College Football’s Week Eight:
DG’s “Pick Six” Begins With #5 Georgia-#1 Texas,
#7 Alabama-#11 Tennessee, #12 Notre Dame-Georgia Tech
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
Each week during college football season, we offer a “Pick Six” package of intriguing matchups — three “local” games that include one or more North Carolina-based team and three “national” contests that involve the Atlantic Coast Conference and/or the most prominent intersectional games.
Week Eight: Top “National” Games
Game One
#5 Georgia (5-1) at #1 Texas (6-0), Sat., 7:30 pm (ABC/ESPN+)
Latest Betting Line: Longhorns a five-point favorite
ESPN’s popular College GameDay show is in Austin for this one, as one would expect.
Under fourth-year coach Steve Sarkisian, who led Texas to a 12-2 record and the four-team version of the College Football Playoff last season, the Longhorns have absolutely mauled all six of their opponents so far this year, including nationally ranked Michigan and Oklahoma teams, on their way to the program’s first 6-0 start since their 2009 Mack Brown-coached team that ended up playing in the national championship game.
Texas offers a well-balanced lineup led by offensive tackles Kelvin Banks Jr. and Cameron Williams, tight end Gunnar Helm, wide receiver Isaiah Bond, linebacker Anthony Hill Jr., safety Andrew Mukuba (a Clemson transfer) and cornerbacks Jadhae Barron and Malik Muhammad. Last week in Dallas, the Longhorns crushed the Sooners, 34-3, making their average score this season an incredible 44-6.
Georgia, meanwhile, has lost only that crazy 41-34 game at Alabama, where the Bulldogs almost came all the way back from a seemingly insurmountable deficit in Tuscaloosa. The Dawgs did maul Clemson 34-3 to open their season, but they also barely snuck by Kentucky, 13-12, and last week they beat Mississippi State by only 10 points.
From a National Football League perspective, this game also offers two of college football’s top quarterback prospects.
Georgia’s fifth-year senior, Carson Beck, is the #1 QB on some teams’ draft boards; he’s completing about 68 percent of his passes so far this season, with 15 touchdown passes and five interceptions. Texas has a redshirt junior, Quinn Ewers, who has missed some time to injury this season but has been really good when he’s played; he’s completing about 72 percent of his throws, with nine TD passes against only three interceptions in less playing time.
Both QBs will face stout defenses, loaded with NFL talent, but the Bulldogs just haven’t been quite as dominant on that side of the ball this season as they have for coach Kirby Smart over the past few years.
This marks the first time these two superpowers are clashing as members of the Southeastern Conference, of course, and it’s fascinating to see the Longhorns — who haven’t won a national title since Brown turned the trick with star QB Vince Young back in 2005 — as the five-point favorites over a Georgia program that has posted seven consecutive top-10 seasons and has won two of the past three national championships.
Game Two
#7 Alabama (5-1) at #11 Tennessee (5-1), Sat., 3:30 pm (ABC/ESPN+)
Latest Betting Line: Crimson Tide a two-point favorite
This rivalry game was known for a long time as simply “The Third Saturday In October,” because for decades that’s when the matchup was played, and indeed this year it has fallen back into that spot on the calendar once again.
As most college football fans would guess, Alabama has a significant advantage in this rivalry historically. Lately, the Crimson Tide has really been putting it to the Volunteers. In the last 17 head-to-head matchups between Alabama and Tennessee, the Tide has won 16 times.
However, all of that modern dominance came under recently retired legend Nick Saban, one of the greatest coaches in college football history, and at least for now it’s not clear whether Alabama has a coaching advantage over Tennessee.
Kalen DeBoer is in just his first year at Alabama, after short but successful tenures at Fresno State and Washington. Josh Heupel is in his fourth year at Tennessee, after a short but successful tenure at Central Florida, and he’s averaged 10 wins per season over these last two years with the Volunteers.
Tennessee has been playing perhaps the best defense in the entire country so far this season, and the Volunteers’ only loss was a low-scoring affair at Arkansas. Alabama’s lone defeat was that shocking 40-35 loss at Vanderbilt a couple weeks ago, and the Crimson Tide struggled to beat South Carolina in Tuscaloosa last week.
It’s probably fair to say that neither team has been hitting on all cylinders lately, and neither side has a massive personnel advantage over the other in this one.
It will be interesting to see if the Vols can take advantage of one of the great home-field environments in all of college football. With a seating capacity of 101,915, Neyland Stadium is the sixth-largest football stadium in the nation (and the world).
Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe has been fantastic overall this season, but he could not run the ball against either Vandy or South Carolina, and he’s much less effective when that happens, so that will be one of the keys to the game for the Tennessee defense.
Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava (ee-ah-MAY-LAY-ah-va) is less of a runner but hasn’t thrown the ball nearly as well recently as he did in the Vols’ 51-10 massacre of NC State in Charlotte earlier this season.
Game Three
#12 Notre Dame (5-1) at Georgia Tech (5-2), Sat., 3:30 pm (ESPN)
Latest Betting Line: Fighting irish an 11-point favorite
This is an intriguing game, in part, because Notre Dame — especially as a football independent — is sort of a microcosm of any team out there that has a Top 25-caliber resume right now but probably (or definitely, in the Irish’s case) will not be a Power Four conference champion.
Consider the bigger picture here. At 5-1, with quality wins over Texas A&M and Louisville but also a home loss to Northern Illinois, the Fighting Irish know that if they run the table, they’re definitely going to make the College Football Playoff. They’re ranked #12 right now, so it they somehow turn a 5-1 record into an 11-1 record, there’s absolutely no way they’d be left out.
However, if the Irish slip up just one more time, and finish 10-2, they’d probably be on college football’s new version of The Bubble. If they lose two more times, to finish 9-3, they’re unlikely to be in the picture at all, especially because they’re not a candidate to win a conference title.
Notre Dame’s final six regular-season opponents are Georgia Tech at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta this week, currently undefeated Navy at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, very beatable Florida State and Virginia teams at home, then currently undefeated Army at Yankee Stadium, and a regular-season-ending road trip to Southern Cal.
Obviously, an 11-1 record is possible for Notre Dame, but so is 9-3 or even 8-4.
Georgia Tech is a significant obstacle for the Fighting Irish because the Yellow Jackets are a pretty tough team at the point of attack. The Jackets run the ball very well, with both dual-threat quarterback Haynes King — who was knocked out of last week’s UNC game with an injury but has practiced this week — and star running back Jamal Haynes. They also defend the run pretty well, holding their opponents to less than four yards per carry.
The Irish do appear to be an elite team on defense, but offensively, with former Duke quarterback Riley Leonard at the controls, they’ve been merely above-average this season, although they did put up 49 points against Stanford last week and 66 against Purdue earlier this year.
Both King and Leonard are good at keeping the chains moving by making plays with their legs, but it will be interesting to see which can make plays in the passing game, too, because that’s probably the hardest-to-predict aspect of this matchup.
NOTE: For the complete Week Eight schedule (including television/streaming options) for all ACC and state of North Carolina teams, please click HERE.