9-1-11 Week 1

About
This blog is about the 2011 college football season. It will not contain expert analysis, it will not extol the virtues of one coach or player over another (mainly because I can’t remember their names), it will not be a breakdown of x’s and o’s, and it will not be any help whatsoever in helping you pick teams for your office football pool.

This blog will be about the 2011 college season as I see it, which means it will include plenty of talk about Ohio State, ramblings about my picks for the coming week, complaints about my previous week’s picks, my pedestrian observations about assorted match-ups and games, and personal observations about various things in college football that have absolutely nothing to do with anything important at all. Oh…and I’ll also talk about anything within the realm of college football that annoys me. (My favorite part!)

My Weekly Picks

These are based on the choices given for the football pool I'm in. They sometimes don't include the most obvious games, but the goal is so each entrant must do some research/guessing themselves rather than relying on “expert” picks.

NOTRE DAME   VS   SOUTH FLORIDA

BYU   VS   MISSISSIPPI

COLORADO STATE   VS   NEW MEXICO

INDIANA   VS   BALL STATE

BOISE STATE   VS   GEORGIA

OREGON   VS   LSU

HAWAII   VS   COLORADO

BOSTON COLLEGE   VS   NORTHWESTERN

HOUSTON   VS   UCLA

MIAMI FLA   VS   MARYLAND

CALIFORNIA   VS   FRESNO STATE

NO ILLINOIS   VS   ARMY

--TWO GAMES WITH SPREADS--

WEST VIRGINIA(-21)   VS   MARSHALL

MICHIGAN(-13 ½)   VS   WESTERN MICHIGAN

I struggled with Colorado State vs. New Mexico, the problem here is deciding who sucks less. In these decisions the usual home/away stats apply, but there are other "fun" stats to ponder that may help, such as: which coach’s job is more at risk (equal in this case) and which coach is more desperate to get fired so they can be put out of their misery (unsure of that stat). There are likely other fun stats but that’s all I can think of right now (I’m supposed to be working) but it seems this was an exercise in futility because it has provided no insight for my pick. It basically came down to: Colorado is at home and they had a less sucky record in 2010. Pure genius!

I also struggled with Boise State vs. Georgia just like the rest of the free world. This struggle is the result of battling personal preference because I did NOT want to pick Boise St., I tried everything I could to not pick them but I’m committed to not letting my personal bias interfere with my picks this year. (It will be a long year.) This could go either way, but since Boise State’s defense is so strong and I’ve heard way too many times “you win championships with defense” that I might now actually believe it, and their QB (whatever his name is) is so awesomely amazing that he may just save the world and possibly cure cancer...I picked them. But Georgia could certainly win because they’re at home and don’t want to appear like they suck this year. (But look at their conference vs. whatever conference Boise St. is in, so suckage is relative.)

The only interesting thing to ponder for the Miami vs Maryland game is how long the announcers will ramble on about Miami’s NCAA violations and what will happen to them. There should be an over-under for that.

Games I’m Most Likely to Watch If I Don’t Have Anything Better to Do

This section lists the games I’ll likely watch if I don’t get distracted by something else. I have A.D.D.,
so it’s not that I don’t want to watch these games but sometimes my brain has other ideas. 

Ohio State vs Akron

I’ll watch this enough to get an idea about Luke Fickel’s coaching style and various players' abilities. Or, at the very least I’ll half listen to the “experts" around me watching the game and determine over the season if they’re full of $hit. (Everyone’s an expert, but the problem is that some things stick in my brain like glue and whenever I see a person in the same context in which they previously waxed eloquent...I remember. Sometimes this comes back to haunt them.)

MICHIGAN VS WESTERN MICHIGAN

I’ll apply the same attention/strategy here as with the Ohio State game.

OREGON   VS   LSU

This should be good, two good teams from different conferences battling it out. There are a whole lot of technical reasons that I can’t remember/don’t care about that make this a toss-up, but the most important thing is it will make for good football.

BOISE STATE   VS   GEORGIA

You know why, damn it.

Games I Will Not Watch If I Have Anything To Say About It*

These are the games I have no interest in whatsoever and would find more torturous to watch than taking up stamp collecting.

MIAMI FLA   VS   MARYLAND

Nothing to see here except gleeful announcers blah blah blah'ing about Miami’s NCAA violations and speculating on the future of the progr… .zzzzzzzz…..

*These are always subject to change because football can be as unpredictable as a herd of cats and any game could become unexpectedly interesting...also, I often do not have control of the clicker.

Things That Annoy Me This Week

This is the section where I talk about the stuff annoying me this week related to college football...or not.

• Picking Boise State: I simply want to win the pool whatever the cost, or at least make the leader's board, therefore I must pick them due to the rational reasons stated earlier.

• Seeing Ohio State play too many hyphenated level teams in the preseason yet ANOTHER year.

• Feeling badly for Jim Tressel: No matter how much he has no one to blame but himself the consequences still must suck for him…and we’ve all been there in life one way or another. (Although the consequences, while still sucking, are relative compared to the mistakes you and I have made in life...unless you are the ex-spouse of a billionare. Remember: suckage is relative.)

The End.