Just four weeks remain in the college football season, and every Saturday the pressure ramps up on teams fighting for spots in the College Football Playoff and conference championship games.
Week 11 brings opportunities for upsets. There are important showdowns in the Power Four leagues that can dramatically change the postseason outlook for the involved teams and others. The difficult question is trying to forecast when and where those surprising results will occur across the country.
That’s why the USA TODAY Sports college football staff is here. Scooby Axson, Jordan Mendoza, Paul Myerberg, Erick Smith and Eddie Timanus weigh in with their bold predictions for Week 1 of the college football season:
Billy Napier’s reward for not getting fired: A rout at Texas
On Saturday, the Florida Gators will travel to Austin, Texas, to play the Longhorns. If the game goes as expected (Texas is a three-touchdown favorite), Napier will remain the head coach through the end of the season, no matter if Texas wins by 1 or 50. The reasons why don’t matter, especially in the explanation via the lame press release by the school’s athletic director.
Let’s play devil’s advocate for a second and say that Florida wins its next three games, including home games against LSU and Ole Miss, two teams with serious and realistic postseason aspirations. That’s not going to happen but is not paying the buyout delaying the inevitable, or praying that Napier will turn it around sooner than later….
