September 17, 2019
Good Day Grover Pickers,
Oh, the joy! The Jets embarrassed themselves on national television!
First, the Grover Picks Hall of Remembrance pauses after a full 3 weeks of football to honor the memory of some of our favorite players who are gone, but not dead.
Thank You and Goodnight
Eli Manning – You’d trade for his career right now. Everyone who ever walked the earth would do the same, save for about 10 guys.
Ben Rothliesberger – Don’t Let The Door Hit You in the Buttox, you overgrown, brainless, eight-year-old jerk.
Drew Brees – Finally, Saban is right. Brees is hurt and can’t play. Saban was just way, way, way ahead of the crowd.
Cam Newton – This is a Bo Jackson situation- great talent cut down too early by injuries- in a weird hat Bo would never wear and not just because there’s no Nike swoosh on it.
Adam Vinatieri – Apparently the Greatest Kicker of All Time doesn’t know that it’s over yet and neither do the Colts. The uprights know.
Trevor Siemian – former NY Jets backup- I understand that it hurts, but at least you don’t have to keep playing for the Jets.
Felipe Franks, Florida – JT Daniels, USC – TJ Green, Northwestern – Terry Wilson, Kentucky – Jake Bentley, USC- It is a cruel reality of amateur sports that each of you was unfortunately injured and then replaced by a new QB who was immediately exponentially more successful than you. At least you have the transfer portal.
Miami Dolphins – former NFL squad- life imitates home decor.
Boston College – former ACC threat- lost to Kansas at home. Les Miles ate your grass!
Hello, I Must Be Going
Kim Helton- USC temp coach- They will fire you as soon as they finish their kale and organic beat juice.
Willie Taggart- future Head Coach at Kent State- unfortunately he’s as good a fit at FSU as the Three Stooges at tea with the Queen.
Charlie Strong- future Defensive Coordinator for NCAA Champion Alabama- here “Charlie Strong” could mean the actual dude, or I suspect a reasonable bobble head of Charlie Strong could also fill the role at Alabama. I’m not clear if it’s the actual dude or a bobble head that is currently running USF.
Lovie Smith – future former Illinois coach, next team Santa at Arizona State- A fine coach who now looks like Grady from Sanford and Son and doesn’t seem to coach half as well as the part-time junk dealer.
Jameis Winston BTW- with Gabbert injured, Ryan Griffin is the backup. Ryan Griffin is also the guy on the help desk who scolds you for not defending the network against phishing scams. You can’t win, Bucs.
Welcome to the Show
Those old QBs are gone, replaced by an exciting, if inexperienced group.
Gardner Minshew- Starting QB- Jaguars- here’s all you need to know:
Kyler Murray- the Muggsy Bogues of the NFL, or for the younger folks, he looks like Kevin Hart playing in the NFL.
Lamar Jackson- He’s the awkward girl in school who nobody asks to the prom and then when she shows up to that prom looking like a million dollars on the arm of the star quarterback from the rival high school, every guy realizes they made a terrible misjudgment and will regret their own prom date for years.
Mason Rudolph- sounds like he owns a Chevy dealership in Stillwater, OK, which he may soon if this Steelers thing doesn’t work out.
Daniel Jones – Not Bert Jones. A great name for a podiatrist. Maybe he can help Cam Newton someday.
Kyle Trask- In 2029 Paul Grove will entertain your arguments about who was the better Gator QB, Kyle Trask or Tim Tebow. The answer will be Kyle Trask!
Eddy Piniero – Congrats, Bears. You have your very own weird kicker again!
The Pac 12 does not matter?!
On this week’s Grover Picks podcast, Paul Grove states unequivocally that the Pac 12 does not matter in college football. Losses by Stanford to UCF, USC to BYU and Colorado to Air Force don’t help, BUT, the Pac 12 also had wins over Idaho State, Cal Poly and North Texas this weekend.
Now the Pac 12 are the Kings of the Last 5, putting 3 teams in the top 25, 3 more teams in the top 20 and one team, Utah, is even ranked higher than UCF! That’s six west coast football teams among our nation’s very best. All this glory and yet, Paul Grove is still right.
The Biggest Question in College Football As Answered by Mike Leach
Which Pac 12 mascot wins in a fight?
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
UTAH V USC
Friday night in the Pac 12 with the all the rest of the high school games.
GATORS V VOLS – The Doug Dickey Bowl
The Vols are back, baby! After beating UT Chattanooga, bring on the rest of the Southern Conference! When the Vols were members of Southern Conference, 1921-1932, no champion was named. UT is ready to return to the SOCON and RULE!
