Week 8 Picks & Predictions: Indiana-Michigan, Ole Miss-Texas, LSU-Auburn, USC-Wisconsin & More

You cannot just replace Archmaning and fix the Texas offense. I don't want to see Ole Miss right now, their defense is right, their star players are back, LSU struggles on the road. They're on to this season and they've lost six straight going back to last year on the road. Hey, welcome into the Joel Clat Show. I'm Joel Clat. This show is sponsored by Hilton Hilton for the stay and we thank them for their support as always. Fix and previews. Here we go. Hopefully it's a great day of college football again. We've just had, I mean, the last two Saturdays have been epic, if I might say. Had a bit of a rough one last week, although, come on, right? Like, five of the top seven going down on the most chaotic day that we've ever seen. Understandable. We are now 18 and 22 against the spread. Some 500 need a big week here. Need a big week. I'm not Uber confident in these picks. There's, there was a couple of lines and I was like, come on. Like, really? Oh man. So anyways, let's get to some of these picks and previews here. First and foremost, big noon Saturday is going to be in an Arbor, Michigan as Indiana comes to town to face the Wolverines. So Indiana off a loss, their 22 game win streak snapped. Kurt Signetti now trying to regroup for the first time since losing that playoff game to Notre Dame, all the way back in 2024. And they're going to be facing a Michigan team that was able to play well in the second half, even though they replaced their quarterback and got a win over Penn State in the game that they had to win. We all know it. I think this is a fascinating game and not just because I'm calling it em fascinated by this game because I don't think there's a huge difference in play between Michigan's defense and Ohio State's defense. And we just saw Ohio State's defense play pretty well against Indiana and challenge them in areas. Force Hoover to make great throws in particular late in the game. And now here's this Michigan defense and their number one in the country and yards per play allowed. And they're going to have a similar style where they're going to be aggressive up front. Try to stop the run, play a lot of man coverage on the outside, challenge becker and marsh force Hoover to make tight window throws. So in a lot of ways, I think it'll be an extension for the Indiana offense of what they were having to do against Ohio's state a week ago. I do just find that fascinating. And in particular with the backdrop of the run game for Indiana, kind of the first time in the Signeti Ares struggling a little bit. You know, you look up at their run game and in back-to-back games, they've been under 75 yards in both of those games Nebraska the game. By the way, we're just on the Indiana train. So we called the Nebraska game, then we called the Ohio State game. Now we're here at Michigan. I told the coach, I was like, you're going to be sick of us. And you know, he just like gives you that little stare and that that. By the way, did you guys see his comments? Those were hilarious. The guy is an absolute butte. A butte. Signeti said he's going to have Hoover and marsh do some like bonding exercises after they were out by four inches on Saturday on that little sluggo route on the on the edge inside of two minutes. And he was like, I think I'm going to have him go play a putt putt together because the boundaries are very defined. I'm like, this guy is amazing. I love this guy. I love it. I love his answers to Jenny before the game. I love our meetings. He's been great for college football, folks. And if you don't think that that's the case, then I think that you are wrong. You are wrong. But the run game for me is big because Indiana always wants to run the football first. I talk about this a lot. Remember, it's a building block offense. They want to run the football in order to get to the RPOs, then to get to the play action pass. And they were forced into a dropback game. And good thing Hoover's so experienced because he was able to excel in a dropback game and he threw some really, really great balls on Saturday like Becker in particular in one-on-one situations. He'll have to do it again in this game. Michigan's very good on defense. Very good on defense. They will make it very difficult on Indiana to just control the game on the ground. It'll be tight man coverage on the outside. I think it's going to be difficult for Indiana to just kind of run away from this Michigan team. Then the question comes like, well, what happens when Michigan has the ball? And that's when we just kind of everybody throws their arms up. I don't know. Kyle Wittingham won't even tell us who's starting this weekend. Now, come on. It's got to be Tommy Car, right? Like, right? Obviously, the production in the second half was so vastly different that you've got to give your defense, which is an excellent defense, the best possible chance to impact the