The Gator Country Picks: Week 2

With the 2011 season underway, Gator Country is here to continue our friendly fun column of the week as our staff members compete against each other and a handful of subscribers in a weekly pick ‘em contest.

Each week, we’ll pick every SEC and Top 25 game straight up, to give us an overall staff pick ‘em champion at the end of the year.

Our six staff members (Tim Casey, Derek Tyson, Thomas Goldkamp, Andrew Spivey, Adam Pincus and Safid Deen) will pick every week along with four subscribers randomly selected during the week.

This week our guest pickers are kennystyle, SUGator51, bojo1324 and our returning guest star, StuckUpNorthGator. Welcome to the gang!

As an added bonus, the top subscriber picker each week will get to stay on to pick the following week. Also, any subscriber who has a score equal to or better than five of our six staffers will get to stay on for the next week.

Now, on the good stuff…

Of our 24 games picked this week, our staff and guest pickers agreed on 19 of them. The five games we didn’t were Georgia vs. South Carolina, Vanderbilt vs. Connecticut, Virginia Tech vs. East Carolina, Arizona State vs. Missouri and Texas vs. BYU.

The Arizona State vs. Missouri game was the most split game at 6-4 in favor of Arizona State. Three voters picked Connecticut over Vanderbilt, two picked Georgia over South Carolina one only one voter each (different ones) went against the grain with East Carolina over Vanderbilt and BYU over Texas.

Without further rambling, here’s what our staff thinks this week, with all of our picks below.

Safid Deen aka “The Brown Mamba”

After talking down the first week of college football like Muschamp talked down FAU, I deserved the results from last week. Les, I should have learned never to bet against you, buddy. And Thomas did have a hunch for Baylor like he’s probably going to tell you all, but in the end, he and Tim are just like Florida’s playbook right now: pretty vanilla. But most importantly, big shout out to the pride of Tampa’s Armwood High School, Mr. Derek Tyson, who acted like it was Christmas morning when USF won.

This week looks like it’s going to be an awesome week with two huge SEC games and Alabama taking on Penn State. I’ve got Georgia pretty much losing back-to-back home games, and Dan Mullen and Nick Saban taking care of business on the road. My upset games of the week are Arizona State over Mizzou, and ECU over Virginia Tech. I like ASU’s home crowd in this one, and after ECU put up 37 on South Carolina, why not pick the Pirates? Hope you all have a great weekend!

Adam Pincus

I am still kicking myself for not picking Baylor last week against a down TCU team. The biggest SEC game this week is 12th-ranked South Carolina visiting Georgia. Gamecocks quarterback Stephen Garcia and running back Marcus Lattimore carry USC to victory. Watch out for speedy defensive end Jadeveon Clowney. My upset pick is Arizona State at home Friday night over 21st-first ranked Missouri. The Sun Devils are rocking the all-black jerseys against the visiting Tigers. Sun Devils win due to better uniforms.

Derek Tyson

Well I let the staff, especially Thomas, get an early lead in the first week of picking. After all, I want them to let them boost their confidence before I dominate the rest of the season. So here goes my selections for the week.

I think Auburn will be a tougher game for Mississippi State than a lot of people think. I expect the Tigers to come out with a chip on their shoulder after such an awful performance against Utah St. In the end, though, I think Mississippi State will pull it out. I do think Georgia will

upset South Carolina this week. If Richt loses this game, it could be a long year for UGA. The other game that gave me trouble is the Vanderbilt vs. UConn game. I selected the Commodores, but it wasn’t a very confident pick.

Gators win 45-17 Saturday over UAB.

Tim Casey

Contrary to my normal strategy of picking the home team, I’m taking seven teams to win on the road this week. Alabama, Mississippi State, Stanford, Missouri, TCU, Virginia Tech and South Carolina are all favorites despite playing away from home, which should make for some interesting games.

Dan Mullen and MSU, along with Steve Spurrier and the Gamecocks, should both be able to improve to 2-0 while kicking their opponents while they are down. Fans in Athens won’t be pleased with an 0-2 start after a losing season last year. At least Auburn can look back on their BCS Championship while they fall to 1-1.

It’s hard to imagine the Gators’ offense playing much better since they didn’t punt against FAU. Take away the three interceptions and Florida can put up 50 points against UAB. I’ll take Florida to win 51-10.

Andrew Spivey

I don’t see any upsets this week. The one game that was tough for me was the Vanderbilt vs. UConn game as this game could go either way, in my opinion. Also, it will be interesting to see how Auburn rebounds from last weeks near disaster.

Thomas Goldkamp

I’ve learned my lesson in the past. When you win, you don’t lord it over everyone. So I’ll humbly submit my picks this week without too much criticism for Safid, who insists on using his “Brown Mamba” nickname, or Adam, who was too embarrassed to sport his “Pinky the Penguin” nametag at our intern meeting last night, despite the fact that his portrait is now framed in our office (Picture above!).

Derek is the real competition here, it seems, and Tim scares me with his darkhorse status and creepy friends from Gumby’s trivia night who may have some backdoor Vegas connections. Anyway, I’ve got Vandy over UConn, Arizona State over Mizzou and South Carolina over Georgia in this week’s toughest picks. Tennessee vs. Cincinnati gave me a lot of pause, but I’m sticking with my man Justin Hunter and the Vols.

Below is each of our 10 experts’ picks.

AP – Adam Pincus, AS – Andrew Spivey, DT – Derek Tyson, SD – Safid Deen, TC – Tim Casey, TG – Thomas Goldkamp, ke – kennystyle, SU – SUGator51, bo – bojo1324, St – StuckUpNorthGator