Randy Smith
We've gotten through the regular season of the most anticipated college football season ever and first round games in the brand new twelve team playoff are being played this weekend. On Friday, at 8 p.m. EST, there is one game...Indiana (11-1) at Notre Dame (11-1). The Fighting Irish are favored in the contest by 8.5 points and should handle the upstart Hoosiers. Indiana failed to win a game this year against a top-25 team, while Notre Dame is 4-0. (Remember the only Irish loss was to Northern Illinois 16-14 early in the season.)
There are three games on Saturday....at noon, a couple of 11-2 teams square off as SMU plays at Penn State.
The Nittany Lions are picked to win by about a touchdown and James Franklin has perhaps his best team ever at Happy Valley. SMU almost rallied for a win over Clemson in the ACC Championship Game before losing 34-31 in overtime. The Mustangs have something to prove and could pull a big upset on Saturday.
On Saturday at 4 p.m., Clemson (10-2) plays at Texas (11-2) as the 12th seed, the lowest in the field. But Coach Dabo Swinney is just happy to be playing even though the 5th seeded Long Horns are picked by two touchdowns. Both Texas losses came to second seed Georgia and like SMU the Long Horns have something to prove. Even though quarterback Quinn Ewers has struggled to move the football recently, he will likely start the game, though Arch Manning should get some snaps. There have been rumors that Manning is considering the Transfer Portal. Manning has made more than $3 million as a back-up quarterback through the NIL deal and it would be very hard for him to move on. Clemson has nothing to lose but the ball game.
On. Saturday night at 8 p.m., 9th seed Tennessee (10-2 ) plays at #8 seed Ohio State (11-2) and the Buckeyes are picked to win by a touchdown. The early betting has been heavy on this game with most money going toward Ohio State. However, the Volunteers seem to be a team on a mission. They're healthy and ready to go even in the cold weather of Columbus Saturday evening. Coach Josh Heupel stated that his team was ready to, "play anybody at anytime and at any place." I believe him. I said in the pre-season that Tennessee may be a year or two away from playing for an SEC Championship or a national championship but they could make a lot of noise in this year's playoffs. Whether or not the Volunteers are able to play with the Buckeyes depends upon red shirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava. If he's on, the Vols will be hard to stop but if he struggles like he did earlier in the season, Tennessee will be in trouble.
Here are my picks for this weekend:
Notre Dame 34 Indiana 24
SMU upsets Penn State 31-27
Texas 38 Clemson 21
Why not? Tennessee 28 Ohio State 24
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Randy Smith can be reached at rsmithsports@epbfi.com