Good Day Grover Pickers,
The Commissioner spent the last week in the woods somewhere near Canada and not obsessively tracking football activity as he should. This is the attention to duty you can always expect from your Commissioner, THE Commissioner.
Last one in, first one out, always asking for more days off.
So here is a bespoke preview of this week’s football games that I, The Commissioner, created whilst eating oreos in a tent by a lake with no regard for the various bears circling my campsite.
Vandy v South Carolina
Commodore QB Diego Pavia, slayer of Bama, trounced the Virginia Tech Beamers last week. This week, he’s coming for the South Carolina Beamers. The Gamecocks have beaten Vandy 16 straight seasons. If Vandy starts 3-0 this season, we, that’s you, me and everybody, will be forced to discuss a possible home College Football Playoff game in Nashville.
Wisconsin at Alabama
A brief summary of the cross-cultural significance of this game:
Cheese, beer, bibles and Mossy Oak Couture.
And sororities doing their best impression of Taylor Swift back up dancers.
Oh, and money. The combined contract buyout for the Badger’s Luke Fickell and the Tide’s Kalen DeBoer is $110,000,000. Not that any fans are openly discussing the possibility.
Clemson v Georgia Tech
In these dying years of the ACC, just remember that Georgia Tech is a founding institution of the Southeastern Conference and Clemson, for geographic, financial and cultural reasons, will never be invited to join the SEC, no matter how many games they win.
Georgia v Tennessee
Knoxville, 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon. Sunshine, low 80’s, no precipitation expected.
Sure, we can make jokes, but the hour at the tailgate before this game kicks-off, 100,00+ fans singing that stupid song, the band blaring as these teams enter the field, two ranked teams, snazzy uniforms, the well-heeled mobile home park elite in the stands, The Vol Navy, UGA on ice… it’s epic and worthy of our respect and even our yearning, for such a scene defines all that makes college football in the South, and therefore, College Football, glorious.
But, we are here for jokes, so the rest of us draw joy from knowing that about half of all of these corn-bread smokin’, haircut resistant, white New Balance wearin’, Applebees dinin’, AOL emailin’, pudgy-ankled, bad-barbecue lovin’, White Claw suckin, Salt Life wannabe, deer huntin’, police evadin’, tax dodgin’, Sunday Skool Skippin’ fools will be filling our TV screen with surrender cobras and tears by dinner time Saturday.
I just hope both teams look stupid doing whatever it is they are going to do.
USF v Miami
We should all be grateful if we live long enough to see a time when USF is able to defeat the Gators and the Canes in the same season and be in a conversation to host the Seminoles in a college football playoff game.
Most of you would have predicted 30 years ago, when you were young, that one would need to live just this side of immortality to experience USF beating all 3 ‘major’ programs in a season.
And yet, USF being the Kings of Florida in Football, an outrageous idea 30 years ago and just a week ago, is an authentic possibility should the University of South Florida figure out how to win while visiting actual South Florida.
The Canes are 17 point favorites. The Gators were 17.5 point favorites.
It’s a game so big, it may draw more fans than a Marlins game.
FAU v FIU The Shula Bowl XXIII
How big of a deal is this South Florida rivalry? It’s bigger than every Miami high school rivalry except Central v Northwestern or any game involving St. Thomas Aquinas. The Shula Bowl average attendance is MUCH higher than even the Miami Sharks of Major League Rugby and not JUST because the Sharks folded last month. It’s so big it uses ROMAN NUMERALS to count how many times nobody has cared but us.
Our annual refresher-
ATLANTIC are Owls. The campus is in Boca Raton. Relative to FIU, FAU costs less, has fewer students and a higher acceptance rate. The coach is a gentleman named Zach Kittley, who sounds like ‘the cute one’ from a 90’s boy band. At FAU, he’s the ‘Hagerty Family Head Coach’, which must be awkward for his own wife as well as the Hagertys. He is credited with developing high caliber NFL quarterbacks including THE Davis Webb, THE Bailey Zappe, and also sitting next to Patrick Mahomes when they were at Texas Tech together. Kittley has give each of his sons a last name as a first name- Knox, Ford, and Rhodes – and they sound like they would make a great American frontier train-robbing gang.
INTERNATIONAL are Panthers. The campus is in Miami. It is also a public university, like FAU, but it costs more, has twice as many students (40,000!), and is more difficult to get into. The Panthers suck at football more, historically speaking. Their new head coach, Willie Simmons, was a Clemson QB and is disciple on the Tommy Bowden coaching… it’s not so much a tree as a weed, but still, you get it. Simmons is a baller. He coached winning teams at FAMU and Prairie View A&M.
For the Youngin’s, this rivalry is called ‘The Shula Bowl’ in honor of South Florida football legends Dave Shula, the former Dartmouth WRs coach, and his brother, Mike Shula, the former Chicago Bear’s TE coach. Both Shulas are now over 60 years old.
Ohio v Ohio State
We are picking this game just because I like to share the video of the Bobcat mascot picking a fight with the Buckeye mascot.
Florida v LSU
Florida fans don’t want to think about the possibility of beating LSU and regaining hope for this season. It is possible, but beating the Tigers makes the mess in Gainesville last longer.
Florida fans want to talk about who the one man is they can hire who will ‘fix’ everything. Forget for a moment that the job of College Football Head Coach has evolved. These are not the jobs mastered by the greats such as Bear Bryant or Steve Spurrier or Joe Paterno or Eddie Robinson. It’s not even as easy as the jobs Urban Meyer made look difficult.
When hiring a football coach, at any level, there is no room for reason, no time for thoughtfulness. There’s nobody involved in the hiring process capable of any of that anyway.
