The Gator Country Picks: Week 9

After last week ended with a four-way tie atop the leaderboard, hopefully a few tough games to pick this weekend can create some separation.

Without boring you too much, we’ll simply introduce our picks for the week and our thoughts on the games.

Today our resident “experts” and four much smarter subscribers pick each SEC and Top 25 game on the schedule in a little friendly competition.

Tim Casey

My big upset pick of the week is Rutgers against West Virginia. The Scarlet Knights will take advantage of their secret weapon, redshirt freshman running back Michael Burton, against the Mountaineers. Burton has one catch for seven yards this year, but I think he’s due to break out because he’s a winner and hails from the best high school in New Jersey.

Burton, the best Burton in college football, was a walk-on at Rutgers but earned a scholarship for this season. Burton led N.J. high school football powerhouse West Morris Central to a state championship in 2009.

I’ll also take the Gators to defeat Georgia, as long as John Brantley and Jeff Demps are really going to play and we haven’t been fed a bunch of coach-speak this week.

I like Nebraska. I also think the Cornhuskers will bring Michigan State back to earth this week.

I was wrong about my pick for St. Louis to win the World Series in 6 games. I meant to say 7 games. My bad.

Justin Wells

In lieu of trying to rely on my brain and the tarot card reader in High Springs—neither of which have helped me with my picks—I’ve instead decided to go with the equivalent of an emo route for my predictions. All road teams. It feels like a good idea—if you’re the morbid type who enjoys watching “Faces of Death 2” on VHS over and over again…

Adam Pincus

No. 5 Clemson rides to Georgia Tech’s house on the enthusiasm of head coach Dabo Swinney and the speedy legs of wide receiver Sammy Watkins. According to ESPN, the last time the Tigers traveled to Atlanta 8-0 was in 2000. Georgia Tech pulled off the improbable 31-28 upset, and I am predicting history will repeat itself on Saturday with a Georgia Tech win.

Next upset comes out of Lincoln, Neb., where the Nebraska running game outmuscles No. 11 Michigan State in this key conference matchup. The No. 18 Cornhuskers must be creative on offense in order to combat the Michigan State run defense. I predict quarterback Taylor Martinez surprises the Spartans with his ability to throw the football.

Last pick for me is Georgia’s Aaron Murray gouges Florida’s secondary en route to No. 22 Georgia’s third victory in the last 10 meetings against the Gators. By the way, Thomas’ alter ego is the Shanksta. He said he got the nickname while playing high school soccer. I didn’t know they gave nicknames to bench players.

Thomas Goldkamp

Adam Pincus’ fun Sunday morning. It’s what the cool people do.

Adam thinks he’s hilarious taking all these potshots at me, but I’ll go ahead and expose a little conversation he had with me about what he’ll be doing when everyone else is recovering from their World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party hangovers on Sunday morning. Yeah, that’s right. He’ll be at a pumpkin patch (picture evidence to the right).

So now that Pincus has been properly disposed of, I plan on continuing my slow decline to mediocrity in the picks column.

In the big games this week, I like Michigan State over Nebraska, USC over Stanford and Georgia over Florida. We’ll see. Florida fans won’t want to hear this, but I’m the only one on the staff who has picked every Florida game right this year.

Derek Tyson

So we are tied for the lead. Time for me to take over! I think USC pulls the upset and beats Stanford this week. I think the Gators play much better but still lose a close one to Georgia. I was tempted to pick Georgia Tech over Clemson, but is this the year Clemson doesn’t choke?

Andrew Spivey

To me the best game is the Nebraska vs. Michigan State game. I will go with MSU as they are on a roll lately.

Below is each of our 10 experts’ picks.

AP – Adam Pincus, AS – Andrew Spivey, DT – Derek Tyson, JW – Justin Wells, TC – Tim Casey, TG – Thomas Goldkamp, pk – pkaib01, ch – chrisleakfan4life, St – StuckUpNorthGator, CF – CFLrob