Picks, Previews, and Prognostications, Week Eleven

Hello everyone from New Orleans, Louisiana, where we are celebrating the 21st birthday of, well, me.

Twenty-one years ago, I was born about five minutes before Alabama-LSU in 1987. The Tide won that game in Baton Rouge, 22-10.

Of course, I would love for that to happen again this year, but we will see how I feel about that game later in this post after a review of last week and then other predictions for this week's games as selected by the CW Sports staff.

Last week, I managed to go 6-2 in the head to head competition with the CW Sports staff. The best any one of them could do was 5-3, and only one of them could muster that.

My seven times "Not so fast" on the Georgia Tech-FSU game plus my pick of Texas Tech over Texas helped to push me over the top.

So, what is there for this week? Well, I am already 1-0 after last night's grand comeback by Utah to beat TCU and remain unbeaten, but here are the other games.

Oklahoma State @ Texas Tech

The Red Raiders are looking to avoid a let down after a big victory over Texas last week. Oklahoma State is trying to remain in the Big XII South race with a win. Both teams still have a chance to make it to Kansas City to represent the South with a three-way tie, but Texas Tech can eliminate the Pokes all together with a win.

Texas Tech 45, Oklahoma State 41

California @ USC

As I pointed out earlier in the week, USC hasn't played anyone of meirt in their last four games, but the Golden Bears from Berkley are currently ranked in the Top 25. USC no doubt has a great offense as usual, but is their defense as good as advertised. The Bears will give the Trojans a run for their money, but USC is too strong in the Pac-1 to be challenged at home.

USC 35, Cal 14

Ohio State @ Northwestern

The Wildcats are looking at a bowl berth for the first time since 2005 and their fourth this decade, more than doubling their total bowl berths before the year 2000. Ohio State is still in the running for a Rose Bowl berth or even a Big Ten title if they can continue to win and get a Penn State loss. Northwestern may have home field advantage in this game, but that doesn't mean much when your stadium only holds 50,000 fans. A healthy Chris Wells will help the Buckeyes come out on top.

Ohio State 28, Northwestern 10

Georgia Tech @ North Carolina

Both Georgia Tech and North Carolina already have two losses in the ACC Coastal Division, just like three other teams, so a loss could be detrimental to any championship aspirations. Georgia Tech played a great game last week against Florida State and have won eight of the last nine against North Carolina. The Tar Heels can secure their first winning season since 2001 with a victory, and this should be the case on Saturday.

North Carolina 28, Georgia Tech 27

Cincinnati @ West Virginia

The Bearcats are currently tied for second in the Big East with Pittsburgh. Both teams are trailing the Mountaineers of West Virginia. Those three teams have yet to play each other until this weekend. WVU is starting to hit their stride after a big win over Auburn and are currently 5-0 at home this season. Make that 6-0 after Saturday.

West Virginia 38, Cincinnati 17

Arkansas @ South Carolina

Is their seriously nothing better this weekend to pick? Apparently not. I will make this one easy: Best defense in the SEC against the worst defense in the SEC. Sure, South Carolina may not have the greatest offense, but they are on enough of a roll right now that Michael Smith and company will not change that pattern as the Gamecocks celebrate Senior Day in Columbia.

South Carolina 24, Arkansas 10

Alabama @ LSU

The Crimson Tide are currently 60 minutes from clinching their first SEC West title since 1999. LSU fans have waited 675 days for Nick Saban to return to Baton Rouge as the coach of the Crimson Tide. Alabama is #1 in the country for the first time in almost three decades, and the question will be how they handle the pressure. The Tide will handle the pressure just fine because Nick Saban preaches one game at a time.

Alabama 24, LSU 14

So, we know what I think, but what previews and predictions are out there from other people around the country?

• Here is the Top 25 Overview from ESPN.com
• Christ Low, the SEC Blogger, has his things to watch for this weekend as well as his predictions for this week's games.
• Bruce Feldman of ESPN.com takes a look over the entire college football landscape for Week 11.
• Chris Fowler previews this weekend by looking at Florida's BCS Title chances, Barack Obama's change for college football, as well as a look at LSU-Bama (of course).
• Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com blabs on and on about every little thing in college football this weekend and guess what game he also comments on?
• CBS' video preview of the Bama-LSU game is right here.
• The CBS "experts" make their picks for this weekend here.
• Steward Mandel of SI.com, as normal, offers his thoughts on this week's games as well.

