Okay, this time I’ll really debut the bowl predictions after today’s games. (I thought the BCS was coming out last week.)

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

• Texas Christian @ Oklahoma State (FOX): I’ll take the team with close losses to the likes of LSU and Oklahoma rather than the one with the blowout loss to West Virginia, thank you.
• Georgia @ Vanderbilt (CBS): Oh hey a game featuring the last two teams Mizzou beat. Anyway, it looks like tough sledding for Vandy here on out, with probable losses here, to TAMU, and then to Florida. They have the last 3 weeks of the season to get to 6-6, I’d say.
• South Carolina @ Tennessee (ESPN): Hatin’ Ass Spurrier is hilarious, and also, real.
  

  Spurrier: “Will be the 14th time I’ve coached in Neyland Stadium. … I’ve coached there more than some of their head coaches.”
  — Josh Kendall (@JoshatTheState) October 17, 2013

  The following is a series of RTs from @sgw94. They are another real chapter in H.A.S. Enjoy.
  — edsbs (@edsbs) October 18, 2013

  Week after we played the Gators my senior year their QB Wueffel made a tackle after an int or fumble. Spurrier said he had just as many
  — Stephen White (@sgw94) October 17, 2013

  Tackles as I did against them. He was wrong (I got a sack caused fumble btw) and I have NO idea why i was on his mind but it still pissed
  — Stephen White (@sgw94) October 17, 2013

  Me off
  — Stephen White (@sgw94) October 17, 2013

  That dude is surgical with his barbs
  — Stephen White (@sgw94) October 17, 2013

  I like South Carolina in this one.

• Minnesota @ Northwestern (ESPN2): Northwestern is now in the easier part of their schedule, after going 0-2 against two teams you’d reasonably expect them to. Minnesota, meanwhile, has blowout losses to Iowa and Michigan.
• Texas Tech @ West Virginia (FS1): Is Tech Tech for real? I’m still not sure, but that doesn’t affect my opinion of their chances against WVU.
• Navy @ Toledo (ESPNEWS): Holy Toledo, Navy isn’t very good this year.
• Connecticut @ Cincinnati (ESPNU): There is not a joke about the start of basketball season here. None at all. Cincy rolls.
• Southern Mississippi @ East Carolina (FSN): I have a suspicion that we’re about to see a mid-major school have a 3rd coach in three years where none of the coaches left for a better job. How often does that happen?
• Purdue @ Michigan State (BTN): EDSBS compared the Michigan State offense to the Battle of Ypres, which were a series World War I trench warfare affairs. Sounds about right. Sparty goes over the top and gets the win, but only at great cost.
• Florida @ Missouri (SEC): Yeah, that’s right, two teams with a combined 10-2 record are on at noon on syndication. Of course, one of them lost their starting quarterback last week, and Florida’s gone through like 50 QBs at this point, I think. I still like the Gators here.

12:30: Syracuse @ Georgia Tech (ACC): What is there to say at this point? Arguably, our 3-3 record is correct: we have to beat every team we should’ve but lost to every team we should’ve lost to. So where do you go from there, when staring down the barrel of needing 3 wins from your next 5 FBS games? Oh, and two of those games are against our biggest rivals.
The problems for GT right now are many. The first are awful, slow starts in the first half by the defense. Then there’s the backbreaking turnovers, plus the inability to capitalize on our own mistakes. It’s cool that we have a kicker with a cannon of a leg now, but I liked it when we tried to score touchdowns at almost any cost. Then there’s almost anything relating to the offense. Mistakes in the line, mistakes by the skill players, mistakes by both. Perhaps nothing summed up this season more than the reverse we ran against BYU last week. It was called at the perfect time of the game in the perfect situation – BYU had been overflowing to the playside, which make them perfectly vulnerable. The play would’ve resulted in a touchdown except one of the WRs couldn’t make his block. Perhaps the other problem is that while I think we all still have reasons to be excited about our young quarterbacks, they are still young.
I haven’t seen a single Syracuse game this season, so I have no idea what to really write about them. They beat NC State last week for their best of the season so far. They otherwise seem pretty average, but their record is also 3-3, so I guess that makes sense. We’ll see what happens.

