The MAC does have a couple of teams picking up paychecks this Saturday, with Buffalo visiting Wisconsin and Western Michigan traipsing to Florida State. There are a surprising number of games that look like they should have been played in September, with other matchups such as Middle Tennessee State at South Carolina and Louisiana-Monroe at Kentucky failing to excite the populace in those SEC towns. This is a direct result of the money-grabbing move to a 12-game schedule. The 12-game schedule also leads to some empty platitudes churned out by the sports information directors from coast to coast. For example, if they beat Bama on Saturday, Auburn’s seniors will become the first Tiger group to finish their careers with 40 wins. While they’ve certainly enjoyed some success under Coach Tuberville in recent years, this senior class had a 12th game this year and in 2003 as well as an SEC title clash in 2004. That’s three extra games due to scheduling extensions.

Though not carrying the meaning it ordinarily does in the big picture, Auburn/Alabama is the most intense rivalry in all of college football. Despite a mediocre 6-5 record this year Mike Shula isn’t taking the same kind of heat for that performance that Tide fans would give to a coach who came from the outside. Part of the reason for their patience is that Elephants (or at least their supporters) have long memories. In the 1985 Auburn/Alabama game the Shula-quarterbacked Crimson Tide trailed Auburn with 37 seconds left and faced a 3rd and 18 on their own 12-yard line. Watch what happened from there at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2z8-i2YYQg.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden was asked to fall on a Seminole spear this week at Florida State. We talked in our subscription newsletter The Max last week about how poorly the Seminoles matched up with Wake Forest. Even we were a bit stunned when FSU lost 30-0. Wake Forest has a nice team. But they don’t throw many shutouts!

This FSU offense has been behind the times for a few years now. That’s one of those things that’s hard to see in the stats because FSU is still capable of running up the score on bad teams. When they have an athletic advantage, they’re going to post big numbers (as they did in a 55-7 victory over Rice this year, and a 51-24 victory over Duke). Otherwise, the sport has caught up to what FSU tries to do. The jump ball to the athletic wide receiver has been widely emulated, and opponents have found FSU’s offense to be very predictable since Mark Richt left for the Georgia job. In the past few years college defenses have gotten a lot more savvy about blitzing. And, cornerbacks and safeties are better schooled at forcing turnovers. You can pretty much tell when that started by looking at FSU’s interception stats under the last few quarterbacks. At first, just a few defenses were making it work (notably NC State with former FSU assistant Chuck Amato who knew the team well). Now, pretty much everyone but undersized teams that lack athletes can make it work.

This is why FSU is 6-12 ATS their last 18 regular season games. Half of those covers came against Rice, Duke, and Duke again last year. FSU is 3-12 ATS when not playing Rice or Duke the last 18 outings. The Bowden family kept trying to make this outdated approach work for so long, and were so stubborn about not realizing what had happened. Football evolves. You can’t stand pat no matter what your name is. A big check from boosters helped the process along, but Jeff Bowden just had to go.

That Wake Forest pick over Florida State was part of a big week in the newsletter. When you subscribe to our newsletter The Max through the Super Bowl, you get a free copy of my book Real World Sports Betting: How Real People Make Real Money in the Global Sports Marketplace. Call 1-770-649-1078 to order.

Both Ohio State and Michigan have established that they can play very conservatively in some situations, and wide-open in others. The weather is often an influence in determining this. Neither coach likes to try dangerous plays in poor conditions because they don’t want to lose a game on turnovers. Both will trust their athletes in better conditions. Michigan coach Lloyd Carr is constantly getting slammed for his conservative play. But, his teams have played some very exciting bowl games. Their 47-21 win at Notre Dame was pretty wide open too in terms of style. Ohio State didn’t mind an up-tempo game in last year’s Fiesta Bowl win over Notre Dame either.

Put them on the field in bad conditions though, and you get field position struggles that are a throwback to old-time football. We saw that with both teams this year against Penn State. Michigan led 10-3 at the half on the way to a 17-10 road victory. Total yardage was just 312-186. Ohio State won 28-3, but it was 14-3 until two late interception returns for touchdowns. Do you remember they trailed 3-0 at halftime in that game? Total yardage was just 253-248 for the Buckeyes.

While the forecast isn’t bad for Columbus on Saturday (mid-40’s, dry, modest wins), the field is not in good shape. 7 of the past 8 games in this rivalry have had 41 points or more scored in them, but when you look back at those games one team or the other had a vulnerable defense every year except for 2002, when Ohio State won in a game with only 23 total points. Despite the series trend, we’ll look to the under.

The spotlight seems not to be as bright for NBC’s Sunday night package. Sunday Night is supposed to be the new Monday Night Football, but there’s definitely a different dymanic for the guy who watches football all day on Sunday and then works all day on Monday. Speaking of Monday night, if you watched the Bears struggle to a total of 3 points in the first 29 minutes, you probably didn’t expect them to notch 35 points in the next 21½ minutes. The second half scores were on drives of 43 yards, 21 yards, 46 yards, and a field goal return, of all things.

Don’t forget to call our daily hotline for a free selection from colleague Dave Fobare. Dave always has a pick waiting for you for no charge at 1-770-618-8700. Dave doesn’t just post a selection and hang up. You get in-depth analysis on every pick. The kind of analysis you can use for the teams involved in their upcoming games as well. Each report is like a mini-tutorial that can lead to several winners down the road. Now that basketball is underway, you get game-day selections seven days a week.

The Texans won nicely in Jacksonville, strangely sweeping the season series from the Jaguars. They have some statistical advantages over Buffalo. But this is not a team that handles prosperity well. The Texans lost after both previous wins this season. They have not been favored yet this year but in the two previous years were 2-4 laying points. Buffalo was right in their ballgame at the Colts and take a huge step down in class here. Take the points with Buffalo.

Thanks for reading Sports & Gaming News this week. If you don’t get this via email than you’re missing out on some occasional special reports that have a lot of value. There will be several such communiqués during the month of November. Visit www.FootballAnnual.com to get that taken care of.

Thanks again for reading. Good luck and be careful.