#11 Ohio State @ Toledo

Holly: Aaron Opelt IS The Brave Little Toaster IN The Brave Little Toaster. The toast (sorry) of the MAC brings his flingin’ arm up against its first real defensive test of the year. Will the Buckeyes rebound from last week’s debacle when faced with a team that should by all rights be an easy target? Hayll, no. Toledo will cover that unconscionable 20.5 line at the very least, and in fact, let’s pick them to win outright, because they’re named “Rockets” and because if I picked against them, Toledo fans wouldn’t send me poorly veiled and spellchecked death threats. Got a long car trip this afteroon, and I’ll need the entertainment.

Can that guy play linebacker? (And does the Brave Little Toaster die at the end? I forget.

Tennessee @ #1 Florida

Orson: Brandon Spikes IS the County Assessor in DON’T EVER FUCK WITH THE COUNTY ASSESSOR BITCH. You know who’s been teeny eeny weeny mouse quiet? THE COUNTY ASSESSOR BITCH. Brandon Spikes hasn’t said anything all week, but his presence in shutting down the Tennessee run game will mean mo’ Crompton, and mo’ Crompton means mo’ interceptions, since he has thrown many more interceptions than one should as a college quarterback. The County Assessor will decide what real estate you can afford, Mr. Crompton. Considering your credit rating, it looks like you can afford nothing in the ZIP code of 32601.

Holly: Lane Kiffin IS Chuck Barris IN Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Is any of it true? Who cares; we’re just here for the spectacle and the stories. Giant motherfucking catfish rains down the sky, Nick Reveiz racks up thirty tackles, Boo Berry breaks the NCAA career interception yardage record on the road in Gainesville and Tennessee returns to the Motherland victorious by a score of a billionteen to six. (What the hell were you expecting?)

#3 USC @ Washington

Holly: Steve Sarkisian IS Luke Skywalker IN A New Hope. Bratty early Luke who just wants to pick up some power converters. Yoda’s coming to YOUR swamp now, Sarky, and he likes your moves but you’re still Washington. Trojans, but a close enough game to send the Huskies to the locker room with the cuddly moral victory.

Orson: USC IS Martin Blank IN Gross Pointe Blank. It’s not me, says Pete Carroll, as he plugs three in the head of Washington at close range. Even friends get it if the name’s on the contract, Steve BLAM! /picksupdiscovermagazine /readsidly

Tulsa @ #12 Oklahoma

Todd Graham IS Patrick Bateman IN American Psycho . Up the coaching ladder no matter the cost, even if he had to stab people to get an incremental jump from Rice to Tulsa (the equivalent of strangling a co-worker for a promotion from assistant general manager to senior assistant general manager.) Now looking around and noticing the subtle bone-white of other people’s business cards, and sensing the sudden hollow cheapness of his world. I’m not saying he flexes in the mirror while filming his own sexual encounters. I’m saying he flexes in the mirror and screams “Yeah, Todd!” while filming his own sexual encounters. Two entirely different things. (This means Tulsa loses, btw.)

Holly: Bob Stoops IS Dana Marschz IN Hamlet 2. Completely and cheerfully divorced from reality. Look, it’s entirely beyond possible that I’m not coming back from this weekend alive, so let’s really live and call the upset here as well. Is it really an upset without Sam Bradford? Vegas seems to think so, setting the line at 17.5. Is that even going to be an issue with the departure of Gus Malzahn? What the hell, we’re about to find out. The Golden Hurricane (oooh, singular MLS-style name, edgy!) has torn up two previous (and bad) opponents by a combined score of 81-23. This is only slightly larger than Oklahoma’s last margin of victory at their previous meeting.

#19 Nebraska @ #13 Virginia Tech

Holly: Urban Meyer IS Rosie Perez IN Do The Right Thing. With a gun to my head and Diamonique Cold Meyer at the other end of it, I could not come up with a game I have less interest in watching than this one. Can I pick the West Virginia game instead? Because speaking of Malzahn, he’s about to bitchmake Bill Stewart at Auburn in primetime like the bitch Bill Stewart is.

