Week 9 Record: 4 – 2

I was absolutely dialed this Saturday!

I felt going into Week 9 that I had a good read of the board and that feeling ended up being correct. I only ended up being 4-2, but it was really close to being a 6-0 Saturday.

This is a week where I finally got back on the winning side of things and it feels so good! Let’s jump into my picks and see where I got these right!

South Florida vs Memphis

• The Pick: South Florida TT Over 33.5
• Result: Memphis 34 – 31 South Florida

This game really should have been a winner.

South Florida scored 24 points in the first half of the game and STILL wasn’t able to cash this bet. That was really due to poor game management on the part of Alex Golesh. He had the opportunity to kick a FG in the 3rd quarter but instead turned the ball over on downs. Later, on the potential game tying drive, he decided to take a shot at the end zone which resulted in a holding penalty that backed up the game tying kick. Gramatica missed the kick which caused South Florida and this bet to lose.

College football really has a way of hitting you where it hurts!

Auburn vs Arkansas

• The Pick: Auburn +2.5
• Result: Auburn 33 – Arkansas 24

I think it would be easy to look at this score and think that there was never a doubt that Auburn was going to cover this one. However, if you watched the game, that was far from the case.

Auburn went up early in this one and the defense was able to show out. However, after the first handful of drives, Auburn started to completely collapse. If you have read the blog up to this point, you know that there is no love lost by me for Jackson Arnold but even I was surprised at how bad he looked in this one. He was so bad that, after a costly turnover that ended up putting Arkansas up 17-10, he was benched in favor of Ashton Daniels. Everything was completely different once Daniels hit the field. After the change, Auburn outscored Arkansas 22-3.

I am not sure if they will keep up that level of dominance, but the team sure seems to have more belief in Daniel than they do Arnold.

Illinois vs Washington

• The Pick: Illinois TT Over 24.5
• Result: Washington 42 – 25 Illinois

I don’t want to talk about this. Illinois did enough to win me this bet. That’s all that matters for the sake of this blog. I will wipe away my tears with the dollar bills I made from this bet.

BYU vs Iowa State

• The Pick: BYU +2.5
• Result: BYU 41 – 27 Iowa State

This is another one that I never really felt good about until late.

BYU was down for a lot of this game. Iowa State jumped out to an early lead and was able to maintain that lead until the 4th quarter where BYU scored and then right after cashed in a pick six.

I liked BYU in this game because of how injured Iowa State was in the secondary. However, it turns that didn’t really have a lot to do with outcome of this one. BYU just had a little too much Mormon dark magic for Iowa State to handle!

Texas A&M vs LSU

• The Pick: Texas A&M -2.5
• Result: Texas A&M 49 – LSU 25

It seems that the theme of my bets this week is teams being able to close out games in the second half. This one was no different.

This one looked like it was going to be a classic SEC slugfest that we are used to seeing with these prime time matchups. LSU was even winning this game at the end of the first half and had seemingly all the momentum heading into the second half.

However, LSU did NOT come out to play in the 2nd half. They got dominated up front by Texas A&M. It also didn’t help that Texas A&M started the 2nd half with a score, 3 and out, and then a punt return to the house. After that, A&M was just able to use that dominance up front to run the ball and play defense. Which would lead you to believe that they didn’t score much after the punt return. They scored two more on the ground.

LSU was so bad in this one that they got their coach fired. Whether that is for the best of the program or not is up to you to decide (It is). However, the big conclusion from this game is that Texas A&M is legit.

Houston vs Arizona State

• The Pick: Arizona State -7.5
• Result: Houston 24 – Arizona State 16

My original pick here was Houston +7.5. I ended up flipping to Arizona State -7.5 off of a gut feeling. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

There was never a point that Arizona State was covering this game. Houston flat out dominated them on both sides of the ball. Sam Leavitt ended up getting injured at the beginning of the 4th quarter which led to Jeff Sims coming in and throwing a few TDs to make this game look closer. However, there was never a world where Arizona State was going to cover this game.

This is just a great example of why I just need to stick with the picks that I make with my brain and forget about gut feelings.