Finally, to head into the weekend at full force, there must be a story on John Parker Wilson. With Alabama's success this season, Wilson has been a favorite subject of many articles, and SI.com's Andy Staples now takes his turn on JPW.

Who is LSU, Anyways?

Uh, just the defending national champions of college football, that's all.

The Bayou Bengals may have suffered a few humiliating losses this season at the hands of Florida and Georgia, but they still have very good skill players and have a core left from last season who still know a thing or two about winning.

Charles Scott has emerged as the biggest threat on the ground for the Tigers this season for a team that has all of a sudden gone from running back by committee to one solid guy. Scott is averaging 6.7 yards per carry this season with 11 touchdowns and 111 yards per game.

At quarterback, the picture is a little fuzzy. Jarrett Lee and Andrew Hatch have been sharing time all season, but that doesn't throw out the possibility of seeing freshman Jordan Jefferson take the field for the Fighting Tigers. Lee has seen the most action this season, completing 56% of his passes for 1427 yards on the season, but has a horrid touchdown to interceptions ratio at 12:10. He is also averaging one interception for every ten completions.

The true stars of LSU on offense are the wide receivers who can do some damage if Alabama allows Lee and company to get them the ball. LSU is led by Brandon LaFell and Demetrius Byrd at receiver. LaFell has been the go-to guy this season, having a majority of the catches, yards, and touchdowns.

On defense, LSU has lost a lot from last season, but is still very stout on the defensive line.

The defensive line has a two-headed monster in Rahim Alem and Tyson Jackson. Both of these guys will be cause for concern for the Alabama offensive line and may be the best tandem they will face all season. Alem is the team leader in sacks with six and Jackson has four and a half himself. Combined, these two have 15.5 tackles for loss this season.

After the line, the defense gets a little shaky.

The leading tackler on the team, Harry Coleman, only has 47 tackles on the season from the safety position. Perry Riley is the leading tackler among the linebackers with 37 tackles. The secondary has only caused four interceptions all season and has been picked apart by both Matthew Stafford and Tim Tebow. John Parker Wilson could easily do the same if play calling permits.

Overall, the LSU defense has only caused eight turnovers this season, well below the 36 this team caused last season.

Obviously the keys for Alabama will be to keep LSU out of the offensive backfield, prevent turnovers, and create some turnovers of their own.

Now, before I go and get ready for the trip to Baton Rouge and the turning of 21 in New Orleans, I found an interesting set of articles that reflects the two sides of Nick Saban: Alabama and LSU. Hope you enjoy and be on the lookout for picks out the wazoo tomorrow, but since one of the games picked by the CW Sports staff is tonight, here is one to help tide you over until tomorrow.

TCU @ Utah

The Utes are undefeated, the Horned Frogs have one loss, albeit to Oklahoma. For all intensive purposes, this is the Mountain West Championship Game with both teams undefeated in conference, top ten in the BCS, and BYU with already one loss at the hands of TCU earlier this season. Utah gets this game at home, and that will be the factor that gets them over the top and into the BCS.

Utah 27, TCU 24

SEC Pass or Fail, Week Nine......and links!

As will soon be a staple here on "In the Nic of Time," I take a look back at the week that was in the SEC with a weekly "Pass or Fail" segment.

More or less, its basically just a look at the good and the bad of the past week in the Southeastern Conference. Enjoy!

Head of the Class: Georgia's Darryl Gamble

It's one thing to have your first career interception go all the way back for a touchdown. It's another when you intercept two Pick-six balls in the same game.

Gamble did just that against LSU this past Saturday, taking back Jarrett Lee passes 40 and 53 yards, respectively. The two interceptions for touchdowns went a long way in helping the Bulldogs put 52 points on LSU en route to a huge win in Baton Rouge.

Pass: Florida's Special Teams

The Gators blocked a total of three kicks against the Wildcats of Kentucky Saturday, including Kentucky's first two punt attempts of the afternoon. The third block came on a Kentucky field goal attempt in the second quarter. The Gators used a total of five plays to score three touchdowns off of the blocks produced by their special teams.

Florida jumped out to a 28-0 lead by the end of the first quarter and finished off the Wildcats with a 63-5 woodshed beating.

Fail: Vanderbilt

Normally this would seem like a spot where most Vanderbilt teams would fit, except for this year's team. That seems to have changed.