Orson: Bo Pelini IS Alex Baldwin IN The Bear. The Bear’s antagonist–a bear–all too perfectly sums up what it’s like to play Virginia Tech, a huge, mean animal that, if you have one or two well-aimed bullets, can be killed nine times out of ten. Nebraska has a few of those in the form of an actual offense, something Virginia Tech continues to innovatively play football without. Close, as BEAMERBALL (TM) tends to be, but ultimately leaning towards the Cornhuskers.

Michigan State @ Notre Dame

Orson: Golden Tate IS Pele IN Victory. Notre Dame will go down early to the Spartans. Defeat will be in the air. Doom will tunnel up through the locker room at halftime and beckon the Irish to follow them to a season of bailing right nastily on Weis, but then everyone will remember that no one can cover Golden Tate, and that Charlie Weis should just go back to the four play “Toss-Draw-Deep ball-crossing pattern” offense they’ve been running since halfway through last year, and then it’s Dantonio Face time for the entire second half. Victoire! Victoire! Victoire! It will be just like the end of Victory, except for the raunchy sex with the locals, since that will get you kicked out of school if you do it in the wrong places in South Bend.

Holly: Tate Forcier IS Pete IN Pete’s Dragon, with a special guest appearance by Rich Rodriguez as HOLY SHIT A DRAGON. If we were even keeping track of our scores week to week, I would be logic-bound to take the Irish. We are not, and I am not, and though that one Domer troll has mysteriously disappeared since The Recent Unpleasantness, this is kind of a fun habit. Dantonio over Weis in a surl-off, and Spartans over Irish out of uncut Colombian spite. (I’m sorry, Harrison Smith. Forgive me, Golden Tate. It’s Hate Week, and it’s leaking everywhere.)

Navy @ Pitt

Holly: Dave Wannstedt IS David Spritz IN The Weather Man. Navy and Miami were my ‘09 BCS sleeper picks. The Baby ‘Canes are acquitting themselves quite nicely, but Navy took a heartbreaker of a haymaker early in Columbus before righting the ship against a not-awful Louisiana Tech team. And if anyone’s prepared to deliver a loss when he shouldn’t, it’s the Wannstache. Make it happen, Pitt Kitties.

Orson: Ken Niumatololo IS The Wolf IN Pulp Fiction. I have a mess, Ken. A huge one, since I’m now in week three of Wannstache Upset Alert, and have zero to show for it save for this tripled-down bet on Dave Wannstedt doing what comes naturally to him: blowing a game against inferior competition. I’ll make you coffee, whatever you need, man. Just clean up the dead bodies a suddenly consistent Pitt team keeps leaving in my car. Buffalo’s brains are all over the backseat.

Florida State @ #7 BYU

Bronco Mendenhall IS Kirk Douglas IN Spartacus. Running from the hills to terrorize an old empire wearing nothing but a spear and a jock strap. Okay, more than that, since these are Mormons, but remember two key plot points:

1. Spartacus rips Rome a new one, and

2. He ends up dead in the end.

But but but but BYU is a BCS buster and beat Oklahoma and THAT’S JUST WHAT COLLEGE FOOTBALL WOULD WANT YOU TO THINK. The patron god of this sport is Loki, and he’s telling you that mischief would be a tattered, tottering FSU team rolling into Provo and beating BYU. Mischief, he will have.

Holly: Bobby Bowden IS Theoden IN LOTR: The Two Towers. Not a whisper of an upset here. With a defense that’s as somnambulant as Bowden The Elder himself, and Max Hall in his third year flashing 325 passing yards, this will be over fast, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be pretty.

#23 Georgia @ Arkansas

Holly: Mark Richt IS Edmond IN Edmond. Which is more to be feared? Evil Richt with a chip-shouldered, something-to-prove team or Bobby Petrino leading a squad of indeterminate quality? Depends, are we playing football? Georgia, but not without a few scares.

