This Weekend in College Football: Week 7

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

• Baylor @ Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (FX): Expect this one to be high scoring, but in the end, Baylor plays even less defense than TAMU. I don't think Robert Griffin III will be enough.
• Michigan @ Michigan State (ESPN): Sparty's played two non-cupckaes this year: Notre Dame and Ohio State, and scored a combined 23 points in those games. Michigan's defense probably isn't as good as either, but it will probably still be enough for the Michigan offense to do its thing.
• Indiana @ Wisconsin (ESPN2): Our first complete mismatch of the day, this will probably be a massacre.
• Utah @ Pittsburgh (ESPNU): Losing 34-10 to Rutgers probably wasn't quite how Pitt planned on this season going. Except for their demolition of BYU, however, Utah has lost to every team they've played with a pulse this year.
• Purdue @ Pennsylvania State (BTN): Penn State will probably win this like 13-3, but they will win.
• South Carolina @ Mississippi State (SEC): The Dan Mullen death machine hasn't quite gotten into gear this year, considering they only beat hapless UAB 21-3. South Carolina should win.

12:30: Miami @ North Carolina (ACC): Miami couldn't quite hold on against VPI. That may well translate into them getting blown away by UNC.

3:00: Florida State @ Duke (ACC): Yes, FSU couldn't handle the traditional ACC doormat they played last week. They will handle Duke.

3:30:

• Louisiana State @ Tennessee (CBS): Speaking of SEC death machine, this one could get ugly.
• Oklahoma State @ Texas (ABC/ESPN): I'll parrot the conventional wisdom here. Texas's green secondary got repeatedly and thoroughly burned against a very good passing attack last week against Oklahoma. Now, they get the nation's best passing attack. Yeah, uh....
• Ohio State @ Illinois (ESPN/ABC): If Braxton Miller plays, OSU has a shot and I think they'll win. If not, they don't. That simple.
• Central Florida @ Southern Methodist (FSN): UCF has been up and down this season, but USM has been pretty consistent except for an inexplicable loss to Marshall. I like the Golden Eagles here.
• Georgia Tech @ Virginia (ESPNU): Fact: Georgia Tech has 1 win in Charlottesville since 1990, and that came 2 years ago. Hopefully that will motivate Tech to do a little better this time around, as the effort against Maryland was lacking. Tevin Washington has gone from the nation's most efficient passer to not being able to find his receivers in a sort of bad flashback to last year's offense. Our defense is just plain bad against the run at this point - other than the ineptitude of their QBs, Maryland simply also had no reason to throw against this defense.
  UVA to this point has not looked that great. But, they have a big and capable offensive line that can open up running lanes - Tech will have to work especially hard to get, and this is key, maintain a lead this weekend.

6:00: Alabama @ Mississippi (ESPN2): This is the second of the predicted blowouts of the day. This may be a blowout in the sense that Alabama scores 31 but Ole Miss scores 0 and ends up with negative total yards of offense.

7:00:

• Florida @ Auburn (ESPN): Freshman starting quarterbacks are not really a recipe for success in any conference,
• Kansas State @ Texas Tech (FSN): K-State is easily the most surprising 5-0 team in the country, as they should have at least two losses by now. They should beat TTU anyway, which leads to a difficult decision. But, given no records about these two teams, I probably would've picked the purple cats anyway.
• Clemson @ Maryland (ESPNU): Unless Clemson really Clemsons this one up (and it's happened before, against Maryland even (see: 2009)!) this should be a rout.
• Northwestern @ Iowa (BTN): Iowa does well against teams without very good defenses, so despite Dan Persa's best efforts this probably won't go well for NU.
• Georgia @ Vanderbilt (SEC): This is a reasonably competent version of Vandy, but it probably won't be enough for them to be more competent than UGA.

7:30: Stanford @ Washington State (Versus): Though this version of Wazzou is not completely terrible, they did allow 42 to SDSU and 25 to bumbling UCLA. Expect the Cardinal to try to beat the combined score.

8:00: Alabama-Birmingham @ Tulsa (CBSS): UAB is 120th (i.e., last) in the country in points scored and 96th in points against. This is not a winning combination, to say the least. Tulsa should... argh trying to think of something to say other than "blow them away".

9:15: Oklahoma @ Kansas (ESPN2): And here's top-3 blowout number 3. This Week In Schadenfreude is always great, but this edition contained this gem:

There's actually a weird brand of Stockholm Syndrome going on on the KU boards, with several chipper folks envisioning wins later in the year because of things like this:

GT is a legit team and we hung with them for a half.

Georgia Tech put up 768 yards! Kansas fans must be the most tolerant in the country.

OU rolls.

10:15: Arizona State @ Oregon (ESPN): And, finally, a legit Pac-12 nightcap. Oregon should still win of course - and Autzen should be a madhouse on a Saturday night - but Arizona State is at least capable of making it interesting.

Okay, with the BCS coming out this week the bowl predictions should be out next Monday for reals. Until then...