Week three of the College Football season is upon us and I am ready to either stop picking college games or test fate another week and see what happens. Last week the speaktherights.com picks featured 11 winners and one loser. 19-5 after two weeks. I’ll take it.
A few out there will think I am pushing the envelope a little to close to the edge this week. Why not? Better to pick an upset or a close one than declare something like Auburn over Coastal Carolina.
Know that I am disappointed that the Hoosiers are not playing FIU this week. My desire to sit in Memorial Stadium with my dear wife, Carrie, is nothing of significance compared to the disaster that we see a thimble full of when we look at the Hurricane Irma tragedy. Our prayers are most certainly for the folks in trouble and those helping the troubled. Amen.
Here goes:
UCLA beats Memphis…The Bruins make a rare stop at Beale Street. Josh Rosen carves up the Tiger D.
Ole Miss beats Cal…This is as close as the Rebs will go bowling before and after the Egg Bowl. This is a big one for Oxford.
UK beats South Carolina…Call me crazy. I could be 0-3 after this one. I just think that toe stubbing against EKU will help bring the Cats together. I have been wrong before.
Duke beats Baylor…Do I hear 0-4? Maybe. Maybe not. The Dukies have been impressive so far. Their defense is better. They will always have a QB with Coach Cut in town.
Minnesota beats Middle Tennesse….Goldy needs this one.
Purdue beats Mizzou…This should be a Big Ten match-up. No one asked me when realignment season was in full flower. Someone should have.
Marshall beats Kent State…Back home after a worthy showing in Raleigh, the Herd will be on.
USC beats Texas…Beware the Fighting Darnolds. Dream QB season in SoCal with Sam and Josh.
LSU beats Mississippi State…All together now…say something bad about State!
Notre Dame beats Boston College…And I said I wasn’t going to pick up any cupcake games.
Florida beats Tennessee…I could lose this one too. With the Great Pumpkin season coming on you just never know.
Louisville beats Clemson….You know that play to your competition adage…you can do that and win with Lamar Jackson every time. You can…but you might not.
Look, I am no great fan of U of L. I am delighted the place was there while I was furthering my education there. It has helped a great deal. But, I just think the Cards could do something special this season.
Speaking of something special…
Tomorrow night the North Harrison Cougars head North to take on the Brownstown Central Braves in a new incarnation of Blevins Memorial Stadium that will be rededicated at 6:40 before kickoff tomorrow night. It is also Senior Night I am told. Not sure what that means. If so, and it may not be so, I am really not all that sure, but if so, that is some fine flattery for the North Harrison Cougars to behold. You know how teams want to schedule a foe they are certain they can beat for homecoming so everyone can just sit back and have a good time? This is the photo negative of that ideology. This is the pile it on attitude to make the players play a little harder against a most formidable foe in the North Harrison Cougars.
Nary a Brave player wants to lose on the night they rededicate the Stadium. I know what I am talking about. James T. Blevins was a friend of my Dad’s. My Dad was the head football coach at Brownstown Central when the first game was played at the stadium named for Mr. Blevins. I wrote about a great deal of this on the visit I made last May when they were about to tear the old place down.
Nary a Cougar wants to give the Braves the satisfaction of winning for any reason, stadium or no stadium.
The series between these two is one-sided. Easy for me to say without much pain, given the two years I was in high school when we visited Blevins Stadium, 1982 and 1984, we rode home on a happy bus.
The Braves and the Cougars have played 37 times. The game in 2006, one I was set to announce on radio and still believe North was going to win, was cancelled due a storm that made the field a quagmire before it had a chance to start. In 2008 Hurricane Ike blew the west goalpost sideways on North Harrison’s field. Nature won that battle too. No game at Brownstown that year.
In the 37 times these two have played BCHS has won 30 and NHHS has won 7. Five of those seven Cougar wins have been at Brownstown, strangely enough. Personally, I find it quite fitting. I was there the first time they played in 1978. I was wearing Brownstown Central red.
This year both teams are undefeated at 4-0 going into the long awaited match-up.
Tomorrow night I will be with the Blue team all the way. As in all the way home happily back down Indiana 135. Go Cougars! Go shell the corn.
Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson