#11 Ohio State @ Toledo
Ohio State IS Johnny Cash IN Walk the Line. Jim Tressel, you can’t just keep doing the same songs over and over? And you sure as hell can’t do it in front of a rabid crowd of people who’ve killed people? You are incorrect, record executive/football pundit. Sweatervest will trot out his shufflin’, two-note bass line lovin’ Tennessee Trio of an offense again and again until someone puts his head in the John Cooper memorial guillotine, confidently plowing ahead with convention in front of an audience condemned to imprisonment. (Cleveland, San Quentin. Equivalencies of a sort.) Toledo may cover, sure, but Ohio State football is about beating people by seventeen points, max, be they Michigan or Toledo. His sidewalks are not meant for fancy walkin’ in the least.

Holly: Aaron Opelt IS The Brave Little Toaster IN The Brave Little Toaster. The toast (sorry) of the MAC brings his flingin’ arm up against its first real defensive test of the year. Will the Buckeyes rebound from last week’s debacle when faced with a team that should by all rights be an easy target? Hayll, no. Toledo will cover that unconscionable 20.5 line at the very least, and in fact, let’s pick them to win outright, because they’re named “Rockets” and because if I picked against them, Toledo fans wouldn’t send me poorly veiled and spellchecked death threats. Got a long car trip this afteroon, and I’ll need the entertainment.

Can that guy play linebacker? (And does the Brave Little Toaster die at the end? I forget.

Tennessee @ #1 Florida

Orson: Brandon Spikes IS the County Assessor in DON’T EVER FUCK WITH THE COUNTY ASSESSOR BITCH. You know who’s been teeny eeny weeny mouse quiet? THE COUNTY ASSESSOR BITCH. Brandon Spikes hasn’t said anything all week, but his presence in shutting down the Tennessee run game will mean mo’ Crompton, and mo’ Crompton means mo’ interceptions, since he has thrown many more interceptions than one should as a college quarterback. The County Assessor will decide what real estate you can afford, Mr. Crompton. Considering your credit rating, it looks like you can afford nothing in the ZIP code of 32601.

Holly: Lane Kiffin IS Chuck Barris IN Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Is any of it true? Who cares; we’re just here for the spectacle and the stories. Giant motherfucking catfish rains down the sky, Nick Reveiz racks up thirty tackles, Boo Berry breaks the NCAA career interception yardage record on the road in Gainesville and Tennessee returns to the Motherland victorious by a score of a billionteen to six. (What the hell were you expecting?)

#3 USC @ Washington

Holly: Steve Sarkisian IS Luke Skywalker IN A New Hope. Bratty early Luke who just wants to pick up some power converters. Yoda’s coming to YOUR swamp now, Sarky, and he likes your moves but you’re still Washington. Trojans, but a close enough game to send the Huskies to the locker room with the cuddly moral victory.

Orson: USC IS Martin Blank IN Gross Pointe Blank. It’s not me, says Pete Carroll, as he plugs three in the head of Washington at close range. Even friends get it if the name’s on the contract, Steve BLAM! /picksupdiscovermagazine /readsidly

Tulsa @ #12 Oklahoma

Todd Graham IS Patrick Bateman IN American Psycho . Up the coaching ladder no matter the cost, even if he had to stab people to get an incremental jump from Rice to Tulsa (the equivalent of strangling a co-worker for a promotion from assistant general manager to senior assistant general manager.) Now looking around and noticing the subtle bone-white of other people’s business cards, and sensing the sudden hollow cheapness of his world. I’m not saying he flexes in the mirror while filming his own sexual encounters. I’m saying he flexes in the mirror and screams “Yeah, Todd!” while filming his own sexual encounters. Two entirely different things. (This means Tulsa loses, btw.)

Holly: Bob Stoops IS Dana Marschz IN Hamlet 2. Completely and cheerfully divorced from reality. Look, it’s entirely beyond possible that I’m not coming back from this weekend alive, so let’s really live and call the upset here as well. Is it really an upset without Sam Bradford? Vegas seems to think so, setting the line at 17.5. Is that even going to be an issue with the departure of Gus Malzahn? What the hell, we’re about to find out. The Golden Hurricane (oooh, singular MLS-style name, edgy!) has torn up two previous (and bad) opponents by a combined score of 81-23. This is only slightly larger than Oklahoma’s last margin of victory at their previous meeting.

#19 Nebraska @ #13 Virginia Tech

Holly: Urban Meyer IS Rosie Perez IN Do The Right Thing. With a gun to my head and Diamonique Cold Meyer at the other end of it, I could not come up with a game I have less interest in watching than this one. Can I pick the West Virginia game instead? Because speaking of Malzahn, he’s about to bitchmake Bill Stewart at Auburn in primetime like the bitch Bill Stewart is.

