Last Week’s Record: 7-1 (87.5%)
Season Record: 83-25 (76.9%)
The Predictions Dept. got off to a good start on our final stretch run, losing only on the LSU-Florida pick in Week 12. For this week, there aren’t any blockbuster games, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on in the next tier down, headlined by Alabama-Oklahoma but also including LSU-Vanderbilt and Ole Miss-Florida.
LOUISIANA TECH at ARKANSAS
Arkansas has hit the skids a bit down the stretch, but the Razorbacks have a clear path to getting bowl-eligible: Beat Louisiana Tech. The Bulldogs were in the middle of a dreadful season but somehow found a way to upset Western Kentucky 12-7 last week. The Bulldogs don’t have the offense necessary to keep up with Arkansas and the defense isn’t likely to stop the Hogs enough to pull upsets in consecutive weeks. If Arkansas were to somehow lose this game and its finisher against Missouri next week, Sam Pittman would go right back onto the hot seat.
Arkansas 31
Louisiana Tech 17
ALABAMA at OKLAHOMA
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TEXAS A&M at AUBURN
Auburn has been playing better of late, but whether the Tigers have enough in the tank to take down Texas A&M is another matter. Even thought the game is at Jordan-Hare Stadium, the Aggies are the one team in the SEC that don’t seem to have a lot of trouble at the venue. The question here for A&M is just how much of an indicator the ugly loss to South Carolina was two weeks ago. Auburn is a similarly-built team with similar overall talent levels, and the Aggies were never really in the game against the Gamecocks. Auburn is coming off a nice win over Louisiana-Monroe and is 2-1 in its last three games, but will need both a win here and one at Alabama next week to escape yet another losing record.
Texas A&M 30
Auburn 20
MISSISSIPPI at FLORIDA
Ole Miss is still hanging around the conversation of being a playoff team, and a month or so ago this looked like a ho-hum affair where the Rebels could begin resting semi-injured players if it wanted to. But then Florida turned a corner, punctuating that turnaround with a convincing win over LSU last week. Ole Miss was off following a 28-10 victory over Georgia, and while it would seem easy for the Rebels to continue their momentum into this game, consistency week-to-week is not Lane Kiffin’s long suit as a head coach. The game being in Gainesville doesn’t help. The question here is whether the Ole Miss offense plays up to its potential, because if it does, the Gators likely won’t be able to keep pace. But Ole Miss has been hit-or-miss on a few occasions this year (17 points against Kentucky? Really?) and the Rebels could easily get themselves into the same trouble that LSU found itself in last week.
Ole Miss 27
Florida 17
MASSACHUSETTS at GEORGIA
The only thing further apart than these two teams are likely to be at the end of the day is the difference in accents between the Boston area and the Deep South.
Georgia 52
UMass 7
KENTUCKY at TEXAS
Insofar as Kentucky is able to leverage its usually stout defense, Texas might have a little trouble getting out of the starting gate initially – but then Kentucky will have to possess the ball at some point. The Wildcat offense has come to look like something out of a book – “How to Bore Friends and Alienate People.” After getting off to a solid start to begin the year, a losing streak of four games was broken last week only because Kentucky had been prescient enough to schedule Murray State. The Wildcats go back on the “L” Train this week.
Texas 38
Kentucky 13
VANDERBILT at LOUISIANA STATE
This one is probably our toughest game to pick of the week, but not immediately for the reasons you’d expect. Vanderbilt is in far better shape as a team and program right now than is LSU, which followed up a dismantling at the hands of Alabama by losing in listless fashion to Florida last week. In doing so, head coach Brian Kelly was observed getting into verbal disputes with his players on the sidelines and there’s real concern that Kelly has lost the team. The problem here for Vanderbilt is the injury report. The Commodores have had pretty terrible injury luck as the season has gone along, and Vandy’s issue in a situation like this is always a lack of players down the depth chart who can approximate the skills of the guys they’re replacing. Were the game in Nashville, we’d take the Commodores. But it’s not, and we won’t. We won’t be surprised in the least if the Commodores pull the upset, however.
LSU 23
Vanderbilt 17
MISSOURI at MISSISSIPPI STATE
The Tigers are falling off quickly for the same reason Vanderbilt is struggling late in the year: quality depth, or lack thereof. Mississippi State, however, is still a team undertaking mass transition and while the Bulldogs can score some points every now and then, the Bulldog defense isn’t the best. That creates a scenario in which Missouri, which is basically down to its second-unit offense, might actually be able to move the ball this week. And it will need to, if Mississippi State can get hot on offense. This game has the potential to be quite entertaining, probably more so than Missouri fans would like it to be.
Missouri 30
Mississippi St. 27
WOFFORD at SOUTH CAROLINA
Wofford always seems to hold back a little something extra when it has home-state South Carolina on the schedule, but it might not matter this year. The Terriers are 5-6 and possess one of the worst offenses in FCS. The Terrier defense isn’t bad, but South Carolina might not let Wofford cross the midfield stripe.
South Carolina 40
Wofford 3
TEXAS EL-PASO at TENNESSEE
UTEP is 2-8 and had to go to double overtime to beat woeful Kennesaw State last week. Tennessee, frustrated by its inability to move the ball against Georgia, will likely use this game in the way a distance runner in training uses a treadmill: over and over and over and over and over and …
Tennessee 53
UTEP 6
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN