September, 2026
Good Day Grover Pickers,
Week Zero.5? The NFL is a week a way, so we remain Professional College Football only this week.
WHAT ARE YOU MISSING
While you are watching all the football this weekend, occasionally, if the quad box is regrettably full of commercials, you may wonder, “What else is on TV right now?” The answer is the FIBA Women’s World Championships. Here’s your schedule. Use it for emergencies only.
WE USED TO DO BRILLIANTLY STUPID THINGS
Super Bowl Champions v College All Star Games
UGA AREN’T THE ONLY ONE WITH HEDGES
LSU may be using a third-party (so it’s not THEM, but it’s kinda THEM) to make Kalshi bets in an amount that will payoff in exactly what LSU would owe Lane Kiffin should the Tigers win the Super Bowl, errrr, College Playoff.
“LSU used an outside sports insurance firm to execute $3 million in block trades on Kalshi to hedge against potential playoff and national championship performance bonuses owed to head coach Lane Kiffin.” – from Joe Pompliano
Don’t worry about it. And if you were expecting LSU to operate in any sort of adult way, then I repeat from last week, these are the adults.
RATTLESNAKE WARNING
You don’t have big problems. These are big problems.
GAMES!
Colorado v Georgia Tech
The Yellow Jackets want to bulldoze the ball up and down the field.
Colorado wants you to notice that Deion is their coach and he’s a Prince of Atlanta, and he’s so successful as an athlete and works well with famous TV ducks, all of which you can do while simultaneously.. watching the Yellow Jackets bulldoze the Buffs up and down the field.
Ohio v Nebraska- Solich’s Revenge
This is the first game ever between Nebraska and Ohio, but hey have history.
Frank Solich succeeded legendary walking corn stalk and head coach, Tom Osborne, at Nebraska back when Americans used, “words like ‘honor,’ ‘code,’ ‘loyalty.’” as the backbone of a life spent defending something”, such as end zones.
Frank Solich coached 19 years for Tom Osborne, several serving as the ‘Freshman Team Coach’, which, HA!, they used to treat boys right out of high school as some separate, ill-equipped and underdeveloped people who could never play among the adults. Humans were smaller then, because of the cigarettes I suppose.
Anyway, Solich was successful, but not quite late-20th Century-Nebraska successful. His record is 58–19 (.753), including a Big12 Championship win over Texas and a national championship game appearance against the Miami Hurricanes.
Then one year the Cornhuskers fell out of the Top 25 for the first time since the McKinley Administration, and Athletic Director Steve Pederson fired Solich.
From Solich’s Wikipedia page:
By firing Frank Solich after the 2003 season, Nebraska became the first Division I-A football team to fire a Head Coach immediately following a 9-3 season or better, without a recruiting scandal, or an NCAA investigation, or a sex scandal, or an academic cheating scandal, or some other equivalent scandal.
Pederson then ran the worst coaching search ever conducted outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. He told the Corn Boosters that big name coaches wanted the prestigious Huskers job. He was going to hire Steve Spurrier away from the Washington Redskins. He tried to hire Urban Meyer away from Utah. He had a booster’s plane waiting on the tarmac for Houston ByGod Nutt in Fayetteville. The plane just sat on the tarmac hemorrhaging bourbon and pork rinds, I assume, while Nutt negotiated a more lucrative deal with Arkansas.
Eventually, Pederson hired Bill Callahan, who had recently coached the Oakland Raiders into oblivion. Four seasons later both Pederson and Callahan were fired without a recruiting scandal, or an NCAA investigation, or a sex scandal, or an academic cheating scandal, or some other equivalent scandal. They just sucked at winning.
Anyway, Frank Solich, a proud man from Cleveland, Ohio, migrated to Athens, Ohio, football’s greatest city named “Athens”.
Solich went 115-82 at Ohio. He retired as the winningest coach in MAC history. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2024.
Tom Osborne and Frank Solich both have stadium fields named in their honor.
More importantly for this game, which will be played in Lincoln, Solich was the Ohio coach on the famous day when Rufus, the Ohio Mascot, kicked the ever-loving buckeyes out of Brutus, the useless Ohio State mascot.
