I’m a Realist, ever the practical ones, acknowledges the lusts and yens of gamers and men o’fancy everywhere by posting the latest lines here.

Let it roll, sucker: strictly for entertainment purposes…

A few thoughts:

–Surprise! Florida State over Miami by 3. Way to punt, Vegas. We can’t see this happening, not in a world of cruel irony and offenses coached by Jeff Bowden. Miami dusts them by ten, fueled by defensive scoring on Miami’s part and celebrated with festive dancing and excessive celebration penalties in the grand tradition of UM. Oh, and they’ll be a pregame brawl; count on it.

–Auburn over Georgia Tech by 7? Tech to cover, if only because it would be more painful for Chan Gailey to fritter away a late lead with grandmotherly playcalling and lose by three than getting nicked by a mere 7 points–which means that that is exactly what Chan Gailey will do. Ball blows it with a fumble, interception, or improbable combination of the two late in the game, potentially doing both on the same play. Gailey will demur, fiddle with his headset, and pretend to look at his playchart, which is actually an old copy of Reader’s Digest tacked to a clipboard.

–Tennessee over UAB by 23. Why the hell not bet the cover? UAB’s a tough but overmatched team, offenses typically struggle to find their rhythm in the first game of the season… insert three or four other ludicrous reasons here, since all we’re really doing is displaying our man-crush on UAB’s Darrell Hackney, the stiff-armingest behemoth under center in the land. He could be as much fun to watch this season as Dave Ragone was with Louisville in his last year, refusing to go down without throwing left hooks at charging blitzers and not sliding once in the face of tacklers screaming toward vulnerable joints and soft tissues with horrifying force.
Take UAB to cover but don’t expect to see anything but Darrell Hackney playing the part of a one man rugby scrum for four quarters here, which will be worth the loss of the wager alone.

It’ll be fun for a half to watch Darrell Hackney do this to the Vols. Then his kidneys will start bleeding.

John Walters keeps ascending the ranks of our favorite sportswriters by using a pesky and appealing device: reason. West Coast football isn’t inferior–it’s just more urban, and for college football attendance, that ain’t a good thing. Sounds reasonable enough to us, and we haven’t even cracked into the bottle of Moet and Chandon in our file drawer yet.

Urban’s mum on the starter at RB for Saturday’s game against Wyoming. We’re betting the starter will have to emerge from a three-man cage match staged for Urban’s pleasure sometime late Friday night, with DeShawn Wynn winning after breaking a folding chair over Skyler Thornton’s head.

It’s gonna go down something like this.

Keon Lattimore, running back for the Maryland Terps, is the younger brother of Ray Lewis.The two talk daily, and sometimes even text message bible verses to each other.

We’re betting Ray’s a fan of Judges 19:29.

Gary Barnett, Super Genius, has at least two legitimate miracles to his credit: taking Northwestern to the Rose Bowl, and somehow staying employed at the University of Colorado going into his seventh year amidst an unceasing whirlwind of sleaze, rumor, and boneheaded PR. USA Today’s underrated college football section–always free online, no premium silliness, and plenty of rapidly updated stats–profiles Barnett, who among other rich quotables passes this one with a satisfied grunt:

“My life hasn’t changed a bit through the whole process,” he said. “We’ve continued doing what we were doing … always looking for ways to improve your program, ways to make it better, not be content with what it’s been.”

The official word out of Boulder, then? MORE HOOKERS! Colorado’s AD may have been right to wait on that contract extension.

Are gravity lessons coming due for Gary Barnett?

A great piece in the LA Times on Football Lucifer by Chris Dufresne contains two Spurrier quotes worth putting in formaldehyde for future generations.

One:

“South Carolina is not like Harvard or anything like that, but you’ve got to be able to read on a high school level, things of that nature.”

And two:

Spurrier is in no position yet to contemplate big wins over Florida.

He says: “We’re trying to put a whuppin’ on Central Florida.”

Unlike the immortal Warren St. John, we have no autographed book to offer for this one, but we wanted to open this lovely pic up to the public to see who can get the exact right quote to go with this… shall we say… less than manly photograph. ¡Buenas Suerte!

Thanks to Pat at Blue/Gray sky for bringing this gem to our attention.

As we reported here in our blog infancy, there have been nagging fears that LSU’s staduim renovations would not be completed by the home opener. Well, those fears have come to fruition as about 1,500 seats are not ready. This is an inconvenience for the North Texas game, a problem for the Arizona State game and a potential catastrophe in the making when the Vols come to town on September 24, 2005. I suspect that the only way there won’t be a riot on the Bayou is if the post-hurricane unity keeps the 1500 club seat boosters from going nuclear over this.

A national championship for Miami, once a distant possibility for this season, just got closer.

Lee’s down is our up…and you don’t get much more down than this pic.

CFR forecasts Katrina’s effect on football here.