SEC Game of Interest (Week 13)

What a heartbreaking weekend. Georgia losing on a fluky, last-minute tip (again) was almost too much for me to bear. On a purely intellectual level, I know that luck is really just the effect of a random process, so when we experience "luckiness" or "unluckiness" we're just personalizing a data point along a distribution converging toward a mean. But, dang, after the last twelve months I can't shake the feeling that Coach Richt must have spent every recent Friday the 13th camped out under a ladder with a clowder of black cats.

Fortunately for our faith in statistics -- though not for our season-long ledger -- our results in these conference picks are faithfully converging on 50/50. Contrary to our admittedly distracted prediction, Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks couldn't cover the spread against his alma mater. That poor performance brings us to 10-10 in a week with a lot of tough calls, and, unfortunately, since we're charged with picking the SEC Game of Interest our conscience requires us to pick the toughest match-up of all: No. 12 Texas A&M at No. 22 LSU (-4).

The Pick: LSU -4

Why you should care: This is going to be a fun, high-scoring game. Every week Johnny Pageviews's on-field performance justifies the off-season spent obsessing over him, but that defense makes every opponent look like Baylor.

Rationale: The Bayou Bengals have the conference's most efficient passing attack, and, as we've already mentioned, the Aggies' defense gives out yards like candy on Halloween. When both offenses can put up points, I'll take the team that at least occasionally bothers to play defense.

Bonus picks: Vanderbilt (+3) at Tennessee and No. 8 Missouri (-3) at No. 24 Ole Miss.