Another 2-3 weekend for your boy over here. Would have been 3-2 but Florida scored a garbage time TD to turn a 7 point win into a 14 point win and cover the 10 points. That’s the second time this season Florida has burned me on the last play of the game. That’s probably a sign that I need to quit trashing how bad their offense is and just appreciate how they always find ways to win games.
I’m not here to talk about Florida Gator football though, I’m here to talk about the greatest interim head coach of all time, Edward Jim Orgeron Jr. I am choosing to write about him this week only because this could be the last week he is coaching a football team for awhile, maybe forever. Coach O and the LSU Football team started out the season on fire, beating BYU 27-0 and then Chattanooga 45-10. They went on to get absolutely stomped by Mississippi State 37-7, but then rebounded against Syracuse 35-26. It wasn’t time to panic though, they were 3-1 heading into their homecoming game Troy this past weekend. Easy win right? Wrong. LSU ended up losing that game 24-21 and the final score was a lot closer than the actual game. They were trailing the whole game and poor Coach O just couldn’t find the answers. LSU is 3-2 going into the heart of SEC play and the media has officially put Orgeron on the hot seat.
A lot of people may wonder why he’s feeling pressure to win so early, but if you dig deep into his head coaching record, there is a trend that is impossible to ignore. Coach O has a head coaching record of 25-31, which is not great, but then you look even deeper into his head coaching record and you notice that he is 13-27 when he is the head coach at the beginning of the season. That’s a terrible record, so why is he a head coach for one of the most prominent football programs in the SEC? Because his interim head coaching record is outstanding. Coach O is an astounding 12-4 when taking over a team as the interim head coach. That’s a winning percentage of .750! For some reason, Coach O cannot put together a decent team over a whole season, but give him a squad that just had their coach fired and he can lead them to a bowl win.
So here’s what I think Orgeron should do. Assuming they lose to Florida on Saturday, he should simply fire himself from the head coaching position right after the game, maybe even before he gets on the team plane. Then on Monday, The AD should hire him back as the interim head coach because he was the only qualified candidate for the job. Then LSU will rip through the rest of their SEC schedule and end up beating Wisconsin in the Citrus Bowl (something like that). There’s still time for LSU to salvage their season, but interim Coach O has to save the day ASAP as possible.
On a more realistic note, I can’t wait to watch him breakdown football as an ESPN analyst next year. I love Coach O more than the average person, but he might be the worst head coach of all time. I don’t care how many bowls of gumbo he can eat or what kind of worms he puts in his mouth.
Before we get to the picks, just a quick reminder, I don’t actually gamble real money, because gambling is illegal in Nebraska. If I could gamble legally, these would be the picks I would go with. All of the lines and totals are set at time of publishing (odds coming from oddshark), and will not change as the week goes on. So get’em while their hot! Here we go, Bart’s Best Bets Baby!
Saturday, October 7th
Georgia @ Vanderbilt (+18)
Feel free to go the other way in this one, because Georgia looks dang good right now, and Vandy has lost two in a row. I just think there is real nice value with Vandy getting over two touchdowns in this game at home. The first thing I always look for when I’m picking games is home underdogs, and this line screamed at me. There’s really no logic here, because all of the stats and trends are in Georgia’s favor. This is a classic “BartSauce has a feeling pick”. Vandy will be happy to get back home to play in front of their fans. I think they’ll hang tough for two or three quarters and then Georgia’s running game will finally break loose in the fourth and win by 10-14 points. Georgia is most definitely a top 10 team in this league, but I like Vandy to cover in this one. Anybody that’s smart will fade this pick.
Miami (-3) @ Florida State
I normally don’t like picking road favorites, but I just can’t resist with this one. Remember when we took Miami over 9 wins a long time ago? Well, this game was one that we counted as a sure loss for Miami. That was obviously before Florida State lost their stud starting quarterback for the year. Since then the Seminoles have gone 1-1 with a home loss to NC State and a last minute road win against Wake Forest. Now let’s turn to the Hurricanes, they are 3-0 and haven’t had a close game to date. They are good at scoring points and even better at stopping the other team from scoring points. It seems like that famous Turnover Chain makes a weekly appearance. This one is pretty simple, these are two teams heading in two different directions. The U is back and it’s time for them to make it official. I think Miami wins this one by at least a touchdown and looks forward to heading home for a couple weeks.
LSU @ Florida (-3)
I have been on the wrong side of the Florida Gators all season and I think this is finally time to get right with them. I’ve been dogging on Florida all year about how they don’t have a capable quarterback and can’t score points on offense. Well here’s the truth, Florida has an elite defense and their offense is getting better each week and I’m ready to roll with the Gators. I already talked about LSU in the intro, but the bottom line with them is that they just just aren’t good at football this year. Last week’s loss is almost impossible to get over within a week, and I think it’s just going to get worse. LSU is a good defensive team, but unfortunately they are not good on the offensive side of the football and will not have any success against the Gator defense. This should be a low scoring game, but I really wouldn’t be surprised if all hell broke lose for LSU and Florida put up 40 on them, Sorry, Coach O. I consider Florida -3 a gift.
Missouri @ Kentucky (-10)
Here are some quick stats on this years Missouri team. They have a record of 1-3. The closest loss they have had this season was by 18 points to South Carolina. All four of their games so far have been at HOME! They are making their first road trip of the season to Kentucky. Kentucky is not a bad football team, people. They are literally two points away from having a 5-0 record. Kentucky is a confident and hungry football team, Missouri is the opposite. The Wildcats have to be licking their chops with this one. This probably isn’t a game many people are going to watch, and hopefully I won’t have to watch it for very long before Kentucky has this thing wrapped up. The Wildcats should win this game by at least two touchdowns. Keep an eye on this UK squad, I think they are going to surprise some people come November.
Washington State/Oregon OVER 60
I honestly just noticed that three out of my first four game picks are SEC matchups and the other pick is between two Florida teams. I didn’t plan that, I promise. Anyway, let’s end this thing with some PAC-12 after dark action, shall we? As you probably know by know, I love the over in PAC-12 games that start after 8:00 PM, and this game is no exception. Actually, this game is an exception because it starts at 5:00 Pacific Time, and it will be very light out in Eugene. I don’t care, I still want the over. We almost hit the over in the Washington State v. USC game last week but Sam Darnold just couldn’t help but turn the ball over in their last possession (classic). I don’t know who wins this game, but I know it’s going to be a really fun game to watch. Oregon is averaging almost 50 points per game and their lowest scoring game of the season is 35. Washington State is averaging 41 points per game and their lowest score is 30 (last week). So even if both teams tie their season low in points (30 and 35), this thing still goes over. I haven’t hit a total for like three weeks, but I am confident that I finally get on the right side of one this week. I think the final score of the game will be somewhere around 45-42 and I’ll let you pick the winner because it’s a toss up.
Bart’s Best Bets Year to Date: 13-12 (10-7 ATS, 3-5 O/U)
There you have it, folks, Week 6 of Bart’s Best Bets. I hope you like watching SEC Football, because I gave you a good dose of it this week. I hope you enjoyed reading and enjoy my picks this week even more. We had our THIRD bad round of picks last weekend and I expect to bounce back this week. Have a GREAT weekend of football watching, and don’t forget to check out DaveCh999’s NFL Week 5 picks!
Double COVERage 