Fourth and Dumb

One game clearly dominates the consciousness of fans deeply interested in the sriracha-slathered chicken vindaloo that is the Southeastern Conference. And no, I’m not talking about the fascination with whether it will be Carlos Dunlap or Jermaine Cunningham who will tear the first limb from Mackenzi Adams’s body in Hogtown today.

No, of course I’m talking about the epic LSU at Alabama clash in Tuscaloosa. Amazingly, despite their recent offensive woes, Bama is favored by 11 as of this morning. That seems very high to me: I’d be happy to go offshore and bet on LSU to cover, but I’m not confident enough to say they’ll win (sorry, Ricky!). I’m thinking this game will see  a number of field goal attempts and a fair amount of punts, and as I averred in my picks, the team that wins will make at least one game-turning play on defense. Julio Jones has barely touched the ball lately (hmm, wishing maybe you’d chosen the Gators now, Julio?), and the Tide needs to stretch the field a little to beat LSU. What’s that you say? Florida ground out a safe win against the Tigers by running it? True, but UF ran it with the QB and three RBs coming out of various sets, with emphasis on misdirection and option stuff. The Tide doesn’t do much of that: they’re Ingram left, Ingram right, and Ingram up the middle. That seems to me to play to the Tigers’ strengths in the front seven. This game will be close by Mount Cody or somebody will make a play to win for Bama.

The Gators will keep up their recent offensive awakening against Vanderbilt. The story line for the Gates is coming clear: early struggle, an injury to their messianic leader, controversy over various small sins (like eye poking), but eventual redemption with love (Urban for Timmy, Timmy for Brandon, Brandon for Stamper, etc.) conquers all. The melodrama that has been the 09 Gators will culminate in Atlanta after they score 30+ in every game in November.

South Carolina and Arkansas have pivotal games against each other, but the greater pressure is certainly on Arkansas at home. The Pigs are 3-5, with a game at LSU left; if we count that as a loss, that means they have to win every other game on the slate to get bowl eligible. The toughest of those three is today (the others are home games against Troy and Miss State). Arkansas’s offense is clearly far better than SC’s, but the reverse is true on defense. And Stephen Garcia has been yo-yo-like in his inconsistency. Though I’ll be rooting for the ‘Cocks (I will always love the SpurDog above all coaches–he is my master and role model), I think Arkansas will put up too many points to lose.

The rest of the slate is directional and non-conference foes for everyone else. Just one thing: watch for Tennessee to struggle, at least for the first half, with Memphis, who has played them tight the last few years. But of course Hello Kiffy will come through.

Some interesting things happened in the Nathan’s-foot-long-slathered-in-Sriracha sauce-and-jalapenos-and-sauerkraut that is the world’s greatest football conference, the SEC, this past Halloween weekend.

 However, the Florida-Georgia game really wasn’t one of them, unless of course you’re specifically a fan of either team. The Gators finally had a game in which they didn’t turn the ball over three or more times, and consequently they rolled the Dawgs up 41-17. Riley Cooper did make the best catch I’ve seen this year, hauling in his second TD with one hand while leaping forward, and there has since been the excitement of learning that Brandon Spikes decided to test the vision of a Georgia RB by sticking his fingers deep into his eyes (earning him a first-half suspension versus Vandy—I hope the Gators can hold off back-up Commodore QB Mackenzi Adams for two quarters!). But otherwise things went as most expected.

 A bigger surprise, maybe, occurred at Jordan-Hare, where Auburn “beat hayell outta the Rebs” (as PlainsTigers might say). Was there a more overrated team this year than Ole Miss? I, for one, was certainly guilty of thinking they would be a serious threat in the SEC West (um, did I pick them to win? Crap.), as on paper they seemed to have good reasons to be better offensively than they were in ’08. But Jevan Snead suddenly seems to make lots of bad decisions, and Dexter McCluster just isn’t gashing folks like he did last year. Maybe the UF and Texas Tech games last year fooled me, or maybe the Houston Nutt effect only works for a year. Either way, Auburn looked good and may be back on track for a 7-8 win season and decent bowl. Hey, Chizik has already won more games this year than he did in two up at Iowa State!

