So, here we go. It’s time; there’s absolutely no arguing that, but for a city and a team threatened by the remotest hint of change the balance of the season looms dark and our natural pessimism has finally found purchase.  Even with both feet in the FIRE HIS ASS YESTERDAY camp, I was never going to be entirely comfortable when this day came.  He’s the coach of my childhood, the devil I know.  Six weeks ago, I wrote,  “It’s our time at the edge, and the stay will be neither brief nor pleasant.”  I had no idea.

But if there’s anything to celebrate here with complete joyful abandon (for me, campers, for me), it’s that Chris Low scooped the living hell out of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, a terrible paper with a simpering buffoon of a sports editor in John Adams.  Save your preening, sir—you’ve had a public, exhausting vendetta against the guy for years and today you got beat.  ABIGAIL Adams would’ve had that story first, and that bitch has been dead almost 200 years.

ORSON (ATL):
Texas Tech @ Kansas
Kentucky @ Florida
OK State @ Texas
Georgia @ LSU
Penn State @ Ohio State
Alabama @ Tennessee
USC @ Arizona

HOLLY (Knoxvull):
Alabama @ Tennessee, live in SurlyVision(tm) from Neyland.

The Turtle:  Everywhere and nowhere, and that’s because he’s representing FEAR, not some sucka Dust Bowl farmers.  [/steinbeckwasapantywaist'd]

Itineraries below, please and thank you.  Welcome back to this grand addiction of ours.

Rules of engagement are written for your safety and for that of your team. By all means, enjoy yourselves.

#4 Florida @ Tennessee

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: As I write this, the line is sitting pretty at 7.5. Pass the salt! Which Tennessee team has Vegas been watching? The one that thinks it’s a swell idea to keep an outmatched Jonathan Crompton winging passes, or the one that couldn’t get to 40 against UAB with a bye week to prepare? That offense is going all kinds of wrong in ways I’m not sure I can even identify (although CATCHING THE GODDAMN BALL would be a great start), and a day before kickoff against our most loathsome rivals my idea of a successful outing would be to see the Vawls leave the field at 0:00 without having been booed by our own student section. (Which is no longer unheard of in Neyland, and isn’t THAT a pleasant turn of events.) Tennessee does have a history of coming up big against lowered expectations, but—no. It’s our time at the edge, and the stay will be neither brief nor pleasant. Florida, by a gulfy margin.

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL. Not by gulfy margins, certainly: the Florida offense is still trying to figure out all these durn pieces, and Dan Mullen, flustered by all the weirdness, will likely give up on the newfangled “run-ning back” position after a few punts and go back to TebowSmash/HarvinGive/Occasional PA deep ball as he’s wont to do. Tennessee’s offense has been bad to semi-bad to this point, and that gapemouthed look Jonathan Crompton gets when a disguised coverage unveils itself makes the stomach wrench with a torsion unfelt since the early days of Casey Clausen era. He’s good for the margin of victory, which feels like something around 28-17ish or so. (Also, Hayes is picking the Vols. Free. Money.)

#15 East Carolina @ North Carolina State

ORSON, IRRATIONAL. ECU. North Carolina State really isn’t fielding so much of a football team as an eleven-fold object lesson in humility clad in cleats, and that ECU is due to hold the sprained, barely sparking neurons of this country’s college football punditry hostage until they lose to a Conference USA team in a moment of slack attention sometime in June.

We’re reading Shadows in the Brain right now, and therefore suggests an experiment borrowed from research conducted in the book. People who lose limbs can eliminate a lot of phantom pain simply by being shown a reversed image of themselves in a mirror (so it looks like the side without the arm has an arm.) The brains sees it, says “Hello, arm,” and the phantom pain ceases.

We suggest NC State bluescreen videos of their players doing incredible feats of football agility: actually scoring TDs, picking off passes, making one-handed heel tackles of fleet running backs. Then, the team should watch them on a daily basis. Even though they will look obviously fake, it still would work as well as anything they’re doing right now, because they suuuuuuuuuck like baby goats at the teat right now.

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: ECU’s marquee win over West Virginia looks a mite less sparkly in the wake of the entire country being confronted last night with the irrefutable fact that Bill Stewart is aw-shucksing the Mountaineers into an early grave. Good thing they won’t need to lift a finger to stop the Wolfpack, which has already lost in ouchy fashion to South Carolina and Clemson (brothers in state, in hate, and in being very, very bad at football).

Troy @ #13 Ohio State

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: Ohio State. I mean, I guess. And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: Ohio State. They’ll do what they do best: destroying overmatched competition at home.

Mississippi State @ Georgia Tech

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: Georgia Tech by a margin of 2-0. Call it now, get on this ticket early: this game will end 2-0 as Georgia Tech’s flexbone stalls out and Mississippi State continues to demonstrate their “Yes Fish 42 How I Loved Her Spanishly” offense. (Playbook by Andre Breton; illustrations by Salvador Dali.) Perfection will be achieved, and Tommy Tuberville will read of this afterwards, shake his hands to the heavens, and resign out of jealousy that someone beat him to his life’s masterpiece before him.

