Football
PICKS: Don’t compare Hogs opener with Aggies’ win
Razorbacks should beat Eastern Illinois fairly handily Saturday and the rest of the SEC looks good, too, in the opening week of college football.
The Jimbo Fisher era opened Thursday night and Texas Aggies everywhere are ready to put the team in the College Football Playoff.
A whoop-de-do 59-7 win will do that.
The Chad Morris era opens Saturday for Arkansas and while it should be a convincing win for the Razorbacks, they won’t go through the Panthers with quite the ease A&M did through Northwestern State.
Eastern Illinois is a better program.
Kim Dameron, who I remember as a wide-eyed freshman back in 1979, hasn’t done a terrible job, but the Panthers are living in that 6-5 world of mediocrity.
Hog fans are finally getting an offense many have wanted for over a decade. Remember when many, including some in the media, were clamoring for Gus Malzahn’s offense about 15 years or so ago?
Frank Broyles made the off-the-cuff statement that offense wouldn’t work in the Southeastern Conference, but he wasn’t taking into account rules changes over that time frame that have basically made playing defense now slightly more physical than two-hand touch. The Aggies had two players kicked out in the first half for targeting Thursday night.
Still, A&M looked like a team more disciplined against Northwestern State. Their defense didn’t have much of a challenge, but did get burned once on a long pass to Jazz Ferguson, a 6-5 speedster that started at LSU.
Eastern Illinois would probably be favored by 10 points over the Aggies’ opening day opponent.
There’s not really a line on the Hogs-Panthers game. This is one of those games that SEC teams shouldn’t play, in my opinion. If Nick Saban has his way, there won’t be any non-Power 5 opponents on any SEC team’s schedule, but it’s not that way now.
The Razorbacks have better players than Eastern Illinois. Shoot, Morris and his staff had better players at SMU than the Panthers will stroll into newly-renovated Razorback Stadium with Saturday.
There’s not a line on this one at the sportsbooks I looked at Friday. That’s because there’s not much point in having a line on FCS teams when they play somebody in the SEC.
But the Hogs should score at least 50 in this game. They might hang 35 on the board before halftime.
Whatever the result is, it shouldn’t be close.
AROUND THE SEC
Washington vs. -2.5 Auburn (in Atlanta)
Gus Malzahn is favored in this opener, mainly because the Tigers will have virtually a home game in this one.
But the Huskies will come in as the preseason leader in the Pac 12.
Auburn will try and control the game with the run and a defense that has a front probably only slightly behind Clemson if you did a power ranking of that position.
That could be enough.
Auburn 28, Washington 24
LOUISVILLE vs. -24 ALABAMA (in Orlando)
Bobby Petrino said during the summer the Cardinals would win this game. There was no report of him flying through the handlebars or getting repeated blows to the head, so you can only assume that was talk to fire up the fan base.
If Louisville wins this game, the shock waves across the SEC and all of college football won’t quite reverberating for a while.
From what I’ve heard Tua Tagovalia will be the starting quarterback, mainly because he’s better than Jalen Hurts. It’s a delicate tap dance act Nick Saban has done with that issue through spring and summer.
And, yes, I’m aware it may be the first time an SEC starter who went 26-2 in games he started and finished, 27-2 if you want to give Hurts credit for the national championship game that Tagovalia finished back in January.
Somehow, Saban will have it figured out by the time the game starts.
Alabama 48, Louisville 17
-10 West Virginia vs. Tennessee (in Charlotte)
Nobody, including a lot of the Volunteers’ faithful, give Tennessee much of a chance in this one.
I talked with the noted Tennessee booster and historian, Bud Young from Crump, Tenn., and he held out little to no hope.
“Will Grier may throw for 500 yards in this game alone,” Young said in a dejected tone.
New coach Jeremy Pruitt inherits a team that was in total chaos last year. We’ll see how much of an impact his presence makes the first year.
But it likely won’t be enough.
West Virginia 35, Tennessee 14
Ole Miss vs. -2.5 Texas Tech (in Houston)
The Rebels will be wearing all white for the first time in school history. Yes, that includes white helmets, which will just look weird.
There will be little to no defense played in this game.
Ole Miss 38, Texas Tech 35
Miami -3.5 vs. LSU (in Arlington, Texas)
After listening for two days to talking heads on the SEC Network say that LSU is going to surprise some people, I’m inclined to agree … but not in the same way.
The Tigers are my pick to be the biggest collapse this season. Shoot, by the time they play Arkansas in November it won’t be THAT surprising if they have five losses and Ed Orgeron is either gone or going down in flames.
Miami 24, LSU 10
Everybody else in the SEC will win … and none of the games should really be close:
• South Carolina -29.5 over Coastal Carolina
• Georgia over Austin Peay
• Kentucky -17.5 over Western Michigan
• Missouri over Tennessee-Martin
• Mississippi State over Stephen F. Austin
• Florida over Charleston Southern
• Vanderbilt -3 over Middle Tennessee State