game to a greater degree, which is have at least a serviceable offense. And the production in the second half with the three touchdowns, Doug Granite, there were some short fields in there and they took advantage of some things. There's no doubt. But I think it's going to be Tommy Car. We'll see if both of them play. I don't know. I've got no intel on this. I haven't talked with the coaching staff about it. So this, I am blind like the rest of you. I've got to think that it's Tommy Car, got to think it's time. And by the way, what a challenge for him. How about your first start being against the defending national champs? That's a difficult defense to face. A lot going on with Brian Haines's defense up front, the secondary, the way that they disguise coverage, the aggressive nature of the way that they twist and stunt with their front seven. That would be quite a challenge for car or underwood. But the one thing that Michigan was able to get to was a more direct downhill run game. You'll remember a couple of weeks ago, heading into the by week after the Minnesota loss, I did a long video about having to run more downhill and more direct and and less side the side and horizontal run game for Michigan. Well, lo and behold, that's exactly what happened against Penn State. If you look up at it, the Michigan percentage of runs that were up the middle between the guards and center. So like directly up the middle. I'm not even talking about between the tackle. See, I would take between the tackle, but this is like directly up the middle. In the first five games, 15% of their rushes went up the middle against Penn State 45%. So they definitely did a better job of getting more downhill and more direct in the run game. And I think that that allowed them to have success. You finally saw some explosive runs out of their backs, Custal, Heiter, both of those guys had a couple of explosive runs in this game. Maybe it's the Penn State defense who also struggled against a run game against Northwestern who ran for like a million yards. So maybe that's the case. This is certainly going to be a different challenge against Indiana. But, you know, I think that that's at least a movement that creates more success for Michigan moving forward. My biggest question would be for Michigan. Can you win the game by driving the football in the Indiana defense? I don't know about that. I think that they're going to need to create some short fields, create some special teams opportunities in order to get an advantage over that Indiana defense, which I still think is outstanding. All right, we move on. Number seven Ole Miss after blowing out Missouri, they go to Texas and now Texas has to play at home off of back-to-back losses, too straight for Sark and the boys and the Long Orens are reeling. Reeling. Based on the film that I watched of Texas, this entire offense has got to get better. It is not just archmaning. That is a fallacy. That is not in the equation. It's just not. What you have to do is simplify what they're doing up front because the main culprit to the Texas struggles offensively is their offensive line. Their offensive line is playing really poorly. They're not targeted on short yardage. They're not targeted on past protection. And that generally, at least from an outsider's perspective, tells me that too much is going on. So you need to simplify and allow them to come off the ball, allow them to run a few concepts and do that well. If you're able to do that, I think that you can start to fix the offensive line. If you start to fix the offensive line, maybe you start to fix the run game. If you start to fix the run, fix the run game. Maybe arch has more opportunities to throw the football. And then yes, arch has a hand in it as well. He's got to make better decisions with the football. There are times when he turns down, throws down the field. There are times when he's patting the football when open guys are open underneath. He has to play better. The offensive line has to play everybody has to play better at Texas. Can you do that against Ole Miss? I thought Ole Miss was going to be an average defense at one point. Remember when LSU kind of came back on them, but they won the game at home, then they went to Florida and got their doors blown off. And it was like, man, is Ole Miss's defense any good? And then you look up in there, they shut down Missouri cold. Missouri who had come into that game last week with back-to-back games well over in the mid-200s rushing, rushing the football. And they couldn't do anything on the ground. Ole Miss dominated them on the ground. You still have Trinidad Chamblis, who I still might take him number one overall from a quarterback perspective, not necessarily for a draft, but for one game in college football. Q1 Lacey is healthy. He goes for over a hundred yards. I don't want to see Ole Miss right now. Their defense is right. Their star players are back. And as good as Texas's defense is, they did