SEC Picks - Bowl Game Spectacular

You didn't think I'd forget about you, did you? This blog has definitely taken the back seat lately. After finals, I was busy working on the yard and house. Then came the nice Florida trip to spend Christmas with the in-laws. Blah, blah, blah. Let's get to the diddly-poop. In order to squeeze in as many honey-dos as possible before next semester, this one will be short and sweet.

MSU 21 - UCF 13

Colorado 17 - UA 9

UK 38 - FSU 21

AU 21 - Clemson 10

Wisconsin 28 - UT 24

Mizzou 52 - Ark 45

UF 56 - UM 30

UGA 35 - UH 24

LSU 35 - Ohio State 21

Good Luck Coach Borges

Al Borges has resigned as Auburn's offensive coordinator. He will not be with Auburn at the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

Despite his recent predictable play-calling, I'm going to miss seeing him in orange and blue. I wish him well.

Posting will remain light until I am finished with finals.

Fun With CBS

Since Auburn wasn't in the SEC Championship Game on Saturday, I had to do something to make it a little more exciting. I decided to come up with an SEC on CBS drinking game, much like the Bob Newhart Show drinking game.

This task seems simple enough, but creating a drinking game is more difficult than you would think. There are several rules you need to follow when creating a drinking game.

1. The drinking should be steady throughout the duration of the game, with not much downtime in between drinks.
2. All "players" should be able to make it to the end of the game.
3. There needs to be enough drinking to get everyone drunk.
4. There has to be balance, meaning all drinking doesn't occur in only one part of the game. This goes back to rule number one.
5. No one drives after playing the game!

I know that seems simple enough, but it really isn't. Have you ever tried to come up with a drinking game using TV or movies? If you have, you probably had to alter the rules at some point in the game because there wasn't enough, or there was too much drinking.

What makes this even harder is the length of football games, which are a good bit longer than most movies. I wanted to be able to see the final whistle, even if in double vision.

There was one final element to the game that I wanted to add. I wanted everyone to be able to enjoy it, so I left out anything play-related.

Here are the basic rules that I came up with:

Take a drink when the following happens:

• Verne Lundquist laughs.
• Gary Danielson mentions mentions "modern day football". This can also be "modern football", really, any combination with "modern" and "football" in it.
• The announcers mention other CBS shows.
• Gary states something obvious. ie. "If he drops the ball, it's a fumble."

Take two drinks when the following happens:

• They go back to the studio with Tim Brando and Spencer Tillman.
• They go to the sideline with Tracy.
• Integrated sponsor names are mentioned. ie. Aflac Trivia Question, Home Depot Penalty Comparison, etc. . .

Finish your current drink when the following happens:

• Someone mentions "BCS".
• Verne or Gary says "my goodness" or "my gracious".
• Someone mentions that Gary played Purdue.
• Someone mentions that Gary played in the NFL.
• Verne calls a player the wrong name.

Drink an entire 500 ml bottle of Listerine (the yellow kind) when the following happens:

• Verne, Gary, or Tracy says anything remotely intelligent.

It's always fun to throw in a rule that will never be used.

With the rules laid, I played the game. Needless to say, I spent halftime wandering around the front yard with my pants around my ankles. I got to visit Brookwood Medical Center to have my stomach pumped sometime during the third quarter. I don't know.

Things are a little fuzzy, but I think it was Gary Danielson's "modern day football" comments that did me in, because they usually followed by Verne laughing.

I finally watched the fourth quarter. It was then that I heard one of the dumbest statements ever uttered by someone calling a college football game, and that includes Pam Ward. Verne Lundquist said that the chop block on Dorsey against Auburn cost LSU a chance at going to the National Championship game. Of course, Gary agreed.

I'm not going to go into why that comment was so...idiotic. Chances are, if you need it explained to you, you wouldn't be able to read my blog anyway.

SEC Picks - Week 14

I never got around to writing a dedicated post for the Auburn/Bama game. Life is busy right now. I'll just reiterate here that I'm thrilled with the win.

Well, there's only one game this week, LSU vs UT.

LSU has plenty of distractions with Les Miles's coaching decisions. After last weeks loss, they aren't playing for the NC anymore. Both of these factors could drop their level of intensity today.

On the other hand, a lot of people are saying that UT is hot right now. Not me, though. They've barely squeezed by their last two opponents.

I'm going to go with LSU 48 - UT 35.

Game on Saturday?

I realize I'm a little late in posting this. I went 3-3 last week, and am now 69-25. I won't go game-by-game this week.

So yeah, I picked Bama to beat Auburn. I just had a bad feeling last week. It wasn't a lack of faith, or a reverse-mojo ploy for good luck...just a bad feeling. I'm certainly glad I was wrong! I hope to have a dedicated post about the game later on this week.

So what's with the talk radio this week? No one wants to talk about the game. No one really wants to talk about bowl bids either. It's all about where Tuberville, Muschamp, Borgess, hell, everyone down to Auburn's waterboy will end up.

Sheldon Haygood's talk more about Tuberville leaving the other night than the actual game. His laughable prediction was LSU. I guess he had to come up with something after TAMU was out of the picture.

On my drive home yesterday, Finebaum was interviewing someone and all they talked about was about Auburn coaches leaving. I changed stations and Dunaway and Brown were talking about the same thing. I went to the show with Stabler thinking that they would surely be talking about the game. Nope, Auburn's coaching situation.