There are questions out there, on the internet, asking if Florida vs Tennessee is still a rivalry. Absolutely it’s a rivalry! Well… it’s not a rivalry in the competitive sense. Competitively it’s more like the rivalries between Tennessee and Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, Tennessee and Auburn, and Tennessee and Missouri in that Tennessee loses way more than they win. Also, a noon kickoff is never the sign of a rivalry unless it’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
However, UF v UT is a rivalry in the sense that Florida will have the full tailgate experience outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The Gators will also be really upset if they lose to the Vols.
OLE MISS V CAL BEARS
The Most Significant 20th Century Cultural Battle Represented By 21st Century College Football Game of the Week.
Berkley gave us Hippies, the Counter-culture, tree huggers and intolerance for tradition. Ole Miss gave us bow-tied Southern gentlemen, genteel Southern women, flag waving Rebels and intolerance for hippies.
Here, The Commissioner will often list a few famous alumni from each school. For instance, I might mention that Famous Ole Miss alumni include Gerald McCraney, Kate Jackson, Haley Barbour, Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, John Grisham and Nobel Prize winning author William Faulkner.
That’s a decent list.
However, Cal-Berkley has produced 107 Nobel Laureates. The lists of notable and famous alumni requires at least seven separate Wikipedia pages. You can read them yourself. Start Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_California,_Berkeley_alumni
Berkley receives 90,000 undergrad applications each year from students hoping to protest class in slides, tie-dyed tanks and bandanas holding back multi-cultural dreadlocks.
Ole Miss is giving generous scholarships to out of state students so they can join the preppy Greek army of well coifed and perfectly made-up undergrads in The Grove.
Most culturally significant in 2019 is the chance that a Pac 12 team, a conference that does not matter according to Paul Grove, might win against an SEC team, the conference where it just means more. That would be more embarrassing than having just that one measly Nobel Prize winner.
BAMA V SOUTHERN MISS
I’m telling you know that as unlikely as a Southern Miss win is at Alabama, it’s not out of the question. It’s the same odds as Chick-Fil-A opening on Sunday, but consider:
1982- Southern Miss 38 Alabama 29 – Bear Bryant’s final home game and the first home loss in 19 season for the Tide.
1953- Southern Miss 25 #1 Alabama 19
1990- Southern Miss 27 #13 Alabama 24 – the ignominious beginning to the Gene Stallings era
2000- Southern Miss 21 #13 Alabama 0
And the Golden Eagles have defeated other teams besides Bama…
2003 Southern Miss 21 Nebraska 7
1989 Southern Miss 30 FSU 26- Brett Favre!
1981 Southern Miss 58 FSU 14
1970 Southern Miss 30 #3 Ole Miss 14
So I’m saying there’s a chance… of Chick-Fil-A opening on Sunday.
BADGERS V WOLVERINES
A much better fight in the wild than on the football field. These animals will fight any terrifying animal you rightfully fear- from venomous snakes to polar bears. Lions, tigers, and hyennas have all lost fights with wolverines and badgers. These are ferocious beasts with lethal teeth and powerful jaws. While the wolverine is bigger, the badger has a reversible anal gland described by survivors as ’suffocating’.
Reversible anal gland? That is the definition of badass!
The badger is part of the mustelid family which includes skunks. So this is a similar technique to the skunk, but the badger can turn the glands inside out, exposing prey to the full onslaught. It’s a smell that repels predators and subdues bees.
I assume Harbaugh is immune.
Learn more here:
AGGIES V TIGERS
I think about this game and I have an urge to go line dancing in cowboy boots and Duck Head slacks.
SEMINOLES V CARDINALS
The Noles are back… to their new normal! Which is delightfully terrible. Keep it up, Osceola!
UCF V PITT PANTHERS
The march to be Florida’s best college football team continues for UCF, this time against an ACC opponent common to FSU and Miami. FSU is only 2-3 at Pittsburgh. Miami is a much more respectable 14-6 at Pittsburgh. UCF is currently better than FSU and Miami. We can only hope were not saying the same thing in 30 years about West Florida, North Florida, FIU, FAU, Santa Fe State College and HCC.
TAR HEELS V MOUNTAINEERS
First time in a long time for jug swiggers visiting the Blue Bloods in Chapel Hill. For the good of world order, please let the Tar Heels win at home. If App State is the best football school in a mediocre football state, The Commissioner may have to move.
TIGERS V GAMECOCKS
Cats eat chickens. Big cats eat chickens quickly. Missouri are average cats, but still, the Mild Muschamps on the road don’t instill confidence. It’s been seven seasons since Missouri joined the SEC. It still feels weird, but it’s still a conference loss for USC-East.