Orson: Bobby Petrino AS Willard IN Willard Actually, I just wanted to imagine Petrino as the king of Rats. (No reason! We swear!) Remember what happens when SEC East teams go to the West? Horrible, terrible, unpredictable things, for the most part, especially against an improving Arkansas squad. Holly says “scares;” we say “hordes of rats devouring Joe Cox.” Arkansas gets its first big scalp in the Petrino era in a shootout.

Texas Tech @ #2 Texas

Holly: Will Muschamp IS Ben Wade IN 3:10 to Yuma. Say, did you know these two teams have a history? Because it seemed very important last night in the midst of an actual football game being played on television at that moment that concerned neither Texas nor Texas Tech that we know Texas Tech and Texas have met before! I wonder how that turned out? Anybody hear? I’ll take a jittery McCoy over an unfinished Potts, though if he hadn’t gone and shaved his beard this would be a treacherous pick.

Orson: Taylor Potts IS Hudson IN Aliens. You want some Texas defense! (Discharges 5 TDs in a noble loss.) HUH BITCH? (Fires seventy passes constantly throwing until the final whistle.) Oh, now you want some? (Scanning for open receivers, sees none, tries to buy time.) IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? (Fires off fifteen yard completion as he his eaten and killed by Sergio Kindle.)

Senator Blutarsky laid down the challenge, and T. Kyle King, who hates Auburn — boy, does he ever hate Auburn — responded with every bit of the gusto you’d expect and then some. So now the only question is, is 100 Things Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die just an Auburn thing, or is this book part of a series? Naturally, it’s the latter, meaning that in addition to a team-specific tailgating tent, leather sofa, or casket, you can now have a bucket list tailored to the college football team of your choice.

Even leaving out all the baseball-themed volumes — is “Stay awake through an entire MLB game” on any of those lists? It should be — we don’t have the time to slog through every one of these books, much less the resources to buy all of ‘em. But that ain’t gonna stop us from making some educated guesses as to what’s on each list. Here’s what we’d include, if we were instructing individual fan bases as to how they can optimize their respective fandoms before shuffling off their respective mortal coils:

ALABAMA
* Pick three random years out of the past century and make a case for Alabama deserving a share of the national title in each of those years in a letter to the editor, comment on a rival blog, or graffito spray-painted on an opposing team’s stadium.
* Get a houndstooth-patterned prosthesis or medical implant (i.e. hip replacement, pacemaker, or IUD).
* Cut off an Auburn fan’s ear whilst listening to Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.”

BRIGHAM YOUNG
* Attend a bowl game other than the Las Vegas Bowl, just to see what it feels like.
* Serve a caffeinated beverage at a tailgate.
* Utter a swear word while watching a game.

GEORGIA
* Get pulled over for speeding and respond to the officer’s request for license and registration by barking loudly in his face. (Extra points for doing so in Columbia, South Carolina, or Alachua County, Florida.)
* Find the suitcase containing Urban Meyer’s soul and sell it back to him.
* Give a Georgia Tech student his first glimpse of female genitalia.

What’re you gonna do, charge me with failing to defend a triple-option offensive attack?

LSU
* Track down the source of the “LSU fans smell like corn dogs” rumor.
* Become the first human being to record a blood-alcohol level of 1.00 or greater.
* Slip Nick Saban a mickey and take a picture of yourself giving him a pair of Norwegian goggles.

MIAMI
* Sneak a firearm into a major sporting event.
* Beat up a Florida International fan just to feel alive.
* Take a ho to the seventh floor.

NOTRE DAME
* Have sex with a coed without being intoxicated, with a condom, and without going to Confession afterward.
* Keep Jimmy Clausen from getting sacked for a full hour.
* Witness a Notre Dame victory over Southern Cal. (Just kidding. There’s no way you’ll live that long.)

