Week 8 college football picks: Let’s shake up the SEC West race

Below are our picks for the weekend’s four biggest games. It's not just who you pick, it's how confident you are.

Every college football media outlet has its own version of a pick 'em. SB Nation’s will focus on only the biggest games of the week. Here are the games we’re picking this week, followed by our picks and our rules.

No. 6 Texas A&M at No. 1 Alabama: According to ESPN Radio, only four times in the last 30 years has a game featuring a No. 1 team vs. a top-six team had a spread of over 17 points. Alabama is favored by 19.

No. 23 Ole Miss at No. 25 LSU: Can Ole Miss bounce back off an emotional loss to Arkansas? This will be the first chance for LSU to show it is for real under coach Ed Orgeron.

No. 17 Arkansas at No. 21 Auburn: Auburn has been rolling of late, crushing Louisiana-Monroe and Mississippi State. Is it ready for tougher competition? Arkansas is in the middle of a brutal stretch, having just played Alabama and Ole Miss.

TCU at No. 12 WVU: West Virginia answered critics last week by dominating Texas Tech in Lubbock. Its reward? A dangerous TCU team off a bye week.

Here are our rules:

• We will pick the winner of all games between ranked (AP Poll) teams, but if there are not enough such games in a given week, we will throw in a game or two of note, so we are always picking four games per week.
• Players must assign a confidence rating from one to 10 points with each pick. If they win, they get the points added to their weekly and season total. If they lose, the points are subtracted. Yes, a player can choose the same confidence number for each game, and yes, this could result in some hilariously poor scores.

The average points wagered this week is 30, a reasonably confident slate.

Alabama is by far the most popular choice this week, with 154 out of a possible 160 points wagered.

Our participants are Dan Rubenstein, Bill Connelly, Matt Brown, Morgan Moriarty, Alex Kirshner, Jason Kirk, Jeanna Thomas, Richard Johnson, Sarah Hardy, Luke Zimmermann, Spencer Hall , Bill Connelly, Brian Floyd, Ryan Nanni, Wescott Eberts, myself, and Steven Godfrey.

Your turn

Please post and track your picks in the comment section.

I'd said the highest-scoring verified commenter each week will get to pick with the staff the following week, but due to some commenters cracking the obvious flaw with week-to-week scoring, the highest-scoring commenter for the season will get to pick with us in 2017 (Week 1 is not included in this due to the initial wonky rules).

So, please post your season total each week. At the end of the season, I will verify anyone claiming to be the winner.