Turkeyball

November 27, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving! Let the feast and the football begin!

THURSDAY
MACY’S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE

The Commissioner’s peer, a gentleman known as Mr. Language Person, annually reminds us all that this is NOT the Macy’s Day Parade. Please remember to include the holiday, Thanksgiving, when referring to the parade.

OLE MISS AT MISSISSIPPI STATE

It’s called the Egg Bowl, but would more appropriately be called the “Leftover-Turkey-Sandwich-with-Two-Sides-of-Starches for Dinner” bowl.

BEARS AT LIONS

This game is essential to how Thanksgiving sounds and looks in my house. Someday the Lions will be must watch football TV, but until then, this game is also why turkeys invented tryptophan.

BILLS AT COWBOYS

SAINTS AT FALCONS

Make sure you have enough pie to get you through to the end of this game. Or, better yet, eat all the pie and just go to bed. There’s more football tomorrow.

FRIDAY
CINCINNATI AT MEMPHIS

For the right to be considered 2019’s football equivalent of the tallest midget. Also, if Memphis wins, there is an immediate rematch next week in the AAC Championship Game. Who wouldn’t want to see this matchup twice?

USF AT UCF

For supremacy over all the cinder block strip malls, the pine tree stands in sandy soil, the grassy ranches dotted with palmettos, the drainage ponds and every redbug living in every clump of moss dangling from a live oak tree between Cape Kennedy and the Howard Franklin Bridge. The Battle for I-4 trophy is a bronze cow pattie wrapped in barbed wire with a mouse ear hat on top.

IOWA AT NEBRASKA

You know their side dishes are better than your side dishes.

VIRGINIA TECH AT VIRGINIA

No other game looks more like Thanksgiving than Virginia Tech versus Anybody.

SATURDAY
GEORGIA AT GEORGIA TECH

The game called, “Good Old Fashioned Hate”. Once again, Georgia finds itself in a rivalry in which the schools cannot agree on how many times they have played each other (UGA v UF is the other dispute). One thing we know about the inability to count, lack of self-awareness, and losing to teams you should beat- Georgia is always involved.

FSU AT FLORIDA

What a great opportunity for the Mighty Gators to lay a whoopin’ on the wounded Noles. Kick ‘em hard when they are down. Make Spurrier proud and run up 60 or 70 and beat down FSU football so far that they spend the next 40 seasons just hoping to be as successful as FIU. Send them to College Football’s Dustbin. Put FSU on the discount rack at the record store. Pick apart that sorry bunch of glory-hog wannabes so no 8 year old in Florida would ever consider wearing one of those burgundy and stain colored t-shirts.

Let’s clear away any lingering confusion about college football in Florida. The Gators are the adult table and every body else is sitting with the kids. 

WISCONSIN AT MINNESOTA

The Gophers could be one of the great stories of the year. A win puts them in the Big12 title game. A win likely rows the boat to the Rose Bowl. A win here…is refreshing and fun. Ski U Mah!

OHIO STATE AT MICHIGAN

Jim Harbaugh is a really good coach and until he beats Ohio State, a team that is more talented and better than his, we’ll only remember that he’s mostly nuts. I hope UM wins, not just because we all seem to hate OSU, but because Harbaugh is the fun kind of crazy coach and we need more of him.

MISSOURI AT ARKANSAS

Winning team gets a $100 Wal Mart Gift Card.

VANDERBILT AT TENNESSEE

Football would be more fun if Tennessee were reliably competitive and UT seems to be getting better.

However, Coach Jeremy Pruitt is a jackass.

Not the lovable kind of jackass, not the dangerous-stupid-human-tricks kind of jackass. He’s the mean, unfit-for-his-job, immature and unbalanced kind of jackass. Maybe that’s not a problem for UT fans, but it should be.

ALABAMA AT AUBURN

It just means more.

SUNDAY
By now it’s been a long weekend and the remaining parts of the turkey are the parts you didn’t want to eat anyway. There’s so little pie left you must lick crumbs and filling off the pie plate to recapture the glory of Thursday. If you don’t buy some new pants the next size up today, then tomorrow is going to be really embarrassing at work. And yet, there are three more games that really deserve your attention.

PATRIOTS AT TEXANS

The alleged greatest defense of the last twenty years (Patriots) versus the quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who keeps overcoming Head Coach Bill O’Brien. It is unlikely that Deshaun Watson can overcome Belichick and O’Brien on the same day, but it will be fun to watch him try.

BROWNS AT STEELERS

Oh, boy. The last time these teams played the game ended with a man swinging a helmet and hitting another man in the noggin. Myles Garret, the swinger, will not play because he’s suspended for a long time. Mason Rudolph, the noggin catcher, will not play because he’s been terrible lately. 

Rudolph is replaced by a man named ‘Duck’.

The fans in Pittsburgh will handle this rematch in a mature and stately fashion, I’m sure, just like the Browns fans have. Probably nothing to see here at all…..

RAVENS AT NINERS

The Pre-Super Bowl. The Niners are frauds. Only one loss, but the 30th easiest schedule. We still have no idea if Jimmy G is good, but he hasn’t been bad yet.
The Ravens are worth paying to see. Lamar Jackson is the truth.

Here are a few questions that humans, much less football coaches, have no answer for:

1. How many people live on Earth?
2. What is the meaning of life?
3. Would we be any happier if we knew the answer?
4. If we stopped sleeping, would we miss dreaming?
5. How does the grammar of a language originate?
6. Can the substructures of high-dimensional figures be described by means of polynomial equations?
7. How can you stop Lamar Jackson?

Answers:

1. Not enough to make the Jets good.
2. It’s a question you answer, not a question you ask.
3. Depends on how you feel about the answer immediately above.
4. No, but we’d miss the nightmares.
5. Ain’t no telling’, but probably by attempting to really repair a split infinitive.
6. Hell, yes!
7. You cannot.

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Picking. I hope your family and your food is agreeable and brings joy and that your team wins its rivalry unless you root for FSU.

The Commissioner