SEC college football picks, odds in Week 2: Texas fights for early season SEC pride in trip to Michigan

Week 2 of the college football season provides us with one of the bigger nonconference games of the season, and the SEC is set to face big early season tests with three programs leaving their home states to play ranked teams.

Two College Football Playoff teams from last season meet at The Big House when No. 3 Texas (1-0) travels to No. 10 Michigan (1-0), the defending national champion. Michigan isn’t quite what it was last season, it appears, and fell one spot in the AP Top 25 after a listless offensive performance in a 30-10 victory against Fresno State. Texas picked up where it left off last season with quarterback Quinn Ewers and new firepower at receiver following a Week 1 blowout of Colorado State.

All eyes will be on Ann Arbor, but the SEC has a lot at stake elsewhere in nonconference games with the Big 12 and ACC. Strength of schedule is more important than ever in the 12-team era of the College Football Playoff (more on that in a minute), and solidifying the conference over the Big Ten will be crucial if the SEC intends to challenge for five spots in the postseason. There’s a long way to go, sure, but big games in the first two weeks of the season will directly affect the SEC’s standing in the hierarchy down the road. 

So far, results have been mixed. LSU came up short against USC, losing its fifth straight season opener, and Georgia trounced Clemson, a program that continues to fade in the background since its title runs in the mid-2010s. The conference’s footing didn’t get much help with South Carolina struggling to beat Old Dominion, and most of the conference opted to feed on weak FCS opponents to start the season.

Why so many cupcakes?

The SEC made history in Week 1, beating seven opponents by 50-plus points, the most by…

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Author : Brandon Marcello

Publish date : 2024-09-04 18:00:58

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