Gator Country

After two weeks of mostly patsies and gimme games against non-conference opponents, some of college football's juggernauts and teams around the SEC face some real tests this week.

For the first time this season, the Gator Country staff had a tough time picking a good handful of the games this week, and that was reflected in the amount of games our picks differed in.

The most games our 10 weekly pickers have differed on through the first two weeks is five, but this weekend there are 10 games out of 26 that our pickers didn’t all agree on.

Our most controversial game was Ole Miss vs. Vanderbilt, with our pickers split down the middle on that one. Louisville vs. Kentucky and Miami vs. Ohio State were the next two tough picks, with four people selecting Louisville and Miami.

Three people picked FSU over Oklahoma, Maryland over West Virginia and Illinois over Arizona State. Our most popular upset pick was Notre Dame over Michigan State, with only three pickers voting for the favored Spartans.

Only one picker took Clemson over Auburn, UCLA over Texas and Mississippi State over LSU.

Without wasting any more of your time, here are our staff’s thoughts on the games this week.

Tim Casey

I’m going to take some risks this week so that we don’t all make the same picks again. I’ll take Clemson to upset Auburn and Vanderbilt to stay unbeaten against Mississippi. The biggest game of the week is in Tallahassee. I’m happy that I’ll actually be able to watch part of a game, a very rare occurrence. I like the Sooners to knock off Florida State. My other upset picks: Notre Dame over Michigan State, Ron Zook over Arizona State and UCLA over Texas. If those picks sound ridiculous, I’ll blame it on the bottle of NyQuil I drank to get over a cold this week.

Thomas Goldkamp

Like Tim, I’ve battled a cold all week, so that’s my excuse when I drop to the bottom of the leaderboard after this weekend. Unlike Tim, I’m not going to pick a whole lot of upsets just for the sake of making sure everyone has different picks.

This week was really tough to pick, but these are the games that gave me the most trouble: Auburn vs. Clemson, Vandy vs. Ole Miss, Kentucky vs. Louisville and Notre Dame vs. Michigan. I went with Auburn, Vandy, Kentucky and Notre Dame. My upset pick of the week is Maryland over No. 18 West Virginia.

Derek Tyson

These picks where tougher than the previous two weeks. I feel like Oklahoma will take care of FSU on the road. LSU will struggle with Miss St. but will pull it out in the end, and I don’t think Notre Dame will lose their first three games of the year, I think they beat Michigan State.

Adam Pincus

After correctly picking ASU at home against Mizzou, I am in the mood for upsets. I predict an FSU victory at home against the Sooners. FSU takes a huge step forward in its national championship run. Next up, Miami defeats Ohio State. I expect a breakout game from former Miami Killian running back Lamar Miller. The Hurricanes and head coach Al Golden need this win in the worst way.

Game of the week for me is West Virginia visiting Maryland. Not only am I looking forward to seeing Maryland’s uniforms, but I want to know if Terps quarterback Danny O’Brien can continue his hot streak. Also, West Virginia last week trailed Norfolk State at halftime. Maryland gets the win in exciting fashion.

Andrew Spivey

As Thomas said, this is the week we separate the men from the boys, and I can guarantee that I will be sitting at the top after this week. I’m going with Vandy to beat Ole Miss this week as I think Ole Miss’ lack of quarterback play hurts them. I also went with Oklahoma over Florida State because of their quarterback play.

Safid Deen

As Thomas told me at the beginning of the week, I’m “dead last” here in our picks column, but that’s okay. Everyone loves a good comeback story, so when I lead this bad boy the rest of the season AND WIN, remember I came from behind!

This week, I’m not betting against Les Miles or Gene Chizik – Once again, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m also taking Notre Dame over No. 15 Michigan State. Yes, Notre Dame. That Irish luck has to come through sometime for Brian Kelly. In the game of the week, I’ve got the Seminoles taking care of Oklahoma at home. I think having an extra game to iron things out helps FSU. And lastly, Kentucky and Louisville in a game that will be as boring as Thomas, Tim, Derek and Andrew combined. I had to flip a coin and tails was Louisville.

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, TW – TWGator, lu – luke32168, bo – bojo1324, St – StuckUpNorthGator

About the author

Thomas Goldkamp

Thomas Goldkamp is the Gator Country beat reporter for football and basketball. He graduated from the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications and has been covering the Florida Gators since late 2009. He previously worked as a freelancer on the Rivals network, as well as at the Palm Beach Post. You can find his latest stories here.

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