Pigskin Prophet: Don't Eat the Shrubbery Edition. The Shrubbery!! |
It’s been a busy week in the Midlands. A Monty Python kind of week.
In case you missed it, South Carolina went down to Georgia (some might say the Devil went down to Georgia and break out into song, but I will leave that for another time) and upset the Bulldogs. South Carolina’s defense played really well, the offense played horrible, and Georgia was horrible in all four phases – offense, defense, special teams, and coaching. The Gamecocks pull the upset and you would think the team would simply head back to the industrial complex and crack wholesale barn known as Willy B and celebrate. They did. But what you didn’t read in The State was that the celebration went sideways. In a hurry. Team doctors were confused when several players started to throw up a green liquid. It wasn’t bad, but it was concerning. It didn’t take long for someone to look a little closer at the liquid and realize – there were bits of leaves and limbs in there!!! Yes, it turns out that many of the Gamecocks – in their own special way – ate much of the shrubbery that surrounds the playing surface at Sanford Stadium. UGA pees on those shrubs and chemicals are used to keep them healthy and green. And they were eaten. By players. My buddy is a vet and he was quickly called in because he’s had a lot of experience with animals eating grass. He has never really worked on chickens, but he told the training staff to keep their water bowls filled and try to throw some grain on the ground for them to eat. I delivered the grain. It was that kind of week. I felt like I was in some kind of Monty Python skit (SHRUBBERY!!!!). Now onto some picks. FRIDAY PITT AT SYRACUSE Ooh, a Friday night in the Dome!!! Just what we always wanted!! Said nobody. Ever. Syracuse is really bad, and the Panthers are just ok. If a football game is played in New York and nobody cares, will ESPN hear it? Probably not. PITT 24, CUSE 20 OHIO ST. AT NORTHWESTERN Ohio State continues its early-season gauntlet of playing Sunday Schools and reform schools and youth leagues. This week they head to Chicago to play by the lake. Northwestern is one of those schools that has a bunch of smart kids and they’re really well-coached and they can hang with most teams, but Ohio State is on a mission this year to make it back to the College Football Playoff and get destroyed there. Northwestern is barely a blip. OHIO ST. 42, NORTHWESTERN 13 SATURDAY CLEMSON AT LOUISVILLE The Tigers head up into whiskey and horse country for a date with the Cardinals in the Stadium Formerly Known as Papa John’s But He’s Racist So Now It Is Named After A Bird. Louisville is a lot better this season – Bobby Petrino simply phoned it in after he found out he couldn’t date volleyball players on the sidelines – and this might be a tougher test than people think. Now, if you’re heading to Louisville, be careful. They stole the trains from South Carolina, and instead of a bird popping out of a shower curtain they enter the field behind a bird popping out of a bouncy house (thank you GWPTiger). It’s all quite – stupid. But they are playing decent and sell whiskey in the stadium because most of the women are ugly, so it’s worth the trip. CLEMSON 47, LOUISVILLE 21 FLORIDA AT SOUTH CAROLINA The Gamecocks will have hopefully recovered from their shrubbery poisoning in time for kickoff. South Carolina will be looking for a second straight upset, and they have a chance because the Gators aren’t as talented as the Bulldogs. However, the Gators don’t have Kirby Dumb as their head coach and that’s worth 21 points right there. The Gators will win this one comfortably, and because they are used to actually winning games on the road, will leave the shrubbery alone and eat the postgame pizza. FLORIDA 24, SOUTH CAROLINA 16 GET YOUR TICKETS In scrolling through StubHub, if you really want to attend one of these football games you can, and you can do it on the cheap. Georgia Tech at Miami is going for $8, Buffalo at Akron tickets are going for $6, and then, BECAUSE IT JUST MEANS MORE – you can see Missouri play at Vanderbilt in an SEC Showdown for just $3. Honestly, why would you even buy a ticket to that crapshow or any of those crapshows? WINNER…NOBODY DUKE AT VIRGINIA I know, tickets should be cheap to this one, too. I watched Virginia last week against Miami and my thoughts were – they are slow and not really big and not really athletic. Duke is athletic and smart. This also has ramifications in the ACC Coastal Division, where the winner gets to be Clemson’s sacrificial lamb in early December in Charlotte. It’s not much of an upset, but I am calling this one in favor of the Fighting Shashefskis. DUKE 30, VIRGINIA 23 KENTUCKY AT GEORGIA Kirby Dumb and his Dawgs get a chance at redemption this week. The good news for them is that Kentucky is so bad they wouldn’t win a Pac-12 game, so the Bulldogs can throw a bunch of interceptions and fumble the ball and drop passes and be stupid on offense and still win. They really just kinda need to show up and make sure UGA doesn’t bite anybody. UGA 40, KENTUCKY 9 FLORIDA ST. AT WAKE FOREST Oh, Weak Florist. You had it all in front of you. Ranked. Undefeated. At home. Heck, if you had kept winning maybe GameDay was somewhere down the road. But your defense – average size seems to be 5-4, 120 pounds – got blown up by Louisville and gave up 62 points. That’s right, 62 points. Meanwhile, ole Willie Taggart at Florida State keeps earning a paycheck for staring blankly into a camera each week (I am pretty sure he doesn’t and can’t coach). So who wins this one? Well, Florida State has more talent but we learned last week that bad coaching overcomes (undercomes?) talent, and the Seminoles don’t have the coaching. In a track meet, Weak Florist brings home the flowers. WAKE 47, FSU 30 TENNESEE AT ALABAMA Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
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