Well, go figure. I change the name of this column to “Fade Material” and then I start handing out winning picks. If I knew that was all I had to do, I would have changed the title years ago and avoided all the years of .500 or below predictions.

After a 3-1 performance in Week 1, I finished 3-0-1 with my Week 2 picks. Georgia was a push against South Carolina but TCU, Alabama and BYU had no problems covering. I’m still looking for my first sweep of the season, so let’s see if we can’t nail it this week. (Although I admit to having reservations about “Road Test Weekend.” There are some tough games on the board…)

Auburn @ Clemson, 12:00PM ET
Everyone keeps waiting for Auburn to lose and all they’ve done the past two weeks is pull wins out of their backsides. The No. 19 Tigers find themselves once again as underdogs, this time against an unranked Clemson team. Nobody can ever quite figure out Clemson, which either plays the game of its life or sinks to the level of its competition. They’re 1-4 against the spread in their last five home games and 3-7 ATS in their last 10 versus the SEC, while Auburn is 4-1 ATS in their last five road games. Auburn is also 6-0 ATS versus a team with a winning record and 4-0 ATS in their last four games an underdog. I think the Tigers of Auburn keeps this within a field goal, making that 3.5-point spread highly attractive.
THE PICK: AUBURN TIGERS +3.5

Ohio State @ Miami, 7:30PM ET
The Buckeyes face their first road test under new head coach Luke Fickell and while they didn’t look particularly sharp against Toledo last week at home, I like OSU to win outright tonight. They’ll face a quarterback in Jacory Harris, who is coming off a one-game suspension and who was unimpressive against Oho State last year. He threw four interceptions, including three in the first half alone. Granted, that was a different Buckeyes team last season but the defense is still solid and I expect them to give Harris trouble again this time around. The Buckeyes are 11-3 against the number in all games over the last two seasons and 14-4 ATS in road games in September since 1992.
THE PICK: OHIO STATE BUCKEYES +2.5

Northwestern @ Army, 3:30PM ET
The Wildcats are just 2-10 against the spread as a favorite over the last three seasons and 3-9 ATS in their last 12 games overall. Army, meanwhile, is 4-2 against the number coming off a home loss and 6-2 ATS in their last eight games following a straight up loss. Northwestern quarterback Dan Persa may be out for this game, which means it’ll be dual threat versus dual threat when Kain Colter battles Army’s Trent Steelman. I like the Black Knights to keep things close and get a big cover at home.
THE PICK: ARMY +6

Stanford @ Arizona, 10:45PM ET
Despite starting slow against Duke last week on the road, Stanford eventually got its offense going and cruised to a 44-14 victory (and an easy cover). The line keeps dropping in Arizona’s favor in this one and I’m not sure why (outside of the fact that they’re home). The Wildcats are 1-4 against the spread in their last five home games against Stanford and 2-6 ATS in their last eight overall meetings with the Cardinal. Meanwhile, Stanford is 7-0-1 ATS in their last eight games overall and 5-0-1 ATS in their last six games as a road favorite.
THE PICK: STANFORD –9

Last Week: 3-0-1
Season: 6-1-1

For a complete list of odds for Week 3 in College Football, check out Bullz-Eye.com.

#25 Ohio State/#12 West Virginia @ 2 PM on CBS
#1 Texas/#21 UConn @ 4 PM on CBS
Thunder/Cavs @ 7:30 PM on NBA League Pass
#6 Duke/#16 Clemson @ 9 PM on ESPN

(All times Eastern.)

Illinois overcame a second-half 23-point deficit to beat Clemson on the road and unranked Wisconsin upset #5 Duke in Madison to put the Big Ten in position to win. The victory was sealed by #16 Ohio State’s “easy” win against Florida State in Columbus.

The Big Ten won the Challenge, 6-5. It was the first time that Duke lost in the Challenge.

Duke got a big win on Saturday against Virginia Tech to stay alive in the race for the conference championship. They host a good Florida State team on Tuesday before their showdown next Sunday at North Carolina. The Tar Heels travel to VT on Wednesday. The Blue Devils are one game back, so a pair of wins to close the regular season would give Duke at least a share of the ACC championship. Most pundits have written Duke off for a #1 seed, but if they were to win out and then win the ACC tournament, they could sneak in as a top seed.

As a basketball fan, it would be great to see Duke beat FSU tomorrow guaranteeing that the Duke/UNC tilt on Sunday is for the conference title. Even if the Tar Heels beat Tech and guarantee themselves at least a share of the ACC title, they won’t want to miss out on an opportunity to slam the door on the Dookies. Meanwhile, the Blue Devils need to be careful not to look past a Florida State team that is 22-7. Duke beat FSU in Tallahassee back in January, so the Seminoles will have revenge on their minds.