After charging out to a 5-0 record with wins over a tough Ole Miss team and Auburn, the 'Dores have lost three straight, the last a homecoming loss to Duke. Vanderbilt quarterbacks have thrown seven interceptions all season, all but one of them coming in the past three games. Most people saw this season as the Commodores first chance at a bowl since 1984, but those hopes seem to be dwindling with remaining games against Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and Wake Forest.

The 'Dores will have a good chance against Kentucky and Tennessee, but it will come down to whether or not they can move the ball on those tough two defenses.

Pass: Alabama's 2nd Half

After three recent second half debacles, Alabama put together their most complete second half to date and won the second half for the first time since Arkansas. Alabama had four drives in the second half. They ended Field Goal, Touchdown, Touchdown, Game.

On Defense, Alabama held Tennessee to 76 total yards in the second half and a touchdown on a drive which was aided by three pass interference calls. Short of the defensive short comings, Alabama played a fantastic second half.

Fail: LSU's Defense

What has happened to the LSU defense that we have seen over the last few years? In their last eight SEC games, dating back to last October 20th against Auburn, the Tigers have allowed an average of 33 points per game in the SEC. Allowing a total of 103 to SEC East leaders Georgia and Florida did not help this cause, but that still puts this highly regarded defense at giving up an average of 28 points per game, and that's still high.

Maybe its the absence of Bo Pelini, or maybe its just the quality of players LSU lost after last season. Whatever it is, the Tigers must fix it soon if they want a chance to be playing on New Year's Day.

Pass: Houston Nutt

The past two seasons, Houston Nutt had to deal with angry fans, questionable hires, and an Athletic Director off of his rocker. Even with all of this around him, Nutt still managed to compile an 18-6 regular season record in 2006-07, but every man has his boiling point, and Nutt met his after the 2007 season.

Nutt made a change to Ole Miss in the off-season and has taken the Rebels to a 4-4 record and 2-3 in the SEC, already surpassing Ed Orgeron's win total in each of his three seasons in Oxford and showing a 200% increase in SEC victories over last season. His last hurdle in year one may be to break the Rebels streak of home SEC losses, and he will have a good chance to do so with Auburn and Mississippi State still to visit Oxford.

Fail: Kentucky's tailspin

Sure, the Wildcats were off to their second straight hot start, getting to 4-0 and beating Louisville for the second straight season. However, it has been all down hill from there.

They have now lost three of their last four games since entering conference season, but those have not been their biggest losses. The injuries of Dicky Lyons, Jr. and Derrick Locke for the season have made the outlook to get to a bowl bleak for the 'Cats. Things may not look good right now, but the Big Blue travel to Starkville this weekend and still have games with Vandy at home and finish in Knoxville and are in need of only one more win to get bowl eligible.

Epic Fail: Auburn's Run Defense

Entering their game against Arkansas, Auburn was a respectable 14th in the nation in run defense. It had been the Tigers saving grace so far this year, and was the only bright spot seemingly left on this team after the firing of Tony Franklin and a loss to Vanderbilt.

Now, after Arkansas' Michael Smith put 176 yards on the Tigers followed by a 207 yard performance by West Virginia's Noel Devine, Auburn now stands at No.51 nationally and 8th in the SEC. The Tigers are now allowing an average of 128 yards on the ground per game in a league where running backs rule the day. The Tigers three remaining SEC games, Ole Miss, Georgia, and Alabama, are against teams that have feature running backs (Enrique Davis, Knowshon Moreno, Glen Coffee) and teams that average over 150 yards on the ground per game.


Now, time for everyone's favorite part of the blog...at least mine anyways...amusing links to other stories.

• With the anticipation of hosting Alabama in next weekend starting to pick up, a local business is already announcing their plans for the weekend on a local billboard in Baton Rouge.
• Speaking of LSU, here is a guy to avoid for those of you making the trek to Tiger country.
• Sure, he may not be the most popular guy in the state, but Paul Finebaum's latest article takes a look at how expectations for this season have gone two different directions for Alabama's top two schools.
• On a more national scale, Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com breaks down this weekend's Texas-Texas Tech match-up and takes a look at Florida State's season to date in his weekly I-Formation.
• Just as he does every week, Stewart Mandel of SI.com answers questions about the college football season. This week, he tackles the question of how Penn State fits into the BCS given any number of scenarios.