Gridiron Players Club (11/18/23)
- Gridiron Players Club
- Nov 18, 2023
- 4 min read
CFB
Courtside Players Club off to a 4-1 Start! They're about to start releasing games much more frequently. Great time of year to be a VIP member if you haven't upgraded already! Can also joing Courtside by itself. Play majority College Hoops compared to NBA but it includes both. Reach out via live chat our text your Rep!
(3 Picks)
3:30PM EST: Clemson -7 (4 Units)
The Tigers are still a very good football team despite their 6-4 record. They have a first year QB who's had his fair share of ups and downs. They've lost 3 of their 4 games on the road. That's young inexperienced QB 101. Their other loss came at home to FSU, who's a potential playoff team and only because of a missed chip shot field goal. By all means they should have won that game. They also beat Notre Dame at home, a team that can compete with the Countries best.
Give Cade Clubnik and this offense a friendly enviornment and time to adjust at the Line of Scrimmage and things go well. Give the Clemson defense the crowd behind them and they're as disruptive as their Title winning era. Clemson is playing at Home today against a team getting a whole lot of love without having accomplished much.
North Carolina's biggest win is either against 6-4 Duke or 6-4 Miami, both of which came at Home. This is a North Carolina team that lost to Georgia Tech and Virginia. They've played in just 2 road games this year and are 1-1. Securing a win over now 3-8 PITT and losing 42-46 to a now 5-5 Georgia Tech team. They're far from some elite team and the strength of this Clemson defense is it's secondary. The strength of the NC Offense is QB Drake Maye and it's passing attack.
Clemson's also owned their cross state rivals. They've won 5 straight games against them, 4 of them by double digits. Last year Clemson smoked them 39-10 at Home. QB Drake Maye threw 2 interceptions and lost a fumble that day. This year's Clemson secondary is much better than lasts.
8PM EST: LSU -31.5 (3 Units)
We don't move on big lines very often but this is a good spot. For starters, Georgia State's defense flat out sucks. Going back they've allowed 42 to Appalachian State, 42 to James Madison, and 44 to Georgia Southern. LSU would absolutely destroy those teams. The Georgia State offense has scored more than 20 points just once over the last 4 weeks too. Now the Tigers defense isn't very good but they are certainly more talented than Georgia State's offense.
The Tigers don't have a whole lot to play for. Odds are they don't have a shot at an SEC title and the playoffs certainly aren't happening. That was the case after losing to Alabama 2 weeks ago but they still followed that up with a 52-35 thrashing over Florida. Every kid on the field has aspirations to compete at the next level and they're going to show up.
The one thing LSU can still accomplish is a Jayden Daniels Heisman trophy. That is a team accomplishment in every sense and he's fresh off a 606 total yards and 5 touchdown performance. His teamates also show nothing but praise for the signal caller. Daniels is right in the mix for the Heisman and another big day here would go a long way. Projected as high as a top 10 pick he only has 2 or 3 collegiate games left and last week was a clear indication of LSU's intentions. Feel comfortable they run this up to a point where even the backdoor cover isn't a possibility for Gerogia State.
8PM EST: Texas -7 (4 Units)
We know Jonathon Brooks is hurt but this is still a playoff team and playoff defense. They have one of the best QB's in the country in Quinn Ewers and he should be feeling good health wise. He returned from injury against TCU and had a relatively strong day but there's always some rust after a long absence. Brooks is a great back but this Longhorn roster is plenty deep. Everyone thought they were doomed when Bijan left for the NFL, wasn't the case. They can't outright replace Brooks production but they still have a couple explosive backs in Baxter and Blue that can fill in.
Iowa State's defense has done a good job against some of the lesser offenses in the conference but Kansas scored 28 without QB Jalen Daniels, Oklahoma 50, and Oklahoma State 27. This Texas offense is much closer to Oklahoma than they are Kansas and Ok State too. Iowa State's played 5 FBS teams that currently have a winning record and they're 1-4. Their only win coming 34-27 against Oklahoma State in week 4. Gundy's bunch is also much better now than they were then.
Their offense in those 5 games averaged just 19 points per game. Texas is easily the best defense they'll face of the winning record bunch. Last weeks final score of 29-26 against TCU doesn't look great for Texas but TCU scored 20 points in the Fourth Quarter. That game was well in hand most of the way for Texas but they just took the foot off the pedal. The TCU run also came after Brooks tore his ACL. That will certainly suck the life out of a team.
Outside of the Kansas State game a couple weeks ago that saw them play in OT, this Texas defense has shut down pretty much everyone. Maliik Murphy was also the starting QB for Texas against Kansas State and he turned the ball over twice. Brooks also fumbled on Texas's own 32 yard line too. Hard to play good defense without a complimentary offense.
Texas is truly the better team across the board here and with the experienced Ewers under center the loss of Brooks should be mitigated. Losing Brooks is going to sting against the Elite teams, Iowa State isn't one of them.
