OTHER PICKS
Arkansas 38, Louisiana Tech 19Florida 45, UMass 14Kentucky 24, Southern Miss 21Miss. State 35, So. Alabama 10West Virginia 24, Missouri 17Texas A&M 28, UCLA 24Louisville 63, Charlotte 10N.C. State 37, William & Mary 15Stanford 34, Kansas State 23Oklahoma 29, Houston 26Ohio St. 41, Bowling Green 24Michigan 48, Hawaii 3Miami 42, Florida A&M 7MTSU 51, Alabama A&M 16Memphis 34, SE Missouri 13Notre Dame 27, Texas 20
The greatest opening weekend of Southeastern Conference football in at least a generation is finally upon us.
There are tantalizing neutral-site matchups such as Alabama-Southern Cal, Georgia-North Carolina, LSU-Wisconsin and Ole Miss-Florida State, and there are some intriguing campus showdowns as well, most notably Auburn hosting Clemson and Texas A&M hosting UCLA. The abundance of must-see games could leave couch potatoes resembling the gluttony victim in “Seven,” and it could saddle multiple SEC coaches with 0-1 records.
“This is a great opportunity for us to go represent our conference and our university to play a great team like Florida State,” Ole Miss coach High Freeze said Wednesday of the Labor Day showdown with the Seminoles in Orlando, Fla. “They’re as talented as the teams we play in this league. To play in an event like this on a Monday night, when all eyes will be on you, is something to get excited about.
“It’s a great opportunity, but I firmly believe that no season is made by one game, win or lose.”