College football 2022 Week 10 upset pick, lock, bad bet, and strangest thing

With Week 10 comes the first slate of games that have College Football Playoff rankings. Will anyone crumble under the pressure?

The 2022 college football season is in the home stretch, with just five weeks remaining in the regular season. The College Football Playoff rankings have entered the chat, and bowl projections are now starting to take shape.

Let the chaos begin and the playoff hopefuls find their magic.

As it stands right now, the CFP is filled with red and orange, with Tennessee, Ohio State, Georgia, and Clemson stepping into the top four spots. Michigan and Alabama are the next in line. We’ve got potential shakeups already, with Georgia and Tennessee set to meet in Athens, while Alabama can solidify its position in a game against rival LSU.

Georgia fans are hoping the Bulldogs shake off the No. 3 curse, as only one team has ever reached the final four in the College Football Playoff after being ranked third in the initial rankings (Clemson in 2020). This will be an interesting week of college football, to say the least.

Looking back at my Week 8 picks before moving into this week’s predictions and spreads.

Upset: It wasn’t easy, but Penn State beat the spread against Ohio State, despite losing a late-game lead (sound familiar, Nittany Lion fans?).

Lock: Oregon made short work of Cal, and the two teams combined for 66 points, giving me a win on the spread and the over/under

3-0 last week on picks brings me to 13-9 on the season. Here are my picks for Week 10 with odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

College Football Week 10 Upset Pick: Texas Tech Red Raiders vs TCU Horned Frogs

TCU is likely unhappy with its initial No. 7 ranking by the College Football Playoff committee, so it would follow they’d be playing this game with a chip on their shoulder and with a ton of emotion to show the committee just how wrong they were.

But there’s something about this game and about this Texas Tech team that screams “we’re here to wreck everyone’s day”. Doubtful that Guns Up comes out of Fort Worth with a win, but a potential score-trading shootout is more than likely.

Bettors apparently agree, with an over/under currently set at 69.5 on this game. Ignore Texas Tech’s 4-4 record ATS so far this year. They’ll be pumped to try and knock off their in-state rival.

Pick: High-scoring shootout, with TCU winning by 6. Won’t help their CFP ranking much.  

College Football Week 10 Bonus Upset Pick: Clemson Tigers vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish

I’m giving you a bonus upset pick this week with so many key games happening. There are many who think Clemson got too much love from the CFP committee with their No. 4 ranking (I may or may not be one of them) and a game at Notre Dame Stadium is just the place to prove the committee wrong.

Clemson has looked pedestrian at times, pretty good at others, and dominating for four quarters pretty much never (aside from the expected thrashing of Boston College).

Notre Dame lives for games like this, and they seem to have finally found their groove offensively. They completely owned a Syracuse team that Clemson struggled to beat (with some help from the refs). The Tigers are on upset alert before the opening whistle even sounds.

Pick: Notre Dame by 10, Clemson doesn’t sniff the playoffs for the rest of the season

And here we go. The lock pick of the week. We aren’t backing away from the big games.

College Football Week 10 Lock: Tennessee Volunteers vs Georgia Bulldogs

Has there ever been a bigger game right after the initial College Football Playoff rankings are released? Here we go, No. 1 vs No. 3. SEC East rivalry, with the division title possibly on the line. This is why we watch, folks.

So Georgia and 8.5 points? Conventional wisdom says no, but much like the heralded coach Jimmy McGinty, I’m anything but a conventional guy.

Reasons not to pick Georgia to cover this spread:

• UGA Pass defense has been suspect at times
• By far, the toughest opponent Georgia has faced all year
• CBS mid-afternoon game
• College GameDay is in Athens
• SEC Nation is in Athens
• Marty & McGee are in Athens
• Georgia is 4-4 ATS this season, while Tennessee is 7-1

Reasons to pick Georgia to cover 8.5 points

• Brock Bowers
• Kenny McIntosh
• Stetson Bennett’s legs
• Jalen Carter
• Chance of rain all day. Georgia is better in the mud than Tennessee
• 93,000 (give or take) jacked-up, absolutely bonkers Georgia fans
• Tennessee’s defense (performance against Kentucky notwithstanding)

The truth of this game is that Georgia still has the more talented team, and every player on this Tennessee team is brand new to the pressure of playing as one of the top-ranked teams in the nation. Georgia’s players are seasoned pros, at this point.

Pick: The atmosphere in Sanford Stadium will be unlike anything seen there in years, and Georgia will be up for the challenge. Dawgs by 10. Take the over at 65.5

So what’s the game to stay away from this week? Back to the Big 12 and one of the most inconsistent teams in the country

College Football Week 10 Bad Bet: Texas Longhorns vs Kansas State Wildcats

This will be short and sweet. We never know from week to week which Texas team is going to show up, and the Kansas State quarterback situation is still a question mark.

Longhorns favored by 2.5 on the road seems like a trap. Stay away from this one unless you want to look at the over/under of 54.5.  Should be a decent amount of offense in this game, but if Adrian Martinez is still out, it might be a struggle.

Pick: If I had to pick, I’d take K-State at home, with more confidence if Martinez is playing. 

The Strangest Thing We Saw in College Football Week 9

We’ve seen a lot of strange things on ESPN College GameDay before…a lot of strange things. But the show just a few days before Halloween taking place at Jackson State University was full of odd moments.

But, that’s what you get when you have both Deion Sanders and Stephen A. Smith joining the set on the same day (no, not at the same time, the universe couldn’t handle that).

https://twitter.com/shannonsharpeee/status/1586380758716846080?s=20&t=-bvC7P9neKnB4kFpQGEQUA

Call Stephen A. the great prognosticator…Jackson State manhandled Southern to the tune of a 35-0 shutout.

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