The #7 Auburn Tigers go in between the hedges this weekend to take on the #4 Georgia Bulldogs in prime time. The mouth watering match-up of cats and dogs is probably the biggest game on the college football slate this weekend, although another SEC game, #12 Texas A&M at #2 Alabama is a headliner fixture too.
However, the Sanford Stadium clash on Saturday night features a quarterback subplot, and it looks more even on paper, so let’s take the midnight train to Georgia and preview this one.
Kickoff is 7:30 EST on ESPN, for a game that sees the hosts substantially favored. If you look at BetQL’s Best Bets for this week, you’ll see UGA favored by 6.5 points in the annual matchup dubbed “The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.”
If you peruse the NCAA public betting dashboard showing a 71.10% chance of a Bulldogs victory transpiring, with a projected score of 25-17.5. Despite this strong faith in Georgia, the Sharp Picks report shows more of the money going to the Tigers, so apparently a lot of punters believe AU will cover the spread. As of this writing, 55% of the money is on the visitors, with the over/under for this affair set at 45.
As we said previously, this match-up is all about QBs. And prior to the start of the season ESPN ranekd D’Wan Mathis and J.T. Daniel co-number one on the list of most important individual players when it comes to the College Football Playoff chase. The former started the season opener at Arkansas last week, but soon found himself relieved by Stetson Bennett, who fared better.
As for the latter, Daniels, he was medically cleared to play this week (knee) after having missing the season opener. Georgia Head coach Kirby Smart has been in pure coachey coach mode, being as mum as possible on the QB depth chart.
“We’ll be looking at everybody across the board,” Smart said.
“J.T.’s got to be able to show that he can function efficiently and do it with his knee being able to do it. We’re not putting ourselves in a pigeonhole, saying we can only have one quarterback. We’ve got to develop all of our quarterbacks.”
Smart muddied the waters even more by also saying that Carson Beck is in the mix. Hey, it’s part of the job description, of all football coaches, to treat their depth chart information like military intelligence at CentComm.
As for Auburn, their QB situation is totally different, Bo Nix is the man, and he could really be the next Southeastern conference superstar someday soon.
Nix, the reigning SEC freshman of the year, is making history, and his time at the front of the line will soon come.
The Pick: #4 Georgia Bulldogs 24, #7 Auburn Tigers 17
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.