2015 Six Pick - Week Three

Welcome to week three, it has some big shoes to fill after a surprisingly very good and entertaining week two. I love those weeks. On paper this week is far superior, lets see if that holds true on the field. Also, A lot of teams {cough} Ole Miss, Clemson, GT {cough} have played nobodies and smoked them, while others have had good to solid OOC matchups. Pretty hard to get a gauge for another week or two.

Other than the crazy amount of early season injuries, the lack of national good QB play is making a lot of name programs and coaches look pretty bad so far. It's going to be interesting to see who develops, but teams with proven winners at QB, OSU, MSU, USC, GT, etc have an even bigger advantage than most years.

Week 3
Thursday, September 17th
Clemson -6.5 at Louisville
7:30 pm ESPN

• Normally, I would not have an 0-2 team in the Six Pick, however it's Thursday night "trap game" and the Cardinals have their backs to the wall. They'll be very, very focused
• Remember when Clemsonin' was a thing? Don't look now, but that hasn't happened in almost four seasons. So are they due? Dabo Swinney is a goofy bro, but his teams play to their talent level. Respect that

Pick: Clemson laying the points, weathering a strong first quarter and beating the Cardinals convincingly in the second half.

Saturday, September 19th
Northwestern at Duke -3.5
12:30 pm ACC Network/ESPN3

• Look Duke, I googled Duke Tailgate, Duke Students, Duke Football fans and 3/4ths of the images shown were a bunch of unknowledgable basketball geeks, that's not how you football. What's the point of renovating your stadium if you have the same fans?
• Gone are the days of the Four Nerdmen of College Football Suck. Stanford, Duke, Northwestern and Vanderbilt have all been good recently. If the Wildcats win here, do they get a special nerd trophy, like the Commander-in-Chief trophy the service academy's play for?

Pick: Northwestern getting the points and winning outright. I don't have a feel for this game, but the Wildcats have a win over Stanford, that's better than Duke's wins.
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Georgia Tech -2.5 at Notre Dame
3:30 pm NBC

• So the Irish are basically riding their spring 3rd string Quarterback the rest of season with a true freshman as his safety net along with season ending injuries to the starting CB, DT, TE and RB. Drink (not play) like a Champion seems apt
• I don't pretend to know Coach Paul Johnson, but if I had to guess when he plays the prestigious programs, he wants take their tradition, shine it up real nice, turn it side ways, and stick it straight up their candy asses! ... with his 3 star recruits

Pick: Georgia Tech covering, winning by a couple of scores. I know they haven't played anyone, but I'm just going to leave this right here and make GT my first ever Six Pick lock.
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Stanford at USC -10.5
8:00 pm ABC

• This is the most focused any Steve Sarkisian coached team has looked in the first two games of the season. I considered stopping drinking for my career too, then I looked at the opponents and decided to hold off a week or two more
• If Stanford is going to continue to pass over 30 times a game, I'm going to have pull their MANBALL card. Before the last two games, I would have said David Shaw was 1 step above Les Miles on the evolutionary offense food chain ... could things be changing?

Pick: The Tree getting the points, barely. Stanford will look better in this loss than the one to Northwestern and lose by 10.
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Ole Miss at Alabama -6.5
9:15 pm ESPN

• This Nick Saban signature Mercedes takes Roll DAMN Tide to another, more expensive level, for which he'll naturally profit. Drainin' them Gumps dry before he takes this racket to Austin?
• And the Lord saith, "Run it up Ole Miss, Run it up against the poor and needy." Hugh Freeze looks up to they sky, "Your will be done." It may not be classy, but it's a lot better than his peers, Auburn and Arkansas

Pick: Alabama by a touchdown and covering by that half point. The talent gap has closed some, Ole Miss will score some and play pretty effective run defense, but they aren't beating the Tide two years in a row.
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BYU at UCLA -16.5
10:30 pm FS1

• A week after torching uva, UCLA freshman QB Josh Rosen was just so so versus UNLV. He is going to take his lumps and teams will scheme his tendencies, but if at 18 years old, the hoo game was his ceiling, he's better than 90% of starting QBs right now
• In two weeks, BYU QB Tanner Mangum has become the darling and story of the 2015 season. He's not even remotely close to your typical freshman QB, he was the 2011 Elite 11 Co-MVP with Jameis Winston and he spent 22 months as a LDS Church missionary in Chile. Now he just throws Hail Mary after Hail Mary and hugs refs on his way out the stadium. He'd be perfect LDS, if he only had blond hair

Pick: BYU getting the points, they'll score enough to keep it relatively close.
***

Happy picking against the spread, you guys. Results for the first two weeks will be up soon, I promise.

Beer of the Week:

Cantillon Wild Brussels Stout
It's Zwanze day again. I'll pregame the Purdue game at 2pm sharp with this Cantillon spontaneous fermented stout that has dry and tart notes along with the roasted, slightly burnt and delicate chocolate flavors.

Review:
Clemson -6.5 at Louisville
Northwestern at Duke -3.5
Georgia Tech -2.5 at Notre Dame
Stanford at USC -10.5
Ole Miss at Alabama -6.5
BYU at UCLA -16.5