struggle in the second half. They, as Sartt put it kind of bled out and couldn't get a stop as Colin Simmons left that game with an injury, unclear whether he's going to return. Even if he does, he left on a on a court. I can't imagine that he would be 100% even if he is on the football field. And now you've got to run around and defend Trinidad Chamblis. I don't love that at all. So Texas is favored by three and a half. Come on, come on. Come on. I was doing this a lot last week. I was super confident in my picks and, and, and that turned out terrible. I don't love the idea that Texas is defense without Simmons or a hobbled Simmons. It's going to have to chase around Tradad, Chamblis and Kiwan Lacey, Ole Miss with the statement when 31, three over Missouri, who was playing a great football up to that point. And if you bring it down to this, right, if we just have this equation, if I just threw all of the rest of the stuff out, and, and we just said, just point blank period, tight game fourth quarter, even though Ole Miss is on the road, who do you trust more at quarterback in a tight game in the fourth quarter? Tradad, Chamblis or Archmaning, that's not a close decision. You take Tradad, Chamblis every single day of the week. I see more paths to victory for Ole Miss. To pick Texas, you basically have to, you have to have faith, belief in something unseen. You have to have faith in Texas to pick Texas. I can't do that. And they're favored. I'll take the points happily. I think Ole Miss wins this outright 28, 21. I'll take the three and a half and take Ole Miss. I think that this is going to get bad. And by the way, don't underestimate what, what a toxic environment it could turn into. In particular, early, if they don't play well offensively speaking of Texas, that whole place will just turn on Arch on Sark, more in particular, because I do think that there's more sentiment of turning on Sark. Why? Because it's an entire offensive struggle. It's not just Archmaning, because again, I think Texas fans are smart enough to realize and they listen to programs like this. I am telling you for a fact, you cannot replace Archmaning and fix the Texas offense. Other things are the culprit. And we'll see if they can fix them again. You would have to have faith. I don't buy it Ole Miss, 28, 21, Ole Miss. Take the three and a half. All right, Houston at Utah. How about an underrated Houston win last week? Guys, there were so many great games that this one flew under the radar, but Houston with a great performance. In particular, out of their quarterback, Connor Wegman, they beat Drew Mestemaker and the Oklahoma State Cowboys 35, 32 in a great game. And they were like Mestemaker was throwing some haymakers. And you know how I feel about Mestemaker. I think Mestemaker is one of the better quarterbacks in the country. And this was a great football game. Houston's for real. I know that they lost that game earlier this year in Lubbock. But man, they can throw the football. Their defense can stop the run. Wegman is having a great season. He's second in the country in touchdown passes and total TDs. He's playing at a very high level. They've got two wide receivers that I like a lot. I was able to watch a little of their tape, Amari Thomas and Trent Walker, both over 100 last week against Oklahoma State and a grant. That was at home. And now they've got to go on the road and face a Utah team that historically is very good at home in Salt Lake. So I'm not just sitting here saying like, Oh, Houston's on a roll. They're going to go out there and get a big win because Utah is formidable. I don't love the way that Houston played last week on the road against Colorado. Maybe it's a look ahead. Maybe. Maybe they were looking at Houston and thought to themselves like we ran for a million yards on Colorado last year in Salt Lake. And we're about to do the same and all the sudden that's a close game in Boulder and it was a late game. Maybe that's the case. But I will tell you like I didn't love what I saw from Utah. They faced a lot of lower level competition, both from Power 4 and otherwise to start. And they were hammering lower end opponents. Now they faced a couple of teams with a pulse. And by the way, they're like mid Kansas and Colorado and yes, they end up getting the win. But in both of those games, it's in doubt in the second half. So as much as you know, I love Utah. I didn't even have them in my top 10 because of that performance. I've come off of that a little bit. They still have Devin Damper. They still have way Sean Parker. They still should be able to run the ball, but but Houston can stop the run. This is one of those things you wouldn't anticipate seeing this, but when you dig into this game, what you see is that this Houston team is actually pretty good against the run. They are sixth in the country and run defense. If you're going to go to Salt Lake, what do you have to do? You've got to at least be able to handle the run game. And