Week 11 college football picks: Washington-USC, Michigan-Iowa, more

Sports Illustrated writers and editors make their picks for the biggest games in Week 11, including Washington-USC, Michigan-Iowa and more.

It seems unlikely that Week 11 will have a major impact on the College Football Playoff. The top team in the latest set of rankings revealed by the playoff selection committee, Alabama, faces an inferior opponent at home (Mississippi State), No. 2 Clemson should have an easy time beating middling conference foe Pittsburgh and No. 3 Michigan probably won’t have to work too hard to handle Iowa on the road. No. 4 Washington’s home tilt against No. 20 Southern California is interesting because of how well the Trojans have played since installing redshirt freshman Sam Darnold as their starting quarerback, but an upset would be a big surprise. Despite the lack of intrigue surrounding contests involving the nation’s top teams, however, there are a number of compelling games featuring other squads farther down the playoff pecking order. A panel of Sports Illustrated writers and editors (Andy Staples, Pete Thamel, Lindsay Schnell, Brian Hamilton, Joan Niesen, Colin Becht and Gabriel Baumgaertner) made its picks for every big matchup.

	Staples	Thamel	Schnell	Hamilton	Niesen	Becht	Baum- gaertner
Utah at Arizona St.
Baylor at Okla.
Miss. St. at Alabama
S. Carolina at Florida
Kent. at Tenn.
West Va. at Texas
Penn St. at Indiana
Auburn at Georgia
Pitt at Clemson
Stanford at Oregon
LSU at Ark.
Minn. at Nebraska
Ole Miss at Texas A&M
USC at Wash.
Michigan at Iowa
LAST WEEK	13-3	11-5	9-7	11-5	12-4	9-7	11-5
SEASON	101-50	99-52	106-45	101-50	102-49	100-51	99-52