Herbie Husker, you are on notice!
Baylor v Auburn
Even if Baylor and Auburn somehow hold onto spots in the coming Professional College Super League, this will always be a matchup between two schools with a couple of Heisman winners, legit tradition, and a firm time slot on the redesigned Jefferson-Pilot streaming app.
OK State v Tulsa
Multiple-Time Grover Picks Super Genius of the Year for All Time, James Ipock, aka COMMIT TO THE G, graduated law school from Tulsa. That’s gotta mean something.
FIU v USF
Both Connecticut and UCF have tried to create Trophy Games with USF, but nothing seems to stick. Maybe FIU could be USF’s Trophy School?
The two schools are related by a Florida Board of Governors and failed geographic branding. Florida International is in Miami, which, while culturally broad, remains squarely “Intra”-national. The University of South Florida is in Tampa, which is squarely center-left on a state map.
Proposed FIU v USF Grudge Match Names
The Other Game
The Sunburn Showdown
The Okechobee Okyedoke
The Tamiami Tussel
The Citrus Bowl
The Pahokee Playoff
Proposed FIU v USF Rivalry Trophies
The Bermuda Triangle Trophy– Nobody knows where anything went
The Yukon Championship Trophy- if location names don’t matter, this is a location
Osceola’s Elbow– sounds important, even dignified, by football standards
They Python Prize – a riff on the official species of the State of Florida
The Tamiami Trophy – An invented contest for an invented word
CONCACAF Champions Cup– It’s international and nobody knows who is currently using it, so it’s available.
1-800-GAMBLER Trophy – for Meritorious Service to Degenerates
The Apple Cup– historically awarded to the winner of Washington v Washington State, but now, with Florida citrus production at all-time lows, Big Apple is moving in on the Old Big Citrus. As part of the branding action, The Apple Cup is now a trophy for USF v FIU until a state judge in Wyoming grants at TRO.
Can you believe people pay money for branding ideas this good?
Clemson v LSU
Hey, Lane, there’s a call on line 2 from some guy named Pablo Torre. You want to take it in your office?
FAU v Florida
If it’s not 35-0 at halftime, in the Gators’ favor to be clear, then it’s time to pass the hat to buyout whoever the new coach is. Patience will not be tolerated.
UNLV v Hawaii
It’s only Week Zero.5 and one of these teams will be 0-2. None of us need this kind of potential sadness in our lives, but, if redemption from a long day is what you need, they kick-off at midnight eastern. The chase is on. IYKYK. (UNLV -3.5, Moneyline: UNLV -140, Hawaii +116, O/U 57.5)
UC- Los Angeles v UC-Berkley
UC any extra cash lying around, the Bruins could use a boost.
Louisville v Ole Miss
The football version of a greco-roman wrestling match between Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn.
SMU v FSU –
In 1981, Bobby Bowden was still building FSU football from nothing into something legendary. The Seminoles started the season 0-0 and ranked #19. They finished the season 6-5 and unranked. In between, FSU played one of the nastiest road schedules ever, to that point in history, and launched a dynasty.
Sept 19 LOSS at #17 Nebraska
Oct 3 WIN at #7 Ohio State
Oct 10 WIN at Notre Dame – Things just got real.
Oct 17 LOSS at #3 Pitt
Oct 24 WIN at LSU
The Noles then lost their last 3 games, to Miami, Southern Miss and Florida, but success was the only thing FSU would have for the rest of the millennium.
SMU isn’t in the middle of an epic, all-time schedule, and FSU is far from a ranked team.
Still, this will be a seminal Seminole contest.
On Tuesday morning, after SMU smokes the Noles in the Erector Set, the Mustangs will know they have arrived at the doorstep of the big time.
And FSU will be limping into its “Nebraska Phase”.
EXCEPT-
If LSU keeps doing LSU things, FSU might, against all better judgment and laws of nature, backdoor its way into a full SEC membership BEFORE Tuesday morning’s depressing post-loss press conference. (Depressing for FSU, not for you or for The Commissioner.)
Thanks, Lane.
Happy Picking,
The Commissioner
The Grover Picks 