Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week IV

Football, Gaming, ,

When UCLA couldn’t close in a noon game at the Liberty Bowl, I knew it was not going to be the best of days for the kid prediction-wise.

Yeah, Cal’s Golden Bears beat Ole Miss. Send those Southern kids out to Cali and their eyes get dazed and knees wobbly. And Florida increased the Fahrenheit on Butch Jone’s hot seat with that last second prayer. So, those were my Ws.

But I had the Bruins. And I had no faith in the Cats, who took a big punch to the kisser right after the opening bell, but stayed strong and have now bested the Gamecocks four times in a row. As for U of L, feh. You can read my take here. 

Which tallies up to a 2-3 weekend, lowering my still reasonably passable season record to 12-8.

I may be down, but not out. Thus I forge ahead undaunted.

Here are five sure winners this weekend: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week IV →

Considering the Cards after Clemson

Football

It is a word the faithful of the IPTAY Nation came to loathe.

It was coined by some snarky pundit to describe how Dabo Swinney’s early teams, improving as they were, appearing prepared to scale the the mountain of college football, never could summit. How they’d win the ones they were supposed to, but couldn’t beat Florida State or beat rival South Carolina, or break on through to elite status.

J’accuse.

Clemsoning was a four letter word to the purple- and orange-clad fans.

Swinney finally addressed it publicly. He chastised the media for continuing to use the descriptor. But he didn’t just complain. More important, he and his teams continued to improve, and started to win the big ones, the biggest one.

That word, that C-bomb, is heard no more.

Clemson is now top shelf.

It is legitimate to compare the arc of Louisville football to that of their conquerors last night, the school that also bested them last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. Continue reading Considering the Cards after Clemson →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week III

Football, Gaming, ,

When will I ever learn? I mean really, when will I ever learn?

Notre Dame is no longer a playah. Period. They also run. That’s it. Their Gipper tank is empty.

And besides being overrated as a coach, Brian Kelly is an insufferable schmuck.

But no, there was a swallow of Kool Aid left in the jug, so I, like a dumpkopf unwilling to learn from recent history, drank, picking the Irish to beat Georgia.

Silly me. Silly silly me.

When will I ever learn?

Were I a wiser man, I might also have determined from IU’s performance against the Buckeyes that the Hoosiers were at least better than the hapless UVa Cavaliers.

But nooooooooooooooo!!!

Yet the Quack, the Cards and the Wildcats all came through. Though UK’s W was far from “easy” as I projected. Meaning I got more right than wrong. Always a good thing, 3 up, 2 down, making my record 10-5 on the year. It could be worse.

As always, I forge ahead. This week’s picks: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week III →

Louisville CardFile: North Carolina

Football, ,

Oh that there were a fresher portmanteau, a combination of two words into one that would dazzle anew as Lamar Jackson continues to do.

Oh for a new descriptor you haven’t read elsewhere already while trying to consume every adjective writ about college football’s best player, an adjective that you haven’t heard ad nauseum from the lips of studio wags as LJ highlights run in tape loop throughout the day after the Cards’ noon victory.

But, sigh, my ever feeble creativity is locked down.

I can do no better than this.

Lamarvelous.

La. Fuckin. Mar Ve. Lous.

The best player in the history of U of L football deserves more. I am not worthy. Sorry.

As anyone who has watched him play knows, it’s not just the stats that were they not legit would seem hyperbole, impossible.

It’s the panache. The instinct. The maturation of his game which is geometrically improved over last year’s Heisman campaign. Continue reading Louisville CardFile: North Carolina →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week II

Football, Gaming

Corrected 9/06 6:00 pm

After a long bleary-eyed weekend spent consuming far too much pigskin, and so very sure that the Texas Aggies, up 44-10,  would not only hold on for a  W, but would place yours truly on the plus side for the weekend prediction-wise, I turned off the telly and hit the hay.

Only to wake up in the morning to learn that A&M had blown the lead, that Josh Rosen apparently studied his playbooks if not his textbooks as well as Dan Marino’s fake spike to beat the Jets, and further that some knee jerk university trustee in the football-addled Lone Star state with nothing of more importance to think about, had already called for Kevin Sumlin’s ouster.

Which Aggie L sealed an ofer on my three upset specials. I felt like Man O’ War x 3.

Because, doofus that I am, and yet to find my rhythm on the season, I picked the Gators, forgetting that they were down about ten men, and foolishly picked against the Crimson Tide, forgetting that Saban never loses neutral site openers. Silly, silly, stupid me.

Thanks to the locals, Cards and Cats, I salvaged a 2-3 slate, which mediocrity lowered my season mark to 7-3.

Now chastened, and actually performing some research, minimal and cursory as it may be, I do not even glance in the rearview mirror, but am focused straight ahead.

Which is to advise here are five sure winners for Week II: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week II →

Louisville CardFile: Purdue

Football, ,

 

Corrected 9/03 10:15 AM

It was the type of step up when necessary performance at crunch time you expect from the best player in the game.

While that Lamar Jackson reference certainly applies to his sealing the deal ways last night at Lucas Oil against feisty Purdue, it is meant to reassert that the U of L QB deserved his Heisman last season, that he remains the best player in the game meaning in the whole game of college football, and it shall be so until some other guy out there proves himself more scintillating, talented and athletic.