 The ‘Cocks were limp and lifeless on Halloween night, dribbling the ball onto the ground on the third play and then turning it over two more times in the next four possessions, keeping them from the kind of penetration they needed to embed the football in the soft and fecund soil of the end zone (Gah, will these moronic references never end???). “Hello Kiffy” got his fourth win with four to go, and that game at Oxford against the Rebs is hardly looking unwinnable right now, so he’s going to get the Vols into a bowl. I’d say more about this game, but I was handing out candy by then, wearing a prosthetic to make it look like my right eye had been enucleated, but unfortunately that’s my good eye, and coupling that with a lot of beer and tequila meant I was legally and morally blind by then. Fortunately, it spared me the ugly of UT’s black jerseys.

 Still under the radar, Miss State got new coach Dan Mullen a good road win at Kentucky, putting the Other Bulldogs at 4-5 with games against Bama and Ole Miss at home sandwiched around a trip to Fayetteville to play the Razorpigs. If he gets them to a bowl, he’s the NCAA coach of the year in my book.

This week’s games in the world’s greatest football conference, that Southeastern one, will offer much insight into the final jockeying for bowl position which will take place in November. Though there are no blockbuster match-ups, there are some very interesting games to the discerning aficionado of Southern pigskin.

To wit, South Carolina at Tennessee, the best game of the weekend. Kiffin’s flap with the Spurdog was less exciting than those he had with Pope Urban and Nick Satan, but expect to hear a bit about it on Gameday and during the gamecast. In case you forgot, Spurrier said that Kiffin may have been recruiting SC commits before Kiffin took his NCAA recruiting test, a requirement before recruiting, and Kiffin said he didn’t. Then Spurrier contemptuously told Kiff he never accused him of cheating in front of a pack of reporters and a (reportedly) bemused Bobby Petrino and Rich Brooks at the SEC meetings in Destin, Florida.

Anyway, the game itself is clearly the most important game of the season for Kiffin. Despite his “moral victories,” no one expected him to beat Bama or Florida this year, so he can bask in the glow of close games there. Likewise, he got his one big win this year by pounding Georgia. So why is this game so big for him? Well, UT is 3-4. His team will be favored and expected (by Vols fans) to beat Memphis and Vandy at home, while a roadie at Ole Miss will be an acceptable loss by most fans. If this comes true, that equals 5-5, with this game and the later roadie at Kentucky being the deciding factors for the Vols’ bowl eligibility this year. More important, Vols fans expect to compete with Florida (and most years, Georgia) for the SEC East, so even in this first season, they expect Kiffin to put the Vols ahead of the lower half of the division. If Kiffin really wants to get the fans behind him, he has to win this game at home. However, I think the ‘Cocks defense will be too stiff for the Vols’ running game, and the Spurdog will win a low-scoring, ugly game.

Ole Miss’s trip to Auburn is likely the game for third place in the SEC West. Ole Miss’s season kind of reminds me of Florida’s—they’ve made a lot of mistakes in close games, but unlike the Gators, they haven’t been talented enough, especially on defense, to survive those mistakes. Like the Gators, Ole Miss is due for a big offensive game. However, it won’t come in Jurdin-Hayer, where those cow college PlainsTiger fans will be in full throat. Still, Ole Miss will win a close one.

Florida-Georgia doesn’t have the luster of last year’s “Urban’s Revenge” game, but the Gators are still trying to get juice out of Georgia’s end zone dance of two years ago. This is pretty lame: the Gators just need to start acting like the pros that most of them are going to be. The Gators’ failures this season have been due to execution: they’ve often forgotten how to block and hold on to the ball. Fortunately, the defense has been as good as advertised (though not in the realm of the all-time greats, as Brandon Spikes had boastfully predicted before the season). Better for the Gators, they get Spikes back for this game, along with three (!) regulars from the D-line who didn’t play last week. Expect the Gators to put it together this week and actually score over thirty while holding the dogs to less than 17.

I think Kentucky will handle a game Miss State team at home, while the student-ATHLETES of Georgia Tech will pound the STUDENT-athletes of Vanderbilt. Jordan Jefferson will look all-world against the Tulane defense. Ryan Mallett will throw for six TDs against Eastern Michigan, one of which will come with him holding up a D-lineman in his left arm while throwing a 97-yard pass with his right. Satan will spend the entire day huddled in his dark lair, chuckling at footage of the LSU passing game. I will drink a dwarfsweight of Red Stripe before trick or treating with my daughter and then catching the last three quarters of the Oregon game. As Pippa put it in Browning’s great poem, “God’s in his heaven/All’s right with the world.”