3:30:

• Auburn @ Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (CBS): So it turns out that TAMU’s defense is probably kind of bad? Nonetheless, the offense is so spectacular they can just keep outscoring the Auburns of the world.
• California-Los Angeles @ Stanford (ABC/ESPN2): 5-0. #9 in the country. Why, then, does my brain keep telling me Stanford is going to win this one? I’m just not buying what the Bruins are selling for some reason.
• Iowa @ Ohio State (ABC/ESPN2): Iowa has only scored more points in a single game than Ohio State averages per game only once this season. This one might be a little rough.
• Oklahoma @ Kansas (ESPN): I’m glad I’m not a Kansas fan right now. I mean, when it comes to football, that’s generally true, but in a “vent our frustrations” sort of game like this, I’m really glad.
• Brigham Young @ Houston (ESPNEWS): BYU is easily the best team Houston has played this year, which I think will result in their first loss.
• Maryland @ Wake Forest (ESPNU): How many more times this year am I going to have to go with “this isn’t one of those good Wake Forest teams”? Of course, they did win last week (like it says at top, “all predictions wrong”) but still, not seeing how they beat Maryland.
• North Texas @ Louisiana Tech (CBSS): A cursory examination reveals that one of these teams is slightly less awful than the other, so going with UNT.
• Indiana @ Michigan (BTN): Just take what I said about Kansas and Oklahoma up there and replace Kansas with Indiana and Oklahoma with Michigan.
• Duke @ Virginia (ACC/FSN): UVA’s offense is a disaster right now, which means Duke has a very good chance to eke out a win here. The way their schedule is shaping up, do I even dare suggest we could see a 7-5 Duke by season’s end?

6:00: Washington @ Arizona State (Pac12): Washington’s back to playing teams on its level game, and I think they’ll be able to even up their Pac-12 record in Tempe.

7:00:

• Arkansas @ Alabama (ESPN): Since giving up 42 points to TAMU, Alabama has given up 15 points in 4 games. The absurdity should continue here.
• Louisiana State @ Mississippi (ESPN2): Ole Miss does not appear to be great at scoring points or not letting people score points. This is bad when playing superior opponents like the LSUs of the world. I mean, it wasn’t great against the TAMUs of the world, but at this point the Aggies’s defense can officially be considered “suspect”. LSU’s is not.
• Iowa State @ Baylor (ESPNU): The Cyclones have the nation’s 87th ranked scoring defense. I don’t know what the over/under is on this game, but I’d probably take the over.

7:30: Southern California @ Notre Dame (NBC): DACOACHO GONNA GO TODA SOUTHA BEND ANDA GONNA SEEAH THA DOME. FOOTBAW. (Also, probably a USC loss.) (I really hope Orgeron gets another head coaching gig after this though.)

8:00:

• Florida State @ Clemson (ABC): I have Clemson in this one. Why? For starters, they’ve already played and beaten a good team (Georgia) and dominated most of their opponents. Yes, FSU blew out Maryland, but come on, they’re Maryland. Also it is at night, at home, and in this battle of young, excellent QBs only of them is going to have the crowd behind him.
• Nevada @ Boise State (CBSS): I made a face when I saw that Boise has the 17th ranked scoring offense to the Wolfpack’s 118th ranked scoring defense. That’s, uh, that’s not real good.
• Wisconsin @ Illinois (BTN): Wisconsin continues their rampage against Illinois based teams here.

10:00:

• Washington State @ Oregon (FS1): We all expected Oregon to score points, yeah. I’m not sure I saw the 13.8 points per game of their opponents coming. Wazzou is better this year, but not that much better.
• Utah @ Arizona (Pac12): I’m favoring Utah in a Pac-12 game against a team that isn’t Colorado and I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

10:30: Oregon State @ California (ESPN2): The nation’s best passing offense goes against the nation’s worst passing and scoring defense. Sure, Cal is 5th in passing as well, but their defense is so bad it doesn’t really matter.

Bowl predictions will debut tomorrow!

