Here's your weekly reminder to send in your picks in our Rocky Top Talk 2011 group at Fun Office Pools. Weekly winners receive a $10 gift card to Gameday Depot, and you'll find plenty of conversation about our picks and our confidence points in the live threads every weekend.
Things got more difficult last week as the college football schedule improved overall; for instance, PrideoftheSouthland went 12-8 but still finished in fifth place for the week because they won the right 12 games. But our community is a little more confident this week; after being mostly divided on half the games last week, only seven games this weekend find less than 75% of our community in agreement.
Our weekly trends as of Wednesday night:
- In a combination of relying on what we've seen with our own eyes and wanting to believe the best about the Vols, an overwhelming 92% of our readers like Cincinnati over NC State tonight, a matchup of our current and future marquee non-conference foes.
- The most confident pick of the season so far was Boise State over Toledo last week, with 94% of us going with the Broncos at an average of 17.8 confidence points. Giving that number a run for its money, also in the believing what we've seen category: the Florida Gators are the pick of the same 94% of us at Kentucky, currently at an average of 17.5 confidence points.
- Also drawing huge numbers in the big SEC games this week: 94% like Alabama over Arkansas, 92% don't believe in Vanderbilt at South Carolina, 90% like LSU at West Virginia, and 90% like Georgia to get their first conference win of the season at Ole Miss. You'd think Alabama faces the toughest test here, but the Tide are pulling in the most confidence points on average in these three games at 14.6, followed by Georgia at 13.4, Carolina at 10.3, and LSU at 10.0.
- The least confident game of the week: 54% like UCLA at Oregon State, at an average of a mighty 3.7 confidence points. My apologies on this game - we needed a 20th and I went with this one because of the lower spread.
- Other toss-ups this week: big week for road teams as 54% like Cal at UDub, 70% like the Noles at Clemson, 72% like Notre Dame at Pitt, and 56% like USC at Arizona State. And finally, 60% like Texas A&M at home against Oklahoma State. SEC! SEC! SEC!