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Lot of games went down tonight. Tough break for the Lions (I am a Browns fan), but they made plays and were fun to watch.

Supermarket Merlot.

Northwestern kicks off in the Cotton Bowl against Texas Tech in the Ticket City Bowl of Dallas at noon.

Wildcats are +9.5. Underdogs have really come on strong against the spread over the last three days. I'm not sure what to expect with NU's backup, but I'm sure we'll get a solid dose of TOUGHNESS and GRIT.

Red Raiders are lead by Tommy Tuberville who is ditching the air raid for a coach from Wisconsin. Don't know what to expect from them either.

Game is on ESPNU.

Florida(-5)/Penn State, MSU/Alabama(-7) start at one.

I hate scrolling through long open threads. I'm expecting a bit busier thread for OU/Nebraska. We're starting a new one.

The final three automatic qualifiers are named tonight.

FSU vs VT (-4.5)

OU vs Nebraska (+4.5)

UCONN (+2) vs USF

My picks are above. Jamiemac has upsets across the board.

Discuss.

Ranked(!) Northern Ilinois takes on Miami (NTM) in the MAC Championship on ESPN2 tonight. The Huskies of NIU enter at 10-2 with one of the best rushing attacks in the nation and one of the best defenses to boot. They're 17.5 point favorites tonight.

Miami is 8-4, but went 7-1 in MAC play. They aren't very good on offense, ranking 40th with 243 passing yards per game and 114th in rushing yards per game at ~96.

Over/under is ~55. Despite the wide spread, I'm not confident in either way. I'm liking the under, though.

The second game of the night is Illinois(-5) and Fresno State. We're familiar with Illinois, and Fresno State is as expected. They are a rushing heavy team, but their stats aren't very impressive. Defense is also WAC-ish.

Normally those notes on Fresno State would lead to an easy cover for an BCS-AQ team. Not the Illini. They have a habit of making this closer than it should. FSU also gets up for games like this, especially at home. Tough call.

I'll take Illinois to cover. Over/under is 58. I'll take the over. The two teams posted 105 points last season. They aren't as explosive on offense this year, but we should still see plenty of points.

Arkansas vs Mississippi is on ESPN. Baylor/Oklahoma coming up on the deuce. Three other games on ESPN3 of no import.

Army vs Notre Dame at the football field that can fit it is on NBC. Tom Hammond may have a new profile photo to replace the previous one:

You ABC Map:

Getting this up early, about 1.5 hours to gametime.

Only one game on the schedule tonight  (9:30p ET) as we get some WAC-tion. Fresno State comes in as a massive underdog. How much you ask? The line is Boise State -30.

Fresno State isn't quite the WAC power of years past. They enter the year 6-3 overall with a win over Cincinnati and a bunch of crappy teams. They've lost to Ole Miss, a decent-to-good Hawaii team, and a ranked Nevada. The first two losses were both by fairly large margins, but the Bulldogs did put the pressure on Nevada last week, losing just 35-34.

FSU is fairly balanced on offense, averaging 180 yards rushing per game and 219 passing yards. That's 36th and 61st nationally respectively.

Boise State is still Boise State, playing well against bad to meh competition; they're hated by some, lauded by others. No one is right. Boise State hasn't played anyone at their prime. Virginia Tech still looks like a good win, but that was against a VT team that lost to James Madison, not the VT that's gotten it together in time for the ACC. That win against Oregon State - well, Oregon State never proved themselves as good as everyone was hoping.

We all know nothing and are all swayed by hype from one side or the other.

The best way to fix that, watch the game. Watch the Boise game plan rip apart the Fresno defense. Watch Kellen Moore's weak arm drop precision passes against a WAC secondary. Watch Winston Venable eat small children.

But most of all, bitch about that fucking smurf turf and how much epilepsy it causes the nation because that's one thing I think we can all agree on.

FSU to cover. I'll take the over on the ~66.