It’s a changeup from our usual bold prediction format. Look, it’s Cupcake Week, we all get it. We’re not pretending that Georgia, A&M or Mississippi State is going to lose to an FCS team. I mean, Ole Miss is playing … Vanderbilt, for goodness’ sake. Oh yeah, league game, never mind. But in any case, here’s a bold prediction for each conference game this weekend, and a few of the more intriguing odds and ends.

Pair of 100-yard rushers for the Tide

Arkansas is entirely capable of making life difficult for Alabama … but when the mind drifts back to that Arkansas-Georgia game, there’s much less of a chance to predict some sort of upset. The Arkansas pass defense has been sharp, but the run defense is ho-hum, ranking around the middle of the SEC and giving up just less than 4 yards per carry. We’ll take Brian Robinson Jr. and Trey Sanders to each reach the 100-yard mark. Alabama may be a humble 10th in the SEC in rushing, but it will hammer it early and often in putting about a 30-point win over the Hogs.

Missouri pulls off the upset

Sure, after last week, everybody is hurrying to jump on the Florida defense. We’ll join that party. It’s not that we have a ton of faith in the Tigers. But we do in Tyler Badie. And this is the thing — if you can run on Florida, you can win. When the Gators have given up 137 or more rushing yards, they’re 1-4 this season. And that seems like a pretty low floor for Badie, who is running away with the SEC’s rushing title. So we’ll take Mizzou to pull off the upset, with Badie going for 150 yards on the ground.

Auburn reverses last week

A week ago, Auburn jumped out to a 28-3 lead before the bottom fell out. Since we had called for a multi-TD win for the Tigers, we felt very vindicated … until the bottom fell out. The guess here is that the Tigers reverse the trick this week. South Carolina is playing pretty well and will get off to a good start, but Auburn will rally in the 2nd half for the win. No, it won’t be a 25-point comeback, but it’ll be a 2nd-half rally for a win, largely due to wearing down Carolina on the ground.

Rebels with the biggest win of the week

We don’t mean the biggest win in terms of the most important, but the biggest scoring margin. Vandy is, well, awful. And the Rebels are playing good football and will be able to gash the Commodores with the pass or the run. How does the SEC shut up the non-SEC fans’ whining about Cupcake Week? Maybe by having the biggest margin of the week be in a league game. Rebels by 50.

UT defense outscores South Alabama

Tennessee is rolling, and it will roll over South Alabama on Saturday. The Jaguars have had some offensive struggles of late, scoring 7 last week against Appalachian State. The UT defense will be aggressive and will actually outscore the SA offense with an early pick-6.

200 for Davis-Price

LSU will get UL-Monroe, which should be a comfortable win. One positive trend for the Tigers is the emergence of Tyrion Davis-Price, who has topped 100 rushing yards in 4 of the Tigers’ last 5 games. Not only will he do that again, but he’ll come closer to the 287 yards he put up on Florida. Mark Davis-Price down for 200 yards on the ground and the Tigers for a 30-point victory.