OHIO STATE
* Spend an entire night, alone, in the Southeastern Conference’s headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama.
* Defecate in a styrofoam cooler. At a 4th of July picnic.
* “Dot the I” at Ohio Stadium naked from the waist down.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
* E-mail or call in a death threat to Jacquizz Rodgers, Jim Harbaugh, or Vince Young.
* Watch the Kim Kardashian sex tape in HD and pretend you’re Reggie Bush.
* Get re-tweeted by Pete Carroll.

TEXAS
* Break into the Oklahoma University athletic-department building, drink beer, and urinate in their 2008 Big XII Championship trophy. Continue until trophy is filled to the top.
* Play keep-away with the hat of a Texas A&M “cadet.”
* Play keep-away with the hot pants of a Texas pom squad member.

WEST VIRGINIA
* To get the feeling of what it’s like to be a fan of a major historic D-IA football program, throw a brick through coach Bill Stewart’s window.
* Have sex while wearing a coonskin cap.
* Set fire to a Rooms To Go store and burn the whole thing to the ground.

Moving on: The combine, like childbirth, is a natural process, a rite of passage, and not at all creepy or gross. Nope:

With that, the player is ready to run. He peels away a pair of mesh shorts and the compression pair underneath reveal a set of quad muscles akin to a mountain ridge. [NorthJersey.com]

“In between workouts and class, I usually get a massage, have a chef come over to prepare meals, and different stuff like that,” said Freeman, an OSU senior linebacker. [The Lantern]

But what’s not true, he says, is the unavoidable association between Berkeley and marijuana — “Come on, man, you lived in Berkeley — tell the truth,” a scout reportedly said to Follett in an interview after he had denied ever smoking pot. [The Daily Cal]

“Everyone wants to talk about (Georgia’s) Matthew Stafford , I’ve been at camps and thrown with him,” Hoyer said. “But I feel like my arm is just as strong or just a little bit below his.” [Detroit News]

“[Loadholt] struggles to bend, and he struggles with any kind of elite speed. Orakpo ran by him all day long.” [Tulsa World]

“The doctor looks at my sheet and said, ‘Did you actually play?’ I told him I was a long snapper. Yeah, I just snap and take a leisurely jog down the field.” [Freep]

Woody Hayes nude: censored because he was illegally beautiful.

Go ahead and call him ugly, Leonard…

“If the team lost or tied, he would conduct an interview in the nude,” said Downie, as reported in The Lantern. “He was an ugly guy so it would clear the locker room out pretty fast.”

But can’t you balance that with the kind of womanly compliment usually following a statement like this, as in “he was ugly…but Woody was always sexy,” or “A post-loss nude Woody Hayes conference was like staring into the sun: so intense and powerful you could only endure a few seconds of its awesome grandeur?” Mighty uncharitable, as we’re sure Professor Hayes, while lacking physical grandeur, had his own ramshackle physical charm about him. (”He has nice forearms! His eyes: have you seen his eyes?”)

As opposed to a Pete Carroll nude press conference, where presumably reporters would leave in tears of joy and awe saying things like, “It was so…beautiful…”, “like David, but better hung,” and “It was like watching a new child enter the world, but without the shitting and hideous afterbirth.”

Bob: So, how does this work?

Kelly: Okay, Bob and Jim. In the fun-for-everyone game of Cranium, the final round is decided by one question we determine at random with a roll of the die.

Jim: Sounds easy enough. And familiar.

Kelly: It should. Now, all you have to do is answer the one question, and you’ll have won the game.

Todd: Please get this right guys. I’m so tired of this game. No one except the women want to play it, and it takes FOREVER.

Bob: Don’t worry, Todd. Jim and I are gonna have us outta here in two shakes, buddy. Roll!

[Forty-five minutes pass. Todd sits at the table with his head in his hands.]

Todd: Okay, let’s see if you can get this one. “ZELPUZ.” Unscramble these letters, and you’ll have the answer.

Jim: No sweat. We got “cattle” earlier. This should be easy. Let’s go, Big Game!

Bob: Right behind you, Senator.

Jim: This is ours. I can feel it.

