5 best predictions for Saturday. What college football games appear to be the best bets and the best picks among all the big rivalry week showdowns?
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Week 13 Fearless Predictions, Game Previews
CFN Week 13 Experts Picks: College
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No kidding around here.
These are the big games we’ve all been waiting for. This is the weekend that sets us up for Championship Week, and it’s when the biggest of the big rivalry games kick in.
No, I’m not touching the SEC showdowns – there’s too much happening with all of them. I will admit to liking Georgia Tech +35 over Georgia, but that’s too dangerous.
I will also admit to digging Auburn getting 20.5 at home against an Alabama team that has a bad habit of taking long naps, but again, that’s too volatile.
As I warned with the 5 Best Predictions piece for Friday, this is the toughest weekend of the year because it’s impossible to factor in the role desperation plays, especially when teams have no (bleeps) to give.
How long will coaches keep in their star players when the championship game next week means everything? How will players play and coaches coach when they know that this could be the last game of the season?
Flaky things happen on the last normal weekend of the regular season – like USF vs UCF yesterday, and don’t start on Nebraska and Iowa – so the idea here is to go mostly go with big games were both teams have something equally massive to lose
But I start and finish with two games that are all about the favorites and their attitudes, starting the 5 Best College Football Predictions for Rivalry Week Saturday with …
Click on each game for the preview
5. Pitt at Syracuse
LINE Pitt -13
ATS PICK Syracuse
The doesn’t-matter theory worked on Friday taking Colorado -23.5 against Utah.
Ute head coach Kyle Whittingham inexplicably kept too many star players in for too long, but however it worked, it worked.
Utah didn’t need the win. It was already off to the Pac-12 Championship, the game had no playoff or bowl implications, and if anything, the last thing the team needed was to get banged up in any way.
Also, it wasn’t going to bring the high-end intensity and wasn’t going to open up the playbook considering the game that matters is a few days away.
It’s the exact same deal with Pitt and Syracuse, only better for the underdog. Utah was playing at home on Senior Day. Pitt is on the road.
The Panthers don’t need to do anything with this game. They’re off to the ACC Championship, and playing all of their backups and losing by 50 wouldn’t change a thing.
Of course, that’s not how football coaches think – they’re all about momentum, and players play, and blah blah blah. However, there will come a point when the Pitt coaching staff realizes it really doesn’t want QB Kenny Pickett getting blasted.
Even if everything was normal, Syracuse – even though the production has fallen off the map over the last few weeks – would be a good play, Throw in that it’s 5-6 and needs to win this to go bowling, and Pitt doesn’t need this at all, and it’s Senior Day, and the Orange running game is still good, and …
This isn’t a bad straight up play, much less with the 13.
– CFN Week 13 Experts Picks: College
