College Football Week 10 Predictions: Picking Top 25 Games Against the Spread
Week 10 is the first week in college football history played in knowledge of the College Football Playoff rankings. For the first time ever, teams were told how the selection committee views them, how much farther they have left to climb.
What sort of effect will this have on the games? We will find out from Thursday to Saturday. We are sailing into uncharted waters, a week with no historical precedent, which makes it even more difficult than usual to predict each Top 25 game against the spread.
(Translation: I need every excuse I can get.)
Bleacher Report's Adam Kramer went 5-10 in his final week before this piece took a hiatus* but 10-6-1 the week prior. This week, with 16 ranked games on the schedule, I would be happy to split those win totals down the middle. When last I give out picks to the public, which was all the way back in Week 1, I went 3-3 overall and 2-1 on locks.
Time for us to make not lose some money.
*side note: Congrats to Adam and his family!
All spreads courtesy of Odds Shark unless noted otherwise.
No. 2 Florida State at No. 25 Louisville
1 of 11The Line: Florida State (-4)
Louisville is at home (where strange things tend to happen) on a Thursday night (when strange things tend to happen) and is coached by Bobby Petrino (to whom strange things tend to happen).
What else do you need in an underdog?
The sharps appear on board with that logic, having bet this number down from 8.5 to four, which scares me into wanting to take Florida State. There was value getting more than a touchdown. But now? That value might have been extinguished.
Regardless, I'll take the Cardinals, whose defense will be the best unit on the field, against a Florida State team that sleepwalks through first halves. According to the F/+ ratings at Football Outsiders, Louisville's defense is more than just the best unit in this game: It's the best unit in the country! And that includes both offenses and defenses.
With quarterback Will Gardner healthy, running back Michael Dyer (yes, that Michael Dyer) coming off a 173-yard rushing game and receiver DeVante Parker having just caught nine passes for 132 yards in his season debut, Louisville can drum up enough offense to give the Seminoles a run. Does it win? I honestly think it's a tossup.
But in that case, I'll take the points.
The Pick: Louisville (+4)
No. 7 TCU at No. 20 West Virginia
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The Line: TCU (-5.5)
The last time TCU played West Virginia, quarterback Trevone Boykin was receiver Trevone Boykin, leading the Horned Frogs offense with 11 catches for 100 yards in a 30-27 overtime loss.
Exactly 364 days later, Boykin will take the field a Heisman candidate, spearheading an offense that just hung 82 points on Texas Tech and leads the nation with 50.4 points per game. He's thrown for 843 yards and 10 touchdowns in his last two games alone.
West Virginia's defense has improved, especially at home, where in its last game it held Baylor to its lowest yardage total since September 2010 (318). But Baylor's offense has looked out of sorts on the road this entire season. Even Texas—the same team that gave up 45 points to Iowa State—made Bryce Petty and the Bears look bad.
TCU is on a warpath and knows it should be 7-0 right now if not for blowing a 21-point lead at Baylor. The way it has responded to that letdown, beating Oklahoma State and Texas Tech into submission, tells me everything I need to know about its head space.
Gary Patterson for coach of the year.
The Pick: TCU (-5.5)
No. 11 Georgia vs. Florida
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The Line: Georgia (-13)
The last time Georgia beat Florida by 13 or more points was 1997. The margin of its current three-game winning streak in the series (15) would barely cover the spread of this one game. Florida can't possibly be as bad as it was against Missouri in Week 8.
Or can it?
The realist in me says it can't.
Turning the ball over six times and allowing two special teams touchdowns is an unsustainable mode of incompetence, even for a team in decay. One week before the Missouri game, the Gators hung close with (and easily could have beaten) an LSU team that just upset undefeated Ole Miss. How could watching that game during a bye week not embolden this team to do better?
The NCAA announced Wednesday that Todd Gurley is suspended for another two games, including this one, and Florida's defense is good enough to give a Gurley-less offense problems.
Hutson Mason righted the ship a bit against Vanderbilt, Missouri and Arkansas, but Florida's defense is a different monster. To cover 13 points, he will have to make some major league throws.
And I still don't think he can do that.
Pray for me, folks: I am rolling with Will Muschamp.
The Pick: Florida (+13)
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No. 3 Auburn at No. 4 Ole Miss
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The Line: Ole Miss (-3)
The most alarming development from Ole Miss' 10-7 loss at LSU wasn't the re-emergence of "Bad Bo Wallace," the fact that it can't run the football or the even the injury to left tackle Laremy Tunsil.
It was the way LSU's offensive line controlled the game.
"Ole Miss is getting smacked around," tweeted a giddy Michael Felder of Bleacher Report, who then implored LSU to, "Run it. Never throw…Just run.…You have grown men on the (offensive line)."
Know who else has grown men on the offensive line? Auburn. And the Tigers, unlike LSU, do not need Felder nagging them to run the ball.
That's kind of just what they do.
