Thank Christ almighty, college football is back. And just in the nick of time. I’m not sure how much more baseball I can take, let alone the completely inane Olympics.
Throughout last season, I picked 60 college football games against the spread (as all three of you who regularly read this site may remember). I tended to stay within my two favorite conferences (the Big East and the Big Ten), but occasionally ventured outside for big, national games. Despite my obsessing over college football to a greater extent than almost anybody I know, my final season record was a depressingly neutral 29-30-1 (heck, I would have rather gone way under .500… then I could at least make money betting against myself).
Given that my record was so grey, I suspect that nobody out there cares if I start picking again this season or not. So what the hell. I need something to do over my lunch hour…
THE SUCKER BET BOWL (The University of Southern California (-17.5) at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Cracker Barrel, and State University): This year’s Black Coaches Association game isn’t going to be much of a contest, and ESPN2’s simultaneously broadcasted “Behind The Scenes” crap doesn’t look too promising either. I’m hoping that Pete Carroll will keep it interesting by firing off some cheap shots at the NCAA for the way they completely butchered the Matt Williams situation (and made the wrong decision to boot). But either way, I’ll stay up to the end anyways, because my wife says I’m an addict.
FoxSports’s Fearless Predictions (or should I say “Fearless Prediction,” since there’s only one game this weekend) didn’t take the Trojans to cover the 17.5 point spread. Really, since USC could pretty much score as many points as it wanted to in this one, whether or not they’ll cover is more a matter of how soon they call off the dogs. Sure, Virginia Tech should be able to put a few touchdowns on the board against USC’s defense. But they won’t be able to keep it close, even without Williams.
I think USC will win by three or four touchdowns, so I’ll take the sucker bet and give the 17.5.
Hail to Virginia Tech taking a good, swift asskicking in their first game as a member of the ACC.
