Week 7 Staff Picks and Games to Watch

What a difference a week can make. Carolina fans have two weeks to savor the win in Lexington before western division foe Texas A&M comes to Columbia for the first time in front an actual crowd since 2018. The Week 7 college football slate has some marquee match ups but not a lot of depth. The week features three matchups of unbeaten conference opponents, two games that will likely decide the ACC, and a game where the 7th ranked team in the nation is a road underdog. The headliner is the Alabama vs Tennessee rivalry game in Knoxville.

Note: We lock the lines in on Sunday night so they will likely be different on the publishing date.

Time to find out if Michigan is for real. The Wolverines play in the noon time slot of FOX seemingly every weekend. Penn State is coming off a bye week after an uninspired 17-7 win over a bad Northwestern team. Nittany Lion quarterback Sean Clifford is 2-1 against Michigan including a win in 2020 in an empty Big House.

Penn State's OL has been shaky all-year. That doesn't bode well against a Wolverine front that is tied for third in the country with 22 sacks. This game was old-fashioned Big Ten slugfest written all over it.

Bret Bielema has Illinois in unfamiliar territory. The Illini will enter Saturday as the leaders of the Big Ten West Division and nationally ranked. Instilling confidence in his players is no longer the issue. Now the challenge will be to fight against complacency and focus on the task at hand.

Illinois physically dominated the Gophers last year holding them to 6 points, rushing the ball 48 times, and only attempted 10 passes. PJ Fleck will be looking for redemption and may have a chance if Illinois’ backup quarterback Art Sitkowski is thrust into action. Sitkowski is a far cry from Tommy DeVito, but DeVito’s ankle may keep him sidelined. These are the top two scoring defenses in the country.

“To beat ‘Bama, you just got to hang in there and not be afraid you can beat them,” - Steve Spurrier.

We could write three to four thousand words about this game but it is all going to come down to if Bryce Young plays. With Young, Alabama is likely a two touchdown favorite on Rocky Top. Alabama has a huge mental edge in this series having won 15 in a row. No current player on Tennessee's team has come within 22 points of beating Alabama, at least not as a Volunteer.

The Volunteers allow an average of 307.4 yards per game through the air. If Young is healthy, the Tide should have no problems scoring. Tennessee statically has a good run defense, primarily due to their high-octane offense overwhelming opposing defenses and causing their opponents to abandon the run. We've been saying for two years that Tennessee's offense feasts on defenses that aren't used to their tempo or they simply don't have the talent to slow UT down. Bama has the talent. Look for Tennessee to keep this one close, but Bama to pull away in the 4th quarter.

It took half the season but it appears that the cream has risen to the top of the Big12. These two and Texas look to be the class of the conference in 2022. The Cowboys will look to exploit some holes in the TCU defense, especially through the air. The Horned Frogs have been torched for more than 350 passing yards in two games already this year. We like the Pokes in the matchup of TCU DBs Tre'Vius Hodges-Tomlinson and Josh Newton versus OSU wideouts Braydon Johnson, Bryson Green, and Brennan Presley.

Both teams still have Texas and Kansas State left on their schedules but the winner of this one will have a leg up in what is probably the country's second best conference in 2022. When TCU has the ball, watch for Max Duggan. The senior quarterback is a guy that could be a really good Day 2 selection in the NFL Draft. He has thrown 14 touchdowns to only one pick. Duggan is also second nationally in passer rating. It might take 45 to win this game.

The Orange are the quietest and lowest ranked unbeaten left among Power 5 teams. Dino Babers seems to have Syracuse on a three year plan. Every three years, the Orange are pretty good. If we exclude the 2020 Covid year, Syracuse went 10-3 in 2018, (Babers third season), then struggled from 2019-2021. The Cuse is led by former Mississippi State quarterback Garrett Shrader. The Junior signal-caller has thrown 10 touchdowns to only one interception. Shrader is coming off a 17-17 day passing with 238 yards and two touchdowns, albeit against Wagner. Syracuse does own an impressive comeback win over a quality Purdue team.

NC State is likely, not certain, to be without starting quarterback Devin Leary. This is a Wolfpack offense that hasn't been potent even with Leary at the helm. State has not a 100-yard rusher this season and has had a receiver go over 100 yards only once, against UConn. Had Florida State not foolishly thrown into the end zone last week on a 2nd and 8 play at NC State's 22 while being down just two points, the pass was intercepted, the Pack would be sporting a two-game losing streak and would likely find themselves outside of the top 25.

