VCS - Week 4

Sorry for the lateness and brevity of these picks. I've got Brother Eddie in the NYC with a few friends and we've been tearing this town to pieces for the past few days - including a trip to the Meadowlands to see U2 at Giants Stadium last night (NOTE: Don't ever go to the Meadowlands. Not for a football game. Not for a basketball game. Not for a concert. Do not go - especially if you are traveling from Manhattan. It's so poorly run that you'd have thought no one told them they would have a 90,000 people descending on the area until sometime yesterday afternoon. Trust me, stay away.) Anyway, I'm short on time (and energy), so I'll be keeping these concise. It helps that this week brings us an embarrassingly weak slate of SEC action. I'll only be discussing games that matter, but for the record, my picks for the other games are as follows: Ball St. @ AUBURN -33, Ohio @ TENNESSEE -21 and VANDERBILT -8 @ Rice. As always, my pick is in CAPS:

LSU -13 @ Mississippi St.(2)
This fits right in with my common theme this weekend: I am completely baffled by at least half of the teams in the SEC. Why is a team like LSU - who has proven skill men like Charles Scott, Keiland Williams, Richard Murphy, Brandon Lafell and Jordan Jefferson - only averaging 326 yards per game, despite not having faced a single ranked (or even close to it) opponent thus far this season? How did Mississippi State hold anyone - ANYONE - to 157 yards of total offense, as they did against Vanderbilt last week?

Actually, I think I know the answer to that last one since I scripted most of Vandy's offensive series - a remarkable string of offensive mistakes. Easy passes thrown off target, easy catches dropped for no reason, missed blocks, poor cuts - Vandy put on one of the worst-executed offensive performances I've seen thus far this season. I understand that Bobby Johnson and his staff are under quite a bit of heat for their gameplan last week, but I submit that if they would have simply cut their unforced mistakes in half, they would have scored enough to topple the Bulldogs. It was a great (and thoroughly unexpected) win for State, but I'm not a believer just yet. This is another talent pick. Simply, I believe that LSU has a talent advantage over MSU that is greater than two touchdowns. That's where my analysis stops and I think I'm correct in doing so.

ARKANSAS +17 @ Alabama (3)
I got a chance to watch the Arkansas/UGA game on the SEC Digital Network this week and...WOW. Ryan Mallett is an absolutely amazing specimen. DO NOT miss a chance to watch him play. With his arm, Arkansas currently has the greatest vertical passing attack I've ever seen on any level. Ever. Do yourself a favor and watch the first quarter of that game. You'd swear you were watching John Elway's college highlight reel. I was left literally speechless. Of course, as impressive as Mallett and the Arkansas WRs were, they still lost the game. Their defense is truly atrocious. Their DBs were so often turned the wrong direction in pass coverage (often just staring into space with their backs to both the receiver AND the ball) that I began to worry for their mental well-being. Personally, I expect Julio Jones and the rest of the Alabama offense to have a huge night, but I also think this is where we will see our first cracks in the vaunted Alabama defense and we will see these cracks for the first time in this game because this will be the first time the defense will have been tested...at all. There's no denying that Alabama has looked great thus far this year, but one thing people keep overlooking is how sneakily easy their slate has been so far. North Texas, Florida International and a Virginia Tech team that hails from a conference who should have their BCS membership revoked TODAY, as in immediately. Clearly this will be the best offense they've faced so far this year and it might even be the best team they've faced. 17 points is just too much for a team that has not been tested yet to be laying to anyone. Because of that, I'm making this one my increasingly meaningless Luck of the Irish Pot O' Gold Pick of the Week.

ARIZONA ST. +12.5 @ Georgia (1)
Usually in non-conference game, I find myself evaluating one relatively known element (the SEC team) and one relatively unknown element (the non-SEC team). In this case, however, I must admit that both of these teams completely elude my understanding and the SEC might just be more of a mystery to me than the non-SEC team. What to make of the Georgia Bulldogs? First, they lay an absolute stinkbomb - especially offensively - in the season opener against a subsequently exposed Oklahoma St. team. Then, they engage in the most improbable of shootouts with a South Carolina team that has not since shown either the ability to score as they did in that game or the complete inability to stop their opponent from scoring. Then, they gave us the more understandable shootout with Arkansas and somehow come out on top despite committing 3 turnovers and only attempting only 26 passes. Is this team the defensively-challenged offensive jugernaut they have appeared to be the last 2 weeks? I have absolutely no idea.

I know even less about the Arizona St. team they are facing. They are 2-0 with only meaningless cupcake wins at home. They will bring a rookie QB on the road for the first time in this game and they are expected to be a tough defensive team, at least by Pac-10 standards. My thinking is that Georgia will be a little worn out from there last 2 action-packed games and will come out flat against a team about which they know nothing and care even less than that. That, coupled with an inspired Arizona St. team looking to knock off an SEC powerhouse, leads me to believe this game will be closer than most people think with Georgia pulling away late and winning another shootout by 7-10 points.