Every Monday this year, people have talked about the previous Saturday's games, particularly the Bama games. After all, Birmingham is still a Bama town, though not by as much as it used to be. But yesterday? Nada. No strategy talk, bowl projection talk, or "what if" talk. No throwing SJPW under the bus, or talks of, "if Saban had his own players." It was all talk of Auburn's coaching staff.

This morning, what were they talking about on the Opening Drive? Possible positions that could be filled by Auburn's current coaching staff.

Honestly, this game seems to have disappeared like a fart in the wind. And why? Because the Bama nation wants Coach Tuberville out of town. They aren't used to losing six in a row, so they're panicking like never before.

I will give credit to the many wonderful Bama blogs (check my links) out there that actually have talked about the game. Sure, many have also talked about the coaching situation. After all, it's big news (though, no news). But they haven't completely ignored the fact that there was a game played on Saturday. Why not the "legitimate" media?

Well, shit sells these days. And by shit, I mean a) tabloid "news", and b) stuff that panders to the target audience. That's exactly what the local sports media is doing now.

We all know the ringleader. He's been extremely successful pedaling the tabloid junk. The rest of the local sports media are just following suit. Either that, or they're just drooling Bama fanboys (see Melick/Gattis). I don't know if I should, but I'm giving most of them the benefit of the doubt.

Iron Bowl Pregame

Well, it's that time of the year again. It's hard to explain, but I'm excited for this one...but I'm not.

Overshadowing the players this year are the two coaches. For Alabama, you have coach Nick Saban. He has such a nasty attitude. I wonder why?

For Auburn, you have coach Tommy Tuberville. Some people call him wingnut. What the hell's a wingnut?

Both of these coaches are seasoned veterans with a combined 23 years of experience as head football coaches in Division 1. Their coaching styles are completely different. Saban has a more animated approach.

Yikes. I could, but I'm not going to go there!

Tuberville has a relaxed approach. This is about the most animated you'll see him unless he wants to argue with the officials.

I would have posted the animated gif but it looks exactly like the picture. Exciting, huh?

Usually, I ask some pregame questions before kickoff. This game is different so I decided to do something else. Instead of asking questions, I'm going to make a few suggestions to the players.

I'm not too worried about the defense. To put it another way, I don't want to think about our DBs trying to cover DJ Hall. So I'll focus on the offense.

My first suggestion is for Robert Dunn. I guess this could apply to the other receivers, tight ends, running backs and the defensive secondary (not thinking about it!).

The ball is not a hot potato. It will not hurt you to catch it. In fact, it'll probably feel pretty damned good. All of those people in the stands wearing orange and blue will cheer for you. You might actually put six on the board after you catch it. If you bat it down, all of those people in crimson and white shirts will cheer. You don't want that!

My next suggestion is for the offensive line, mainly Lee Ziemba.

Don't get too excited! Remember playing "red light-green light" when you were a kid? I'm sure you were a big kid. Being so, you were probably pretty slow. I'd imagine you never won while playing it. Well, now you're a man. You definitely aren't the slowest anymore. Think of this game as your time to finally win "red light-green light". You have to remember that if you jump early, you lose. Don't jump offsides, you win! As an added bonus, you could win the football game as well. Then everybody's happy!

My final suggestion is for Brandon Cox.

This is it, man. Sure, you'll more than likely have one more game, but this is the one you'll be remembered for. This is your last hoorah at Jordan-Hare. This is your last chance to beat Bama. Make too many mistakes and some fans, not I, will never forgive you. Just ask Stan White. To avoid this from happening, make your decisions wisely.

No matter how well you think you can throw the ball do not throw it into coverage. Single, double, triple, it doesn't matter. I can't stress this enough.

I've taken the liberty of highlighting all of the areas at Jordan-Hare where you can throw the ball when you get into trouble.

Any area outside of the highlighted area is fine as well. Remember, an incompletion is always, ALWAYS better than an interception.

To the rest of the team.

Relax and have fun. We're behind you 100%. Keep a level head, and we can expect to see some of this Shula-like behavior:
And hopefully we'll see Tubs pull one of these:

I would also accept the following, but my records indicate that Tuberville has no extra fingers.

One last thing before I go... WAR EAGLE!!!

SEC Picks - Week 13

Whoops! I forgot there were games today! The two games that I missed will not go on my record.

East

UGA at Tech - UGA's on a roll. What gimmick will Richt use this week?
UGA 35 - Tech 21

UT at UK - Tennessee has a hard time stopping the pass. Kentucky is pretty successful at passing the ball. UGA's going to Atlanta.
UK 42 UT 41

UF vs FSU - Florida is probably the best three loss team in the nation. Yeah, I know they got blown out by UT, another three loss team.
UF 38 - FSU 30

USC vs Clemson - This one's tough to call. When in doubt, the OBC wins out.
USC 21 - Clemson 14

Vandy vs WF - Vandy...blah.
WF 28 - Vandy 24

West

LSU vs Ark - Believe it or not, I had a feeling this would happen. However, my brain would have probably kicked in before I made that prediction. Never the less, ouch!
Too late!

Auburn vs Bama - My gut says Bama. Seeing as how my gut was right about LSU/Ark, so I'm not going to listen to my brain.
Bama 17 - Auburn 14

MSU vs OM - I was going to call MSU in a close one.
Too late!