The knock on Jacksonville State has been clear from Week 1: if you want to beat the Gamecocks, you do it by throwing the football. And that’s not what Louisiana does well.
Florida A&M was denied a chance to play for the HBCU national title in 2019 because of sanctions. Now the Rattlers are back with a chance to make up for that year.
Army’s still got plenty to play for as it looks to secure the Commander in Chief’s Trophy for the fifth time in seven years. The Mids can’t win the Commander in Chief’s trophy given that they lost to Air Force, but they can deny it to Army, which would be just as satisfying.
The defenses are ahead of the offenses here, and neither team is likely to put up huge numbers. Florida State has to try to do so, but the Seminoles are really in no position to do that without Jordan Travis.
It’s hard to pick against either of these teams for different reasons. On one hand, Georgia has dominated for the past two years and plays its best football against the best teams on its schedule. On the other, Alabama keeps finding ways to hang around when it should have been dead and buried by now.
Oregon has been a cover machine and has looked far superior to Washington over the past six weeks. But are the Ducks really a full 10 points better than the Huskies at this point?
The wrong team appears favored here. Yes, Tulane has the better record and has dominated the American for two years. But SMU’s powerful showings the past few weeks have suggested this team really wants to go out of the American with a league title.
On one hand, we’ve got Michigan, undefeated and hardly scratched, despite having to face both Ohio State and Penn State out of the Big Ten East.
On the other hand, Iowa managed to win a bad Big Ten West that had just two other bowl-eligible teams out of six.
If ever there was an argument against the two best records in a conference meeting for the league title game, this game might be the one. Oklahoma State just doesn’t seem to have either the talent or the personnel to hang with Texas.