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

• Oklahoma vs. Texas (@Dallas, TX; ABC): Boy howdy Texas is in it for a bad way, aren’t they? I know I’m not exactly providing any new insight here when I say that it’s extremely difficult to see how in the world Texas is going to win this game. It may literally come down to avoiding an embarrassing loss to save Mack Brown’s job. Which makes me wonder: how do we reach these situations? By most accounts, it’s a matter of institutional rot, which I guess is the main way of trying to figure out how a guy goes from winning a national title and coming close several times to… this.
• Missouri @ Georgia (ESPN): I’m not buying Mizzou, but even if they’re as improved as everyone thinks they are, they’re still not good enough to beat Georgia.
• Indiana @ Michigan State (ESPN2): Michigan State’s defense is really good, which is fortunate for them because their awful is pretty much awful. They’ll need to retain these qualities to defeat what looks like to be a not terrible set of Hoosiers.
• Iowa State @ Texas Tech (FS1): Texas Tech should pretty much be able to cruise to their showdown in Norman in two weeks, provided they leave such concepts to us.
• Memphis @ Houston (ESPNEWS): Houston is 4-0 but hasn’t played anyone. We’ll like be able to revise that sentence to “5-0 but hasn’t played anyone” after this contest.
• Pittsburgh @ Virginia Tech (ESPNU): Pitt only scored 14 points against UVA. I don’t see how they’re going to be able to do that against VPI.
• Kansas @ Texas Christian (FSN): TCU.
• Nebraska @ Purdue (BTN): Nebraska.
• Eastern Michigan @ Army (CBSS): Army is very slightly less awful than EMU, so I’ll go with them.
• South Carolina @ Arkansas (SEC): After getting TAMU and Florida in consecutive weeks, it’s not getting any easier for the Razorbacks.

12:30: Navy @ Duke (ACC): Duke bowl watch: they need to get a win here because after this I only really see two other wins on their schedule.

3:30:

• Florida @ Louisiana State (CBS): It feels weird to say this about LSU, but this will probably be the best offense Florida has faced all season. If LSU can actually move the ball, and I think they will, then I’m not sure how Florida will be able to score enough to keep the game within reach.
• Baylor @ Kansas State (FOX): Baylor’s offensive numbers this season are downright obscene at this point, so I will refrain from posting them here. It will take some very potent magics from Bill Synder to be able to keep up in this one.
• Northwestern @ Wisconsin (ABC/ESPN2): Northwestern is a great feel-good story, but they hadn’t really played anyone prior to last week. Considering that loss and home field advantage, I have to take Wisconsin here.
• Boston College @ Clemson (ABC/ESPN2): Clemson.
• Virginia @ Maryland (ESPNU): Ah, the Terrapin Conundrum: are they going to be the team that beat WVU 37-0 or the team that lost to FSU 63-0? Against UVA, I’m going with the former.
• San Jose State @ Colorado State (CBSS): Living in San Jose, I can’t help but notice some of the attention that San Jose State has gotten so far this season. Specifically, negative attention as apparently more was expected of them this year. Unfortunately for them, I see the disappoint continuing in this one.
• Syracuse @ North Carolina State (ACC/FSN): Losing to Wake Forest tells me that you’re probably not a very good team, NC State. Unfortunately, I have no read on Syracuse whatsoever because their three losses are reasonably but their two wins tell me nothing. I’ll stick with the team that didn’t lose to Wake Forest, though.

4:00: Oregon @ Washington (FS1): Washington looks pretty good this year, I have to say, but still not good enough to unseat Oregon. I just don’t see how they can keep up.

5:00: Michigan @ Pennsylvania State (ESPN): I can’t pick a team that lost to Indiana by 20, so that means I’m going with Michigan here, even with how shaky they’ve been in recent weeks.

7:00:

• Alabama @ Kentucky (ESPN2): Alabama feels like a pretty safe bet here.
• Georgia Tech @ Brigham Young (ESPNU): Where to begin? I have no idea at this point. Something I have seen get virtually zero coverage is our now perilous bowl situation. Since we play two FCS teams this year, that means that one of those victories will not count for bowl eligibility. So in reality Tech needs three more wins from the group of BYU, Syracuse, Virginia, Pittsburgh, Clemson, and Georgia. So it’s not impossible yet, but we need to really get it into here. Unfortunately, this is a difficult contest to do so in. Last year, BYU took us to the woodshed at home, sort of like what they did to Texas earlier this year. BYU enjoys a substantial home-field advantage due to an unique, high altitude environment that they are accustomed to.
  Last week I said that we would need to force Miami to make mistakes, capitalize on those mistakes, and then not commit any of our own. We succeeded only on the first count. The same is true here, even if we do theoretically enjoy some physical advantages here (as opposed to against Miami).

