Good Day Grover Pickers,
We Found Out. We Made Excuses. It’s time to Heap Blame.
Harvard v Yale- The Game
Yale leads the all-time series 69-61-8. Harvard has already won the Ivy League title this season. So, the stakes for this game are that the winning team’s players all get first dibs on the Goldman Sachs slots and the losing players have to wait for JP Morgan. If you want to know the names of the math-wiz-sociopaths who are going to rig global finance for the next 30 years, you can see the rosters HERE and HERE.
Lafayette v Lehigh- The Rivalry
This is the most played college football rivalry and the longest uninterrupted rivalry game in human history. 158 games since 1884, interrupted only once, in 1896, when Lehigh refused to play because Lafayette was using in ineligible player and the Big10 refused to do anything about it. Lafayette leads all-time 81-72-5.
Michigan v Maryland
The Big 10 blamed Harbaugh. Michigan blamed Conor Stalions. Michigan blamed Ryan Day’s brother-in-law. Soon, the Big10 will blame the Michigan judge who provides the temporary restraining order on the Big10’s suspension. Harbaugh, who once said he didn’t eat chicken because it is a nervous bird, is now raising his own chickens.
Michigan’s board has discussed leaving the Big10 over being punished for a rule infraction they clearly committed.
All of this is true and hilarious and I’m not even going to mention or judge the Michigan coaches and players reaction to their ‘stunning’ defeat of Penn State.
But it’s time for a resolution and I have an idea.
This weekend, or at least before next week’s game between the Wolverines and Buckeyes, Ohio State must leave the Big10 to join the SEC.
The Buckeyes don’t need to concern themselves any longer with these cheap, amateur rules infractions and punishments.
The Buckeye deserve a more polished group of liars and cheats, a place where the schools know what time it is and how to act properly. Hello, SEC!
You can blame all of this on Jim Harbaugh if you wish, and you can blame him when Ohio State’s 2025 schedule includes home games against Florida, Auburn and LSU and road games in Tuscaloosa, Athens, Knoxville and Starkville!
James Madison v App State (Gameday!)
Blame the NCAA, or James Madison for becoming an NCAA member, for the Duke’s undefeated season that is currently forbidden from a bowl reward of playing in the Grandaddy of All Shipping and Logistics Sponsored Bowl Games, the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, in an empty Superdome. Free James Madison!
Clemson v North Carolina
Blame Dabo, if you dare. The last time that happened, two weeks ago on the radio, it led to two straight emphatic Clemson wins.
USC v UCLA
The last great Pac12 rivalry and the new Big10 Game of the Week. By the end of the game, UCLA will fire Chip Kelly and USC will fire the guy riding that white horse while wearing a metal skort. I’d blame the writer’s strike and the actor’s strike. Can you imagine trying to concentrate on football when you can’t get anybody to read your script for 6 months?
Cal v Stanford – The Big Game
The last great Pac12 rivalry and the new ACC Game of the Week. Instantly becomes the greatest ACC football rivalry, well ahead of FSU v Miami. Why? Because the Stanford Band is filled with grown-ass adults! The FSU band is a bunch of freshman from Williston with nothing but hand-me-down saxaphones, a pocket full of dreams, and a shopping mall’s worth of bad haircuts. The Miami marching band is 33 high school dropouts from the neighborhood and 5 old Cuban guys who couldn’t get in the domino game down at the park.
FSU and Miami are not a serious college rivalry. They are a bloated, money-grubbing, spectacle of wasted youth.
Stanford and Cal, while nowhere near as talented at actual football, understand the spectacle of a rivalry better than any of the other ACC schools. If you are considering arguing the point, first, please review the greatest ending to an ACC game ever, and then agree with me:
Georgia v Tennessee
Kirby Smart does not sound worried about anything and his whole job is to worry, at extremely unreasonable levels, about everything.
I blame Georgia’s success on analytics, or, more specifically, on the Bulldog’s bro-culture defiance of data-driven decisions.
The Bulldog coaching staff is one of the dopiest groups of goofballs in a profession of dopey goofballs. Smart, Muschamp, Searles, Hartley, et.al, are on this planet to be the exceptions to evidence based football.
Analytics will tell you to go for it on fourth and one on the opponents 40 yard line.
At Georgia, your team lines up to go for it, and the Bulldog coaching staff just stuffs another wad of chew in their cheeks, spits, scratches, pulls the brim of their ball cap, spits, crosses their arms, kicks the dirt, scratches, squints into the sun, and stares at all you analytic fools lining up to gain that one yard.
Go ahead, go for it. Do what the spread sheet says, but remember, UGA has bigger, faster, stronger, players than you.
