Chris Jordan
My second free winner for Saturday is going to be the South Carolina Gamecocks over the MIssouri Tigers. Seriously, I'm so tired of hearing everyone put ol' Ball Coach and his troops on upset alert... save it!
While most everyone else opened up with a cupcake this season, coach Steve Spurrier put his boys up against the Vanderbilt Commodores, and the Gamecocks came away with a 17-13 win. It was an eye-opener and a perfect intro to the season.
Since then, a 48-10 rout of East Carolina and a 49-6 blowout over the UAB Blazers.
Now the Gamecocks take on James Franklin and the Tigers, and I like the home team here, to win by double digits - easily. South Carolina has the 29th ranked defense in the nation, but even more impressive is the seventh-best scoring D that is allowing 9.6 points per game.
And I don't discount how defiant Missouri's defense is, but I have to wonder how the Tigers are going to perform on the road against that defense with the nation's 78th-ranked offense. Missouri blasted Southeastern Louisiana in its season-opener, but it struggled to move the ball in a 21-point home loss to Georgia, and in a tight four-point win against Arizona State.
I'm sorry, but this is not the Big 12, where upsets are flung around when you're talking about national championship contenders. So while everyone is fluffing up Alabama, LSU and Florida State, I think the Gamecocks are going to be up for a blowout, statement win here.
No upset-watch. No upset-talk here.
Take South Carolina.
5♦ SOUTH CAROLINA
OC Dooley
Arizona +21.5
This evening we have another football team from the state of Arizona traveling on the road and the Wildcats just happen to already have an undefeated “3-0” record. Late tonight is the “re-appearance” of head coach Rich Rodriguez on the national stage as this is the same leader who virtually walked out of a comfortable position with West Virginia landing a dream job. That dream position saw Rodriguez virtually pushed out the door at Michigan and the master of the spread offense has landed with the Wildcats. The extremely high total for tonight’s game (79’ points) indicates that Arizona has the ability to keep up on the scoreboard with high-octane Oregon who is putting up 54 points per contest. Visiting Arizona is averaging a healthy 46 points per contest and they enter tonight with a Top-25 national ranking. Wildcats SENIOR quarterback Matt Scott (7 touchdown passes versus just 1 interception tossed) has excellent “splits” which makes him a dangerous underdog. I will admit that Oregon has owned Arizona in this series winning 15 of the most recent 18 meetings including a year ago when Ducks star rusher LaMichael James rambled for a school-record 288 yards on the ground. The problem is James is now employed by the NFL and will be sorely missed. In the past two years when theses pair of squads meet in this series, the ROAD team is 2-0 ATS and I look for that trend to continue