LOBOS V AGGIES
A reminder that New Mexico, the only state keeping South Dakota from being the least memorable state, has two division 1 football teams. Barely.
The New Mexico Lobos are part of the Mountain West Conference. The New Mexico State Aggies are Independents like Notre Dame, BYU and Army, which must be really annoying to Notre Dame, BYU and Army. One school are wolves, one school are cowpokes.
Since the success of the television show Breaking Bad, about a school teacher turned meth lord, both schools now offer a class called “Practium 307: Leadership and Organizational Methods of Meth Dealers vs Pharmacists”.
It’s taught by a Cal-Berkley grad.
MOUNTAINEERS V JAYHAWKS
Big12 Big Boi Game! West Virginia beat the snot out of NC State last week. Kansas won on the road against a power 5 school for the first time since the moon landing. The Jayhawks won after losing to Coastal Carolina and sneaking by Incarnate Word. This is a huge early season showdown, on the same level as the time you pitted your Star Wars action figures against GI Joe with the kung fu grip when you were 9.
CAVALIERS V ODU
Old Dominion upset VA Tech last year, and lost every other game. Can they do the same to Virginia’s leading pretentious university?
UGA V LEPRECHAUNS
I’m so tired of “Notre Dame is good,” and “Notre Dame is ranked” and “Don’t forget about Notre Dame.” It’s 2019. Forget about Notre Dame. They are the same kind of non-power 5 pretender as UCF, Bosie and Cincinnati. Bunch of little green men trying to act all big. You can stop all the Notre Dame Playoff talk as soon as this game kicks off.
CORNHUSKERS V ILLINI
Good news for fans of the Corn People- Illinois is not Colorado. Once you get a lead on Illinois, they are not coming back, assuming they were ever there.
SUN DEVILS V BUFFALOS
Winner controls the Colorado River water supply for another year.
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
CHIEFS V RAVENS
Patrick Mahomes is Harry Potter skills with Brett Favre attitude. Lamar Jackson is Walter Payton skills with Sammy Baugh’s slinger. Ravens want to run and throw over you. Chiefs will simply Mahome you into submission.
HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT GAMES OF THE WEEK
The Jets and Dolphins are both at least 21 point underdogs in the same week.
PATRIOTS V JETS
When asked this morning about this weekend’s game against the Jets, Belichick said, “We’re on to Buffalo”, the week 4 opponent.
COWBOYS V DOLPHINS
Dak Prescott is going to earn 10s of millions of dollars just by padding his stats playing the Giants, Washington, Dolphins and Jets in the first six games of the season.
For Dolphin fans, this will make you feel better. According to NFL Network Researcher Jack Andrade, Dan Marino’s 1984 season equated to a QB throwing for 5,668 yards and 58 touchdowns in 2018. That’s only 539 yards and 8 more touchdowns than the 2018 league leaders. Relative to Marino, every other QB in history is just another pedestrian McCown, Staubach or Brady.
BUCS V GIANTS
A very significant game as the teams jockey for position in the top 5 of the draft.
PANTHERS V CARDINALS
The Panthers are anxious right now. They ought to be 2-0, but are 0-2. The season, and the head coach’s job, are all in serious peril.
This team is in desperate need of one of those movie moments when the entire youthful cast is hiding in a basement from the hockey masked killer and the door knob turns. The door creaks open. Just as all are convinced of certain death, Cheerful Molly pops through the door with curlers in her hair, a pizza to share, and a hearty, “What are you all doing in the dark down here holding power tools? You silly guuuuuyss.” Everyone relaxes. Oxygen fills the room. Smiles all around. Life goes on.
Then Jason shows up with chainsaw in week five.
SEAHAWKS V SAINTS
Is there anything more consistently entertaining than watching Sean Payton’s face burst with rage when the officiating crew misses another call so obvious even goat herders in Uzbekistan are hanging hands? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There is not.
49ERS V STEELERS
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin once said, “If our team doesn’t face enough adversity early on in a season, I create it.” Well, Mike, you can take the week off. Troublemakers Antonio Brown, Ben Rothelisberger, and Le’Veon Bell are all gone and your team is 0-2. Happy Adversity Week!
Here are three things Tomlin has actually said and one thing I wish he had said.
“I tolerate you until I can replace you.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to cut your eyelids off when you want to blink, when it gets thick”
“We don’t live in our fears. We live in our hopes.”
“Fight like starved beasts, then peck out their eyes like an enraged penguin.”
TITANS V JAGUARS
In case you missed it, Gardner Minshew.
Happy Picking,
The Commissioner
The Grover Picks 