Todd: Okay, here’s your word. The clue is “activity.” Turn over the timer and….GO!!!

[The card reads: "Sdtgtetriianiiop" The answer is "prestidigitation." They will not get this in a thousand rolls of a thousand dice in the casinos of a very blue and improbable hell.]

Jim: That’s harder than cattle.

Bob: Yes. Yes it is.

[Three hours later.]

Jim: I swear I one one of these games once.

Bob: Okay, we’re gonna get it. What is it? Kelly? WAKE UP KELLY.

Kelly: [picks head off desk.] UM–sorry. I was nodding off there. Guys, we really don’t have to finish this–

Todd: [surrounded by beer bottles] Yeah, seriously guys. We don’t–

Jim and Bob: YES WE DO WE HAVE TO WIN THE FINAL ROUND.

Kelly: But Todd and I won hours ago. Remember? I sensosketched “bus stop,” and we got the last one?

Jim: I don’t remember that.

Bob: Funny, I don’t remember that either.

[Todd and Kelly look at each other.]

Kelly: Okay, the last question, and then you leave.

Jim: Fine, fine. Just ask the question.

Todd: It’s a humdinger. Hum the song. Leave our house it’s 2:30 in the morning. Bob, you’re humming.

Jim: But I like to hum, Todd—

Todd: YOU SHUT THE FUCKING FUCK UP TRESSEL. Bob is humming, and then he’s leaving and we’re calling game.

Jim: Well, okay then.

Todd: Here’s the card. Go. Then leave before I call the police.

[Bob takes the card. It reads: "Hot Blooded," by Foreigner. ]

Bob: Oh, we’ve got this.

[Bob Stoops stands up and begins humming out the guitar line and playing enthusiastic air guitar to the song.]

Bob: MMM MMM mmm…MMM mm MMMM MMMMMHHHHH…

Jim: I’m…I’m sorry. I just listen to gospel and country. Is this a gospel song? Can we have another question?

Kelly: LEAVE.

Bob: No, wait! We can get this! Can we do one with the putty? Those are fun!

Jim: Yeah, the play-doh stuff. We’re good at those.

Kelly: I’m dialing 9 and 1 and waiting for you to leave.

Jim and Bob: WHY DOES THIS FEEL FAMILIAR?

Todd: I hate this fucking game.

I feel like I’ve been in a coma for fifteen days…and I’m just now waking up.

Spec-tac-u-lar.

RE-MATCH! RE-MATCH! RE-MATCH! RE-MATCH! RE-MATCH!

That’s just lazy, and maddeningly vague.   There’s nineteen different ways this could’ve been more informative, and they went with a grand total of none of them.  “Sealed for your protection”?  “Detour ahead”?  “Not to be used as a flotation device”?

We’re here to help, after the jump:

Further suggestions welcome below.

The weekend in Gamblor-baiting, divided into half-reasoned predictions and blind contempt.

#5 OSU @ #1 USC

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: USC. We’ll all look like idiots for picking USC for the first quarter, the first quarter when Mark Sanchez struggles a bit, the Buckeyes actually stick to the run in a big game for a while, and the Buckeye defense zeroes in on USC’s innovative “first down boot PA pass” call, which they make every damn time they hold the ball.

Then, the ice weasels come for Ohio State, and they come at halftime. The run game will stall; USC’s offense will find holes underneath in the zone, or counter OSU’s blitzes with screens and slants; and then it’s all tears and replay from there as this rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem in the second half. Then, they’ll have to rely on Todd Boeckman passing them back into the game to survive. This means they die.

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL:  USC. Can the argument be made that for the past two weeks Ohio State has been operating out of a third of its playbook, saving all the fancy Pryor packages for the game that’ll swing their title hopes the most?  Of course.  But if Tressel’s got something that gamebreaking up his tiny sleeves, I find it very hard to believe he’ll choose the Coliseum as a staging ground to see whether or not any of it works.  If last week’s game had truly been the cakewalk we all expected, the Buckeyes would’ve been able to wrest control handily once things started to careen the way of the Bobcats.  They did not.