7:30: Bowling Green @ Mississippi State (SEC/FSN): I got momentarily excited that Bowling Green was 5-1 (“hey, maybe they’ll be a challenge for Miss State!”) but that quickly dissipated when I saw that the loss was a 32 point loss to Indiana.

8:00:

• Tulsa @ Texas-El Paso (FS1): The only reason I can think of to watch a game featuring two 1-4 teams is that anything (anything!) can happen in El Paso at night. I also like UTEP here.
• Boise State @ Utah State (CBSS): Minus their starting quarterback, I have to downgrade Utah State from a slight favorite to an underdog against Boise.

8:30: Texas Agricultural and Mechanical @ Mississippi (ESPN): TAMU.

10:00: Colorado @ Arizona State (Pac12): Arizona State.

10:30:

• California @ California-Los Angeles (ESPN2): UCLA seems pretty legit. Cal isn’t very good or anything this year, but this should still provide the Bruins a decent test before heading to Palo Alto next weekend.
• Oregon State @ Washington State (ESPNU): Does Oregon State’s loss to Eastern Washington still have any bearing on this season? Well, it indicates that maybe that 4-0 run since then isn’t all that great. I’m going with Wazzou here.

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

11:30: Air Force @ Navy (CBS): This reminds me that I need to call and see if I can still do my Global Entry interview on Tuesday. Oh, and yeah, Navy looks like a much more solid squad this year.

Noon:

• Maryland @ Florida State (ESPN): Maryland? Competent? I’ve having trouble dealing with the subject. I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that reality will hit them pretty hard in this one.
• Michigan State @ Iowa (ESPN2): This could well be a 5-3 final score. The scary thing is that both coaches might be okay with that. I’ll take Sparty to get the 5.
• Texas Tech @ Kansas (FS1): Two weeks ago Kansas notched their first victory of a FBS school since 2011. Will the Jayhawks be able to win their first Big 12 contest since defeating Colorado 52-45 on Novebemer 6, 2010? Probably not.
• Rutgers @ Southern Methodist (ESPNEWS): Not seeing a lot of hope for SMU in this one.
• Illinois @ Nebraska (ESPNU): Two sets of typical October 3-1 teams here: three wins over inferior competition and one beatdown by the best team they’ve played. So I’ll fall back to pre-season convention wisdom, which held that Nebraska was okay but kind of unpredictable and that Illinois would be terrible.
• Pennsylvania State @ Indiana (BTN): Boy howdy Indiana still isn’t very good, but this is a win they need if they’re going to get 6-6. So they probably won’t.
• Ball State @ Virginia (ACC/FSN): I really wanted to pick 4-1 Ball State here, but I looked at the schedule and they lost to North Texas. Then again, UVA is pretty bad. So don’t count the Cardinals out. But for the sake of doing the thing where I pick someone I’m going with UVA.

12:30: North Carolina @ Virginia Tech (ACC): Well, VPI still can’t really score any points, but so far this season it’s not apparent Carolina can either. Combine that with VPI’s defense and this could be the most lopsided 17-3 game in history.

3:30:

