In all the excitement about actually having football to watch, we forgot that most of it was going to absolutely suck, suck, suck to watch, even to a starving football fan.

First Boston College plays what appeared to be a scrimmage against Central Michigan, winning 31-24 only after scaring the living daylights out of poor Bill, whose agony left him at a loss for words this morning. It’s all part of Coach O’Brien’s plot to never win a game by more than ten points, Bill. Look it up, it’s in the Bible.

Mississippi State launched their season in the key of Spinal Tap, huddling in the tunnel while waiting for a graduate assistant–who for one minute and ten seconds was officially the most miserable person on the planet–to get the smoke machine in working order for their entrance. After on-camera fumbling and a pitiful sputter of fake smoke, Croom decided it was bad enough and let his players run through five wisps of grey fog onto the field to a din of cowbells and undoubtedly trashed Bulldog fans.

The smoke machine proved to be more productive than the Miss State offense: the Bulldogs didn’t score, a fact that will not surprise those of you skeptical of Croom’s plan to screen block on every play, even on those plays not actually called as screens. Offensive plague proved contagious; South Carolina continued to look crapulent on offense, too, with their only TD coming off the inevitable Spurrier “fuck-it-nothing-else-is-working-let’s-toss-this-in” trick play of the night. Syvelle Newton took a lateral from Blake Mitchell, tossed it to a streaking Cory Boyd running free down the sideline, and South Carolina took a double digit lead. At this point, requiring two touchdowns, Mississippi State had no mathematical chance, since they have not scored an offensive touchdown ever under Croom and never will, instead hoping to win through Croom’s “one yard, a cloud of dust, and my starter clutching his shattered collarbone” offense. We wish him luck with that.


Five lineman? What are five of them doing out there?

In the nightcap, Arizona State failed to make the 539 point spread against Northern Arizona by miles. Actually, they were all five seconds from calling Sam Keller’s dad and asking if they could still be friends as Northern Desert Kentucky had the Sun Devils at 14-all going into the fourth. ASU did one of those 21 point blinkbursts of points they’re capable of doing and made the final 35-14, but not before reducing Sun Devil fans to cringing, dyspeptic wrecks for three hours.

Take note, fandom: this may be you this weekend. Industrial-size antacid purchases are advised.