By Jess Nicholas, TideFans.com Editor-In-Chief
Nov. 24, 2014
Last week’s record: 7-1 (87.5%)
Season record: 78-24 (76.5%)
The Predictions Dept. had a nice Week 13, setting up the final week of the regular season and our last chance to significantly improve our mediocre season mark. The top games this week are no doubt the Egg Bowl and the Alabama-Auburn game, although Arkansas-Missouri will decide the SEC East.
FLORIDA at FLORIDA STATE
Not a lot of people are talking about this one, thanks to Florida’s disappointing season and the impending departure of coach Will Muschamp, but Florida State is not playing well and the Gator defense will be the best one FSU has faced this season. If Florida State plays this game the way they’ve played most of their late-fall games, Florida will win this. The Seminoles need to start concentrating on the task at hand and stop believing tales of their own superiority, but good luck in that endeavor when Jameis Winston is the face of the program. This game could end up being the ultimate what-might-have-been moment for Muschamp; if the Idaho game isn’t canceled and Florida were to win this game, Muschamp would have been looking at a 8-4 record with a win over his biggest rival.
Florida State 23
Florida 17
AUBURN at ALABAMA
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GEORGIA TECH at GEORGIA
Georgia Tech is always a tough out for Georgia, because the Yellow Jackets’ option offense demands discipline and assignment football, and the Bulldogs have been sorely lacking in those pursuits in the Mark Richt era. But there’s another potential problem here for Georgia and it goes beyond a critique of the Bulldogs’ internal discipline: Georgia Tech is good this year. The Yellow Jackets are 9-2; they lost consecutive games in the middle of the season to Duke and North Carolina but otherwise have stomped most opponents, and they lead the nation in 3rd-down offense. Georgia Tech’s main problem is the same as it’s ever been – no passing game, which means if the Bulldogs get ahead early, the Yellow Jackets will be in trouble if the fundamentals of this game change to Georgia’s favor. As such, this game will be decided early on based on how well Georgia starts.
Georgia 41
Georgia Tech 30
KENTUCKY at LOUISVILLE
If the Wildcats win this game, they’ll miss the postseason despite getting off to such a good start. Louisville may not be a SEC program, but the Cardinals are playing like one, especially down the stretch. An upset of Notre Dame last week has been the highlight of the season, but other quality wins over Miami and Boston College highlight the schedule. Kentucky hasn’t just been losing games lately, the Wildcats are in a tailspin and it’s clear their confidence has been shaken. Unfortunately, it appears Mark Stoops will have to wait another season to get his Wildcats into a bowl.
Louisville 30
Kentucky 27
ARKANSAS at MISSOURI
The Tigers held on to beat a game Tennessee team on the road last week, but now they get what is suddenly the SEC’s most improved team in Arkansas. Win the game, and Missouri represents the SEC East in Atlanta at the SEC Championship Game. Lose, and Georgia goes, no matter what happens in the Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry game. Missouri is erratic, unpredictable and sometimes too dependent upon a young quarterback that is still learning his way in the SEC. But this is a now-or-never game, and the Tigers have to figure out a way to pull it off. The thing working most in their favor is that Arkansas might have a bit of a lapse in concentration now that the Razorbacks have achieved bowl eligibility.
Missouri 23
Arkansas 20
SOUTH CAROLINA at CLEMSON
Clemson is probably the better team in 2014, but Dabo Swinney has had tons of trouble with his chief rival over the years. If Steve Spurrier is considering retirement at the end of 2014, as some observers believe he is, he’ll want to go out a winner in this series. If the Gamecock defense shows up, it’s going to be hard for Clemson to keep up here. The big problem for South Carolina is that Clemson has the top-ranked defense in the nation in 2014 and while offensive points have been hard to come by, the Tiger defense has been salty against all comers. Clemson looks like the better team on paper, but Swinney is going to have to win a few of these first before the sideline advantage Spurrier has can be considered neutralized.
South Carolina 21
Clemson 20
TENNESSEE at VANDERBILT
Tennessee barely missed becoming bowl-eligible last week when Missouri came to town. The Tigers eventually won that game, but Vanderbilt won’t win this one. The Commodores are terrible, and Tennessee has turned into a tough team with a good defense. Although the game is in Nashville, that has never mattered before to the UT program, which routinely puts more fans in the stands than the Commodores do and end up booing the Vandy players on their own Senior Day. The Commodores have simply shown no evidence that they can win this game; there is no dangerous element to either the Vanderbilt offense or defense – unless you’re talking about something dangerous to Vanderbilt’s own hopes of actually winning the game.
Tennessee 27
Vanderbilt 7
LOUISIANA STATE at TEXAS A&M
This game, between two teams that are trying to out-stink the other as the season comes to a close, could end up setting up a Texas-Texas A&M bowl game depending on the outcome. It’s hard to believe these two teams are both here at 7-4, but Texas A&M has no defense and LSU has no offense. Both coaches are dealing with some grumbling from inside their respective programs. The operative question here might be which team has quit the least, and that appears to be the Aggies at the moment.
Texas A&M 31
LSU 21
MISSISSIPPI STATE at MISSISSIPPI
This looked like it could end up being a heck of game a couple of weeks ago; that was before Ole Miss laid a 30-0 egg to Arkansas and played itself right out of any possibility of playoff contention in the process. The loss to Arkansas locked either Mississippi State or Alabama into Atlanta, and more importantly, turned what could have been a magical season into just another decent-but-not-great year in Oxford. If Ole Miss was looking ahead to this game, it now has hurt itself twice: both the actual loss to Arkansas, and the emotional damage done from knowing that no titles will be possible this year. Mississippi State didn’t appear to have any hangover from its Alabama loss, blowing out Vanderbilt 51-0 last week. The Bulldogs are trying to play their way into the final four, even though many observers believe the playoff committee will drop the Bulldogs out once other teams near them in the standings start securing conference championships. But that won’t stop them this week from trying to kill their rivals.
Mississippi St. 27
Ole Miss 13