College Football Picks: Picking Winners Week 12

CHRIS' PICKS

A .500 week last week, paired with what appears to be a weak schedule in Week 12, leaves me a man of few words. Just picks.

Middle Tennessee State –3 at Western Kentucky (Friday)

Western Kentucky continues to be one of the more over-valued teams for me. They've dropped three consecutive games by a total of 35 points and their five wins have come over teams who are a combined 10-40. Meanwhile, the Blue Raiders have won consecutive games since welcoming back quarterback Brent Stockstill. They haven't been great on the road, but most of their poor showings came with Stockstill sidelined, and he helped lead them to a win at Syracuse in September. I simply find MTSU to be the better team.

Miami –19 vs. Virginia

Conventional wisdom says the Canes are due for a letdown following two primetime matchups against highly ranked opponents. But early money came in on Miami at –17 and has pushed this line up, and I believe for good reason. Hard Rock Stadium is sold out; for a noon game against Virginia. Miami still has an edge to play with after being ranked third in the latest playoff rankings, and I think the Cavaliers are walking into a buzzsaw. Kurt Benkert has thrown at least one interception in four straight, and the Cavaliers are struggling along their offensive line. Miami's defense will be wearing its chain early and often.

UCF –14 at Temple

Only SMU and Navy have kept within 14 points of the Knights, and maybe Temple's eight-point win over Navy two weeks ago should tell me to stay away. It's true the Owls are playing much better now than they did in September, but the Knights just have too much firepower. They've run for 141 yards and multiple scores in every game, while five times also throwing for more than 300 yards. Temple's offense isn't built to keep up with the points I expect UCF to post, especially against an opportunistic defense that has allowed 13 touchdown passes while snagging 12 interceptions.

Utah State -11 vs. Hawaii

This play is all about the Warriors' road struggles. Hawaii hasn't won off of the islands since Week 1 at UMass and has dropped seven of its last eight games. Utah State needs to win once in its final two, and while next week's game at Air Force is certainly winnable, I look for it to take care of business at home. The 3 p.m. EST kickoff seems awfully early for Hawaii, and I think the Aggies can score enough to cover against a Warriors defense that ranks 96th or lower in scoring, rush and pass defense.

North Carolina State +1.5 at Wake Forest

Lost in all of Wake Forest's offensive surge is their ability to play defense has evaporated. They've allowed at least 26 points in six consecutive, and 38 or more in four straight, averaging 35.8 points allowed. The Wolfpack have gone north of 30 points six times this season, and I don't believe Wake can keep up with that against a solid State defense. This just looks like the wrong team is favored, and I like the Pack to come out with a straight up win.

Last week: 3-3; Season: 32-28-2


GREG's PICKS

With my four-week winning streak on the line last Saturday afternoon, I was paying particularly close attention to the Clemson-FSU game. You see, this game was not quite playing out as I'd expected, but with a late 10-point lead, there was always a chance for a pick six. What I got instead was a glorious defensive stop, followed by a rushing touchdown. As this was unfolding, I had to ask myself how to categorize what just happened. It sure felt like a backdoor cover, as I really had no business winning that game, and technically Clemson's score was the last score of the game, yet the Tigers were the favorites, so the term backdoor didn't seem right. I'm open to suggestions for naming such a scenario as the only one I have at the moment is, "a win." That win, coupled with wins from Michigan and South Carolina, extended my streak to five consecutive weeks on the plus side. The losses were close and in Iowa State's case, tough to swallow, but there were just two, so I'll take it.



Georgia -21 vs Kentucky



Anyone that considers Kentucky a good test for the Bulldogs this week hasn't looked closely at the Wildcats schedule. I'll put it this way, the Wildcats are the Badgers of the SEC in that they haven't played anyone of merit this season. They've built their resume on the backs of the dregs of the SEC, and their only quality win came at home against South Carolina, which isn't even ranked. Georgia suffered a tough loss last week at Auburn, and the Bulldogs may have been exposed to some extent, but it's not like Kentucky has the manpower to follow said blueprint. With that in mind, expect the Bulldogs to get back to their old ways, which is beating up on inferior opponents.


Minnesota +7.5 at Northwestern



I took a break from picking the Gophers' games last week and it was probably a good idea, because I did not see them laying the wood to the Cornhuskers last week. That effort was important to see as it shows they've made progress this season. They are back in a familiar spot this week, one that they usually thrive in and that's as the slight road dog. Northwestern is in the midst of a nice season, but the Wildcats haven't exactly been blowing teams out. Four of their five conference wins have been by 10 points or less and three have come via overtime. The Gophers will bring a new sense of confidence into this game and keep it within the number.



Ohio State -41 vs Illinois

I played Illinois last week and there's still an awful taste in the back of my throat. If you have yet to see the Illini play, trust me when I say, they are as bad as advertised, maybe worse. Among all of their problems, perhaps the most troubling is their inability to protect their QB and in turn, score points. Illinois has topped 20 points just once during conference play and that came against Rutgers. Back to the bad taste in my mouth, it resurfaced later in the week when I saw a tweet mentioning that OSU might have a road back into the playoff. Can we just bury the Buckeyes already? No? OK, well in that case, we might as well take advantage of the situation and take the Buckeyes, who need to continue to fool, uh, impress the voters.

Virginia +19 at Miami



I, like the rest of the country, have turned the corner on the Hurricanes. In fact, I actually came around prior to their win against Notre Dame last Saturday, but didn't have the nerve to list them as one of my picks. The purpose of that last sentence is to establish that I have no anti-Miami bias, which is important because there is sound logic for this pick. No team has been more impressive than Miami the last couple weeks, but a lot of that can be attributed to the types of games the Hurricanes were involved in. In other words, these were home games at night, which had a lot of hype and energy involved. All of that energy, yeah, that won't be there for a noon start against the Virginia Cavaliers. Did I mention the Canes are already locked into a conference championship game against Clemson? The Cavs are no slouches and they'll be up for this game, even if the Canes aren't.

Oklahoma -37 at Kansas

I'm going to preface this pick by stating that during each and every week this season, I've easily found five games to select on my first run through. My first time through this week, I came up with the four games listed above and that was it. I hesitated on this game and decided that if I couldn't find another game, I would use this one. Take that for what it's worth. Oklahoma is right on the edge of the playoff entering this week and if the Sooners win out, they'll likely remain in the top-4 … likely. The Sooners don't want to leave anything to chance at this point, and I'm sure they all remember the last time they were 30-plus point favorites – at home against Iowa State. Kansas has played a couple teams tight this season, but the Jayhawks are what they've been for the past five years or so, the worst team in the Big 12.


Last Week: 3-2; Season: 32-24