Week five is upon us and it's an impressive slate across the college football landscape. There are some serious national title implications taking place in Happy Valley and South Bend and plenty of other exciting matchups to be on the lookout for. Last weekend had a few decent contests – at least on paper – but the upcoming schedule is far more appealing.
If you take a look back at the week that was you'll notice that we had all sorts of problems in the state of Texas. Every one of our forecasters had the Horned Frogs covering (-3.5) against the Longhorns. TCU was impressive against the Buckeyes and Texas has mostly been an up-and-down team.
Tom Herman had other plans as the Longhorns prevailed by a score of 31-15. It was a blow to our gambling efforts and put a damper on Ohio State's best win to date.
Most everyone had Georgia covering (-15) at Missouri and Mr. Anderson was the only one to correctly pick the Tigers against the spread. The Bulldogs won by 14 which further solidifies the thought that folks in Vegas tend to know what they are doing.
The staff was fairly split on the Stanford/Oregon battle and that had to be a wild one for the people who actually had cold hard cash riding on the game. The Ducks could have taken a few knees and punted the ball away which would have given Stanford about 10 seconds to drive the length of the field.
Instead Oregon fumbled, Stanford recovered and eventually scored, and then the game went into overtime. The Cardinal went on to win by a score of 38-31. A very tough pill for the Duck fanbase to swallow and many have been questioning the decision making of head coach Mario Cristobal.
- How it works: Every week we will include 10 of the country's top games with a mix of Big Ten and national matchups. Each participating staff member will submit their picks – against the spread – for the selected slate of games. The odds will certainly fluctuate a bit throughout each week, but we'll be using sportsbook.ag for all betting lines.
Last week was especially nice because a lot of the top games were spread out across the day allowing for maximum viewership. That won't be the case this weekend as the bulk of the top contests are scheduled for the evening hours.
| CHRIS | RAMZY | HOPE | HARRISH | JONES | WEBB | ELLIS | WERTHEIM | REGIMBAL | ANDERSON | VANCE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAST WEEK: | 5-5 | 3-7 | 7-3 | 4-6 | 6-4 | 5-5 | 8-2 | 5-5 | 4-6 | 7-3 | 3-7 |
| OVERALL: | 23-17 | 17-23 | 22-18 | 17-23 | 22-18 | 21-19 | 27-13 | 20-20 | 17-23 | 21-19 | 21-19 |
| ACCURACY: | 58% | 43% | 55% | 43% | 55% | 53% | 68% | 50% | 43% | 53% | 53% |
| #12 West Virginia (-4.5) @ #25 Texas Tech | TECH | WVU | WVU | WVU | TECH | WVU | WVU | WVU | WVU | WVU | WVU |
| Purdue (-3) @ Nebraska | PUR | NEB | PUR | PUR | PUR | PUR | PUR | PUR | PUR | NEB | PURD |
| #14 Michigan (-13.5) @ Northwestern | MICH | NW | MICH | MICH | MICH | MICH | NW | MICH | MICH | MICH | MICH |
| #23 Mississippi State (-7.5) vs. Florida | MISST | FLOR | FLOR | MISST | MISST | FLOR | MISST | FLOR | FLOR | FLOR | MISST |
| #4 Ohio State (-3.5) @ #9 Penn State | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | OSU | PENNST | OSU | OSU | OSU |
| #8 Notre Dame (-5.5) vs. #7 Stanford | STAN | STAN | STAN | STAN | STAN | ND | ND | ND | ND | STAN | ND |
| #17 Kentucky (-1.5) vs. South carolina | KENT | SCAR | SCAR | SCAR | KENT | KENT | KENT | KENT | SCAR | KENT | KENT |
| #11 Washington (-18) vs. #20 BYU | BYU | BYU | BYU | BYU | BYU | BYU | WASH | BYU | BYU | BYU | WASH |
| #5 LSU (-13.5) vs. Ole Miss | LSU | MISS | LSU | LSU | MISS | LSU | LSU | LSU | MISS | LSU | MISS |
| #19 Oregon (-3.5) @ #24 California | OREG | CAL | OREG | OREG | OREG | OREG | OREG | OREG | OREG | OREG | CAL |
Texas Tech finds itself in the top-25 after destroying Mike Gundy's mullet last week in Stillwater. The Mountaineers are now headed to Lubbock and the Red Raiders will look to get another win against a talented opponent. Most of our pickers prefer West Virginia (-4.5) and there will probably be about 500 points scored in this one.
The Wolverines hit the road and will meet up with Northwestern at 4:30 p.m. ET. Michigan is a near two-touchdown favorite against a Wildcat squad that lost one of its best players to an unfortunate retirement. Northwestern has lost two in a row since winning the opener at Purdue, so we'll see if they can keep this one close in front of the home crowd.
Perhaps you are aware of this, but Ohio State is playing Penn State Saturday evening and rumor has it this could be a pretty important football contest. The Buckeyes are a 3.5-point favorite and David is continuing his trend of picking against the good guys every single week.
The staff is fairly split on Notre Dame and Stanford. Brian Kelly changed things up at quarterback last week in making the move from Brandon Wimbush to Ian Book. Book certainly looks to be the better passer and will look to challenge the Cardinal secondary. The Irish are a 5.5-point home favorite and that one also kicks off at 7:30 p.m.
It's tough to bet against Joe Burrow, but the Ole Miss wideouts could present a challenge against a very good Tiger secondary. The game is in Death Valley, though, and LSU is about a two-touchdown favorite. The Rebels have one of the worst defenses in America (No. 121 nationally) so this could be a game where Burrow puts up an impressive stat line.
Who do you got in week five? #GetRich
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