Friday, October 13, 2006

CFB Weekend Preview:
Florida in Spotlight Again

For the second straight week, Florida is involved in the Game of the Week. Despite the way Auburn was clobbered at home by Arkansas, this game is arguably tougher for the Gators than last week's game against LSU:

First, it's on the road. Second, Auburn will be motivated after dropping off the national-title radar a week ago. Third, the best way for them to regain national respect is to KO the Team du Jour (or "du Week"). But can they?

Florida's defense has emerged as the toughest in the country; if Auburn can be shut down by Arkansas, what will they be able to do against Florida? Meanwhile, no team yet has devised a way to stop Florida's suddenly chic two-headed QB: "Leakbow," (or, as I like to call the set-up: The "Fun-n-Gun-n-Run.")

As always, I'm biased. But I'm picking Florida – and if the Gators DO win at Auburn, I'd be willing to put UF's three "big" wins (AT Tennessee, AT Auburn and LSU) over Ohio State's AT Texas, AT Iowa and... what else? (Penn State? Ha, sure.)

Here's the rest of the weekend. Since I take the chalk, SOMETHING crazy HAS to happen, right?

1 Ohio State over at Michigan St.
2 Florida over at 11 Auburn
3 USC over Arizona St.
4 Michigan over at Penn St (TRAP!)
5 WVA over Syracuse
6 Texas over Baylor
7 Louisville over Cincy
10 Cal over at Wazzou St.
14 LSU over Kentucky
15 Iowa over at Indiana
16 Georgia over Vanderbilt
17 Arkansas over SE Mizzou St.
18 Oregon over UCLA
19 Missouri over at Texas A&M
20 Boise St over at New Mexico St.
21 Nebraska over at K-State
23 Oklahoma over Iowa St
24 Rutgers over at Navy
25 Wisconsin over Minnesota

Don't forget to drop by tomorrow all day for the weekly CFB Tailgate, using the Comments section to deliver all the pre-game, in-game and post-game analysis.

-- D.S.

8 comments:

john (east lansing, mi) said...

Alright, some people are gonna be pissed, and others are just gonna laugh, but here's my pick for a game that won't play the way a lot of people expect: WVa vs. Syracuse. I wish there were a slightly better lousy team than Syracuse playing the Mountaineers this weekend, but I think they're due for their disgraceful upset loss and precipitous fall from contention.

Unfortunately, again, Syracuse is not very good at all, so it would take a lot for them to beat WVa, but I think it'll at least be a foreshadowing of future downfall.

Sorry, this amounts to my calling this a "trap" game, but my point is that I think West Virginia gets exposed this weekend, but maybe not enough for anyone to pay any attention (see: Colorado vs. Georgia).


I know I'm being crazy enough already, but let's see if anybody can (or wants to) follow me here: I think, furthermore, that the only possible situation in which West Virginia can beat Louisville in two weeks, is a situation in which WVa already has one loss.


And Michigan will continue to win by no less than 2 touchdowns.

Dan Shanoff said...

If you count VT as an upset...which is a stretch!

Natsfan74 said...

Florida's 3 big wins? One verse an LSU team that hasn't beaten a ranked team yet this year, one against an Auburn team that lost big to the same Arkansas team that USC crushed? Tennessee is the most legitimate win in that bunch -- they beat Cal and put up 50 on Georgia. I still think the SEC is WAY overrated... a bunch of highly rated defenses that play non-conference games against Cupcake U and then shut out the weak offenses within the conference.

FreKy J said...

You know Dan, If both Florida and Ohio State win this week, Florida will overtake the #1 spot on my CFB Ladder.

Dan Shanoff said...

If Florida wins this weekend, I think people will be very surprised when they end up being ranked ahead of Ohio St on Sunday night in the first official BCS formulation.

Steve said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

come on, the georgia game is not at a neutral site. Every year I hear that crap and every year I watch the game and see the stands full of blue/orange. It's a de facto home game for UF.

TJ said...

Maher, you must only watch every other year. The Georgia game is so much fun because it's exactly 50/50 in the stands, split right down the middle. Which is awesome because its loud on every play--every play has about 40,000 people sreaming. So you must only be watching the years UF is the "away" team.