Written by Ell
| 31 October 2008
I win the week! My faith in JoePa is rewarded. Crump sinks lower, and Glen allows nxojkt to extend his lead.
| Player |
This Week |
Overall Record |
| nxojkt |
4-2 |
41-13 |
| Glen55 |
3-3 |
37-17 |
| Ell |
5-1 |
34-20 |
| Crump |
2-4 |
31-23 |
Here are this week's picks:
| Game |
Ell |
nxojkt |
Glen55 |
Crump |
| Auburn @ Ole Miss |
Ole Miss |
Ole Miss |
Auburn |
Ole Miss |
| Tulsa @ Arkansas |
Tulsa |
Tulsa |
Tulsa |
Tulsa |
| Florida vs Georgia |
Florida |
Florida |
Florida |
Florida |
| Oregon @ Cal |
Cal |
Cal |
Cal |
Oregon |
| Texas @ Texas Tech |
Texas |
Texas |
Texas |
Texas |
Despite a slate of games that should be close, we're all on the same side of most of these. And, on to Homecoming.
nxojkt:
Arkansas State scored 83 points in a game earlier this season. Nice job. Bama ain't Texas Southern. This is an Alabama football team that is desperate to get the November monkey off of its back, and the Red Wolves just happen to be in the way. The Tide wasted a chance earlier in the season against Tulane to empty the bench; that won't happen this time.
Look for Bama to jump out to a big early lead and never look back. Expect Thomas Darrah to gets snaps once again, and possibly even attempt a pass this time. Arkansas State has enough offense to put some points on the board once the game gets out of hand, but Bama will still win big... very big.
Glen55:
Arkansas St. is better than they sound, but not that much better. They beat Texas A&M, but Texas A&M is awful, and the Red Wolves fell short last week in a 28-23 road loss to UL Lafayette that may wind up determining the Sun Belt Champ.
I might be a little more worried if LSU's beatdowns at the hands of Florida and UGA hadn't taken a wee bit of the luster off of next week's trip to Baton Rouge, which up to a month or so ago figured to possibly be a mega-game.
As is, Bama should be able to forget the Bayou types long enough to remember who they're playing this week, and in fact it may be Arkansas State who is distracted if they can't get over blowing a 9-point lead in the last half of the fourth quarter against ULL last week. As a result this game should pretty much be the kind of glorified scrimmage that is appropriate for Homecoming.
Ell:
Arkansas State can score. Any team that is able to hang 83 on anybody isn't terrible offensively. But the Red Wolves haven't played SEC caliber competition. They lost to Memphis. They are not good.
A year ago, Alabama could have lost this game. They could have looked ahead to LSU and totally spaced on a talented smaller school like, say, Louisiana-Monroe (I hate to even mention the name).
This ain't a year ago. This team is better, more focused and better led on the field (and on the coaching staff). The Tide rolls huge.
Crump:
Arkansas State brings in a high powered offense to Bryant-Denny Stadium this week looking to spoil homecoming for the Tide. If Mike Shula were still the coach I might be worried.
Look for the offense to pound away at an overmatched Indian/Red Wolves (seriously, who cares if your nickname is Indians? I bet Native Americans don't) defense which should lead to some big plays in the play action passing game.
Bama needs to run it up to impress the voters and I suspect that they will.
Submit your own picks for these games in the comments section.