In a back and forth affair which was far too competitive than necessary due to Louisville’s generally dispirited and lackluster execution (for the fourth game in a row), LJ grabbed the affair by the short and curlies late and derailed the Boilermakers.

U of L fell behind yet again with 10:48 to play, 25-28, as student Jeff Brohm appeared he had mastered all the lessons learned from teacher Bobby Petrino, and taken over the lectern to teach tutor what an offense of the day looks like in 2017.

Then Jackson led a crisp, 6 play, 75 yard, 1;47 scoring drive to take the lead for good, displaying the kind of offensive efficiency and panache that was MIA most of the evening. Two completions to breakout wideout Dez Fitzpatrick in his first game, totaled 59 yards. The first was on a critical 3d & 6, the second went for 20 and the tally, after a nifty 12 yard LJ scamper. Continue reading Louisville CardFile: Purdue →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week I

Football, Gaming, , , ,

Thanks to the divine, full spectrum guidance of patron saint ROY G BIV, the Rainbow Warriors of Hawaii secured a waning moments W at UMass. Thus making for as satsifying a return trip to Diamond Head as there can be stuck in coach on a plane for 5100 miles.

Not to mention the victory secured as peerless an opening foray as yours truly could have hoped for. Along with wins by the Cougars, Bulls, Rams and The Cardinal, the kid started the season 5-0, prediction wise.

While I would like to boast ad nauseum, to be honest, last week’s meager slate of battles was hardly what could be termed a severe test of prognosticatory prowess.

A boffo schedule this coming weekend provides a legitimate chance to yet again prove my mettle. Thus I shall cut short the verbosity, and get right to it.

This week’s winners in five huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge games: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week I →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: The Prelude

Football, Gaming

It is the weak-end before The Weekend.

Sort of like the hors d’oeuvres passed around before the sit down dinner at a wedding. Some canapés to whet the appetite for the main courses to come.

But, there hasn’t been anything to galvanize the populace since that sun and moon crossing paths thing. And that was, what, at least forty eight hours ago, yesterday’s tweeters. Folks are already tired of shlepping the kids off to soccer practice and school’s only been in session for a few days.

Which is to say that we are ready for diversion in the guise of mayhem on the gridiron, i.e. some college pigskin. Oh so very ready. Thus we shall cherish this weak-end’s quintet of encounters, despite the actuality that The Real Deal — you know, Seminoles/ Tide, Cardinals/ Boilermakers, Cats/ Golden Eagles — is still another work week away.

Sooooooo, ever willing to jump in the fray, to do my little part in helping my loyal followers enjoy the football festivities, to give you an edge while handicapping the battles all season long, welcome one and all to the inaugural 2017 edition of American’s most favorite football fantasia — thanks for the standing O, Chinstrap Universe — Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications.

The fun has now begun. Let’s go: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: The Prelude →

Whither U of L Football 2017?

Fandom, Football

So I pulled out my Detroit Lions ballcap yesterday.

Stay with me here, this isn’t some LSD flashback, an indecipherable rambling rumination about nothing much, I shall get to the Louisville Cardinals and the upcoming campaign in a sec. Just want to provide some context.

I was born in Motown, and even though my family moved to Louisville when I was but a mere babe, I follow and root for Detroit’s pro teams. Including the perennially hapless Lions of the NFL.

As you all too well know, it’s the time of year when hope springs you know what– that’s right, eternal — for every franchise at every level of pigskin.

It’s true in Motor City.

It is true in Derbytown, USA.

And it’s welling up inside Cardinal fans either because of or despite the pall that hangs over U of L football no thanks to that the three game nosedive that ended last campaign. The Red & Black Faithful are ready and raring to go.

The L1C4 Nation is dreaming the Cards can be a contender, return to the upper echelon, where they were perched in ’06 before spitting out the bit at Rutgers, and where they were poised last autumn before braying about disrespect, then laying down at Houston, against the Cats and in the Citrus Bowl.

Here’s why there is reason for bullish expectations, in no particular order of importance. Continue reading Whither U of L Football 2017? →

Seedy K’s Ready for Some Football, Aren’t You?

Football, ,

Unless Kim Jong Un launches some nervous uncle he doesn’t like to bronco buck a nuke-fitted ICBM into Mercedes-Benz Stadium like Slim Pickens’ Major “King” Kong did to the delight of General Jack Ripper and the suddenly ambulatory Dr. Strangelove, college pigskin is just over the horizon.

None too soon if you ask me. Now that I’ve watched that wacko ending to last year’s Georgia/Tennessee game in replay on the World Wide Leader too many times. (Sayonara Verne Lundquist, just in time.)

That SEC finish reminds me to mention from the get go how much I adore Big 12 football, where every game is like that. So what that there’s no D. 58-54 on the telly from Lubbock as the sun sets and the Impellizzeri’s pizza has been ordered on an almost crisp late September Saturday afternoon is more than fine with me. Those games from out on the prairie remind me of the early days of the AFL. Bambi frolicking across the middle for the Chargers against the Raiders from Balboa Stadium with Charlie Jones on the call.

Back and forth. Forth and back.

OK, so where was I? Oh yeah, now that I’ve looked back — too many times frankly — to relive when James Quick should have zagged but zigged late against Clemson, cementing the Cards demise in Death Valley a season ago, I know it’s long past time to move on. Continue reading Seedy K’s Ready for Some Football, Aren’t You? →