In Athens, this is the analytic formula of champions:
“Spit + Fart + Ball = Win.” Go Dawgs.
Missouri v Florida
The sun. The drugs. DeSantis. Disney. Biden. The sugar factories. The hurricanes. Insurance companies. The Villages. Daylight savings time. The tourists. Yankees. The school board. Immigrants. Mosquitos. The police. The retirees. Gen Z.
There’s a lot of blame to go around in Florida, but it’s all Billy Napier’s fault.
Dippin’ Dots v The Future
Dippin Dots are NOT the future. That’s not ice cream. The future isn’t coming. How many years do I have to see a new generation of bozos lined up for Dippin’ Dots as if that crap cart in a concrete arena hallway somehow holds the magical emerging glory of the next great age to taste and technology?
If you are considering arguing this point, I give you the actual text from the Dippin’ Dots website about the origin of America’s greatest food scam:
Dippin’ Dots was founded in Paducah, Kentucky, in 1988. Jones began the company in his parents’ garage. It was originally invented as cow feed when Jones, who specialized in cryogenics, was trying to make efficient fodder for farm animals.
Dippin’ Dots are farm animal food! 1988 was 35 YEARS AGO! It is NOT the future, it is an anachronism, like naming your team ‘Jets’.
Who is Bowling? –
Each of the following 6 teams has 5 wins and this week is likely their last chance to get to the 6th win, the minimum to qualify for the a bowl game and keep undefeated James Madison at home, where, by rule, they belong.
Texas Tech v UCF
Wisconsin v Nebraska
Georgia Tech v Syracuse
Why are all 6 teams so average? I blame the players.
- They took days off.
- They thought Champions were made in-season on the field.
- They left some of ‘it’ in the dorm and not all of ‘it’ in the weight room.
- They thought ‘Aluminum sharpens Aluminum” would be enough.
- They chose to remain the same instead of train insane.
- The sweat wasn’t flying and they weren’t trying.
- They preferred Least Mode to Beast Mode.
- They tried to solve their problems with counseling instead of violence.
These players are proof that if a team refuses to muster a willing, unrelenting, devotion to painted slogans on weight room walls, it is doomed to fail.
There are no shortcuts.
Iron never lies.
Cowboys v Panthers
Cam Newton got hurt. David Tepper bought the team. Blame properly assigned.
Browns v Steelers
The Browns will start rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson at QB. The Steelers counter with Kenny Picket, who has a 34 QBR (on a scale of 100, so, 34 is extremely bad).
At different times, new Vikings QB Josh Dobbs, ‘The Passtronaut’, was on the roster of both the Browns (this season!) and Steelers. Blame whoever on the Browns and Steelers was responsible for cutting Josh Dobbs.
Also, because it is football, having a good player at the most critical position is important, but not essential, so one of these teams with a terrible QB will finish the week 7-3 and might be as high as a #2 playoff seed before you serve your Thanksgiving turkey!
Commanders v Giants
Commander’s QB Sam Howell leads the NFL in passing yards, but Washington has only 4 wins. I blame the Congress.
The Giants are not built to run, pass, tackle or score. I blame the media.
Chargers v Green Bay
Did the Chargers build a practice facility on top of some ancient burial ground? Did they somehow disturb a mummy’s tomb? How can the team be so blessed with talent and so cursed with losses?
I blame the “Boomer Curse”. It is caused by legendary ESPN blowhard Chris Berman. His four favorite teams were the Jets, Bills, Niners and Chargers. For every time Berman repeated ‘circled the wagons’, or yelled “J-E-T-S, Jets!’ or boomed ‘The lightning bolts!’, he cost those teams another win. To paraphrase Berman, “Once is clever. Twice is self-indulgent B.S.”
Those three teams, the Bills, Jets and Chargers, will never win a Super Bowl until the curse is broken.
All of that is a better deal than the Niners got. After years of Berman kissing up to Niners owner Eddie DeBartalo, the owner found himself in jail for fraud and banned from the NFL.
The curse of Chris Berman. Loudly killing franchises since 1979. I don’t know how you break this curse, and I’m not trying to find out. If Chris Berman’s greatest contribution to football is preventing the Jets, Bills, and Chargers from winning a Super Bowl for eternity, I’m good with it and him.
Chiefs v Eagles
Blame Taylor. Her family are/were Eagles fans. They have a relationship with Ron Jaworski. On Monday, they will be in the Chiefs box rooting for the Chiefs. That’s bad karma for somebody.
Last, don’t let Andy Reid go hungry. Somebody get that man some proper ‘nuggies’ so he can call better plays.
I hope you enjoyed reading this week’s blog, but if not, don’t blame me. You should learn to read funnier.
Happy Picking,
The Commissioner
The Grover Picks 