November 18, 2021
Good Day Grover Pickers,
Your Commissioner, THE Commissioner, is lazy, angry, and befuddled.
Here’s one reason. This is an actual thing kids, but not my kids, are asking for this Christmas. What is this… crap? It is SOLD OUT at Target and Walmart. You may have to purchase it at QVC! An alternative is Turdle. Get it? Turd.
The Conviction of Your Cliches
In sports, in life, when speaking with the arresting officers, if you are giving a eulogy for a stranger- wherever you find yourself- a cliche is a handy crutch to fill the air with banal wisdom. Today, we use those cliches to convict football.
We’re Gonna Take It One Game At A Time
Chiefs v Cowboys
Ravens v Bears
Bills v Colts
Packers v Vikings
We think the Bears are about as competent at football as Taylor Swift is at German Reggae.
Any of the rest of those teams could win the Super Bowl or fail to make the playoffs because of :
- Turnovers
- Covid
- Analytics
- No Running Game
- Too Reliant on the Screen Pass
- No Deep Threat
- Bad Tackling
- Terrible Officiating
- Injuries
- Jerry Jones
It’s A Must Win
Ohio State v Michigan State
It was a must win earlier in the week, but now Michigan State is about to give head coach Mel Tucker a 10 year, $95 million contract.
Here is Mel Tucker’s Career Head Coaching Record
2019 at Colorado 5-7
2020 at Michigan State 2-5
2021 at Michigan State 9-1
Now the result of this game goes one of two ways.
- Mel Tucker and Michigan State beat Ohio State and Mel makes $95 million. Good Job, Mel!
- Mel Tucker and Michigan State LOSE to Ohio State and Mel moves on to FIU. Oh, no, Mel!
Could be the biggest ‘Must Win’ in the history of sports.
Tough Times Don’t Last, Tough People Do
Titans v Texans
The Titans have ugly uniforms. So does Memphis. So does Tennessee. So does Vanderbilt. So does East Tennessee State. So does Middle Tennessee. And Austin Peay. And Lipscomb. And don’t get me started on Trevecca Nazarene.
Tennessee is just an unattractive place. It’s the Floral Print Housecoat of Football.
As for the Texans, they are a bunch of weenies. Not tough at all. They are ‘Houston Tough’, which is all the urban cowboy, rancher-wannabe, Enron-running, urban sprawlin’, skinny horse ridin’, backward cowboy hat wearin’ fundodgers.
And… they are bad at football.
I Just Work Here
Miami v Virginia Tech
Florida v Missouri
North Texas v Florida International
Do you just work here? Justin Fuentes is out at Virginia Tech. Miami fan is desperate to disappear Manny Diaz somewhere in the Everglades between a 15 foot gator and a 30 foot python.
If Dan Mullen still worked at Florida, the Gators would not have given up 52 points to Samford last week. He may still have the job for now, but he appears to spend his weeks playing canasta, eating ham sandwiches, and watching Marvel movies between Saturday kickoffs.
FIU’s Butch Davis announced he’s leaving the school at the end of the season. The timing was odd considering last month the school ran an ad for his job on the American Football Coaches Association website. Makes me wonder if Coach Davis is reading all of his AFCA emails.
AR-15 UPDATE
Weekly, game-specific t-shirts are no longer available from Florida 2nd String QB Anthony Richardson’s website, https://shopar15apparel.com. However, you can get this hat, which kinda works if you are an AR-15 fan or a Tim Tebow fan. Well played, Mr. 15.
He’s a Gamer
Cal v Stanford
The Big Game. Cal has suffered so many injuries and then had to postpone a game due to a covid outbreak. When healthy, they suck. When not healthy, the arrive at the stadium looking like a bunch of sunburned 4th graders after a day at the beach. Still, Cal will show up. Cal are gamers.
Stanford Band Update: The Leyland J Stanford Band is now officially part of the Stanford Athletic Department. They have adult supervision, new boundaries, and a new set of norms and values. For all the fun in the legend of this band, there were also serious problems that hurt people including band members. You can read about it HERE. https://www.stanforddaily.com/2021/06/03/changing-the-culture-stanford-band-one-year-later/
More Band News
This is creepy even if you like Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso and/or Foo Fighters and if you remember anything about Caddyshack, which, I know you do.
He’s a Football Player
Panthers v Football Team
Cam Newton is a football player. Sunday, he will play football. It is what he does. Maybe he can still play well. Maybe he’s washed. Doesn’t matter. Players Gotta Play.
Football Team, by definition, has football players. Each one of them. It’s not ballet. These are not danseurs. (A male ballerina is a danseur, you culturally bereft, non-French-speaking, neanderthals!)
