FTRS Picks, Week 8: It’s time to get spoooooooky

~~~~ooooOOOooooOoOooOOoooo wellllllllcoooooooooome to the spooooooOOOoooOoOOoOky edition of the From the Rumble Seat picksssssssss~~~~

Man, that was annoying to type. Please go back and reread it in the voice of a spooky ghost spirit so that was worth it. But yes, it’s true, this Saturday is the ultra-spooky Halloween + pandemic college football Saturday! Complete with fake, computer generated crowd noise that’s positively eerie! I hear Maryland is even planning on masquerading as a real college football team!

Last week’s results were, to paraphrase a former coach, dead average. But that’s okay. Average isn’t bad. And that makes things all the better to people like Mister Furious, who notched the week’s lone perfect score. As for The GURU, well, whatever you’re a guru at, it’s clearly not this. But that’s okay too! Trystan Snipes still holds onto their overall lead by a thread, but there are plenty of folks right behind them ready to snatch it away this week.

Memphis Tigers @ #7 Cincinnati Bearcats (-7)

Wellll, I thought last week’s SMU-Cincy game would make a statement — and it did, but not from the team I was expecting. Yes, it’s true, there’s a really good football team in Cincinnati, and it’s not the one with Joe Burrow at quarterback. There’s still a lot left in the season, but it is a weird season, and the Bearcats do have a good shot at running the table. Could this be the year a G5 team finally breaks in to the playoffs? Maybe. But, come on. Cincinnati winning a playoff game? Get outta here.

Pick: Cincinnati

#4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (-20) @ Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

When teams play Notre Dame, they have to make it special, somehow. Georgia Tech was down to play this game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of Atlanta United, but Covid scuttled that, so the Irish will come to Bobby Dodd for the first time since Tech hosted College GameDay. But the Jackets still have an ace up their sleeves: BLACK WATCH UNIFORMS. Do these throwback uniforms throw back to a uniform that ever actually existed? No. Is there anything about them that is identifiably Georgia Tech? No. But are the Yellow Jackets at least honoring some of the greatest defenses in program history with a current defense that, if not just as good, is at least close? Also no.

Pick: Notre Dame

LSU Tigers (-3) @ Auburn Tigers

Nothing else on the schedule really jumped out at me to round out this week’s picks, so here we are with an ALL-CHAOS EDITION of the world’s biggest tiger fight. Honestly, it’s perfect: the defending champs opened the season giving up 44 points to Mike Leach’s Mississippi State team, a team that has given up 30 points in the three games since. This year’s Auburn team might be the most Auburn team ever, having been #blessed with some of the worst refereeing in years, letting the Eagle Tigers get away with a win or two they probably don’t deserve. You won’t be able to look away from this game, just like people aren’t able to look away from that crash on the highway.

Pick: LSU

Arkansas Razorbacks @ #8 Texas A&M Aggies (-12.5)

Ever since he was a young boy, Jerry Jones dreamed of owning an NFL team. He bought one, they won three Super Bowls in seven years, and have been terrible ever since. In the meantime, Jones thought about buying a college football team. It turns out you can’t really do that, but you can buy a college football game — that’s basically what the bowl games are. But Jerry Jones didn’t want just any game, no — he wanted his beloved Arkansas Razorback playing their old Southwest Conference rivals Texas A&M in his very own stadium, and he got it! Unfortunately for Jones, the Aggies have won every single game since joining the SEC — 8 total, including two on campus games. To make things even worse, Covid has pushed this year’s game out of Jerryworld and into College Station. Poor, poor Jerry Jones. One day, fortune will smile upon him and all his money again.

Pick: Texas A&M

#3 Ohio State Buckeyes (-12) @ #18 Penn State Nittany Lions

I don’t know the exact time it was announced College GameDay would be visiting State College this weekend, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine it lost a bit of its luster after Penn State lost to Indiana in OT last weekend. The good news for the Nittany Lions is that they’ve keep their games with Ohio State extremely close since their last victory over the Buckeyes in 2016. The bad news is, well, basically everything else, including them losing to Indiana in overtime.

Pick: Penn State

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