October 26, 2021
Good Day Grover Pickers,
Now just look at this junk The Commissioner has you picking this week!
Cardinals v Packers
It’s Thursday. Two 100-year-old franchises. The game is on Amazon. It feels like the angry older brother, Green Bay, chasing the much faster, more petulant, younger brother, Arizona, all over the backyard. Speaking of old, what’s left of the 72 Dolphins have champagne in the fridge, waiting to toast the Cards first loss. Packers are missing two starting wide receivers due to covid. JJ Watt, a Cardinal, is headed to season ending IR. Kyler Murray is a physical impossibility warping the laws of physics each week. And… this guy:
Tech -MO Bowl
Virginia Tech v Georgia Tech
Justin Fuentes may be on the hot seat in Blacksburg. So, again, maybe spending 20 minutes considering who you should hire, then grabbing the first guy who is A) willing to visit and B) had a winning record last season, is not a good rubric for coach hiring. A better approach- take advice from mailbag readers at The Athletic! (except VaTech should definitely hire Grantham. Now. Today. I’ll drive him up there.)
UPDATE: LSU/USC/Texas Tech/UCONN/Washington State Coaching Candidate.
The guy on the left feels like a fit for at least two of these schools. This is bad news for Muschamp.
Marino Bowl
Pitt v Miami
The Panthers are angry, I guess because they live in Pittsburgh or maybe because they lost to Western Michigan, the QB is excellent, and starting with the Hurricanes they have 5 winnable games in front of them, plus an ACC Championship Game against Wake Forest. The Pitt Panthers are making and argument to enter the Playoff. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes are making an argument to join the Sunbelt Conference.
The Big 10 Week of Truthiness
Wisconsin v Iowa
Michigan v Michigan State
Ohio State v Penn State
Overalls are a big deal in Big10 Student sections. Overall, these are boring games between overrated programs. The athletes will fight, the coaches will yell, the people in overalls will be cold, and in the end, one team wins 7-3 and somehow Minnesota wins the Big10 Championship. Row the Boat to Pasadena!
Penn State vs Illinois at the Big House or possibly Ohio State in Columbus or maybe UCLA in the Coliseum.
Any head coach should know at least three things before any weekly press conference.
- Who do we play this week?
- Where do we play this week?
- Where will I work next season?
Penn State Head Coach James Franklin cannot answer these questions. He is rumored to be on the ‘short list’ for all the highest paying college coaching jobs available. This is the PENN STATE head coach trying to answer those three simple questions during his weekly media conference Tuesday.
- “My focus is on Illinois….” – Penn State plays Ohio State this weekend. They lost to Illinois last Saturday.
- “Obviously a huge challenge going on the road to the Big House”- Ohio State hosts Penn State at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio Saturday. Michigan plays in the Big House.
- “I’m committed to this university” and “Yes, I did hire a new agent this week.”
Good luck, Nittany Lions! Hope you get on the right bus.
Baylor v Texas Is Back
Will the Longhorns be back for three quarters again this week, or can they finish a win against Baylor? If a ranked Baylor squad can somehow pull out his win, plus 52 more wins, before Texas leaves for the SEC in two seasons, then the Bears can pull even in the all-time series. Maybe Texas will be back, but Baylor was never here.
Wofford v Western Carolina
We are picking this game to celebrate WCU coach Kerwin Bell’s first victory last week with the Catamounts. We now return to our regularly schedule losing in Cullowhee.
The Recently Mighty Clemson Tigers v The Less Recently Mighty Florida State Seminoles
Let’s revel in how irrelevant this game is! It’s the Arbor Day of College Football Games. It’s the toothbrush in your trick-or-treat bag. It’s like Steve Guttenberg staring in a 2021 movie. They will play more important games in the Ivy League this weekend. The biggest question for Clemson and FSU is which one is Milli and which one is Vanilli?
Nebraska v Purdue (Thanks BAMA DADDY)
We are picking this game in honor of last week’s Super Genius Forever, BAMA DADDY, who, although an A&M Man, is a resident of Lincoln, NE where he and several other Grover Pickers invent food and/or do important work with corn syrups and occasionally riboflavin. Their most recent research at the University discovered that Scott Frost is 78% Oatmeal Cream Pie.
World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party
Georgia is bringing all the bouncers to this party and Florida has nothing but a bunch of underage freshman with fake IDs made with packing tape, construction paper, and photos they cut from a dentistry brochure.
Deion and the Duck
Jackson State v Mississippi Valley StateChecking in on Deion Sanders. Jackson State is 6-1, but Coach Prime is recovering from toe surgery. He will not travel to Jerry Rice’s old school for this game. That’s right, Coach Prime is hurt and has to miss work. Feels like the greatest product placement advertising of all-time. AFLAC!
These men played the same position in college and now neither of them can cover a duck.
Bronco Mendenhall Bowl
BYU v UVA
Current UVA coach Bronco Mendenhall faces his previous school, BYU. Mendenhall has changed the football culture at UVA using ‘visual management’, which is a term that means, ‘cliches on poster-board’.
Here is a chart showing how some of Mendenhall’s most popular visual text motivators have different cultural meanings at UVA than they did at BYU.
Browns v Steelers
We discuss this one not because the Browns are now missing most of their production on offense, but to make clear that Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is not taking the USC Trojans job, you idiots.
Bengals v Jets
The Bengals ‘window’ is now open. The Jets’ window was sealed with bricks years ago.
Seahawks v Jaguars
The first ever coaching meeting between college coaching legends Pete Carroll and Urban Meyer. Both wish it was in the Rose Bowl with Ohio State and USC, if only because back then the argument was which of the two was the single best coach in college football and now the discussion is which of them should be fired before getting on the bus after this game.
Chiefs v Giants
Watch the Manning-cast version of this on ESPN2 and enjoy Peyton stressing out over every QB movement and Eli passing judgement on his replacement. And… what if super athlete Daniel Jones plays better than Patrick Mahomes?
Bucs v Saints
Tom Brady threw his 600th touchdown pass last week. People have asked me, The Commissioner, all week, “Mr. Commissioner, if you had that ball and Brady wanted it back, what would you do?”
My answer: “Deflate it.”
Happy Picking,
The Commissioner
The Grover Picks 