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Spread Options: Dr. Saturday's Week 5 picks against the spread

Nick Bromberg
Will Tennessee win at Georgia? (Getty)
Will Tennessee win at Georgia? (Getty)

#Pac12AfterDark hurt us last week. We finished 4-6 to drop to 16-22-2 on the season. Time to get closer to .500.

Stanford (+3) at Washington, 9 p.m. ET FRIDAY: We picked Stanford to win in our weekly video series picks so we might as well stay consistent, right? It’s not an easy choice. These two teams are very similar and survived close games last week. The Cardinal gets the edge because it kept composed and executed a fantastic 2-minute drive vs. UCLA while Washington played Arizona.

Miami (-7.5) at Georgia Tech, Noon ET: Georgia Tech is not good, which means the Yellow Jackets’ option offense will probably run all over Miami. The Hurricanes passed their first big road test of the season with flying colors and Appalachian State may be better than Georgia Tech.

Rutgers (+39) at Ohio State, Noon ET: This is going to be a blowout Ohio State win. But after mentioning this game on the podcast it needs to be mentioned here too. Rutgers covers the absurdly large number because Ohio State coach Urban Meyer doesn’t want to blow out his former assistant Chris Ash too much. The loss of Janarion Grant will be huge moving forward for the Scarlet Knights.

Eastern Michigan at Bowling Green (-3), 3 p.m. ET: It’s time for things to get rolling in the right direction at Bowling Green. The Falcons are the only team in the country to give up 77 points and they’ve done it twice (Ohio State and Memphis). Eastern Michigan is much better in 2016, so a win for EMU won’t be too surprising. But we like Bowling Green to start a run in the MAC once again.

Kansas State at West Virginia (-3.5), 3:30 p.m. ET: This is a Bill Snyder line right here. Matching up both of these teams without the venerable Kansas State coach probably has the Mountaineers favored by five or six. Instead, this is near a field goal. West Virginia has the much better offense and should win this game comfortably. But it’s hard to see this as more than a 10-14 point win.

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Tennessee at Georgia (+3), 3:30 p.m. ET: Let’s be bold and call for an upset that will throw the SEC East into chaos. Tennessee is clearly the better team than Georgia even though the Vols have their own set of flaws. It looks like Georgia RB Nick Chubb will win, though it remains to be seen how effective he’ll be. The Bulldogs will need to run the ball much better vs. Tennessee than they have vs. Missouri and Ole Miss the last two weeks.

Oklahoma at TCU (OVER 69), 5 p.m. ET: Oklahoma is a slight favorite here but we’re honestly not sure about this game. So we’ll go with “lots of points.” Both defenses have been extremely flawed through the first part of the season, though Oklahoma’s offense hasn’t helped the defense’s cause with turnovers vs. Houston and Ohio State. If the Big 12’s playoff chances had a rooting interest in this game it’s for TCU. An Oklahoma conference title probably takes the conference out of the CFP.

Utah (+2.5) at Cal, 6 p.m. ET: Do Vegas and bettors not think Utah is for real? This is a Cal team coming off a loss to Arizona State that’s still favored over an undefeated team that could be the best in the Pac-12 South. Cal is running over 90 plays per game in 2016, an approximate 14-play increase from 2015. That’s thanks to QB Davis Webb’s transfer. But we’re going with the undefeated team getting points.

Michigan State (-6.5) at Indiana, 8 p.m. ET: It’s clear that the Spartans’ win over Notre Dame isn’t nearly what we thought it was two weeks ago. But is Michigan State really only a touchdown better than an Indiana team that lost at home to Wake Forest in Week 4? Michigan State still has plenty of time and possibility to muddle up a Big Ten East that everyone thinks runs through Ann Arbor and Columbus.

San Diego State at South Alabama (OVER 51), 8 p.m. ET: The Aztecs are favored by 18.5 points which is a lot to be giving on the road vs. a team that beat Mississippi State in Week 1. But South Alabama’s season has been pretty rough since that win. The Jaguars have lost to Georgia Southern and Louisiana Lafayette. We’ll go with the over here as SDSU RB Donnel Pumphrey has a big day.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!