Despite the meagerness of this weekend’s offerings, your inveterate predictioneer is pleased as Hubert Humphrey’s punch that the season is but 72 hours hence.
A technical note, before we get started, so there will be transparency about my process. I have updated my algorithmic analytical diagnostics, and feel certain this will improve my already world renown prescience. Thank you Roy G Biv at Pigskinistics LLC, for your help above and beyond the call of duty.
So, we’ve got another week before the matchups get tastier. Until battles get as delicious as that incredible pizza I cherished at Impellizzeri’s the other evening, we’ll have to settle for some heat lamp dried broasted chicken at the Stop & Gas.
And be damned glad.
As long as there’s a cold beverage in the fridge case to wash it down with:
Week 0 winners:
Wyoming @ Illinois. Would somebody please tell Mark Zuckerberg to stop trying to sell me Wyoming Cowboy merch? Yes, a few years back I did buy a t-shirt with that great cowpoke on a bucking bronc silhouette logo. But one’s enough. Really. The last time I spent even a modicum of attention to Wyoming sports was the Fennis Dembo Era. That was, what, the mid 80s? My pal Badger Billy has been to a game in a Laramie. Says it’s a great football environment. But this one’s in Champaign-Urbana. Where they boys have as much chance of winning as Liz Cheney did. Illini. (Hold your political snark, please. Just trying to be cute.)
UConn @ Utah State. Was Jim Mora getting bored? Well, I guess. His last head coaching gig was ’17 at UCLA, after having some success but ofttimes not so much at Seattle and Atlanta in the NFL. But here he finds himself, wearing the boss headset at a school wandering rudderless as an indy in the world of college pigskin. The Huskies have gone 3-9, 3-9, 1-11, 2-10 and 1-11 in their last five campaigns. I’ll do the addition. That’s 10-50. Mora’s got him some fixin’ to do. It will not start in Logan against the defending Mountain West champs. Aggies.
Vanderbilt @ Hawai’i. Just yesterday at lunch I regaled my pals with the tale of the time when Vandy whipped Kentucky at Stoll Field, 34-0. Mid 50s. I was but a youth at the time, but was sitting with my dad at that game in his biz owner’s box, which happened to be front row mid field behind the Wildcat bench, right next to Happy Chandler’s box. My brother was a student at Vandy, and we were happy campers. Current 2d year Commodore coach Clark Lea, a former walk on at the West End Ave school, is nothing if not confident. Vanderbilt has never won 10 games, and hasn’t had a winning season since ’13. Yet at SEC media daze, he stated, “We know in time Vanderbilt football will be the best program in the country.” Will said surge to the top start in the shadows of Diamond Head? Uh, no. Rainbow Warriors.
Austin Peay @ Western Kentucky. Even I give it a rest every once in awhile. So, I shall abstain from the 183d reiteration of the greatest cheer in the history of sports. Thus moving on to a more analytical breakdown of this battle between the Sun Belt Toppers and the ASUN Governors. (They play football in that league? Who knew?) It’s important to note that the greatest player in Peay athletics history — Fly Williams — will not be suiting up with the guys from Clarksville. The Toppers, still floating off their three TD smackdown of App State in the Boca Raton Bowl, shall not be looking ahead to their upcoming holiday in Oahu, and will prevail.
Nebraska vs. Northwestern (Dublin, Ireland). Already then, chronic underachiever Adrian Martinez has take his talents to Manhattan. The one in Kansas. Which means it’s time for the long expected, highly anticipated unleashing of former future Florida State Seminole Chubba Purdy a/k/a former future Louisville Cardinal superstar Chubba Purdy. Whose latest stop on his cross country road trip is Lincoln. Chubba’s mantra: See the rainbow, taste the rainbow. Not. Again. Former future superstar Nebraska Cornhusker Coach Scott Frost has named former future Texas Longhorn superstar Casey Thompson as his starting QB for this opener. The coach would like his seat to be a bit more frosty, but the Fahrenheit has been raised by the faithful, not to mention his AD. Fortunately for Frost, his fellas hold the wolves at bay in the Land o’ Erin for at least another week. Nebraska.
— c d kaplan