Week 10 Analysis/Week 11 Preview

I am going to start this post by saying some crazy things have happened in college football since Sunday. I will get into the Ole Miss coaching situation a little later, so I will start with the whole situation going on at Penn State. I scanned the federal indictment as much as I could tolerate. I won't get into details because it is pretty disturbing to say the least. This Sandusky character is guilty. If you read the indictment they have proof of him commiting crimes against kids from 1994 to 2009. The indictment says 8 kids were singled out in the investigation. I would speculate he probably commited crimes against another 20 or 30 kids that aren't going to come forward because of how embarassing something like this would be. This guy used an organization that assisted under priveledged kids to help him fulfill his twisted desire to commit heinous crimes against children. The NCAA does not have the backbone or the authority to really do anything to Penn State on this, so the US goverment must drop the hammer on EVERYONE. Joe Paterno is saying he will finish the year out. The conspiracy theorist in me is saying he is coaching the rest of the year so he can set the record for the most games ever coached. He currently is tied for first. If JoePa is allowed to coach to break a record then sports have lost touch with reality. Sports and especially records are not more important than the safety of children. This should not be tolerated in America.

Not sure how to transition from the prior paragraph to USM, so I am just going to jump right into a much more pleasant topic to talk about. If USM can keep their focus they will finish the season with only 1 loss. They are significantly more talented than the remaining three teams on their schedule. UCF comes to Hattiesburg this weekend as arguably the best team remaining on the schedule. USM is a 9 point favorite in a 7PM game that is being televised on CBS Sports Network. I look for USM to come out focused and up for this game. The Rock should be a good home atmosphere. USM wins this game by 2+ touchdowns.

If you are reading this then you are well aware of the situation in Oxford. Pete Boone has announce he will be stepping down sometime in 2012 with Houston Nutt being fired at the end of the year. Having a coach finish the year out after being told he will be fired is not a common thing. Nutt has pledged that he will give Ole Miss just as much effort in coaching the remaining games as he has up to this point. I think Nutt is saying/doing this because he feels guilty about the 6 million dollar buyout Ole Miss owes him on top of his current salary. Las Vegas doesn't think Houston Nutt will be prepared. Line for this game came out at Ole Miss -1. Since it was announced that he was being fired the line has moved to La Tech -2. Ms State will quickly tell you La Tech is not a bad team. I would be surprised to see Ole Miss come out of this game with a win. The Rebels will probably start the game off good like they have because the players will rally around the lame duck coach, but once the momentum wears off I think La Tech will slowly take over the game.

Good news for Ms State this week is that they have won 2 games in a row against far inferior opponents. These two games were paired with a bye week allowing the Bulldogs to get some guys healthy. Only person missing is Tobias Smith who is out for the season. This will be the best team MS State has put on the field since their game against Auburn. Other good news for MS State is that Bama comes into this weekend with some major contributors hurting. All that being said I still can't predict MS State keeping this game close. Line on this is between 17 and 18. Bama has a lot better chance of covering the spread than MS State has to win. However, if the Bulldogs get a few breaks and play a solid game anything could happen. College football week in and week out proves to us how unpredictable it is.

Other thoughts for the week:

Oregon vs Stanford this week is a good game to keep an eye on. If Stanford can get a win in this game they will have a smooth road to the National Championship. Stanford is undefeated this year against the spread which is an unbelievable stat, but this is the best team they have faced up to this point. It is hard to pick against Stanford, but I am going to say they get taken down this week by Oregon. In the end I just feel like Oregon has too much speed and athletic ability for Stanford. Line on this game currently has Stanford as a -3.5 to -4 point favorite. As I said above I like Oregon straight up in this one.


Vanderbilt is a 13 point favorite over Kentucky. No one would have predicted this line at the start of the year. Vandy is have a great year. Kentucky is having an equally bad year. This week I have Kentucky as the 11th ranked team in the SEC. Their win over Ole Miss caused the two teams to switch spots. Ole Miss has a firm hold of last in the SEC.

Georgia is a 13 point favorite over Auburn. Georgia rolls into this game with a 7 game winning streak. During that time they are 6 and 1 against the spread. I think Georgia continues their track to the SEC Championship game with a convincing win over Auburn.

In my opinion the LSU/BAMA game lived up to the hype. It was not a flashy game with each team scoring 30-40 points. It was exactly the game that statistics predicted. I am not going to get into the whether or not we should have a rematch argument or not yet. We need to let the season play out then decide that.

Thanks for reading. Please continue to email or message me comments.

Wally