• Georgia @ Tennessee (CBS): Managing to beat South Alabama by only a touchdown does not engender a great deal of confidence in the Voluneers’ ability to win this game. Not a great deal at all.
• Clemson @ Syracuse (ABC/ESPN2): Well, unless they’re confused by having to play in a dome, I don’t think the Tigers are going to have a lot of issues here.
• Minnesota @ Michigan (ABC/ESPN2): Losing to Iowa 23-7 is a pretty go way to earn the “worst 4-1 team in the country label”. The Gophers are probably looking to the Indiana, Penn State, and Michigan State games as their best shot to get those other two wins. That said, it turns out that this Michigan team maybe isn’t very good?
• Kansas State @ Oklahoma State (ABC): The fact of the matter that so far this season Oklahoma State’s high-flying act has only really been on display against vastly inferior opponents. Against Mississippi State and West Virginia, they averaged 25.5 points, while against UTSA and Lamar they averaged 57.5. That said, it’s not apparently how K-State is going to be able to work enough magic to score 26.
• Georgia Tech @ Miami (ESPNU): The sound the Georgia Tech offense made last week against VPI was something akin to a “thud”. I figure that was a 50/50 game: the loss was 50% our offense continually shooting itself in the foot and 50% VPI’s excellent defensive line. After all, “physical superiority cancels all theories”. The team other than the Hokies that has been adept the past few years at proving that point has been Miami, which a defense chock-full of prospects and blue-chippers. It still almost feels like karma for the beatdown Tech laid on Miami back in 2008, where we piled up 472 yards of rushing en route to a 41-23 win. We haven’t won since, the closest being last year’s overtime loss where in we frittered away a 4th quarter lead and turned it into a loss.
  The hopes against Miami come down to the usual things. Hoping that we can get any sort of rush on the passer and that the secondary will be good enough to cover their physical receivers. Hoping that their defense, full of those self-same blue-chip athletes, ignores their coaches and try to fly around to the ball, getting out-schemed by the offense. Hope that the line can do their job well enough for the option to work (which was the most glaring probably against VPI).
• East Carolina @ Middle Tennessee State (FSN): The main thing ECU probably needs to worry about is not being hyped off coming off their 55-31 beatdown of UNC last week.
• Rice @ Tulsa (CBSS): I guess I’m going to have to go with Rice here?
• North Carolina State @ Wake Forest (ACC/FSN): I wonder how many times this year I will say something akin to “there are occasionally good Wake Forest teams, but this isn’t one of them”? Count this as one.

4:00: Washington State @ California (FS1): Considering the coaches involved, I suspect what many are hoping for a 55-50 explosion of offense. That said, there’s a couple factors here. First, it’s almost impossible to know how bad or good Cal actually is since all three of their losses have been to ranked teams (Northwestern, Ohio State, and Oregon). I’m tentatively going with Wazzou here.

6:00: Oregon @ Colorado (PAC12): Oregon.

7:00:

• Louisiana State @ Mississippi State (ESPN): LSU.
• Arkansas @ Florida (ESPN2): I’m sure if he had his way, Will Muschamp would win games by having the other team score negative points, so he could win like 0 to –21. Either way, Florida will probably be good for somewhere around 20 points and the Razorbacks for less than that.
• Mississippi @ Auburn (ESPNU): I don’t know why Ole Miss is ranked, but they’ll probably beat Auburn.
• Texas Christian @ Oklahoma (FOX): I just don’t see how TCU is going to be able to score enough to keep up with the Sooners.

7:30:

• Arizona State vs. Notre Dame (@Arlington, TX; NBC): At this point, the evidence seems to show that ND is kind of mediocre this year. I like the Sun Devils here quite a bit.
• Louisiana Tech @ Texas-El Paso (CBSS): Well, if you ever wanted to see a game between two teams with a combined 2-7 record, boy howdy does CBS Sports ever have the game for you! If LaTech had any semblance of last year’s offense they’d win easily, but they don’t and so they probably won’t.
• Kentucky @ South Carolina (SEC/FSN): Hard to see this ending well for the Wildcats.

8:00:

• Ohio State @ Northwestern (ABC): May be the game of the day, but realistically, I’m sure that the Wildcats will put up a good fight but in the end come up short.
• West Virginia @ Baylor (FS1): Try to follow along here: WVU scores zero points against Maryland one week, and then busts out for 30 against Oklahoma State and wins. Then again, 30 isn’t going to be enough to beat Baylor. The only question for the Bears is the fact they haven’t played anyone yet, so maybe they’ll only score 50 instead of 70.

10:30: Washington @ Stanford (ESPN): This is probably really the game of the day, a West Coast matchup between two undefeated teams with solid resumes. That said, it’s hard to shake the feeling of dominance that Stanford usually imparts on their victims. Hard to see how U-Dub will be able to come out on top of this one.