NCAA Week 7, Truly College Football Heaven

Today’s college football schedule is the most exciting of any day so far this season. We’ll pick four. Before we do, we’d like to shout out to Spencer Hall (aka Orson Swindle) and his fantastic college football blog, Every Day Should Be Saturday (http://www.edsbs.com/). We’re not sure our livers could take it if every day was, in fact, Saturday, but we sure are glad that there are folks who can write about football the way that Hall does. Hall writes especially well about SEC football (he’s a Florida Gator partisan). We haven’t spent much time in the South ourselves, and have never been to an SEC football game (something we plan to remedy soon), but when we read Hall’s writing, we feel like SEC tailgate veterans. Plus, perhaps more than any sportswriter we know, his stuff is often laugh-out-loud funny. We’ve linked to a few of his recent pieces in this post and expect that you’ll enjoy them.

Now the picks:

Pick #1 -- Texas Longhorns (#5) +6.5 (neutral site) over the Oklahoma Sooners (#1) in the game that they call The Red River Shootout -- Noon EST: The conventional wisdom here tells us that these teams are led by two great quarterbacks, but Oklahoma has a much better offensive line and much better receivers, thus, should dominate. Surely no team has been as impressive as the Sooners thus far this season, especially on offense. That’s why they’re ranked #1. But what’s interesting here is that while the conventional wisdom counsels so unequivocally in favor of a Sooner blowout (with 80% of the action at Sportsbook.com following that wisdom), the line has actually moved down, from 7 to 6.5. This could only mean one thing -- that somebody knows something very unconventional, and has placed no small amount of v-chips on that knowledge. Now that’s exciting. In view of this, we’ll go with the Longhorn squad that’s heard all week that it doesn’t have a chance. We hear that the Longhorns have a plucky defense led by first year defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, who we hear has already become something of a folk hero in Texas. That sounds interesting too. And we like the sound of “Get in the game, MUSCHAMP!”

But the best reason to take the Longhorns? Look at this short video clip in which Lou Holtz combines a Longhorns pick with advice about free will delivered with quintessentially Holtzian earnestness. We’d buy just about anything that came along with that.

F*ckin’ Hook ‘em.

Pick #2 -- Notre Dame Fighting Irish +8.5 over the North Carolina Tarheels -- 3:30 EST: Here’s a case where the conventional wisdom appears to be in line with the experts. Folks think that Butch Davis’s Tar Heels are the class of the SEC (ummm, ACC, thanks, D -- 2:28 PM), and have bet this line all the way up from 6.5 to 8.5. We suppose that any idiot could look at this line and think it looks too high (though only about 50% at sportsbook.com do). The Tar Heels might appear to be the savvy play here, but we’re not buying it. They’re supposed to have two of the best receivers in college football in Hakim Nicks and Brandon Tate, but this seems like just the sort of sexy thing about a football team that folks overbuy into. We look at the Tar Heels’ schedule, and see that they haven’t beaten anybody. UConn? UConn??? North Carolina's rout of UConn was fueled by three blocked punts and three interceptions. Indeed, the Tar Heels have recorded more interceptions than any team in Division I college football. Plus, they appear to live by the big play. This hardly seems like a recipe for sustained success. Especially against a team with one of the most talented quarterbacks in college football, and a defense that has done a decent job defending the pass.

We hope these are enough good excuses to bet against Butch Davis, one of our least favorite people of all time. The stitches in our brow that resulted from the Butch Davis era in Cleveland might never become unknit. Couch over McNabb, Courtney Brown over Urlacher, Gerard Warren over LaDanian (AWWWWW!!! GOD!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO F**********************CK!!!! *sorry*), William Green over Ed Reed. We can’t find this anywhere online, but one of the best lines we’ve ever read was from Tom Reed, former sportswriter for the Beacon Journal who wrote one day in the Beacon that: “[It’s a good thing] that Butch Davis wasn’t in charge of the U.S. military draft [in the 40’s] or the capital of the United States would be Berlin.”

Fantastic.

Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame. F*ck Butch Davis. *sorry*

Pick #3: Northwestern Wildcats +1 (at home) over the Michigan State Spartans -- 3:45 EST: Here’s another one like the Texas/Okla. matchup where the conventional wisdom appears to be going against the experts. 80% of the action is on the Spartans here, but the line’s been bet down from 3 points to 1. We like the Wildcats because they’re coming off a bye-week, and our theory is that a bye-week has a more salutary effect on the performance of kids from more academically rigorous schools. Whereas kids from other schools might be more prone to find trouble during the bye week, the kids at Northwestern are relieved because they got to catch up on their studies. Plus, NU coach Pat Fitzgerald might *might* be developing into one of the best coaches in college football before our very eyes. He’s a Northwestern alum too.

Wildcats. Rawwwrr.

Pick #4: Florida Gators -6 (at home) over the LSU Tigers -- 8:00 EST: An 8:00 time slot for THIS matchup? We can already smell the brown liquor wafting from the pores of the 90,000+ who will be in attendance in the Swamp tonight. Our pick here is primarily influenced by this brief analysis of our Buckeyes by the aforementioned Mr. Hall of edsbs.com, who points out that “Ohio State seems to be doing what good teams do after getting their heads kicked in early: regrouping, finding their rhythm, retooling with the extremely un-gay Buckeye Pistol formation. (Fullback! GRRR!!!), and otherwise recovering nicely for a stretch run.” (Read the whole thing. It's called "Hang on Poopy." Funnnnnny.) We think the same analysis applies to the Gators here in the wake of their loss to Ole Miss. Everybody loses once in the SEC. Why isn’t tonight LSU’s night? We like astute Frowns commenter kylmra’s analysis on this in the comments to the below post. Plus Tebow is mad that LSU fans got a hold of his cell phone number, and that LSU’s resident inveterate a$$hole Ricky Jean Francois is running his mouth again.

Gators. Chomp chomp.

In closing we must note that we wish we thought that LSU was the pick today, if only because we feel like Tigers after taking Hall’s Florida/LSU compatibility test.

Sample questions:

“Do you like air conditioning?
A. Yes.
B. No, it makes skinning giant catfish harder ’cause they skin gets tight an sassy.

Do you like fried food?
A. Yes, preferably from Publix in a cardboard box.
B. Ain’t that redundant?

Your team is down four touchdowns at halftime. How do you react to the GameDay cameras?
A. [sullen stare that could freeze nitrogen while pressing cellphone to ear]
B. “F********CK YEEEEEW WWOOOOOOOOOOOOO TAHGERS GON GITCHA!!!” [shows breasts, regardless of gender]”

Fantastic.

Today is going to be sweet, folks. Enjoy. We’re heading to the grocery store to pick up some bloody mary mix, then will be sitting in front of our TV and computer alllll daaaaay looooong. So let us know who you like today, and especially who you like in Tomorrow’s NFL action, which we'll be here to preview for you. Also, for you locals, Black Keys concert tonight in Akron. Thursday’s should be poppin’ after that Florida game.

Best. Day. Ever.