The 2024 college football regular season is officially over. And after the dramatic season, we're left with three SEC teams that are locks for the 12-team College Football Playoff, and one team that is still alive for a potential at large bid.
Rivalry week in the final week of the season was chaotic across the nation. It began when a brawl erupted after Michigan's unbelievable upset as three touchdown underdogs against Ohio State and the midfield logo flag planting that kickstarted the melee rippled through the country.
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Week 13 wreaked havoc on some of the SEC's top playoff contenders.
We thought we witnessed the upset of the day when Florida knocked off #9 Ole Miss in Gainesville in the opening window of action. Jaxson Dart threw three interceptions in the last two minutes of the game (one of which was overturned by replay) to prevent the Rebels from tying it up late. The Gators have a good shot at achieving a 7-win season, which seemed nearly impossible given their schedule going into the year. Ole Miss, on the other hand, is almost assuredly out of the CFP barring some additional chaos in the next couple weeks.
The race for supremacy in the SEC is becoming more and more clouded with each passing week.
There were just four conference games played in Week 12, and all of which had some sort of implication on the College Football Playoff picture. The biggest was Georgia's big win to save their season against Tennessee. A loss would've effectively taken the Bulldogs out of the equation, but they were able to overcome an early 10-0 deficit to cruise to a relatively stress free win. 
Well, it looked like we were finally going to do it last week. We got out to a 5-0 betting start in the early window on Sunday, but the gambling gods giveth and the gambling gods taketh away. Our final two bets of the day lost massively. Still, our 5-2 record takes us to a now respectable 36-32-2 record for the season.
I didn't really know which game to select as the Lock of the Week last week, but of course it was one of our two losses. The weekly Lock has faltered as of late and has dropped to 5-8 on the year. Let's turn that around here in Week 11. Cleveland Browns at New Orleans Saints Under 44.0
Week 11 of the SEC football season was a week of blowouts, some more anticipated than others. Only one of the six games on Saturday, Missouri's chaotic win over Oklahoma, was decided by fewer than three scores.
We had two matchups with dire College Football Playoff implications. And the victors in each game made real statements. Ole Miss stifled Carson Beck and the Georgia Bulldogs, dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball to secure a 28-10 victory. And Alabama went into Baton Rouge and ran all over the Tigers in a 42-13 blowout win. Ole Miss and Bama are sitting safely in the CFP, for now anyway, while Georgia and LSU are both on life support with no room for error remaining.
I can feel the momentum starting to build after we rattled off a 4-2-1 week in Week 9. Unfortunately, the Lock of the Week was doomed to fail after Dak Prescott was knocked out of the game halfway through. But we've finally eclipsed the .500 mark to enter Week 10 with a 31-30-2 record. Let's create some more separation from .500 this time around with these seven picks.
Carolina Panthers +7.0 vs. New York Giants
Week 10 in the SEC was, like usual, very eventful. The biggest, and perhaps most surprising result, was South Carolina's 24-0 second half performance to upset #10 Texas A&M. South Carolina has no real shot at the playoffs at this point, but they played tremendously and brought the Aggies down quickly from their perch atop the SEC.
Another middling 4-3 week for us in Week 8, which featured a terrible beat with the Seahawks fumbling twice on the goal line to prevent the Over in their game against the Bills from hitting. The Lock of the Week is officially on a roll as we got another win there thanks to the Steelers. We continue to push back to the .500 mark at 27-28-1, and the Lock of the Week is up to 5-6. We're due for a big week here in Week 9.
Denver Broncos +9.5 at Baltimore Ravens
It was a bit of a quiet week in the SEC in Week 9 with several a quarter of the league on byes. But the most notable game was the primetime matchup between LSU and Texas A&M. LSU built a 10-point lead in the first half on the road in College Station before the Aggies inserted their backup quarterback, Marcel Reed. And the Tigers had no answer for him. A&M ended the game on 31-6 run to secure the victory and remain the sole unbeaten SEC team in conference play.
We just can't get an overwhelmingly positive week going this season, as we only escaped with a 4-3 outing in Week 7. The most unfortunate loss was the Over 48.5 not hitting in the Texans/Packers game, as the two teams combined for 40 points in the first 2.5 quarters of action.
A saving grace was that the Lock of the Week was a lock indeed, as we hit the Over 49.0 in the Bucs/Ravens game on Monday night by a whopping 23 points. We're 23-25-1 now on the season, and the Lock of the Week is now 4-6. We're due for a highly successful run any week now, so we might as well do it here in Week 8. Philadelphia Eagles at Cincinnati Bengals Over 47.5 |