Saturday Predictions: Utah State at Vanderbilt – Anchor Of Gold

One more non-conference game…
Vanderbilt is now 4-0 on the season and today’s game against Utah State is… maybe a letdown spot? The kind of deflating loss that Vanderbilt teams of the past would have definitely taken? The kind of loss Vanderbilt definitely takes when people on Twitter say “SOV is dead?” Let’s see if the writers are spooked.
Yeah, I’m in for a letdown game. Not a “Vanderbilt shits the bed and loses to Utah State” kind of letdown game (like, you know… Woodyball) but more of a “Vanderbilt comes out weirdly flat in the tradition of a heavy favorite playing an 11 AM JP game, fans are weirdly apprehensive in the third quarter, Vanderbilt wins by two touchdowns and nobody feels good about it” kind of sense.
Beating the everloving shit out of Georgia State was nice; buried in that is that Georgia State somehow managed to score 21 points. Not a great performance by the defense, and while I’m not sounding alarm bells yet, I have my eye on the situation.
The Pick: Vanderbilt 38, Utah State 24
The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: MISSISSIPPI STATE (+7.5) over Tennessee for the lulz.
Utah State is no pushover. This is a good thing, as though there are some predicting (or more accurately, worrying about) a trap game, if we were going to see a letdown, we would have seen an inkling of it last week, no? Did we see anything from this team that would lead you to believe they would take any opponent lightly last week, against the terrible Ugga Tech? No. We dropped 70 on them and got to the walk-on QB, Whit Muschamp.
I don’t see Muschamp getting any snaps today, but the goal should still be to have Blaze Berlowitz time by the start of the 4th quarter. I think we’ll do just that, whether or not Utah State backdoor covers in garbage time. This should be another strong win to build on.
The Mormon Agriculturalists are traditionally a pretty good mid-major feetball program, and are 3-1 on the season, with home wins over UTEP, Air Force, and a fresh off an absolute drubbing of McNeese last week. Those look like pretty good wins in a normal year, but UTEP has already lost to Louisiana Monroe; Air Force only has one win, and it’s over Bucknell—which is basically just a club football team of engi-nerds in the woods of Pennsylvania; and McNeese is so brutal this year, it’s hard to believe they reside in football-crazed Louisiana. Utah State was also blown out on the road 44-22 by the aTm Milkmen Cult, and that plus a half point is the margin of victory Vegas predicts for the Gridiron Dores.
Now the one thing the Gridiron Dores will have to contend with is the cool factor. With Diego Pavia and the cult of cool that follows him, we haven’t had to deal with a coolness-deficit in quite some time. This week, though, Utah’s lead running back is Jazz icon Miles Davis. He’ll surely be whipping up a Bitches Brew of smooth. Just to be safe, we should all pee our pants.
The Pick: Vanderbilt 48, Utah State 24. I had Vandy covering in the Pick ‘Em, so I’ll stick with that here, but the betting line is all but immaterial to how I’ll feel about the outcome of this game. Even a 10 point plus win will make me happy.
The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: Speaking of the Milkmen Cult, if Jackson Arnold can shake the gross from his last quarter off his arm, The Team with Infinite Mascots on the Plains can absolutely go into Aggieland and knock the grode jar out of their hands. Give me AUBURN (+6.5).
Being 22.5-point favorites over a team that only lost to Texas A&M by 22 is kinda cool. The Aggies have put up 28 (UTEP), 22 (Texas A&M), 49 (Air Force), and 48 (McNeese State), so they can score. Starting QB Bryson Barnes averages 9.2 yards per attempt and has also run the ball 43 times for 297 yards if you remove the 16 sacks for -100 yards from his rushing statistics. Vanderbilt needs to pressure him to force some bad passes or even turnovers. He has had Total QBRs of 52.4, 19.0, 77.5, and 90.7. A&M sacked him 6 times.
When Vanderbilt has the ball, they should be able to move it pretty easily. Utah State struggled mightily with Air Force’s option attack, and Vanderbilt has bigger, better athletes with more variations of the option at their disposal.
My expectation is a maybe sluggish start with the 11:45 AM kickoff after 4 straight night games. Then Vanderbilt cruises out to a big lead and maybe gives up another score late.
The Pick: Vanderbilt 45, Utah State 21
The SEC Upset Pick of the Week: I did not pick any upsets in the Pick’em, but the best chance is probably LSU over Ole Miss if the Bayou Bengals can get their offense going. Their impotence so far defies all logic except that Brian Kelly deserves all the bad things, and karma is having its way with his team.
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The biggest bowl game in school history?
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Vanderbilt falls short of the CFP but will play in a prestigious post-season game.
And it’s not just because they’re going to leave Vandy out!
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