"To The Pain" Pick 'Em: Lucky 7s

We have made it to Week 7 of the gambling battle royale between Danimal and Mark...

Whoops, wrong 7...

Danimal Picks

BC +24.5 vs Clemson
Mark is to Oregon as Dan is to Clemson…not always on GTB but almost always somewhere.
Clemson

UF +7 vs LSU
Tyler Murphy! in his 3rd start, his first against a competitive unit and in a teeny bit scary of a place when you’re the away team. This week, Bat-oh! Rouge gets the best of ‘em...

LSU TX +14 vs OKLA
Longhorns are going to come and play for Mack. Oklahoma is pretty decent, but not much more than that. Rivalry game with a team’s back against the wall.
Hook’em Horns, and don’t be surprised by an upset here.

Regarding Broncos/Jags
I’ll bite at 28. (it is as 26.5 Tuesday afternoon) I obviously don’t mind taking the dog. For every reason there is to bet on the Jags there are 3-4 to go w/the Broncos. Newly added to the list is the season-ending injury to the Jags first pick in the draft, Left Tackle Luke Joeckel. That’s okay. He was only the 2nd or 3rd best player. Oh, and Gabbert is out again this week too which doesn’t hurt us unless you count scoring more points a bad thing. Any supporters of Gabbert that existed prior to last week have officially disappeared. He is friendless in Jacksonville with exception to 13 & 14 year old Bieber fans. See ya Blaine.

The reasons to take the Jags:
1) Denver’s D – obviously somewhat porous. DFL in Passing D with Dallas having the 31st. (jags are 10th) Though they haven’t gone up against Jaguar nation yet, led by oh fuck it never mind. Jax may be able to squirt out 2+ TD’s and a Figgie or 2. Justin Blackmon is back in the line-up and Cecil Shorts is turning out to be pretty solid – call it 17-20 and maybe more! pts…; that puts Denver at 45. They scored 51 in the world’s greatest shootout last week. Denver had 9 scoring drives (NINE TIMES). Average time per scoring drive was under about 3 ½ minutes; Dallas had 8 scoring drives with an average TOP of under 2.5 minutes. That’s getting after it. A few first downs, a few forced punts….it COULD be close.
2) This should get a laugh, but Jacksonville is improving and they give a shit.
3) If Denver gets up by 4-5 TD’s with a qtr left….will they keep their starters in? Hope not.
That’s about all I got for “reasons you MIGHT possibly consider betting on the Jaguars”.

Mark Picks

I had a losing record last week for the first time this year. Is this the beginning of my regression to the mean? Probably. Or was it just an unlucky week for me as half of Georgia's team went down to injury and Stanford was particularly anemic offensively for the first time all year? That's what I'm telling myself.

Either way, the next two week of college football are about as good as it gets in the regular season. Two Saturdays packed with intraconference top 25 match ups. I'm excited. How about you? Actually, I don't really care about you. I'm about to get on a plan to New Orleans. It's all about me right now. Anywho, onto the picks.

Oklahoma (-14.5) vs. Texas
Bob Stoops has dominated Mack Brown in the Red River Rivalry. Even when Texas was good, which they definitely aren't this season. Just last week they needed some generous (or crooked) officiating to escape a loss, and probably ousting of Brown, to Iowa State. Meanwhile, after losing the QB battle in fall camp Blake Bell has been terrific since becoming the starting QB due to the injury to Trevor Knight. Bell is still pretty raw as a passer but he's got a big arm and he's a load to stop with the ball in his hands. On top of that, Texas has struggled with running QBs this season (see: BYU and Ole Miss). Barry Switzer will be hammered by 2:30 EST and the Sooners win.

(Note: Did you know that Blake Bell doesn't pronounce his name in the traditional manner? It's true.)

Alabama (-27) @ Kentucky
This is not the Alabama team of the past two years. The offensive line has been inconsistent which has affected AJ McCarron's ability to take advantage of a talented group of WRs. More importantly, the defense isn't dominant and now it's without one of it's top two players in Saftery Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix (Orlando stand up!). So why am I laying 27 points on the road? Because Kentucky is awful. It's also nearly basketball season so I expect even fewer Wildcat fans than normal to attend this game. They'll be too busy putting money in FedEx envelopes for guys like Julius Randle and the Harrison twins to care about their football team getting dump trucked. Take the Tide.

Northwestern (+10) @ Wisconsin
Northwestern put forth a valiant effort against Ohio State last week. Right up until the Buckeyes blocked a punt for a TD I thought that the Wildcats (Seriously, stop with the Wildcats nickname. Enough.) would win. The concern in this game is Northwestern being let down after the biggest home game in the program's history and not being able to recover in time for a trip to Madison. Two reasons why I think that won't happen here: (1) Northwestern is 0-1 in the Big Ten and have to win here if they want a shot at a rematch with Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game and (2) I think Pat Fitzgerald is one of the best coaches in CFB. He'll have his guys focused and ready to go. Take the points and Northwestern's smart kids.

Bonus: You'll notice there is no Oregon or Stanford picks this week for the first time all season. While I think Oregon wins, Washington's performance against Stanford has me concerned enough to be weary of giving up 14 on the road to the Huskies. HOWEVA, the O/U is 76 for Oregon-Washington. That's a ton of points but both these teams average over 80 plays a game. So, despite my reticence to bet totals I'm telling you to take the over.