#13 Kansas @ #19 South Florida

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: Kansas. Matt Grothe was a spastic quadriplegic born to a large, poor Irish family. His mother, Brunehilde, recognized the intelligence and humanity in the lad everyone else regards as a vegetable. Eventually, Grothe matured into a cantankerous writer who uses his only functional limb, his left foot, to write with.

Apologies. This actually describes Christy Brown from <i>My Left Foot</i>. Grothe, though, can be just as effective depending on the night, and since USF’s offense is without a full-speed Mike Ford at running back they’ll just turn him out there to “make something happen.” Remember Rutgers/USF? It will be like that, except the other team has an actual quarterback.

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: South Florida. For precisely the same reasons.  Janie says having Grothe on the team is like starting a Magic 8 Ball at quarterback.  Tonight, the Bulls’ fortune reads, “It is decidedly so.”

#14 East Carolina @ Tulane

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: East Carolina. Pulling for East Carolina in order to watch the massive bump pollsters give them for beating the Green Wave like rented mules, and then the subsequent complaints from Alabama fans for same pollsters moving Bama down for a lackluster performance against said Green Wavers.

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: East Carolina. Because all West Virginia has left now is to characterize last week’s curb-stomping at the hands of the Purple Pirates as a Quality Loss. Move ‘em up and slake the misery of Morgantown, at least until they wake up on their porches and realize that no, it wasn’t a particularly milquetoasty nightmare, they really did hire Bill Stewart.

#2 Georgia @ South Carolina

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: Georgia. Cloned Spurrier’s diminished product will ooze sadness through the screen. We may not even watch, as you’ll be able to call it from the couch: oh look, wacky qb throwback that Smelley fumbles. Hey, a slant. A draw! Imagine. Wow, a fake field goal that goes for a pick. It will be like watching the T-2000 in its last death throes, morphing into glimpses of everyone it’s killed before succumbing to a molten death. If you wondered at what point we gave up on the universe, pronounced our youth dead, and took up with a bottle of Zybrowka for the duration, it is during this game.  Georgia by scores.

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL:  Georgia. Even after living through the late 90s-early aughts as an SEC fan under the reign of Spurrier, this isn’t all  that fun to watch anymore.  (All right, except the Vanderbilt loss.  Again.  Hee.)  Time to haul the OBC out back…to the golf course, where he’ll chase squirrels and get to run with his own kind.  “He’s my coach, Pa.  I’ll do it.”  (And admit it—you want things to go as badly as possible for South Carolina, bad enough for Stephen Garcia to be sent in.  The over/under for Gamecock quarterback rotations in this game is 4.5.  Gar.ci.a.  Gar.ci.a. GAR.CI.A.)

UCLA @ #18 Brigham Young

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: Brigham Young. Invaders in Provo? Ask Arkansan wagon trainers how well that goes. [/underthebannerofheaven’d!]

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: UCLA. This hinges largely on which iteration of which Bruins quarterback suits up for the afternoon, but lest we forget:  BYU was given fits last week by a Willingham squad.

Georgia Tech @ Virginia Tech

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: Generic ACC provisional score: 20-17 with three turnovers for each team and a missed field goal somewhere in there. Really, you don’t know what’s going to happen in this game either since Georgia Tech is still attempting to pick up the triple-option, Virginia Tech’s defense is still fishily inexperienced and young, and that Sean Glennon and Tyrod Taylor combined equal 70 percent of a competent quarterback together. Sing along!

EEEEEEEEXIIIIIT LIIIIIGHT!!!
CURL ROOOOOOUTE RIIIIIIGHT!!!
MAAAAAN TOO MAAAAAAAAN!!!
Sean Glennon throws it in the ground.

YEAAAAH HEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!! (BOOM!)

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: Georgia Tech. I’ma ride this BEEEEEEEES!! streak until the Stingbone offense gives me reason not to.  Just try it at your desk.  Go on.  Stand up, wave your arms like a startled E.T., and yell it.  Don’t you feel better?

