Welcome back college football fans. Before we get into a really good slate of football with a lot of upset potential, I want to take a moment to talk about a player most of us have or would never have heard of. A defensive linemen from Mew Mexico named Nahje Flowers, aged 21, was found dead. He most likely would never play in the NFL. I know absolutely nothing about him other than what I could google. I’m guessing that he played at New Mexico for the education and the love of the game. We don’t know what happened to him and I would never speculate. I just know that as emotional as we can become about a play, a referee’s call or no-call, a coach’s decision, or a final score, Nahje will not be involved in any of those again. Air Force and the Lobos postponed Saturday’s game for a couple of weeks to allow the grief counselors and the players a chance to heal just a little bit. Take a minute, say a prayer, have a moment of silence, whatever it is you do and give a kid who had his life cut short just that much time. I know absolutely nothing about the guy, but I’m pretty sure he deserves that.
I’m going to handle G’s Expectations a bit differently this week. I talked in Sunday night’s post that there are 3 matchups between undefeated teams. First is Penn State (3) visiting Minnesota (8) at noon (all times Eastern). Vegas likes Penn State by 7. The GCR likes Minnesota 55.2% of the time so, based on previous weeks, it should be closer than 7. The other 2 games are at 3:30. Princeton (141) travels to Dartmouth (61) to play what I guess will be chilly one. Dartmouth wins 75.2% of the time. The biggest game in the South is LSU (4) facing Alabama (2). Vegas has the Tide at 6.5 point favorites and the GCR is in agreement at 60.9%. No matter what happens with the two FBS games, the top 4 will see some adjustments that, I suspect and hope, will give some direction on where this season is headed. Overall there are 12 top 50 matchups (almost 13 as Illinois (51) is playing at Michigan State (24).
Friday night, Washington (50) travels to Oregon State (37) for the upset of the week. The Huskies are 10 point favorites for this game. I find that surprising because they are one of three teams in the Pac 12 already eliminated from winning the division. In the upset of the week, the GCR picks Oregon State 61.2% of the time.
One other game I’ll call out before the upset list is Iowa State (27) at Oklahoma (15). The Sooners are huge favorites at -14.5, and the GCR agrees. Oklahoma 69.6%
This week there are 10 upset specials. I missed one outright Tuesday night (but won on the spread) when W. Michigan (127) beat Ball State (77) 35-31 when they were 6.5 point favorites. Here’s the whole list.
| Home | Away | Vegas | GCR% |
| W Michigan (127) | Ball State | WMI-6.5 | Ball St 50.5% |
| Oregon St (37) | Washington (50) | Wash-10.0 | ORST 61.2% |
| West Va (64) | Texas Tech (58) | TXTC-2.5 | WVU 55.3% |
| Arkansas (140) | W Kentucky (98) | Ark-1.5 | WKY 56.7% |
| Minnesota (8) | Penn St (3) | PSU-7.0 | Minn 55.2% |
| Colorado (97) | Stanford (73) | Stan-3.5 | Col 53.6% |
| S Carolina (69) | App State (36) | SCAR-5.5 | AppSt 60.6% |
| California (29) | Wash St (25) | WAST-7.5 | Cal 54.5% |
| Duke (43) | Notre Dame (17) | ND -7.5 | Duke 50.5% |
| Kentucky (60) | Tennessee (88) | Tenn-1.0 | Ky 67.0% |
That’s it for this week. Enjoy the week for Nahje. More to come over the weekend and the new rankings (G’s Evaluation) with what is a near certainty a new top 4.
Thanks, G