The Gators need to find the hot coach. Someone who recently won a bowl game sponsored by auto parts components or Cheez Whiz. A man who has the opposite personality of their current coach, but aligns with the team’s historic culture (winning, cheating, underachieving, save for the Spurrier years), is a friend of some incompetent fat cat on the Board of Regents, and will demand to be the highest paid public employee in the state.
If that seems simple enough, then maybe you are unfamiliar with the get-down in Gainesville.
These choices likely won’t be made by the interim UF President, who has his job because the state sanctioned hiring process is intentionally broken. Interim’s don’t hire/fire coaches.
These choices likely won’t be made by the current AD, who nobody trusts at UF, even though UF has one of the 10 best athletic departments in the world in terms of money, breadth of on-field success, facilities, and alumni engagement.
Instead, Florida fans hold out hope that somewhere out there in America is a dude, a singular man, with firm forearms and fit posture, who, even though he probably couldn’t dress himself without an athletic department issued wardrobe, will fulfill the mighty Gators’ inalienable right to win. The individual will contain multitudes, including:
- an old school approach
- with all the modern analytic techniques
- a successful gut instinct
- strong hat game
- can recruit, but doesn’t care about money
- can recruit, but only upstanding young men
- can recruit, but only warriors and beasts
- will only sign future College Football Hall of Famers from the portal
- will prevent current players from entering the portal, unless fans believe the player to be too sucky
- An “X’s and O’s” advantage without resorting to Air Raid principles
- A vibe advantage that does not include the coach dancing
- A great clock manager
- Who Always ‘Goes For It’ on 4th Down and Gets It
- A fundraising advantage, while still despising the modern ‘money culture’
- Someone who will charm the wealthiest boosters over a bourbon and cigar
- Someone who will charm 18 year-old athletes with Tik Tok videos
- Someone who will charm player’s moms with bible verses
- Someone who will charm player’s dads with envelopes full of cash
- Will scream at officials, who always root against the Gators and are terrible people
- Develop a starting quarterbacks each season who is at least as good as Tebow
- Keep 4 more starting quarterbacks on the roster at all times who are at least as good as Tebow
- Instill discipline
- Allow players to be themselves
- Crack jokes on a radio show
- Annoy Finebaum
- Gain Finebaum’s approval
Whew, that’s a lot. Might be bigger than a one person job! Gator fans may all need to go microwave a box of corn dogs and think this through over lunch before they decide to see if Belichick’s girlfriend will take their call.
Memphis v Troy
The Army of Memphis (Egypt) used horses, war chariots, composite bows and speed to become the most advanced and formidable army of its day. They combined a force of 100,000 soldiers with a navy capable of operating beyond the Nile. They also used mercenaries from Nubia and Libya, which were the transfer portal equivalent in Egypt. Like all well coached teams, the Army of Memphis made outstanding half-time adjustments, embraced and improved modern technologies, and dominated their rivals such as the Hittites and the Sea People.
Troy, as you know, was always about defense. High walls near the Dardanelles, strong communication and supply lines, and elite combat skills by the likes of Hector and Aeneas made Troy an AP Top 10 Army for most of the 12th and 13th Century. Fierce and skilled, Troy was susceptible to the trick play from time to time.
These two mighty forces never met during the Bronze Age, which surprises modern readers. Back then, they mostly sent scrolls (ancient texts) to each other through the extensive Mediterranean trade network. One example from an archive in London shows a missive to Troy from Memphis: “How many Greeks does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Olive them!”, with a reply from Troy: “LOL”.
Even today, on the modern football battlefield, Memphis and Troy have only played once. It was last year with Memphis winning. This season, Troy returns for revenge carrying half a victory versus Clemson from last week.
Right now, you should be thinking, ’Commissioner, this is amazing and useful. I can’t believe Adam Schefter still has a multi-million dollar career when you are out here slamming down the knowledge every week like this!”.
And I agree with you.
NFL Week 2 Preview
“It’s the hope that kills you.”
– some character says that in one of the Ted Lasso episodes.
Bears v Lions –
The Bears and the Lions, two of the oldest franchises in the NFL with a combined single Super Bowl championship, recently hoped, even intended, to chew the kneecaps off of opponents and ride talented young stars, like Caleb Williams, to Super Bowls.
Hope Kills You 1, Bears/Lions 0.
Patriots v Dolphins
After 7 weeks of training camp, 3 pre-season games, and a dead-fish effort against the Jaguars last Sunday, the Dolphins held a Week 1 “Players Only Meeting”. Everything always gets better after a “Players Only Meeting”.
Hope Kills You 2, Dolphins 0.
Bucs v Texans
Somehow, the Texans have a good defense and a good quarterback and the consensus is the ‘Window Has Closed’ on their chance of playoff success after just one brief season of joy.
The Bucs, oh, the Bucs. One week in and those fans have “the Gleam!” There are exciting rookies, stout defenders, crafty veterans, weak opponents… It all sounds like…
Hope!
Hope Kills You 3, Bucs/Texans 0
Chargers v Raiders
Justin Herbert has arrived! Harbaugh’s magic is in full effect!
Ashton Jeanty has arrived! Pete Caroll’s youthful magic is in full effect!
Hope Kills You 4, Chargers/Raiders 0
Eagles v Chiefs Super Bowl LIX.5
Mahomes will overcome all adversity!
Taylor may attend the game!
Hope Kills You 5, Chiefs 0
The Eagles… don’t rely on hope. They rely on the Tush-Push. And defense. And a very good looking but slightly-better-than-average quarterback….
Philadelphia, where hope itself goes to die.
Hope Kills You 5, Eagles 1.
Happy Picking,
The Commissioner
The Grover Picks 