Who's hot? Who's not? The bulls and bears are everywhere this week in our ESDBS Mad Money review.
"The Spread Option will be more like an evolution than a revolution, but I'm not selling yet!"
Stranko's Buys:
Alabama: I had them as a buy last week and sadly my expectations were exceeded. They earned the right to keep their buy rating.
Notre Dame: They've gone from hold to buy thanks to an offensive clinic this last week. Now they have two weeks to prepare for a potentially historic rebound to prominence. They don't need to win to accomplich that as long as they are in the game ASU style until the end.
Orson's Buys
Texas. Mack Brown may choke like Kobe Tai, but Vince Young won't. The OU streak is gone like Urban Meyer's win streak this week and you'll be sitting pretty on a pile of cow chips buying Texas.
Georgia Tech. Amato's tanking at NC State and tapping his red shoes slowly into an early coaching grave. Tech's seen the worst of its season and has a Pop-tart twin pack of NC State and Duke going into their game with Miami in three weeks. Thursday night in Atlanta in front of a bunch of Tech students desperate from an excuse to turn off their Warcraft games and get outdoors? Tough crowd for the Hollow Chest and his turnover-prone offense to handle. Tech's on the way to 5-1 going into the game with the Canes, and we still wouldn't trust Chan Gailey with cleaning our crack pipe coffee maker.
Florida Buy now, since it can't get much lower than Saturday's rock bottoming.
Georgia Two words: Hobnail boot. Tennessee's monster line meets UGA's monster line. Clausen is already gimpy and backup qb Ainge's confidence is currently laying in the University of Tennessee body farm. Munson gets another excuse to redefine demented homerism with another win in Knoxville.
Stranko's Sells:
Penn State: It has been a nice story so far and it is good to see Joe Pa looking excited again, but things aren't going to get better for the Nitany Lions so sell why the price is high.
Purdue: The swoon has begun. Get out while you can.
Orson's sells.
Minnesota. In economic terms, Minnesota before game 5 of each season is Indonesia 1996. After game 5, they become post-crash 1997 Indonesia. Sell.
Nebraska. Texas Tech scored 70 last year, which means the storyline's going to be all about "OOOH, look revenge game! Spring-er! Spring-er!" Nebraska may just hold Texas Tech to 17 points, but we're not convinced Callahan's team can keep up with even that meager total. There will, however, be 100 passes attempted in this game, which has got to be some kind of record.
Stranko's Holds:
Cal: Still waiting to see them against a good opponent but they've been impressive nontheless.
Florida: Be warned, this pick is tainted by my heart strings. Sure they were embarassed last week, but you never want to sell at the bottom of the market if a rebound is possible. They'll rebound at least for next week.
USC: Still the best... even if they keep coming out sluggish.
Orson's Holds:
LSU. They will struggle at Vandy this week. A win's a win, right? Unless you're Les Miles, have already blown an O-ring with a horrid home loss to Tennessee, and were caught on television being restrained by your more composed assistant coaches taking a time out you shouldn't have. And even at 4-1, it's still Vandy, which will make it look all the worse.
UCLA A paired hedge with Stranko on the most interesting WC game this week. We honestly have no idea how good either team really may be. We have a sneaking feeling that this game means a lot more to the Bruins, which seemed to work pretty well for Alabama this past week.