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: BEEEEEEEEEEEES, don’t you think there’s enough sorrow in store this weekend? If you’re bowl-eligible by Halloween I promise to wear a slutty bee costume or something, but just do this. For me. For the intrepid commenters who will not let this joke die. For humanity.

Arizona @ UCLA

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: As surely as the sun rises in the east, as surely as there will always be an England, Mike Stoops loses football games. There’s nothing “quasi-” about this. It’s science.

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: Riverside, motherfucker! Arizona takes this game by virtue of actually having a quarterback and by running an offense based, conveniently enough, on the BYU offense that in one variation put 59 points on the UCLA defense. Mike Stoops may lose football games, but he can win gunfights, and this is no metaphor: he can shoot people dead with great accuracy is what we meant to say, and may have been the trigger man in the death of Pablo Escobar.

Miami @ Texas A&M

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: We were going to suggest A&M was going to play well, and rebound from early struggles as Mike Sherman pares things down and gets the offense going while Joe “HIBBERDANG!” Kines get the defense on its feet, an especially probable bet considering Patrick Nix is calling the plays for Miami.

Then, Dave sent us this:

…and completely irrationally, we suddenly feel a 20 point blowout coming.

HOLLY, QUASI-RATIONAL: The U’s defenders look and play like harbingers of something big and scary and thrillingly good. They’re not there yet, but a fully-ept Aggie offense is preferable to a mostly-ept Florida one. ‘Canes.

#18 Wake Forest @ #24 Florida State

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: Wake, for the sole reason that I resent the fact that Florida State is ranked. Not that I necessarily think they’re ranked unfairly, mind, just that it’s come to this.

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: Crazily enough, because Wake Forest is the better team and has been for three years now? Because Bobby Bowden scuttled the fortunes of this program by trusting his team’s offensive identity to his inept son for years, thus bottoming out the talent on that side of the ball and relegating the defense to janitorial duty cleaning up the the O’s mess. Riley Skinner is the big man in this game for Wake, and if you thought there was a penis joke in there you were mistaken and misunderstood our innocent words. Shame on you!

Vandy @ Ole Miss

ORSON, IRRATIONAL. Burned us twice going into the season. We cannot bet against them until they lose, especially with the Houston Nutt Variable working here. (Beat LSU, lose to feebleness at the other end of the schedule.)

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: I’m reminded of Doug’s assessment of Vandy back in Week 2: “Holy crap, what if these guys are for real? ” Simple. To the point. Zeitgeisty. And we still don’t know for sure, and nothing about this weekend is likely to change that, but you’re feeling it, aren’t you, SEC divisional brethren? That little seedling of doubt, of fear, of “Sweet Bobby Johnson’s snowy mane, am I prepared for a world where we could lose to Vanderbilt and it’s not a fluke?”

#6 LSU @ #10 Auburn

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: I….don’t….know. I can’t begin to get a bead on this because LSU hasn’t had to play a complete game and Auburn…well, we know what manner of “football” Auburn’s been playing. LSU, but it’s gonna be a weird one.

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: LSU, because Andrew Hatch will get them deep in trouble in the 3rd, make some phone calls to fellow Harvardians, and then have a congressional bailout award them ten points in the early fourth quarter despite subpar performance the entire game.

#3 Georgia @ Arizona State

ORSON, IRRATIONAL: Georgia. This has all the punji sticks and concealed triggers of an early season booby trap, but Arizona State has never protected Rudy Carpenter, and will not start now. The anxious Georgia fan says but we have no pass rush fret fret fret! Oh, but you have not faced an opponent with such a free-marketeer’s attitude toward the regulation of the defense’s free flow toward the quarterback. The Ron Paul blocking scheme sinks them in the end.

HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: Pick = Georgia.
Rationale = this photo:

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.

Enjoy.

Gameday Remixed is sponsored by Gillette, which reminds you that only Gillette can help you “Look, Feel, and Fuck Your Best.”

Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So let us celebrate the struggle!

2007: Recently unsealed medical records indicate that Patrick Cowan’s knee problems were an aggravation of a previous injury sustained while reenacting the mattress surfing scene from Disney’s Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement:

1991: Tommy Maddox sits out the entirety of spring practice after overturning a campus vending machine in an attempt to procure an extra can of Fresca.

1988: Troy Aikman is rushed to the hospital after ingesting a packet of silica gel he found in his new cleats, misses week of practice leading up to USC but recovers in time to take the field.

1984: Steve Bono undergoes season-ending surgery to his left foot after becoming entangled in a mall escalator.

1983: Rick Neuheisel is held out of the Arizona State game following a “Sun-In incident.”

1972: Mark Harmon misses four games with a sprained face.

1966: Gary Beban slices off entire left hand opening a can of pears, is held out of Rose Bowl.

1961: Billy Kilmer misses the College All-Star Game after dislocating his shoulder while removing tags from a new mattress.

1943: Records from this time period are spotty, indicating only that Bob Waterfield did not play in the first two games of the season due to “freckles”.

In all seriousness, for rills: This does suck, we’re in no way looking forward to playing a UCLA team that’s at anything less than full strength, because where’s the fun, and we wish a speedy and actual recovery to Olson and the rest of the Pac-10 QB casualties.