Can Ole Miss man-up in the trenches against what might be the best offensive line in college football? Playing at home should help, but not as much as losing linebacker Denzel Nkemdiche (broken ankle) should hinder. And Auburn did just engineer scoring drives of 92, 93, 75, 88, 75 and 80 yards on consecutive possessions last weekend.
Nick Marshall over Dr. Bo in a close one.
The Pick: Auburn (+3)
Arkansas at No. 1 Mississippi State
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The Line: Mississippi State (-10.5)
Mississippi State's defense is a tough nut to crack.
It ranks No. 92 in the country with 439.6 yards allowed per game but No. 8 on the F/+ ratings. That discrepancy can be attributed to garbage-time yards against LSU and Texas A&M, but even against Kentucky last week, the Bulldogs did not look indomitable.
Still, when teams have found success against this defense, it has usually been through the air. The front seven is as good as (and might be deeper than) any other front seven in the country. The secondary is the area that opponents have looked to attack.
To wit, Arkansas is the wrong opponent to upset Mississippi State in Starkville. The power-running game championed by Bret Bielema is what the Bulldogs are tailored to stop. And Mississippi State's offense has been a paragon of consistency, scoring between 34 and 49 points in all seven of its games.
Mississippi State has won all seven of those games, only once failing to cover 10.5 points. The sole failure came at LSU in a game in which it led 34-10 with 13 minutes left and 34-16 with two minutes left.
The Razorbacks do not have that kind of magic.
The Pick: Mississippi State (-10.5)
Stanford at No. 5 Oregon
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The Line: Oregon (-7.5)
I was set to close my eyes and take Stanford, on principle, until I found out Zach Hoffpauir would miss the game with an injury.
Hoffpauir, a nickelback, plays a crucial role in Stanford's pass defense, especially against spread offenses. He had 15 tackles when the Cardinal held Washington State to 17 points earlier this year.
The key against offenses such as Washington State's and Oregon's is not so much to prevent catches as it is to prevent broken tackles. They want to turn those quick two-yard routes into 20-yard gains.
If you tackle in the secondary, you can stop that.
Without Hoffpauir, Stanford will turn to true freshman Terrence Alexander at nickelback, per David Lombardi of ESPN.com. I know how much Marcus Mariota and the Ducks have struggled against Stanford's defense, but trotting out a 3-star freshman to cover Byron Marshall & Co. in space sounds suboptimal.
Give me Oregon; but know that I don't feel great about it.
The Pick: Oregon (-7.5)
No. 10 Notre Dame at Navy
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The Line: Notre Dame (-14)
Prior to last season, Notre Dame had blown out Navy in consecutive games, winning 56-14 in 2011 and 50-10 in 2012.
Last season, though, the Midshipmen found success in Notre Dame Stadium, leading until a one-yard Tarean Folston touchdown run with 3:47 left to play. The Irish won the game, 38-34.
Notre Dame is improved from last season and ostensibly upset about its No. 10 ranking in the first College Football Playoff standings. But it isn't so much better than it was last season that it should be laying 14 points against a quality offense on a "neutral" field*. According to the F/+ ratings, it is actually the No. 19 team in the country.
Navy isn't good enough to win, but with Keenan Reynolds back and healthy and coming off his best game of the season (39 carries, 251 yards and three touchdowns against San Jose State), it should be good enough to stick within a couple of scores.
The Pick: Navy (+14)
*game will be played at Fedex Field in Landover, Maryland.
Oklahoma State at No. 9 Kansas State
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The Line: Kansas State (-14)
Kansas State pitched a shutout against Texas last week and now gets to face a similarly listless offense against Oklahoma State.
More than that, it gets to play the Cowboys in a night game, during which the Little Apple should be extra inhospitable. The Wildcats lost their only home night game of the season, 20-16 against Auburn, but the atmosphere was one of the best we've seen all year.
Nevertheless, 14 points feels like a lot for a Kansas State team that has struggled to finish drives. You can't leave points on the board and cover a two-touchdown spread against a coach like Mike Gundy. Even with one of his worst teams, he can make an opponent pay.
Oklahoma State lost 35-10 against West Virginia last week, but its pass defense did a number on Biletnikoff candidate Kevin White, holding him to a season-low four receptions for 27 yards. The emergence of Curry Sexton has made Kansas State less reliant on Tyler Lockett, but if the OSU secondary can bottle Lockett up, it still puts a severe limit on what the Wildcats can do offensively
Also of note: Oklahoma State has the No. 6 special teams unit in the country, per the F/+ ratings. Lockett is No. 2 in the country in punt-return average (23.6), but the 'Pokes have allowed just 2.94 yards per return on 17 attempts. No team in the country with more than 11 returns against them does a better job than Oklahoma State.
The Pick: Oklahoma State (+14)
No. 12 Arizona at No. 22 UCLA
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The Line: UCLA (-6.5)
On paper, UCLA is the much better team, which explains why it's giving 6.5 points to an opponent ranked 10 spots ahead of it. On the field, Arizona has been the much better team, which explains why it's ranked 10 spots ahead of a team it lags behind on paper.