I think that they will be able to do that. So I don't think either team is just going to run away from the other. I don't see a scenario in which Utah runs for 400 yards and wins by double digits. Utah is favored by six and a half in this game. I think Utah could struggle stopping some of the passing game from Conor Wigman, these two wide receivers. I see a bit of a higher scoring game. I see Utah ultimately winning because of the home field. I've just got to give them the advantage, but I just I have to take the six and a half towards Houston in this one. So Utah wins it 30 to 27 in Salt Lake, but I'm taking the six and a half for Houston because I think that that's a big number for a team that's playing this well that has a defense that can match up with Utah, six ranked rushing defense in America. They have a quarterback that's playing well to wide receivers that are playing well. They've got some confidence. This should be a great game. It really should. I think that that one's going to be an excellent game. All right. LSU at Auburn LSU is favored by seven and a half Auburn coming after that huge win over Georgia, obviously. Not the best news for them this week Xavier Atkins, he's dismissed from the program, but remember he didn't even play against Georgia. So it's not like they're going to be impacted in a different way than what they were impacted already against Georgia and they got that win. Meanwhile, LSU routed Mississippi State 31 nothing. Remember, Mississippi State was without Camario Taylor in that game. He was banged up, didn't play at Auburn. I think you've got to look at LSU on the road and what they have been not only this year, but then in the kind of recent past LSU struggles on the road. They're 0 and 2 this year on the road. Now, granted, one of those was at Ole Miss, then they lost that game to Kentucky in double overtime to Will Stein's bunch, but they're 0 and 2 this season and they've lost six straight going back to last year on the road. So that needs to change for Lane Kiffin. Their defense needs to play well, obviously, because Byron Brown is back to back 100 yard rushed games from the QB position and that is the formula for goal ocean Brown. That's what that was there formula itself, Florida and now it's their formula at Auburn. I think that this could be a really great game. LSU favored by seven and a half in this game. Auburn has only lost two at Tennessee. That looks reasonable at this point. They lost a home game to Florida. Florida just beat Texas. Like I don't think Auburn is just going to get stomped out by LSU. They both have two losses and seven and a half on the road is too much. Not for a team that has lost their last six on the road. Now, I think LSU gets the win, but that's too many. So I've got to take the seven and a half. I think LSU wins this one, 34, 30. I'm going to take the seven and a half for Auburn. I know it's an emotional win and we have seen teams this year after emotional wins really have a let down. I'm going to bank on the fact that they're returning home and getting to play at home and LSU's got to go on the road. I'm banking on goal is she's going to get Brown going on the edge a little bit. We'll see if LSU's defense can react. LSU is banged up Lane Kiffin's lamenting the nine games. He's trying to throw excuses in front of his team. He's given his own team rap poison. I almost want to take Auburn. I didn't do it, but I'll take the seven and a half again, LSU, 34, 30. USC at Wisconsin, USC favored by two and a half on the road coming off of a by-week. Their last matchup was on the road against Penn State and the Whiteout. Wisconsin was on the road last week in LA, getting beat by UCLA. That was a 17/7 game. I'm really interested to see what that Penn State won when did for USC. Their confidence on the road, their, I would just say their overall operation on the road. We have seen them struggle mildly in particular going east, even this year when they tried to go out to Rutgers and they got the win, but it was sloppy in particular on the defensive side. Then they go out there and they get the win over Penn State. And this Penn State, a good football team, probably not right now and Wisconsin was able to beat Penn State also at Penn State, but USC is able to beat Penn State at Penn State. I think this could be a close game. I do like Wisconsin's defense, even though UCLA was able to get that when they only scored 17 points, what's hard for me though is that the, the, the floor offensively for USC seems like 21, 24. My AVA is one of the most consistent quarterbacks that we have in the country. He's got mostly back on the outside. They're getting a little healthier after the by-week. I just think that even if you're playing great defense, they're still going to score 21, 24 points. That's, they should be able to run the football a little bit. Wisconsin's not great against the run. They're okay, but not great against the run. I like what Luke fickle has