State is just a 9.5-point underdog to Colorado entering the second year of its prime coach.
Only one game was unanimous in its selection, and it was pretty entertaining. In three games, only one person broke away from groupthink. In the other seven games, it was majority decision. The final five matchups have been evenly split.
The hired Auburn University guy did the math and realized there were only 16 games in the pick set, one missing. 16 SEC games (there are no SEC vs. SEC matchups this week) plus one dealer pick should make 17 games, not 16. It turns out the hired Auburn University guy had left Auburn University out of his original submission.
Typically, the picks will cover all SEC games, with the dealer picking one game and me picking another. Picks will be made against the spread. There are too many games that are easy to pick heads-up. This also serves as a PSA for why you shouldn't get into sports betting. This is especially important now that sports betting is legal in Tennessee. The lines are taken from Oddsshark's consensus spreads sometime on Monday, so they may not match what is listed at the time of publishing this article. Also, Oddsshark can be late on FBS vs. FCS matchups, so I have some backups as well. Writer Season Week 0 WLWL Cole 2 2 2 2 VU 04 2 2 2 2 Tom 2 2 2 2 CDA 2 2 2 2 VandyImport 2 2 2 2 Commentariat 1 3 1 3 Patrick 0 4 0 4
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