The revelation of feet of clay was the major theme of the eighth week in the veil of tears that is the world’s greatest football conference.

Alabama got all of seven days as the new darlings of AP voters. The giant paws of Mount Cody saved their asses from an embarrassing loss to Mr. Moral Victory, Lane Kiffin. And all I heard for the last two days is how impressed we should all be with what Lane’s got building there in Knoxville. But please, let me call bullshit on that. The defense up there is very good, what with Monte’s coaching and Eric Berry’s presence, but the offense, the Georgia game somehow notwithstanding, is wretched. Can we all just remember for a second that A) Florida gave Tennessee a bunch of turnovers and played as conservative as Grover Norquist but the Vols still were never a threat to win, and B) Alabama was up 12-3 with three minutes to go before having a bad turnover at the wrong time and then giving up an onside kick. Neither game was REALLY that close, though obviously the Bama game really could’ve been a loss for the Tide but for Cody’s block, but that was due to the crazy stuff at the finish–for the entire rest of the game Tennessee couldn’t get a first down with six tries.

I’m not saying Lane won’t get them better; heck, he’s recruiting like a demon. But he’s got a ways to go, and I’m still betting against him getting the Vols bowl-eligible this year.

Anyway, Bama didn’t deserve to be demoted for winning an SEC game, just like the Gators didn’t need to get demoted after last week’s near miss versus Arkansas. But so it goes with today’s voters, who seem to think that the top teams have to win bigger to satiate their hype.

Speaking of hype, the Gators looked like warmed-over vomit on offense in Starkville on Saturday. First and goal at the three? What do you have, new OC Steve Addazio (keeping in mind you want to impress the last OC, Dan Mullen, who’s coaching against you)? Hey, how about throwing Tebow into the line three straight times? Sure, I bet Dan Mullen can’t recognize that blocking scheme! Really, the Gators’ offense has gotten as stagnant as Donald Rumsfeld’s boxers. Some questions most Gator fans have:

What happened to the talk of running CB Joe Haden as a wildcat option? (Or Brandon James or any of the RBs?)

Why don’t we hand off more when we’re in the Red Zone? (The Gates have converted two TDs in their last 15 trips, both on hand offs to RBs).

What happened to the talk of getting back-up QB John Brantley meaningful snaps? As he’s a much better pure passer than Timmy, wouldn’t he be a good change of pace for a couple series a game (or maybe even in the Red Zone?).

All I know is that when watching the game replay Sunday morning, I saw a number of plays with WRs seemingly open and waving at Tebow like Sevastopol hookers at the latest boatload of Greek stevedores (that’s for you, Charles Meigs!), while Timmy, under pressure, would tuck and pick up two yards. Still, all this talk of the Gators’ problems is a bit premature. They’ve done everything in their power to give teams a chance to beat them, but they haven’t been able to do so yet (and don’t give me the stuff about bad calls; Doe’s potential fumble wasn’t nearly as clear cut as everyone seems to think–if a replay has to be clearly conclusive to overturn the call on the field, I don’t see how people can be so emphatic about it, as it’s not clear that Doe dropped the ball before the tip crossed the white line of the end zone). And sooner or later they’ll take care of the ball for a whole game, and they’ll win by 17 or 20. But neither they nor Bama are teams that are going to crest 40 points very often this year, if ever. And right now the SEC Championship Game is shaping up to be straight out of 1928, a 8-6 affair with lots of blood and bits of bone on the field.

Meanwhile, South Carolina just keeps hanging around, just like the conference’s Big Two. They eked one out against Vandy, and now they’ll get Tennessee, in what should be an interesting game: the late 20th-century’s most hated coach in the South vs. the 21st-century’s most hated coach in the South. The over-under ought to be around 16.

Oh, and LSU also may be back on the uptick. They nicely pushed around Auburn, even showing some signs of offense with Jordan Jefferson. And it’s easy to forget that they still control their destiny with regards to the SEC title, and hence, perhaps even with the national title. If they can beat Bama in a couple weeks and then beat UF in a rematch, they’d be 12-1 and SEC champs, hard to deny a spot in Pasadena unless we still have Texas, Iowa, and Cincinnati all still undefeated (not to mention those petty sinks that DanGr’s always going on about).

Oh, and there were some other games in the conference, too, but you can look ‘em up on ESPN or something.

