The Doc Saturday crew peruses the weekly lines and pulls out a few shockers.

Matt Hinton: East Carolina (+7.5) over North Carolina.
The Pirates haven't done much on offense in either of their first two games, which puts them in good company here: UNC was shut out and frankly beaten up for three quarters last week at UConn before waking up with a pair of scoring drives to eke out an ugly win. ECU had the opposite problem, fading in the second half against both Appalachian State, where the Pirates were able to hang on to win, and West Virginia, where they lost by two touchdowns despite going into the half trailing by only one.

That has to be disappointing, because this is essentially the same ECU team that upset Virginia Tech and West Virginia in back-to-back weeks to open last season, en route to the C-USA championship, which they were overwhelmingly favored to win again. The Tar Heels' own struggling offense gives the Pirates their best chance to hang around in a close, low-scoring game and pull out their requisite upset for the season.

Chris Brown:Tulsa (+17.5) over Oklahoma
I'm going to say the nightmare season continues -- or at least it is too close for the Sooners' comfort -- against Tulsa, even without the Hurricanes' offensive ace, former co-offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn. The "co-" is key: Herb Hand, himself a former Rich Rodriguez protege, is very good. More importantly, new quarterback G.J. Kinne (a Texas transfer) is emerging for Tulsa as a rusher and a passer, and I expect the Hurricane to score enough to force the hand of Sam Bradford's replacement, Landry Jones, who threw three touchdowns against I-AA Idaho State last week but struggled mightily against BYU.

These pseudo-rivalries can present some of the best upsets: If you asked a Sooner who its rivals were, they likely wouldn't mention Tulsa, but there's nothing the Golden Eagles would like more than to knock off its more prestigious neighbor. If Tulsa gets some breaks, it can steal this one outright.

Bonus pick: Louisville (+14) over Kentucky. This series usually turns right when you least expect it to, and, since neither offense should be that great, anything can happen.

Holly Anderson: Mississippi State (+9) over Vanderbilt.
The Bulldogs are coming off a loss, but how they ended up a 9-point dog to Vanderbilt is beyond me. En route to that loss, they managed to score 24 points against a historically stout Auburn defense, 17 of them in the first half. Vandy beat Western Carolina, not East Carolina, in Week One, which  shouldn't even count, and while they managed a respectable loss to LSU in Death Valley, I'm taking the Dan Mullen machine, because Auburn should rightly have blown them out last week. And the Lesser Bulldogs ought to enjoy it, because this will be their one, lonely conference win.

Doug Gillett: Michigan State (+10.5) over Notre Dame.
The only reason I can think that Notre Dame is getting double digits against State, even at home, is that the Spartans were just embarrassed at home by Central Michigan. But the Irish haven't beaten Sparty in South Bend since I was a junior in high school, and in spite of their fourth-quarter sputter against CMU, I think State has the defensive juice to keep Jimmy Clausen contained (and no, I can't believe I just typed those words) and put the team in position to win late.

Also: Middle Tennessee State (+6.5) over Maryland. The Terps lost by 10 to MTSU last year with a team that finished 8-5 and won a bowl game; this year they are demonstrably terrible, with a blowout loss to Cal on the west coast and an overtime shootout win over James Madison. The UMD defense has given up an average of 480 yards in those two games and will be facing a Blue Raider offense returning 10 of 11 starters, with the one "new guy" being a former backup QB who came off the bench to start half the '07 season and acquitted himself very nicely. This is shaping up to be a baaaad season for the Terps, with the one bright spot being that they'll soon enter the Bizarro World of the ACC, where even the doormats get to be kings for at least a week or two.