For those of us who like football (and specifically college football), we’ve been waiting all year for this. Many of us have watched with great embarrassment as our teams collectively made some of the worse off-field blunders since the beginning of time (which is for me is since 1892 when the University of Georgia played their first football game). But now we’re ready to put all the locking of players in oubliettes, smacking around players, coaches suing coaches, coaches suing schools, court battles over whether or not coaches can sue schools, coaches driving hammered and both coaches and players beating people up behind us, pin our ears back and play some good, old fashioned football (or at least watch it if we’re out of our playing years).
But that’s us, the ones that like football. What about the majority of my readers? Those of you who have been with me since the beginning will remember a time when I posted a lot about Georgia football. For those of you who had no clue what I was talking about when I referenced football, I have a weekly column I’m going to do for the next few months. Many of you work for higher education environments. And this time of the year can be very trying if you don’t follow the team, or even college football. Others get stuck at the water cooler, looking at your feet as the people who you have absolutely no trouble talking to the rest of the year get lost in a religious fervor known as football.
So I’m going to give you some tasty morsels, even if you have no idea what a spiral is, who “Bear” is or why I consider Tim Tebow to have been the spawn of satan (and he was, I assure you). If you choose to read these articles then “you gonna’ get a’ edumacation, son.”
The quote of the week is “anything is possible.” This week is, for many big schools, an easy week. Florida, the number 4 team in the country plays Miami of Ohio. The only team with anything to loose here is Florida. You see, they will win that game. But if something weird happens (about as possible as a kext loading up properly on a Windows 7 computer), and somehow they manage to not win it big, then they will drop in the rankings. And in the power elite of college football, the rankings are almost everything. Also, if Florida looses, their coach will have a heart attack (Urban Meyer, as much as I despise Florida is a great football coach who has a poorly programmed heart) and they will go back to the mediocrity they knew when Ron Zook was their coach (he couldn’t even coach a team of salesmen at Fry’s – sorry Illini, it’s true, I mean really, the veer option?!?!).
But even though San Jose State shouldn’t be able to beat #1 Alabama and Western Kentucky shouldn’t have a shot against #8 Nebraska, there seems to be a surprise every year, like when Appalachian State defeated the mighty Michigan Wolverines. And one team that shouldn’t be able to win this week is likely to do so. Therefore, if some team called Samford that no one has ever heard of manages to eek a historic victory out against a team like #20 Florida State and this comes up at the water cooler, just say “anything is possible.” After all, whether they’re being payed or not (can you imaging writing code for free?), they’re still just a bunch of kids…
And if on Friday you see people going through a manic episode as their anticipation is getting the best of them (you know, like you and I might have over the new iOS), just ask “where are they ranked pre-season?” and you will immediately be back into the water cooler talk (despite having no clue what it all means)!
Finally, if you would actually like to watch some games, then the Utah vs Pittsburgh game is sure to be a good one, as is the TCU vs Oregon State (DO NOT BET $ ON THAT GAME) game and the LSU vs North Carolina game. For that last game, given that North Carolina has some issues, I wouldn’t plan on rooting for them. They’re likely to have some star players out and LSU is likely to capitalize on that (plus LSU could probably pwn a fully weaponized UNC anyway, even if Butch Davis has a better coach than LSU does). The best game of the weekend though, might just be Boise State vs. Virginia Tech. These are two top 10 teams, both incredibly well coached and both playing to remain in contention for the national title. Expect some pretty good football here!
Extra Credit: If (you live on the west coast or in Utah) and (Utah manages to beat Pittsburg) then (say “Utah sure is acting like a Pac 10 team so far!”)
Disclaimer: If I have angered you with a comment I made about your team here, then please smile in anticipation of the USC rant that is building up inside me and compare to that at a later date.