Joe Lunardi (ESPN “bracketologist”) says that if the season ended today, seven ACC teams would make the NCAA tourney — UNC, Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, Florida State, Boston College and Virginia Tech. Maryland has been making a move, but they could really use a win against Wake Forest and then a win at Virginia to put themselves in good shape. Otherwise, they’d have to make some major noise in the ACC tourney to get a bid. Likewise, Miami is sitting at 6-8 in conference, but they have two winnable games (@ Georgia Tech, vs. N.C. State) to close out the season. If they win both, they’d be at 8-8 and be in position to earn a bid with a good showing in the ACC tourney.

Of the teams Lunardi listed, Virginia Tech is in the most tenuous position. They have a tough pair of games to close out the season — they host the Tar Heels and have to travel to Florida State. They need to win at least one of those games to stay in the hunt for an NCAA bid. If they lose both, they won’t finish at .500 in conference.

Let’s say you’re sitting in a Vegas sportsbook yesterday afternoon and you decide that you want to get odds on a parlay that has #3 Duke losing to #10 Clemson by 27 points and #6 Wake Forest losing at Miami by the exact same margin. Or let’s just say that you have them both losing by 20-plus. What kind of odds would you be able to get? 100-1? 1,000-1? 10,000-1?

That’s exactly what happened. Clemson slammed Duke, 74-47, while Miami blasted Wake, 79-52. Littlejohn Coliseum is a great home court environment and the Tigers were able to jump all over the Blue Devils, leading from the get-go. It was just one of those nights for Duke when nothing was falling. Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer were a combined 4 of 23 from the field for 12 points. As a team, Duke shot 23% from long range and 31% from the field, and they were rattled by the Tigers’ full court pressure. Trevor Booker was stellar for Clemson, posting 21 points and eight boards, both game highs.

Meanwhile, the Demon Deacons were stymied by Miami’s zone defense en route to a brutal 32% from the field (and just 15% from long range). Jack McClinton had 32 points for the Hurricanes. Miami broke a three-game losing streak with the victory.

North Carolina and Duke sit atop the ACC at 6-2, while Clemson is a half game behind at 5-2. The Tar Heels visit Duke next Wednesday in a game that will determine who is in the driver’s seat in the ACC.

Phillips was the one who fired helped Tommy Bowden make his decision to resign earlier this week and replaced him with Dabo Swinney. The move looked like it would pay off when Clemson took a 17-14 lead deep into the fourth quarter, but a late GA Tech touchdown sent Tiger fans home with yet another defeat.

The scene on the sidelines at the end of the game paints an ugly picture for Clemson’s current situation. There’s no doubt Bowden had to be replaced (his own brother said so after it happened), but Phillips and the rest of the big wigs in the program need to realize that change won’t happen overnight.

Although he got way to cute with his play calling on Saturday, Swinney did a nice job rallying the troops in the wake of Bowden’s firing. Given what was said by a couple of the players in the media this week, it appears that the locker room had been divided. But given the circumstances, Swinney kept things in order and deserves a chance to turn the Tigers’ misfortunes around this season.

Or at the very least, deserves the respect of not being lashed at on national television by an AD who should be nowhere near the sidelines at the end of a game. (Although to be fair, nobody knows at this point why Phillips was yelling at his coaches. Maybe he was upset that the concession stand ran out of Diet Coke?)

Clemson football coach Tommy Bowden has been fired, South Carolina television station WYFF reports.
Assistant head coach Dabo Swinney will serve as interim coach for the remainder of the season, the news station reports.

The Tigers opened with a 34-10 loss to Alabama and are now 3-3 (1-2 in ACC play). Bowden was firmly on the hot seat after a loss to Maryland Sept. 27, and a loss on Thursday to Wake Forest turned up the heat.

Bowden also was questioned over benching staring quarterback Cullen Harper in favor of redshirt freshman Willy Korn.

Bowden signed a contract extension in December that would have kept him at Clemson through 2014. It is believed that Clemson will owe Bowden $4 million after terminating that contract early, but financial details surrounding the coach’s departure were not announced.

Bowden has a 72-45 record at Clemson with eight bowl appearances. The Tigers were No. 9 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 poll and were expected to compete for the ACC championship, which would have been their first, in Bowden’s 10th season as coach.

It was bound to happen. Clemson has underachieved under Bowden for years and it was only a matter of time before the program had to make a change. Bowden’s attempt to replace Harper with Korn was a last ditch effort to save his job. What Harper really needs is for his young offensive line to gel and significantly better coaching.