September 22, 2021
Good Day Grover Pickers,
Coach. The Head Coach. The Ol’ Ball Coach.
Every football team, so far, has a man at the helm who can lead other men.
He’s the coach. A man with a watch and a schedule and a system. He’s a yeller. He’s a thinker. He’s a very poor dresser.
A football coach motivates his men to essentially street fight with other men play after play, game after game, all while wearing knee-length tights and knee-high socks.
A coach sleeps less than a coked-up shark.
Roosters wake up when they hear coaches arrive at the office at 4am.
He’s the best guy in any room to yell, “Let’s Goooo!”
Your coach is the idiot who calls a draw play on 3rd and long. He’s the incompetent fool who never knows when or when not to challenge the play. He’s confused by when to go for two, when to go for it on 4th down, and doesn’t care about your fruity analytics if you’ve never played a game in your life at this level or in this league.
There is a special, perfected, intellect in every coach that enables him to scream obscenities and argue with a game official about a call, any call, on national TV and in front of 70,000 fans in the same way you or I will scream at morons in traffic from the safety of our car. It always looks like a bad Ric Flair impression.
Coaching is a fraternity. Like any fraternity, it can be hard to distinguish one member from another.
The Commissioner is here to help. Let’s get to know this week’s coach’s a little bit better.
Bulldog coach Mike Leach likes to learn and he likes to share what he learns. At SEC Media Days this year, he gave each SEC coach a fascinating new book called, “The Sordid History of Pi”, about the discovery of acceptance of 3.14. Ed Orgeron ate his copy. Three bites. Hot Sauce. Gone.
On the new Fullcast After Dark podcast, the hosts described this game as “Two dads fighting after eating at the buffet”. I STRONGLY encourage you to enjoy this podcast, particularly at the 1:21:00 mark for about 5 minutes.
The Commissioner will be at this game as part of an unofficial visit for The Commissioner’s youngest son, Lil’ Commish, who will consider Davidson as a place to matriculate and maybe kick footballs through goal posts. The Toreros won 27 straight conference games before the Wildcats upset them in San Diego last season. If the Pioneer League has revenge games, then this is one of them.
Should the Razorbacks win, they will be the Undisputed Champions of Texas and UA alum Jerry Jones will be installed as Governor of Texas. Welcome to the SEC, Longhorns, now go sit in the corner and wait for your whooping.
The last time FSU was this unsuccessful at football was in the time before Bobby Bowden, or what the rest of us call ‘The Pleistocene Era’. The last FSU coach before Bowden was Darrell ‘Dr. Victory’ Mudra who is in the college football hall of fame. He went 196-63-4 coaching non-FSU teams and just 4-18 in two season coaching in Tallahassee. The Seminoles are currently 0-3 with losses to Miami, Jacksonville State, and Wake Forest. If there is a cupcake left on FSU’s schedule, it’s FSU. Wither Dr. Victory?
NC State is not terrible. Clemson is not ‘Clemson’ good. The Wolfpack will turn the Textile Bowl upside down. Losing will stress Dabo. Part of his brain will want to respond maturely, like an adult. That’s only about 3% of his brain. The other 97% will melt down. I anticipate a revealing, uncomfortable and embarrassing rant as soon as Saturday night.
Former Florida walk-on Quarterback Kerwin Bell, the 1984 SEC Player of the Year, is searching for his first victory as the Head Ball Coach at WCU. As a coach Bell won a Florida state high school championship at Trinity HS in Ocala, 3 conference championships at Jacksonville University, and the D2 national championship at Valdosta State. Football in Cullowhee, NC has about as much tradition as Bulgarian Tiddlywinks. Will the Man from Mayo, UF’s greatest underdog, lead the Catamounts to glory? Will they start with a win in Boiling Springs, NC against D2 athletic factory and part time community college Gardner Webb?
Vols catch the Gators at the exact right moment. Florida just bulldozed Alabama, so the Gators should be beat up, emotionally fragile, and unfocused. And they will still beat Tennessee by 25.
BYU are currently tied for first place in the Pac 12 at 3-0 with three conference wins. The only two things standing in BYU’s way are 1. Oregon and 2. BYU is not currently a member of the Pac12.
Last Saturday Colorado hung a total of 63 yards on Minnesota. For the entire game. All four quarters. 63 total yards. The Pac12 is just a glamorous version of the Sunbelt Conference at this point.
The Pac12 has one quality win- Oregon over Ohio State – otherwise, the Pac12 has 16 non-conference losses, 5 losses to the Mountain West, 3 losses to BYU, and 2 losses to FCS schools.
Who does a weak Pac12 hurt the most? Texas. The Longhorns could have owned the Pac12 10 years ago, but, instead, are going to the SEC to get molly-stomped by Arkansas every year.
Fun Fact: Falcons head coach Arthur Smith has 8 siblings and is the son of Fred Smith, Founder and CEO of FedEx and he doesn’t like to talk about it.
Fun Fact: Joe Judge sounds like a character in a film written, directed and performed by Sylvester Stallone in 1991.
Tom Brady has never played/coached an NFL game in Los Angeles. The inexperience could be a major factor in favor of the Rams on Sunday. And as much as you will be tempted to enjoy the aerial show Brady and Matthew Stafford will try to put on, the real action is on the line where Aaron Donald for the Rams, and Ndamukong Suh, and Vita Vea of the Bucs, will demonstrate comic feats of strength. The fights at the line of scrimmage will be the best Hollywood fist fight since Jason Bourne ransacked Europe.
The Raiders might have to play Nathan Peterman at quarterback Sunday. The Dolphins may counter with Tua, or maybe Jacoby Brissett, or maybe Dan Marino or maybe Cindy Lauper. It won’t matter.
Gruden appears to be the only coach in the league who loves Peterman, who has a career quarterback rating of 34.0 (on a 144 scale).
The Dolphins QB doesn’t matter because the Dolphins offensive line couldn’t block your most annoying friend on Facebook, much less a pass rusher.
Only once have opposing quarterbacks both finished a game with a 0.0 QB rating. Gary Keithley of the Cardinals and ‘General’ Bob Lee of the Falcons did it in 1973. The Falcons won 32-10 in a game where these two quarterbacks combined to go 5-26 for 36 yards and 3 interceptions.
We might be lucky if the Raiders and Dolphins do half as well.
Each individual in this game is dull and boring, but when you add them all together on one field, it’s the adrenaline equivalent of flying to space with 5 civilians and no astronauts.
Even the internet doesn’t know who Nick Sirianni is.
Happy Picking,
The Commissioner
The Grover Picks 