Or at least that's what the eye test tells me.
According to the F/+ ratings, UCLA has actually been better than Arizona this season, checking in at No. 24 to the Wildcats' No. 27. We expected the Bruins to be a playoff contender, so perhaps there is a cognitive bias at play whereby we think they have been worse than they have. And perhaps there is the opposite for Arizona.
For example: UCLA needed a late field goal (3:40 left on the clock) to beat Cal in Berkley a couple of weeks ago. That game was viewed in a mostly negative context afterward. But Arizona needed a last-second Hail Mary to beat Cal in Tucson earlier this season…and that game was viewed in a mostly positive context afterward.
I wouldn't touch this game with an Eddie Vanderdoes-sized pole, especially since you could reverse the common-opponent paradigm to say Arizona beat Oregon in Autzen Stadium while UCLA got blown out by Oregon in Los Angeles.
If I had to play it, though, I'll take Brett Hundley over Anu Solomon.
The Pick: UCLA (-6.5)
No. 17 Utah and No. 14 Arizona State
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The Line: Arizona State (-6)
Arizona State's defense has rebounded from a woeful start to the season, allowing 10 points apiece to Stanford and Washington the past two weeks.
Neither of those offenses are very good, but neither is Utah's, which ranks No. 79 on the F/+ ratings. The difference, though, is that unlike Stanford and Washington, Utah can run the football. The passing game is what's been holding Utah's offense back.
A physical offensive line and the emergence of running back Devontae Booker should be enough for the Utes to get some offense going. They are a team equipped to move the chains, control the clock, manufacture points and keep the Sun Devils offense off the field.
ASU quarterback Taylor Kelly took a hard hit to the head in the fourth quarter against Washington, but head coach Todd Graham said he is "fine," per Doug Haller of AZCentral.com. The news was not so good, however, for starting guard Christian Westerman, a former 5-star recruit who transferred from Auburn and was playing pretty well this season. Westerman is listed as doubtful with a leg injury.
Utah's defensive front seven, led by defensive end Nate Orchard, is not an ideal opponent for a patchwork offensive line and a QB such as Kelly who just returned from injury. The Utes lead the country with 35 sacks and are No. 3 with 66 tackles for loss. I don't know if they'll win, but they'll force enough negative plays to keep things close.
This one has #Pac12AfterDark written all over it.
The Pick: Utah (+6)
Other Top 25 Games
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No. 18 Oklahoma (-17) at Iowa State
Iowa State has shown signs of life this season, and it only lost by four against a Kansas State team that beat Oklahoma. It also scored 45 points in a three-point loss at Texas. Chalk this one up as another near-miss, but the Cyclones can score enough points to cover.
The Pick: Iowa State (+17)
No. 23 East Carolina (-7) at Temple
Are we sure East Carolina is good? It hasn't played a single team with a winning record, and it needed all 60 minutes to beat UConn. Temple (4-3) will be an anomaly for the Pirates, and although it looked bad on the road these past two weeks, it is always apt to play well at home. Remember when it almost beat Central Florida last season?
The Pick: Temple (+7)
No. 24 Duke at Pittsburgh (-4)
Weird game. Weird line. Weird everything. Duke beat Georgia Tech but didn't look overly convincing against the run (allowing 6.13 yards per attempt), and Pittsburgh's turnover luck almost has to regress to the mean after losing five fumbles in the first quarter last weekend. This line doesn't make any sense, and for that exact reason I will steer into the skid and take the Panthers. Credo quia absurdum.
The Pick: Pittsburgh (-4)
Purdue at No. 15 Nebraska (-23.5)
Purdue's offensive renaissance has been a rare joy to watch. It's gained 1,002 yards of total offense and averaged 7.95 yards per play in its last two road games, a win at Illinois and a close loss at Minnesota. Ameer Abdullah might run for 350 yards and five touchdowns, but only because he has to. Always take the points in a shootout.
The Pick: Purdue (+23.5)
Kansas at No. 13 Baylor (-36)
Baylor is angry about what happened at West Virginia and coming off a bye—but man, that's just so many points. The Bears did beat Kansas 59-14 in Lawrence last season—but again, that's just so many points. Kansas is also coming off a bye and lost by 13 at Texas Tech and seven at Oklahoma State in its last two games. The fired-coach "Ewing Theory" can help them stay within (or at) five touchdowns.
The Pick: Kansas (+36)
Illinois at No. 16 Ohio State (-28.5)
Illinois is coming off its first Big Ten win of the season, a 28-24 triumph over Minnesota. Ohio State is coming off its first Big Ten non-blowout of the season, an overtime win at Penn State. Still, the Buckeyes beat a Rutgers team that is roughly as good as Illinois, 56-17, the last time it played in the Horseshoe. And that was before a near loss in Happy Valley and a low CFP ranking got them all riled up.
The Pick: Ohio State (-28.5)
All recruiting rankings via 247Sports.
Follow Brian Leigh on Twitter: @BLeighDAT
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
