Vol Calls this week was mostly a filibuster. Bob & Josh spent half of Josh’s time talking about the targeting rule and then Brent and Josh spent the other half talking about how the recruiting calendar has changed. At the very end Bob asked Josh about the QB situation. Josh said Hooker had been doing a little more the last couple days but implied he is still limited. He didn’t say anything about OTJ’s eyesight.
Freak had the Tennessee-Pittsburgh game in the week 2 lineup and I took Pittsburgh. I tend to lean toward the team that has the best QB and after Bowling Green it was obvious to many at that point we were going to have issues at QB. I was sweating that pick though because I was afraid either Hooker or Bailey would come into the game and then all bets were off because at that time we didn’t know what we might have with either. I would rather win the game than score in the picks contest so I figured I had a win-win situation with my pick.
I’ve developed 3 models for the weekly picks contest based off the format I posted last week. I have a FBS/FCS model (258 teams) which includes all games and uses Sagarin’s strength of schedule for adjustment because he ranks all teams. The 2nd model is FBS games only and uses ESPN’s strength of schedule ranking. I use a 36 point spread for all games and a 27 point spread for the FBS model. The 3rd model is a Power-5 only model and uses an 18 point spread. I used the ESPN strength of schedule ranking divided by 2 for the Power-5 model.
In the 3 models, Tennessee would be favored based on all games and based on FBS only games. Missouri gets the edge in Power-5 only games. We’ve both had 2 games, us vs Pitt and at UF, MO at UK and at BC. I think BC & Pitt are similar but Pitt was playing on the road and BC was at home. Western Michigan upset Pitt in week 3 after WMU had been blown out by Michigan in week 1. Vegas has UF as an 8 point favorite in Lexington.
We have some travel issues this week. They’re redoing the airport runway in Columbia so we’re having to fly into St. Louis and take a 2-hour bus ride to the campus. We’re traveling on Friday so that shouldn’t be an issue.
I usually don’t put in my picks until Friday night and not knowing who our QB is going to be I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I think this might be a perfect game for Bailey. Assuming our running backs can handle the ground game with a good bit of success we may not need a mobile QB. BC beat MO with their backup QB. The starter got knocked out for the season early in their week 2 game against UMass. Their backup is not considered all that good but he did enough to come away with the win. If I knew Bailey was going to start I’d pick Tennessee without hesitation. That’s just how I see it. jmo.
Decisions, decisions.