This seems like a battle of the two most overrated teams in the SEC. Neither are currently ranked, but both have been this season. Florida, LSU, and our Gamecocks appear as 7-9 in most pundit's current SEC power rankings. All three have a nice win, UF over Utah, LSU over Miss St, and Carolina over Kentucky but all three have looked shaky despite identical 4-2 records.

LSU and Florida have one of the most closely contested rivalries in the country. The schools have played 68 times with the Gators holding a 33-32-3 series advantage. Since the 2022 edition of this rivalry doesn't have the stakes as some years past, here is one of our favorite LSU v. UF stories.

In the buildup to the 2001 game, a younger and brasher Nick Saban said that “Steve Spurrier’s offense isn’t complicated, and you can stop it if you just play assignment football.” You can imagine how Spurrier took that comment. His Gators gained a series-high 632 yards on Saban’s defense and scored 44 points. Saban ate crow after the game, saying that LSU “was outcoached in every possible facet of football.”

This is one of two fishy Vegas lines this week involving top 10 teams. The eye test tells us that Clemson should be favored by more than 4.5 points, yet there they are. No one has been able to run the football on Clemson. The Tigers defense ranks second in the country in rushing yards against, allowing only 63.7 yards on the ground. Clemson has also been without future first round draft Bryan Bresee for three weeks. Once he is back and healthy, they will be that much tougher to run on. If FSU has any chance of pulling the upset, Treshaun Ward is going to need to run for close to 100 yards.

For as good as the Clemson front seven has been, their secondary is 95th against the pass. The Seminoles are solid in the pass game at 261.7 yards per game, but they are not spectacular. Mike Norvell and company prefer to run the football, averaging 204.2 yards per game on the ground. Florida State is going to need a balanced attack to have a shot this weekend. The Noles defense ranks 27th in total defense, Clemson is not going to have an easy time scoring points against FSU. Florida State's 14th ranked pass defense and is going to have to create some turnovers. FSU has been close to a top 25 upset the last two weeks, is the third time the charm?

Will Rogers will be there, Mark Stoops is saying Will Levis will be too. With Levis, Kentucky should keep this one pretty close in Lexington. Throughout MSU Coach Mike Leach's career, his teams are prone to laying eggs on the road. They did it already once this season at LSU. Mississippi State is the better team here. South Carolina exploited Kentucky on the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and the Bulldogs will do the same this week.

Not to be outdone by Florida and LSU, Mississippi State and Kentucky have played 49 times, with the Bulldogs leading the all-time series 25-24. The home team has won the last seven in this series between these SEC cross-division rivals. Leach and his Bulldogs turn their swag on in Lexington.

This is the other line that caused most bettors to do a double-take. Undefeated Southern Cal is an underdog to a two-loss Utah team. The game is in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it is never easy for a team that plays/practices at sea level to play a game at 4,600 feet, but the Utes have had only one decent outing against an average Oregon State team. Like Florida State, Utah is a metrics darling and it appears that Vegas has not fully bought into Southern Cal.

Having said that, Utah can run the ball. The best way to beat the Trojans is to keep Caleb Williams on the sideline. So Cal ranks 82nd against the run allowing nearly 4.5 yards per carry. The Utes also have the Pac 12's best pass defense allowing only 179.3 yards per game. Trojan junior DL Tuli Tuipulotu leads the country in sacks and tackles for loss with 7 and 12.5 respectfully.

The battle for the Victory Bell. The Tar Heels have claimed the Victory Bell the last three meetings, including last year's 38-7 thumping of the Blue Devils. Duke's last win in the series came in 2018. Drake Maye leads the ACC in passing at 317.2 yards per game, in touchdowns with 21, and efficiency at 185.1. His play is why the Tar Heels are 5-1 and sitting atop the ACC Coastal Division. North Carolina is averaging 42 points per game, however, they are allowing 32 points per game.

For those that doubt the significance of coaching in college football, see Mike Elko. In his first year in Durham he has the Blue Devils at 4-2 and has as many ACC wins as Duke had in the previous two seasons combined. Duke's two losses were at Kansas by eight points and at Georgia Tech in overtime to a suddenly hot Yellow Jacket team. This game is worth watching to see how Elko attempts to slow down Maye.