Orson: Bo Pelini IS Alex Baldwin IN The Bear. The Bear’s antagonist–a bear–all too perfectly sums up what it’s like to play Virginia Tech, a huge, mean animal that, if you have one or two well-aimed bullets, can be killed nine times out of ten. Nebraska has a few of those in the form of an actual offense, something Virginia Tech continues to innovatively play football without. Close, as BEAMERBALL (TM) tends to be, but ultimately leaning towards the Cornhuskers.

Michigan State @ Notre Dame

Orson: Golden Tate IS Pele IN Victory. Notre Dame will go down early to the Spartans. Defeat will be in the air. Doom will tunnel up through the locker room at halftime and beckon the Irish to follow them to a season of bailing right nastily on Weis, but then everyone will remember that no one can cover Golden Tate, and that Charlie Weis should just go back to the four play “Toss-Draw-Deep ball-crossing pattern” offense they’ve been running since halfway through last year, and then it’s Dantonio Face time for the entire second half. Victoire! Victoire! Victoire! It will be just like the end of Victory, except for the raunchy sex with the locals, since that will get you kicked out of school if you do it in the wrong places in South Bend.

Holly: Tate Forcier IS Pete IN Pete’s Dragon, with a special guest appearance by Rich Rodriguez as HOLY SHIT A DRAGON. If we were even keeping track of our scores week to week, I would be logic-bound to take the Irish. We are not, and I am not, and though that one Domer troll has mysteriously disappeared since The Recent Unpleasantness, this is kind of a fun habit. Dantonio over Weis in a surl-off, and Spartans over Irish out of uncut Colombian spite. (I’m sorry, Harrison Smith. Forgive me, Golden Tate. It’s Hate Week, and it’s leaking everywhere.)

Navy @ Pitt

Holly: Dave Wannstedt IS David Spritz IN The Weather Man. Navy and Miami were my ‘09 BCS sleeper picks. The Baby ‘Canes are acquitting themselves quite nicely, but Navy took a heartbreaker of a haymaker early in Columbus before righting the ship against a not-awful Louisiana Tech team. And if anyone’s prepared to deliver a loss when he shouldn’t, it’s the Wannstache. Make it happen, Pitt Kitties.

Orson: Ken Niumatololo IS The Wolf IN Pulp Fiction. I have a mess, Ken. A huge one, since I’m now in week three of Wannstache Upset Alert, and have zero to show for it save for this tripled-down bet on Dave Wannstedt doing what comes naturally to him: blowing a game against inferior competition. I’ll make you coffee, whatever you need, man. Just clean up the dead bodies a suddenly consistent Pitt team keeps leaving in my car. Buffalo’s brains are all over the backseat.

Florida State @ #7 BYU

Bronco Mendenhall IS Kirk Douglas IN Spartacus. Running from the hills to terrorize an old empire wearing nothing but a spear and a jock strap. Okay, more than that, since these are Mormons, but remember two key plot points:

1. Spartacus rips Rome a new one, and

2. He ends up dead in the end.

But but but but BYU is a BCS buster and beat Oklahoma and THAT’S JUST WHAT COLLEGE FOOTBALL WOULD WANT YOU TO THINK. The patron god of this sport is Loki, and he’s telling you that mischief would be a tattered, tottering FSU team rolling into Provo and beating BYU. Mischief, he will have.

Holly: Bobby Bowden IS Theoden IN LOTR: The Two Towers. Not a whisper of an upset here. With a defense that’s as somnambulant as Bowden The Elder himself, and Max Hall in his third year flashing 325 passing yards, this will be over fast, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be pretty.

#23 Georgia @ Arkansas

Holly: Mark Richt IS Edmond IN Edmond. Which is more to be feared? Evil Richt with a chip-shouldered, something-to-prove team or Bobby Petrino leading a squad of indeterminate quality? Depends, are we playing football? Georgia, but not without a few scares.

Orson: Bobby Petrino AS Willard IN Willard Actually, I just wanted to imagine Petrino as the king of Rats. (No reason! We swear!) Remember what happens when SEC East teams go to the West? Horrible, terrible, unpredictable things, for the most part, especially against an improving Arkansas squad. Holly says “scares;” we say “hordes of rats devouring Joe Cox.” Arkansas gets its first big scalp in the Petrino era in a shootout.

Texas Tech @ #2 Texas

Holly: Will Muschamp IS Ben Wade IN 3:10 to Yuma. Say, did you know these two teams have a history? Because it seemed very important last night in the midst of an actual football game being played on television at that moment that concerned neither Texas nor Texas Tech that we know Texas Tech and Texas have met before! I wonder how that turned out? Anybody hear? I’ll take a jittery McCoy over an unfinished Potts, though if he hadn’t gone and shaved his beard this would be a treacherous pick.

Orson: Taylor Potts IS Hudson IN Aliens. You want some Texas defense! (Discharges 5 TDs in a noble loss.) HUH BITCH? (Fires seventy passes constantly throwing until the final whistle.) Oh, now you want some? (Scanning for open receivers, sees none, tries to buy time.) IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? (Fires off fifteen yard completion as he his eaten and killed by Sergio Kindle.)