College football week 7 thread: Talking Seattle Conference Change Blues

UW is a gorgeous campus, and Husky Stadium is a fun “game day” environment for big matchups like Saturday.

Of course raincoats and ponchos are a must once October hits, but nobody in the Northwest lets a few raindrops get in the way of a good time!

 

Two lead changes in the final 30 seconds as Houston beats WVU on a Hail Mary.

 

Six TDs in the 4Q! Much better than the NFL snoozefest.

 

Games I like this week. Lots and lots of good-looking underdogs across the board.

• USC +3 at Notre Dame — It's a toss-up game that Notre Dame can certainly win, but USC is just better. Not sure why this line is not -3 the other way, but sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions.

• Wyoming +11 at Air Force — This is just not an 11-point game in either direction. Another line that smells fishy because of that, so hopefully the trout are tasty in Wyoming because I'm chowing down on it.

• Auburn +11/O60.5 at LSU — It kills me to pick against LSU, but their defense is just not good enough over four quarters to shut anybody down right now. And as long as that's the case, laying 11 points is too many and an O/U this low is yet another gift.

• UMass +43/O54.5 at Penn State — I got off the UMass totals train for a couple of weeks, but I'm ready to hop back on for at least one stop. Any line that gets over 40 points piques my interest for the underdog. If UMass can score 14 points they probably cover the line and hit the over, so I like both of those.

• Texas State -16.5 vs. Louisiana-Monroe — Texas State is a pretty solid Sun Belt team and ULM is not. I think Texas State can take care of this.

And a couple of games I want to like but can't:
• BYU +6 at TCU — TCU hasn't done anything to deserve laying almost a touchdown against a good team, but BYU plays too many close games to fully trust. I like BYU, and picking them to win outright is not a bad play either, but I'm just not certain.

• Texas A&M +3 at Tennessee — The last time I trusted Tennessee, I got burned. Texas A&M is better than the punchlines make them out to be, but this is another toss-up game I think I'd rather steer clear of.

• Illinois +13.5 at Maryland — For a couple of years, these were the kinds of games I loved Illinois for. They were great at getting two touchdown spreads against mid-level Big Ten teams, then playing their ass off and losing by about 10. But I think Maryland is a Top 25 team even if they aren't ranked, and I'm not certain that Illinois is that team they used to be. If this line were closer to 17-18 points I might bite. At 13.5 it's tempting, but I need another data point for the Illini. I can wait for them to run into Wisconsin-Minnesota-Indiana-Iowa-Northwestern the rest of the way.

 

Dana hasn’t had a thrill like that since he jumped his Challenger over a river last week.

 

Dana might have had his job saved there.

 

Remember when everybody thought West Virginia was wacky to be in a league with several 1,000-mile road trips? Now WVU-Houston seems like another geographically charged rivalry.

 

I sometimes question if getting fired and collecting checks isn’t his goal.

He punted on a season early in his tenure there.

 

Deion calls late start times 'stupidest thing ever'

 

While Houston has to get its props, I get some satisfaction from the kid who caught the last TD pass for WVU, Hudson Clement. Helluva story.

The only out-of-state HS program that has captured my imagination is Martinsburg High, the perennial West Virginia title contender. Clement was absolutely legendary there. He won the West Virginia player of the year in 2021, culminating his career by figuring in eight touchdowns -- four rushing, four receiving -- in the state championship game. And the kid couldn't land a scholarship. Measureables. So he walked on at WVU.

He spent 2022 playing well for the WVU scout team. Then, Neal Brown was running out of wideouts with graduation and injuries, and stuck this redshirt freshman in there against Duquesne on Sept. 10. Clement just went off -- 5 for 177 and 3 TDs, all in the first half.

And after the game, Brown handed him his scholly in the locker room.

 

Time zones, how do they work?