College football Week 1 underdog picks
Nicole Auerbach and Joshua Perry reveal their favorite Week 1 college football underdog plays, backing Baylor against Auburn and Clemson against LSU.
Video Transcript
Week one underdog pick.
So we're making the rule.
What, it's gotta be, like, what, at least a touchdown?
Do you wanna do that this year?
Yeah, I would say.
It's gotta be at least a touchdown?
Yeah.
We were doing super dogs last year, where it was double digits, but- Some of them hit.
Yeah.
Some of them hit.
We'll just do regular dogs.
All right.
So, like, a, a touchdown.
You go ahead and give yours.
All right.
So mine is, I'm taking Baylor plus seven and a half points against Auburn.
This is one of those match-ups that, again, I do think people are not talking enough about.
Gonna tell us a lot about both these teams.
You've got first-year coach Alex Golesh.
He brought over a bunch of his guys from USF, including his quarterback, Byron Brown, and I'm interested to see what that looks like.
They're tr- everyone's, all these coaches are trying to speed up the process, like Kurt Signetti.
Of course.
Here, bring my core guys, bring over some staff so we can speed this thing up and not really rebuild.
On the other side, you have the hottest of hot seats for Dave Aranda and Baylor.
Hasn't it been like that, though?
He's been on the hot seat for, like, three years.
Feels like he just is cool on the hot seat.
He kept his job last year because there wasn't an athletic director in place.
And they were just like, "We can't do this right now."
Yeah.
"So we'll give him another year."
But he goes and gets DJ Lagway.
DJ Lagway is, like, the biggest boom or bust potential player- Fully agree this year.
Fully agree.
He's gonna determine whether or not Dave Aranda keeps his job.
What does that change of scenery look like for him, coming home to Texas, coming into this system?
And this is a player, we've seen the flashes, we've seen the moments, and then we've seen so many bad turnovers and so many mistakes.
And then also Dave Aranda gave up defensive play calling this year.
That's gonna be an interesting transition, and what does that mean for the defense?
Joe Klanderman, the new defensive coordinator, he goes from North Dakota State to Kansas State.
Kansas State, one of the best defenses in the Big 12 these last few years.
What does that impact look like as well?
So big game for narratives.
Mm-hmm.
For Dave Aranda's future, for Golesh setting his path forward- Yes in the plains.
And I'm saying the chaos.
Let's go chaos.
Chaos is DJ Lagway.
Chaos is Baylor winning this game.
I'll at least say they cover.
All right.
But I, I, I might take them to win as well.
I, I would take them to outright win this game.
This would've been my pick had you not thrown in the rundown before me, so I definitely like it.
Early bird gets the worm.
Yeah.
So my pick, I mentioned it earlier, but it's Clemson as a 10 do- 10-point underdog against LSU.
And for me, there are a lot of the off-field dynamics, but I'm just not sure that these rosters are so far apart that it's gonna be a double-digit game between the two of these teams.
Clemson certainly has fallen off.
They were certainly talented last year and came up short.
I don't know.
I just, I feel like they're not gonna do that again, and the reality is LSU, they're pretty good, but it's been a lot of chaos this off-season.
Also, like, a little concerning about the state of the roster when you're trying so hard desperately to bring back guys that are getting cut from NFL teams.
I mean I'm just saying, just putting that out there.
