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Last Week: 2-3
Overall: 33-32
Lock of the Week: 11-2
San Diego State at Wyoming (+7)
These two teams played two weeks ago and Wyoming snuck out a victory by one point.
The forecast for that day was sunny and 53 degrees. The forecast for this Saturday is windy with a high of 29 and low of 16. Something tells me that won’t be that comfortable for the boys from San Diego.
I’m taking Wyoming with the home field edge and its underrated coach, Craig Bohl, who was the architect behind three National Championships between 2011-2013 when he was at North Dakota State.
Ohio vs Western Michigan (-18.5)
Initially I wanted to grab some points with Frank Solich and Ohio but after looking at the numbers I just can’t go against Western Michigan.
I have a tough time seeing how Ohio can keep up with Western Michigan as they average 16 ppg less. When you break down the numbers it looks like even more of a discrepancy as Ohio padded its season numbers by putting up 54 against Texas State (126th in scoring defense), 37 against FCS opponent Gardner Webb, 30 against Bowling Green (117th nationally) and 34 against Buffalo (95th nationally). Also, Ohio hasn’t exactly been hot lately by putting up 20 against Central Michigan two weeks ago and 9 against Akron last week.
There is a possibility that the team gets distracted by all of the coaching rumors surrounding P.J. Fleck, but I think he wants to go 13-0 and keep his coaching stock super high.
Virginia Tech (+10) vs Clemson
I love what Deshaun Watson does but Virginia Tech’s Jerod Evans is a poor man’s version of him but with much better wheels. Watson has put up 3,626 yards to go along with a 34/14 TD to INT ratio and Evans has had a great season in his own right putting up 3,045 yards with a 26 TD/5 INT ratio. As a bonus, Evans had 713 yards rushing which led his team and was 10th in the ACC, and 36 rushes of 10 yards or more which was 3rd in the ACC.
Clemson has had a really good year but many of their games have been close. The Tigers won by 6 over Auburn, 6 over Troy, 6 over Lousiville, 7 over NC State, 3 over FSU and had to pull away from Wake Forest late in the 4th quarter.
On a neutral field I think the Hokies have the talent to beat Clemson, never mind cover the ten points.
Temple at Navy (-3)
The Civil Conflict…I mean ACC Title is on the line as the Midshipman host the Owls. I’m taking Navy for two reasons. The first is that Navy has scored 42 points or more in 6 of the last 7 games. The offense is absolutely rolling right now. The other reason is that I don’t want to have to hear Addazio mention that he recruited much of a "Conference Championship" roster for the next 9 months.
Lock of the Week
Wisconsin (-2.5) vs. Penn State
On paper Penn State is nearly as talented as Wisconsin. However, I’ve watched the Badgers a few times this year and they just have this knack for making their opponent look worse than they really are. The Badgers made Michigan sludge through a 14-7 victory and almost pulled off an upset against Ohio State but lost by three.
The thing I really like about Wisconsin is its defense which allowed only 13.7 ppg in Big Ten games this year compared to 21.2 allowed by Penn State. In fact, the Wisconsin defense allowed less than Penn State in virtually every defensive category whether we talking passing yards, rushing yards, yards per rush,yards per play, ect. As a bonus, I love that Wisconsin leads the Big Ten in turnovers forced and overall turnover margin.
The Penn State offense might be better than Wisconsin’s but I’ll take the better defense in this one.