College football picks, Week 13: We are split on a lackluster Egg Bowl

Let's be honest. If you've been an Ole Miss fan for any part of the last 20 years, you'd know that you should never, EVER chalk up the Ole Miss-Vandy game as an easy W. I think we can all agree to put last week behind us and move on to a very interesting rivalry week. Since Mullen came to town, the Egg Bowl has reached an elevated status of bitterness and resentment as he has "EGG"ed on his MSU cult followers to embrace the TSUN Ole Piss Racist Bears moniker.

Since Hugh Freeze arrived at Ole Miss, he is one Bo Wallace fumble in the end zone during overtime away from being 4-0 against Dan Mullen (more like Bran Muffin). However, unlike the previous years' potential upper-level bowl berths, this year's Egg Bowl is a battle for the basement of the SEC West. Can the Rebs squeak out the TD-plus spread? What else is going on around this weekend's rivalry week?

• Washington already trounced Washington State in the Apple Cup (sorry, it's Thanksgiving week); will Bama cover in the Iron Bowl? Probably.
• The USC Trojans are one of the hottest teams in the country right now. They aren't on this week's pick 'em but they will be watching the Utah-Colorado game very closely and pulling for the Utes. If Utah can knock off the Buffs, USC wins the PAC-12 South and would take on the winner of the Apple Cup in the PAC-12 championship. Can enough dominos fall for the Trojans to sneak into the playoff?

Week 13 picks against the spread

Spreads we love

LSU (-5.5) @ Texas A&M: If you tuned in to the lone college football game on Thanksgiving night, you got a chance to see Derrius Guice run for a record setting 285 yards against Texas A&M. The previous record was Leonard Fournette's outing against the Rebs in Baton Rouge; Guice beat that performance by ONE yard. The Tigers maintained the lead for the entire game as LSU won in a rout and the coaching rumors continue to swirl.

Florida @ Florida State (-6.5): Florida being a top 15 team is almost as laughable as my efforts to jog Friday morning after eating two separate Thanksgiving meals on Thursday. We all saw how they miraculously came out of Baton Rouge last week, but still, Tallahassee's a weird damn place.

Spreads we're split on

MSU @ Ole Miss (-7.5): It is so perfectly fitting for this season's Egg Bowl to determine whether or not Ole Miss goes bowling this year. While Shreveport doesn't offer much in excitement, it does provide more practice time for a young team under a new QB (AND GAMBLING). After the offensive ineptitude against Vandy last week and the shootout in Starkville, most of us aren't even letting our homerism get in the way of MSU covering and potentially pulling the upset in Oxford.

Michigan @ Ohio State (-6.5): The hype around this playoff play-in game has been building all year long, even after both teams took a loss earlier in the season. I think it's easy to say that the Big Ten conference is much more top heavy than the SEC this year, and based on whether you emphasize conference depth versus cream of the crop, the Big Ten is the best conference in the country this year. If Saban retires after a championship this year, could we be looking at a huge power shift as it comes to conference strength?

Last week's picks

Let's just not talk about last week ... Ole Miss lost to Vanderbilt. As for the rankings, we are coming into the final week of the regular season and it doesn't look like anyone can catch Juco, unless he spontaneously implodes on this week's picks.

Here are the current standings, with last week's record in parentheses.

• 56-42 (57%) Juco (4-6)
• 52-46 (53%) Gray (5-5)
• 50-48 (51%) Smeargle (5-5)
• 49-49 (50%)  Alex (4-6)
• 46-52 (47%) Will (7-3)
• 44-54 (45%) Borkey (4-6), Ghost (4-6), Jeff (2-8), Whiskey (6-4) and Zach (2-8)
• 38-60 (39%) TwoYards (3-7)