For the second week in a row, there are no really big games in the chili-slathered, Nathan’s foot-long that is the Southeastern Conference, but there are some intriguing games nonetheless. To wit:

Arkansas travels to Oxford to play Ole Miss. Can Ole Miss get back up off the mat and at least fight for second in the SEC West? Maybe. On the one hand you’d think that Jevan Snead can move the ball on Arkansas’s D, but on the other that Razorpig D nutted up and slowed the Gators last week. But then again, can Arkansas get up for another tough roadie after their oh-so-close loss to the Gators? I say no: Ole Miss wins by 3-4.

Lane Kiffin weighed in a few days, saying that Alabama is the “best-coached team” in the SEC and is the “clear” #1 team in the nation. Is this just more of Lane’s weird habit of kissing the ass of the powerhouse he’s about to play (cf his comments a few days before the Gator game that UF should be favored by 100 points), or is he just gigging Urban Meyer now that the Gators’ loss is in his rearview mirror? Well, if it’s the former, don’t bother: Nick Satan doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him, and he’s going to punish the Vols. Will Lane’s anger over being peremptorily disallowed from wearing orange on the road be enacted in a stirring effort by his team to beat the Tide? No.  Bama wins by 17.

Can Auburn look the way they did in the first couple weeks during their trip to Death Valley in Baton Rouge? Lately it seems like they’ve forgotten how to play pass defense, but fortunately for them, Jordan Jefferson can’t pass! Still, LSU isn’t going to let the PlainsTigers score many points. LSU wins by 4.

Tim Tebow gets to visit with his mentor and friend, Dan Mullen, when the Gators go to Starkville. The last time the Gates actually won there was the year before I began matriculating in Gainesville: 1985. Since then Miss State has been a graveyard of good Gator teams. And every single time it didn’t appear possible UF could lose. But really, it’s not possible UF can lose this game. Right? I mean, really? Anyway, I think the Gators win by 22. But I’ll be hitting the Patron early to calm my nerves, especially if the Gators start putting the ball on the floor early, as they have the last couple games.

South Carolina will let Stephen Garcia loose against Vandy and will win big.

On paper this seems like a pretty mellow week in the world’s greatest football conference. Tennessee and LSU get the weekend off, and only one match-up features both teams in the top 25. So let’s start there.

The ‘Cocks strut into Tuscaloosa, turgidly engorged with pride and confidence (goddamn, will I ever stop being so immature?). But can Stephen Garcia find ways to repeatedly penetrate Crimson orifices? (Apparently not). Seriously, we can all see how this game will play out, right? Bama’s D will not allow any serious rushing success by SC, so Garcia is going to have to make plays against a young but good Bama secondary (which, it’s worth noting, couldn’t be exploited by Jevan Snead or Tyrod Taylor). Still, the game will be close in the fourth quarter because of SC’s better-than-advertised defense, so a couple big plays may decide it. I think Bama wins a squeaker, but I won’t be surprised if the Ol’ Ball Coach steals this one.

Florida hosts Arkansas in a game that should allow the Gators to finally put up some points. However, this game smells a lot like the Ole Miss game of last year. The Gates just got a big win and might be caught flat this weekend, despite Urban’s urgings. Still, the Razorpigs are giving up 40 points per SEC game this year, and it seems unlikely that even a stinky performance won’t net more points than the Gators’ defense will allow. Gators win 45-17 or something.

The Vandy-Georgia game could get interesting, but probably won’t. Georgia has allowed an average of 35 points per SEC opponent so far, but Vandy has only averaged 6 points (!!!) in three SEC games this year. That and the advantage of being between the hedges allows the Dawgs to stanch the bleeding for a while.

The only other conference match-up sees Kentucky travel to Auburn. The PlainsTigers might be looking ahead to next week’s game with LSU, but I don’t think Kentucky’s back-up QB Will Fidler (or the other back-up, if they choose to use him–unlikely enough that I don’t even feel like googling to find out who the hell he is) can meet the challenge of taking Auburn down in Jurrdin Hayeh stadium. Young Chizzy’s going to have Auburn bowl eligible in seven games, something Tubby couldn’t do last year in 12. Where are your curses now, War Eagles?

Another week, another layer of lustrous nacre added to the fine pearl that is the greatest football conference on Earth, the SEC.