Cam Newton’s Non-Ballet Pre-Game Playlist
Ummm… this kinda rocks. Diddy, Young Thug, Johnny Cash, GnR, and The Hippies.
We Had Too Many Turnovers, We Beat Ourselves
Chargers v Steelers
C’mon, Man! Based on the last three weeks, the best player in this game is Steelers Tight End Pat Freirmuth, whose fumble last week almost allowed the Lions to defeat the Steelers.
A maddening waste of Sunday Night Football.
Gut-check
Browns v Lions
This is the Lions’ week. This matchup seems like a rivalry played annually in mud, but the teams have met only 24 times since 1953 and the Lions have a dominate 19-5 record against the Browns.
When the Lions went 2-30 over the 2008 and 2009 seasons, one of those wins was against the Browns.
Baker Mayfield has so many injuries he needs three rooms in the ER. But he wants to play. It is gut check time. Kind of like when the Scarecrow goes after the wicked witch, only to be set on fire. As I recall, the Cowardly Lion came out pretty well in that situation.
Step Up To the Plate
Clemson v Wake Forest
#13 Wake Forest is an underdog versus unranked and not very good Clemson in football. The Deacons, improbably, should be favored when you consider other weird things going on in the world such as:
- Gangster Rapper Snoop Dog is preparing to star in the Super Bowl halftime show
- Hot water will freeze before lukewarm water. Read more about it in this Scientific American article which has too much science and too few pictures for The Commissioners’ tastes. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-it-true-that-hot-water/
- There’s an idiot with my cell phone number who will text me tomorrow asking if I want to sell my property at 1730 Turkey Hunt Road which is A) not a property I own, B) Actually an Amazon warehouse and C) He/She will text my wife later in the day to try to buy a mortuary property that she does not own, and D) filling the need for texters seeking bogus real estate deals is how Clemson finds jobs for 87% of its recent graduates.
When you know that, Wake beating Clemson seems kind of normal.
Answer the Bell
Cincinnati v SMU
The Bearcats belong in College Playoff as much as you or I belong at one of those secret New York super-model parties or The Rock belongs playing Hamlet.
Defense Wins Championships
Dolphins v Jets
Gators v Missouri
The Jets surrender 33 points per game, worst in the NFL.
The Gators surrender 27 points per game, including 52 to FCS dreg Samford at home.
Both will play to be Champion of the Off Season Press Conference starting in early January, if not sooner.
It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This
West Virginia v Texas
Thank you, Texas. That overtime loss to Kansas in which a freshman fullback caught his first college pass in the endzone to beat the SEC giant is a real boon for Applebees and small towns in western Kansas.
Coach On The Hot Seat
Alabama v Arkansas
If Nick Saban coaches the Tide to one more loss this season, he’ll lose a chance to play in the College Football Playoff.
Word around Tuscaloosa is that several boosters have already sent ‘feelers’ to Andy Reid, Bill Belichick, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Lombardi, Don Shula, Pat Riley, Pat Summit, Lane Kiffin, Urban Meyer and The Rock to gauge their interest should a change be neccesary in the football program.
Just kidding about Pat Summit. These are progressive times, but Bama isn’t culturally prepared to accept a coach from Tennessee.
There is No “I” in Team
Cards v Seahawks
If you are the Cardinals and there is no Kyler Murray on your team Sunday… don’t sweat it. It’s just the Seahawks, a team that keeps following its passion when it ought to follow its skill.
It is What it Is
Tulane V South Florida
It’s a game on the schedule, so it must be played. We are picking it in honor of a handful of Grover Pickers associated with USF. They are excited. Rah.
Gotta Give 110%
Florida v Missouri
If you are Florida, you divide the 110% by 12 games so you only have to give 9.17% in each game.
Get Back To Our Brand of Football
Harvard v Yale (Also Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, and Princeton)
A brand which is brainy, less athletic, and refuses to play more than 10 games a season. What is this? College?
We Lost Our Identity
Bucs v Giants
The Bucs are so old, they haven’t just lost their identity, they lost their Buick at Publix, their glasses at the library, and maybe at least one of them lost their mind at the covid vaccination forgery office, which you can find in the back of Tampa’s most reputable strip clubs or any vape shop on Nebraska Avenue.
We’re On To Cincinnati
Florida v Missouri
By ‘Cincinnati’, The Tigers mean ‘Recruiting Season’ and the Gators mean ‘Golf Season’.
Happy Picking, or, Whatever,
The Commmissioner
The Grover Picks 