Michigan @ Notre Dame

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: Michigan. As bad as both teams will look, Michigan will look better because of the feints, misdirections, and screens built into the Rodriguez offense playing out against the constant hail of blitzes from Notre Dame and TAH-NOO-TAH. But yes, on the whole this will be a cripple fight that Big Ten Alternate Reality Orson would reference as the end of his youth, but with the crucial difference being that he would do this while wearing a sweatshirt and without a considerable increase in already intense alcohol consumption. Oh, and I’d be straight I MEAN GAY. Yes, gay.

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: Michigan, walking away with this week’s “Will win by virtue of a) showing up, and b) bringing a football team with them” accolades.

Rice @ Vanderbilt

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: Vanderbilt. Vandy will roll because, having picked against them two weeks in a row, we want to see how badly they’ll lose now that we’re on board and saying insane things like “Vanderbilt: LIBERTY BOWL CHAMPIONS!”

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL:  Vanderbilt. I’m not prepared, emotionally, for this level of parity in the SEC.  Last week was supposed to be their Real Test As A Football Team, but they played South Carolina, so it’s hard to tell.

Southern Miss @ Arkansas State

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: Southern Miss actually didn’t look terrible against Auburn, as the score was deceptive except for the “superior talent manifested numerically” thing.

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: Arkansas State. You won’t have seen much of them on TV, but be warned:  this is one of those smaller schools with a deceptively pesky squad (see:  Louisiana Tech, Ragin’ Cajuns, and Southern Miss itself).

#10 Wisconsin @ #21 Fresno State

SWINDLE, IRRATIONAL:  Fresno State. Wisconsin enjoys this poll buoyancy as the third banana of the Big Ten that we can only explain with their performances in bowl games and active, effective lobbying of voters by Bucky the Badger. (Just stands in window, staring with his wise, beady eyes for exactly one minute at 3 in the morning. When you wake up, he nods knowingly, and then walks away silently.)

This game screams early season misstep for Wisconsin. First, it’s in Fresno, which is weird; second, it’s out-of-conference, and therefore highly unpredictable; third, this team is a slow starter, which is fine against Marshall but potentially deadly against a quality opponent like Fresno. They’re probably the better team, but the question is whether they’ll wake up in time to lean on Fresno with the hormone-fed beef on their offensive line and win.

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL:  Wisconsin.
9:58:08 AM Swindle: Marshall up 14-7 over Wisconsin in Camp Randall.
10:01:03 AM Holly: !
10:01:20 AM Holly: Remind me why I was bullish on Wisconsin 2 weeks ago?
10:01:38 AM Holly: Oh, yes. Here it is. “Coach’s head = perfect trapezoid.” Bad idea.
10:01:58 AM Swindle: That’s perfectly sound reasoning: he just let you down.
10:02:08 AM Holly: ….you’re RIGHT.

Bieleleeema came through big in the end, and I will trust in his singular geometry.  For now.

“It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom.”

Lead Pipe Twirling:  Priscilla Abernathy, 10, Upper Arlington

The pageant’s youngest entrant hopes to prove to her father, Dillard, that even lacking the requisite chromosomes she can be the son he told her he always wanted.  She wowed judges at last April’s Columbus Cotillion with her deft handling of even the rustiest metal shards.

Evening Wear:  Duke Jonas, 34, and Walter McCord, 42, both of Bexley

These fine-feathered beasts credit their mental edge over the competition to a complete lack of irony.

Wolverine Skinning:  Martha Shaw, 35, Whitehall

Mrs. Shaw, a paralegal and mother of two, set a personal best record of 16.7 seconds at the 2007 Greater Ohio Evisceration Games.

Overall:  The Salk Brothers, 26, Grove City

With their unparalleled Musberger imitations, natty sweatervests, and solid grasp of the entire Alan Menken oeuvre, these triple threat triplets are carrying the banner for Buckeye spirit and are a lock for prime Michigan seats.