Last Week’s Record: 6-1 (85.7%)
Season’s Record: 61-11 (84.7%)
The Predictions Dept. keeps rolling along with solid weeks so far in 2026, but this week will be a challenge. Alabama-Tennessee is the marquee matchup, but Ole Miss-Georgia and Vanderbilt-LSU are right on the doorstep. Even the games down the ticket have the potential to be interesting.
TEXAS A&M at ARKANSAS
Arkansas made us look like savants with the way the Razorbacks stayed with Tennessee last week before losing by less than a score (we had UT winning 45-35). Things certainly seemed to get better after the dismissal of Sam Pittman as head coach and the installation of Bobby Petrino as the new coach. Now comes Texas A&M, which has a far better defense than the Volunteers but might not have the firepower to answer every Arkansas score now that RB Le’Veon Moss has been knocked out. What Arkansas has to hope for here is that it didn’t shoot all its bullets at Neyland Stadium last week and still have a few left in the chamber. For teams that dump head coaches mid-season, often the first game post-firing is a near upset, but then everything sort of reverts to the mean. The game being in Arkansas at least helps things a bit, but we think the Aggies will find a way to weather an early storm and pull away late.
Texas A&M 30
Arkansas 20
TENNESSEE at ALABAMA
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MISSOURI at AUBURN
Here we are at Week 8 and Missouri is going on the road for the first time. The Tigers showed toughness and resiliency against Alabama last week, but the first road trip always seems to be ripe for unexpected happenings, and when that road trip is to Jordan-Hare Stadium, you should probably double down on whatever plan you have for surviving the effects of voodoo. This would be an easy upset pick were it not for the fact that Auburn is in decline and suddenly finds itself embroiled in off-field controversy stemming from the dismissal of RB Damari Alston, who was popular among his teammates. The key matchup here is a good Auburn defensive line against a solid Missouri running game; if Missouri can figure that out, Auburn’s offense is unlikely to be able to match scores.
Missouri 23
Auburn 17
MISSISSIPPI STATE at FLORIDA
Word is swirling in Gainesville that this might wind up being Billy Napier’s last game at Florida, win or lose. It will almost certainly be the last if the Bulldogs pull off an upset, and two or three weeks ago, that was starting to look like a possibility. Then the Texas A&M Aggies showed up with a legitimate defense and Mississippi State found out the hard way just how far behind they still are relative to the rest of the conference. Florida doesn’t have quite as good a defense as the Aggies do, but with the game at home and the Bulldogs still taking baby steps, this might wind up being Napier’s “Dead Cat Bounce” game before the Georgia contest. This would be an easy send-off for Napier as next week is an off-week for the Gators, who would then have an extra week to transition before having to face Georgia, but what if the Gators win big here? And it could very well happen, especially if the MSU offense gets frustrated early.
Florida 31
Mississippi St. 20
MISSISSIPPI at GEORGIA
It’s been more than two decades since Ole Miss has won at Georgia, and there’s no time like the present for the Rebels to change that math. This is a matchup of quarterbacks – specifically, is Georgia’s Gunner Stockton good enough to do more than manage the game, and is Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss for real, or is he being figured out? Ole Miss has put up two lackluster offensive performances in a row; the struggle against a good defensive LSU team is understandable, but nearly falling to Washington State in Oxford last week? It lacks sufficient explanation. Georgia didn’t exactly light the world on fire against Auburn – and needed some help from the officials to do what they eventually managed to do – so it wouldn’t surprise us to see this game be a bit sloppy in its execution, from both sides. In that event, bet on the coach and/or the venue you think can handle adversity the best.
Georgia 27
Ole Miss 24
TEXAS at KENTUCKY
Texas got up off the mat against Oklahoma, our only missed pick of Week 7, and now face a Kentucky team coming off a bye week. Some faint rumblings regarding Mark Stoops’ position as Kentucky head coach have begun, but no in-season change is expected and we would be surprised if the rumblings got loud enough to make a distraction this week. Both of these teams are offensive disaster areas, but we like the Texas defense a lot more. Kentucky plays tough on that side of the ball, but the talent gap here is fairly massive and we would be surprised if Steve Sarkisian fails to spin the success in the Red River Shootout in a way that Texas fails to benefit from it going forward.
Texas 27
Kentucky 13
LOUISIANA STATE at VANDERBILT
This might not be the biggest matchup on paper, but we think it has the potential to be the most entertaining. This is when Vanderbilt either puts up of shuts up; the Commodores have had two weeks to absorb the Alabama loss, and if they’re serious about being College Football Playoff contenders, they have to prove they can bounce back from disappointment. LSU’s offense has turned into something you’d order at Waffle House – scattered, smothered and covered – primarily because the running game has gone to seed. The Commodores showed against Alabama, though, that some of its perceived strength in the front seven of the defense might be a little bit of fool’s gold. This is a chance for LSU to take a step forward; all the pressure is on Vandy.
LSU 27
Vanderbilt 17
OKLAHOMA at SOUTH CAROLINA
Oklahoma has to feel like it let the plot get away from it last week; it wasn’t just that the Sooners lost to Texas in a rivalry game, but that they looked downright impotent in the process. South Carolina, though, has found the keys to the struggle bus, too. The Gamecocks aren’t consistent enough on offense to be considered an elite team, and the offense failed them again last week against LSU – the third time in 2025 that South Carolina has scored 20 or fewer points. The common denominator seems to be whether South Carolina can find the ability to pressure elite defenses. And Oklahoma definitely brings one of those to the table.
Oklahoma 20
South Carolina 16
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN