College Football 2011: Spreads, Les Miles and more to know for opening weekend
Quite simply, for a lot of people, this is the most exciting sports-related time of the year. For whatever reason you want to cite -- there's a litany you could cite -- football is the most popular game in America (we prefer the "it has replaced religion as a focus of the weekend" argument, although some may call "blasphemy" or "bullturd" on that). College comes back a week before pro, and it's vainglorious -- and by vainglorious, we mean it's mostly the top 10 teams in America beating the living crap out of schools that got paid a lot of money to come in and be a morale boost to open the season (there's a complex analogy about sex and new student orientation at a Big Ten school here, but we're too unfocused to see it through).
If you haven't done this yet this week, stop what you're doing and roll this through the first two minutes or so:
Pure, unadulterated bliss. Now let's talk about Labor Day Weekend 2011, shall we?
1. The spreads: Almost every game this weekend has a huge-ass spread, because it's a team like Alabama playing a team like Kent State (that's an actual game). The spread on that one, as of writing this? 37 points. How do you possibly even conceptualize that? That's essentially saying that Team A will score five touchdowns and a safety MORE than Team B. Sheesh. It's a complex psychological equation you must enter to do "Pick 'Em" leagues and whatnot on this weekend: do you believe Nick Saban will run it up for his home crowd? Will Trent Richardson be taken out early? Will Kent State pass the 50? Is 37-0 legitimate? (You'd take a bath.) Spreads like this are all over the place: Oklahoma is a machine on offense. 24.5 on Tulsa? Maybe. But Tulsa beat ND last year, so... you need to basically get to the root of who you are and what you believe about college football and college coaches to even wrap your head around this weekend. It's a potentially dark spot in the soul.
2. Throughout the afternoon, the only buzz is the upsets: The two "good" games are at 8pm (more on that in a second). If you hear 'BIG NEWS' during the day, it means someone got dropped that shouldn't have gotten dropped. I was at a public park (yes, a public park) the day this happened:
I got back to a TV and saw that, and I went absolutely nuts. I don't even have any true ties to Michigan, but the sheer notion of something like that happening, on opening weekend ... I lost it. I vowed never to set foot in a public park again! I have since broken that vow.
3. Les Miles: Let's be honest for a second here. Les Miles loses his starting QB (although probably not his best QB), is playing a team that went to the BCS Title game last year, is playing the biggest game of the weekend -- the Gameday game -- in front of probably dozens of potential Tigers, and he's got some injuries all over the roster too. Last year, this guy went batshit crazy. Fake field goals, 4th down stuff, eating grass, all that. Do you honestly think for a second that if this game stays even remotely close, he isn't gonna do something off-the-wall in the fourth quarter? You need to be around a TV at 11pm E.T. Something fun is going to go down.
4. The Mark Richt death march: It may begin on Saturday. UGA opens with Boise and then South Carolina. Those are both Ls, in all likelihood, but Boise could be a win -- it's at "neutral site" (ha!) Georgia Dome. If Isiah Crowell shows up as a baller (highly-recruited UGA RB), that could be a big thing. Also: Kellen Moore got married this off-season. Will that affect him? (Insert male cliche here.) Finally: when is Chris Petersen finally gonna take another job? It's gotta happen someday, right?
5. IT'S BACK! A word of caution -- oftentimes, people get too excited on Opening Weekend, and either (a) imbibe too much or (b) scream stuff in a loud voice in front of others who may not understand it or otherwise look down on the person. We've all been there. If you're gonna holler, keep it classy, or at the very least, creative. It's a damn shame that Montee Ball and the Badgers are playing on Thursday night, but feel free to make a t-shirt for JJ Di Luigi of the BYU Cougars. Keep it real out there, friends. We'll be here for you bar-wise.
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