The marquee game between UF and LSU in Death Valley was tense and fascinating but not exciting, if that makes sense. I don’t imagine that disinterested fans from the Midwest or Northeast would say it was a great game to watch, as it was a defensive slugfest without many big plays. But for the discerning or interested viewer, it was a masterpiece of slug-it-out Southern football. The Gators played it awfully close to the vest on offense, obviously very confident that Jordan Jefferson couldn’t move the ball on their defense. And as in the Tennessee game, the Gators left obvious points on the field (missed FG, lame 4^th-down attempt in the red zone), allowing the score to make the game appear closer than it was. But despite the low scoring, the outcome wasn’t much in doubt after the first few LSU possessions. LSU now gets a needed off-week to prepare for Auburn, an elimination match for the Tigers as far as remaining in the SEC West hunt. 

Why an elimination game already? Because Alabama is starting to look nigh-unbeatable in the West. Greg McElroy has turned out to be an ideal game manager for the Tide, who, like the Gators, are happy to grind you to death with their front seven, score a few points, and play field position. Ole Miss just played awfully against Bama, but most of that is attributable to the Tide’s D. However, as much crap as Jevan Snead has gotten for that game, he had some receivers drop some balls and one of them literally hand over an interception to a linebacker when the Rebels had a chance to cut the deficit to three early in the fourth quarter. But that’s the danger of these low-scoring games for Bama and Florida: you’re always just a crazy play away from being in big trouble. But then again, these teams don’t seem to allow those plays.

Auburn’s offense played like a bunch of CHUDs suddenly exposed to bright light in Fayetteville against the Razorpigs. They were fumbling and throwing INTs and dropping passes against a three-digit-ranked defense. But to be fair to Arkansas, that Petrino offense is for real, and Massive Mallett is making lots of plays for that team. Now Arkansas gets Florida in the Swamp, while Auburn hosts Kentucky. Arkansas is dead meat, no matter how good that offense is, but Auburn has a fight on its hands, too. However, they’ll be aided by the fact that they’ll be playing a Kentucky team without starting QB Mike Hartline.

That’s because he got hurt in a very tight contest with South Carolina, who keeps escaping with wins. The SC defense played one of its softest games this year against Kentucky, even allowing pretty scattershot back-up QB Will Fidler to make some plays against them. The Cocks will have to seriously pick up the pace to have a prayer against Bama on Saturday, but I think their defense, matched up with Bama’s, means the game will be in doubt into the fourth quarter.

Meantime, Vandy went down in overtime vs. Army, telling us that Vandy’s seeming resurgence under Bobby Johnson is likely stalled, and that they’ll be a 5-6 win team forever, unless of course they scrap those stupid entrance rules and SAT scores for students and stuff. Miss State showed more offensive flash in a tough loss to Houston, but OtherBulldog fans should be excited by the fact that Dan Mullen has this team scoring points. How good will they be when he gets some actual players in there?

Last but certainly not least, what the hell is going on with Georgia? We all figured their offense would be down after losing Stafford and Moreno, but I at least assumed their defense would be as good or better than ’08. In fact, however, Cox has been better than expected, or was until Saturday when the Vols tore him up, and the Dawg defense has been just wretched. They made Jonathan Crompton look like Tom Brady Saturday; I wouldn’t have thought that Crompton could have thrown for that many yards against tall grass. Georgia may end up having a hard time getting to seven wins at the rate their D is playing; fortunately for them, they get offense-challenged Vandy to practice on this week.

Another week, another step in the unfolding of the beautiful flower that is the Southeastern Conference 2009 football season.

So I watched 55 minutes of the LSU-Georgia game. My daughter was staying at a friend’s, so my wife and I went out for tapas and drinks, like civilized people do. But the second place we went to had no TV. Why do I tell you this? Well, I got to see 13 of the points scored, but had to get the 21 points scored spasmodically when both defenses seemed to sag like fatally wounded stoats described to me in intermittent texts by last week’s guest picker, Mike Dame. However, I think I see this as an advantage. The 55 minutes I saw sure seem to me to be the “real” LSU offense and defense: the former futzes around and seems to lack leadership, while the latter is fast and mean and capable of shutting down offenses as good as the Dawgs’. Georgia, being the mirror image of LSU, couldn’t get the passing game going, though to be fair Cox had some receivers drop some good balls. The good news is that  the season’s first match-up of top-five teams is preserved for next Saturday. But LSU will have real problems with the Gator D; will it even matter if Timmy plays? We’ll see.

