We’ve reached the penultimate weekend of college football’s regular season. While the night slate this weekend may be a bit lacking, we’re going to learn a lot about the eventual College Football Playoff field early on.
At noon, Ohio State hosts Penn State in a de facto Big Ten East title game. The Buckeyes are currently No. 2 in the CFP rankings.
Penn State lost a few weeks ago to Minnesota, but can take control of the division by handing the Buckeyes their first loss of the year. Of course, the 18-to-19-point spread on the game, depending on which sportsbook you look at, depicts a pretty daunting task for the Nittany Lions.
That is pretty clearly the headliner for Week 13, though we have some other interesting games. Red hot Illinois travels to Iowa, Notre Dame hosts rival Boston College, Georgia and Texas A&M face off for the first time as conferencemates, Michigan goes to Indiana, and Baylor hosts reeling Texas.
Later in the day, Oregon and Utah look to stay alive for the College Football Playoff with trips to Arizona State and Arizona, respectively, while Temple at Cincinnati and SMU at Navy will help shape the AAC for the end of the year.
Here’s where things stand for our weekly staff picks after 12 weeks. Just two games separate first and second place:
1. Andrew McCarty: 332-99
2. Dan Lyons: 330-101
T-3. Andrew Holleran: 327-104
T-3. Tzvi Machlin: 327-104
T-5. Matt Hladik: 326-105
T-5. Stephen Driscoll: 326-105
7. Alek Arend: 323-108
8. Chris Rosvoglou: 319-112
9. Matt Lombardi: 317-114
This week, our biggest splits come in the games between Baylor and Texas, Kansas State and Texas Tech, Mizzou and Tennessee, Boise State and Utah State, and Wazzu and Oregon State.
Every week, we pick each game involving Power Five and other Top 25 programs. Check back to see how the contest, which often comes down to the final slate of games, shakes out.