done. I am a big fan of this Wisconsin team, but they can't throw the football. Colton Joseph is a good, solid running quarterback, but they cannot throw the football that was apparent last week against UCLA. And UCLA was largely able to shut them down. So unless Wisconsin is creating short fields and getting some turnovers, I just don't see how they also get to 21 or 24 in this game. If that's the floor for USC, the only way Wisconsin gets there is if USC props them up. So my AVA's got to play clean. They can't turn the football over. You can't have special teams gaffed. And if they can play clean from a penalty perspective, I know that's a huge if, huge if. I think USC is able to go out there and get the win on the road, even in a close game, and even in a close win, you've got to have them covering the two and a half USC 2420. In this ball game, a close win late and they cover the two and a half. And I think that they're set up to play Ohio State. One big thing though. One big. thing and this worries me a little bit. Are they looking ahead to Ohio State? Because now all that all the sudden I did, did I say it again all the all of a sudden I guys I'm trying I'm trying all of a sudden boom Ohio State's vulnerable backup quarterback and a vulnerable opponent out there as like a carrot are they looking ahead? Are they focused on Wisconsin? I think we'll know right away I'm going to bank on the fact that they are out of a by week but that worries me a little bit that worries me a little bit. 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All right Iowa at Minnesota make this a quick when Iowa is ranked 15th they're favored by six and a half they're playing really well they blew out Washington in Seattle last time we saw them play Minnesota I like Minnesota I love PJ like how are they scoring 17 against Iowa in this game I don't see it meanwhile they're not stopping the run Purdue ran for over 300 yards on the ground against Minnesota last week don't love that aspect of what's going on so here we are with Iowa and I'm sitting here and I'm like they're gonna run the football they're gonna play great defense their Iowa I'd I actually like heck lensky at quarterback maybe even overhank brown their only loss was against Ohio State in a game in which Jeremiah Smith is going off and nobody on the planet can defend him that's a good football team I think this is a team that's gonna be there in the end in the big 10 you look at their schedule it is manageable I like vandors Z their wide receiver I like heck lensky I like they're tied in their defense is always good and again that that rush defense for Minnesota just scares me after Purdue was able to get after them on the ground maybe the defense against Michigan was more about Michigan than it was against Minnesota I'm gonna go Iowa in this one I think that they covered the six and a half even on the road something along the lines of you know 2417 very Iowa Minnesota-esque let's recap the picks all right here we go Ole Miss at Texas I had Ole Miss I'll take the three and a half I think Ole Miss wins that game outright again watch out for the toxic nature of the entire environment if Texas doesn't play well offensively early in that game they'll be all over sark they'll be all over arch meanwhile their defense with a banged up calling Simmons even if he is on the field he'll be hobbled now you've got to chase around q1 lacey and train at chambles I like Ole Miss and that one I will take the three and a half same thing here with Houston and Utah I think Utah probably wins the game but six and a half is a lot Houston's playing very well offensively they've got a good run defense that's gonna help them in this game I'm gonna take those six and a half Utah wins it close late they get a win stand defeated I'll take the six and a half towards Houston Auburn same thing LSU I think goes in there and wins their defense finally is able to stop Brown Brown's been doing a great job for goalish but I'm gonna take the seven and a half LSU's lost their last six on the road so the seven and a half for me at least in that one is pretty easy tightball game with constant hosting SC I think SC gets the win late I think they've got confidence their quarterback is consistent my avas a heck of a player I'm gonna give the two and a half there and tech take SC and then I'll give the six and a half at Minnesota with Iowa with a great defense a great run game against a Minnesota defense that really struggles stopping the run last week against Purdue those are the picks hopefully they go better than last week in my run am I right yeah hopefully they go better than last week I'll be in Michigan Indian ad Michigan Gus Ginny and I on the call big noon Saturday before our big noon Saturday big noon kick off before we kick and hopefully again it's a great day of college football because we're on a heater here not in the picks just college football and I hope you enjoy it please tweet enjoy your Saturday