Alabama seemed to play pretty well against Kentucky (“seemed”? Well, I just watched the re-runs like you; what the hell do I know?). Giving up 20 points seems kind of dicey, but they never were threatened. They seem like the second best team in the country to me, but as you know, I’m an SEC homer. Besides, I’m holding out judgement on Texas till after the Oklahoma game.

I only got to see parts of the Auburn-Tennessee game, but enough to warm my heart. Lane’s boys are 2-3 with a now-desperate Dawgs team coming in. Crompton sucks, as we all knew he would, but his 20 of 43 showing, with what seemed like some drops by his receivers, will stave off Nick Stephens for a while more. But unless Stephens is clearly behind Crompton (and if that’s true, the Vols will suck for at least 2-3 more years, and be still my heart!), it seems like they’d be well to give him a chance and some experience. But they’ll be sitting 2-4 after this next Saturday, with few guarantees after that. Who knew that Auburn would be 5-0 and Young Chizzy would be flashing his gold teeth caps and rockin’ the Grey Goose to West Division contention? Their defense dominated (but hey, who doesn’t against these guys), and the offense seems to be jelling. Just remember, I said they’d be 7-0 before heading to LSU (sorry, Todd!). Um, but I did only say that after they were 4-0, of course. Man, just think how much crap that guy who videotaped himself hollering at Chizik and the AD at the airport is going to get if Chizik gets the PlainsTigers to the SEC championship? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Damn, Miss State hung 31 on Georgia Tech; that was three games’ worth of scoring under Sly Crooms! Unfortunately, Tech got 42, but Dan Mullen’s got the Other Bulldogs on the right track.

Ole Miss ground out a ho-hum win in Nashville, as the top tier teams in the SEC do. I guess that means they’re still top tier, but we’ll find out Saturday when they host Bama. Mmm, Bama at Ole Miss and UF at LSU back to back: I’m glad to be alive!

Oh, and Arkansas put up a pile of points against Texas A&M, which means their game against Auburn is an elimination game: the winner can still pretend to hope to win the West, but the loser isn’t allowed to pretend that anymore. And South Carolina beat some non-football school and is ranked–good for the ol’ ball coach, but beware Kentucky.

Last week, as seems to be the norm around FnD HQ, was a strange one. We all think alike at times, which can be great (Oklahoma State) or disastrous (Oklahoma, Florida State), and makes things a bit streaky.

We started off well, but the losses by Oklahoma and FSU automatically put everyone down two games, and the Va Tech, Duke and Rutgers losses were also quite damaging. But now we have week 1 behind us, and a slightly more accurate gauge of who has lived up to the hype, so far. On to week 2!

This week’s guest picker is Ahmad Ragab from the University of South Florida, and is quite bullish on several of this weekend’s favorites. Ahmad is a graduate student at the University of South Florida (Go Bulls!), not-so-doggedly pursuing a Masters Degree in Religious Studies. Raised in Blacksburg, Virginia (Go Hokies!) he hopes to continue his graduate studies in some department to be named later, so that he can continue to live the sweet sexy student life, which has allowed him to enjoy college football at student ticket prices while simultaneously engaging in unapologetic boosterism. Ahmad attributes his unassailable authority as a college football commentator to his experience as a member of the Cornell University Varsity Football team (Go Big Red!) while an undergraduate far above Cayuga’s waters.

Read on for commentary and analysis. Continue reading ‘Pick ‘Em – Week 2’ »

And so begins the 2009 season. Let’s recap what happened last year, shall we?

After falling back by as many as 10 games to Fred, our beloved Chris overcame a 2-5 first week of bowl season, and correctly picked 5 upsets during the last week of bowl season, to defeat Fred by one game for the yearly standings.

Final results:
Chris 83-56
Fred 82-57
DanGo 77-62
DanGr 76-63

But now it is time to erase the slate and begin anew, and so we shall. As I mentioned before, we’re going to add a rotating guest spot this year. Our first guest is Eric Douglass. Eric is a two time graduate of the University of South Carolina and lifelong Gamecock fan. Quizbowl is his way of escaping the fact that he is a lifelong Gamecock fan.

Read on for commentary and analysis. Continue reading ‘Pick ‘Em – Week 1’ »