The wild week that was in college football took its toll on your humble panel of pigskin prognosticators. Yet, we return for more. The Week 8 slate on paper doesn’t have as many tricky decisions for us, in part because a number of teams in the US LBM Coaches Poll have their open date. But there are a few contests that might lead to some differences of opinion.
There are only two ranked pairings, and one of them is in the Big 12 as No. 16 Houston heads to No. 9 Utah. Naturally, the other is in the SEC, but No. 7 Mississippi’s visit to No. 18 Texas is not the top-10 block buster we anticipated. Elsewhere in the conference of enhanced meaningfulness, No. 11 Tennessee looks to avoid the dreaded SEC hangover on the road at South Carolina, and No. 18 LSU travels to Auburn to meet last week’s giant killer.
A trio of ranked Big Ten teams also hit the road, beginning with No. 6 Indiana visiting Michigan in the Big Noon slot. No. 14 Iowa heads north to Minnesota, then No. 15 Southern California travels east to face Wisconsin in prime time.
Will it be another week of surprises, or will things go as expected this time? Here’s what our staff experts think.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas tops Ole Miss? College football picks: Week 8 predictions for Top 25 games