Week 9 SEC Game Picks and College Football Best Bets
By Evan Ertel
It’s Week 9 of the college football season! This week features six SEC vs SEC matchups, two Top-25 matchups, and Best Bets from across the college football
Welcome to Week 9 of the college football season! This week we have six SEC versus SEC matchups, two games that the entire nation will have their eyes on, and finally our Best Bets from across the college football landscape.
John King had a tremendous bounce-back week last Saturday, going 6-2 on his card, putting him at a site-leading 53% clip. Yes, our “leader” being a few points above .500 may be a bit underwhelming, but we will persevere! Ryan Strickland is in second, clinging to life at 51%, myself at a stellar 47%, and Andrew Miller at 43%. Justin and Ethan are just here for a good time and good conversation.
Let’s go!
Week 9 College Football Picks and Best Bets
Mississippi State @ Auburn (-6.5) (O/U 43.5)
Evan Ertel: Auburn is a very bad offensive team. Mississippi State is a bad offensive team. Where does this land us? Not sure, probably deserving of somewhere in 3-2 land. Over on WarBlogle.com, I predicted that this is going to be another grimy repeat of Arkansas, just with more field goals. Mississippi State +6.5
Justin Strawn: Was last week’s defensive performance by State a fluke? Maybe, maybe not, but Auburn doesn’t have an offense significantly better than Arkansas, so let’s go with the Bulldogs on the road one more time. Mississippi State +6.5
Ethan Lee: Zach Arnett really has a golden opportunity to pretty much secure a bowl bid and simultaneously ease a massive amount of pressure off of him. If he’s able to fully trust Kevin Barbay and is willing to take a couple of risks, he’d show some impressive growth as a coach and would really get a lot of folks to invest emotional energy back into this MSU football team. Auburn’s offense has been as flawed as MSU’s and Barbay has had another week to work with Wright to figure out what needs to work on offense. Let’s go 3-0 in October, Zach. Mississippi State +6.5
John King: Six and a half just seems like a lot of points to be giving this Auburn team. I don’t mean to be throwing rocks in Mississippi State’s glass house, but I don’t think Auburn is significantly better than MSU at this point. Count me down as hesitant on my pick. Mississippi State +6.5
Andrew King: this will be another ugly game. I don’t like State’s chances at JHS, even against a bad AU team. But I expect there to not be much scoring once again, and this is a pretty even matchup. Do I think AU can win by 7 in a low-scoring game against a team they aren’t better than? No. Mississippi State +6.5
Ryan Strickland: I think this is going to be a sequel to the Arkansas game. It will be low-scoring and just pure torture to watch. Auburn cannot move the football and neither can State. The performance by the defense for State last week was the only positive thing out of the entire game and I think it can continue against a one-dimensional Auburn offense. I know Arnett has to say it was all Brock to protect his guy but all State fans know that was Arnett’s defense last week. If that performance is duplicated this week, State can keep it close under a touchdown. Mississippi State +6.5