GP.2008.7

The Renegade College Football Newsletter

The messages and emails have been pouring in asking us to discuss the BCS and expose it for what it is. Can’t do it. Not yet anyway. Look, I am not going to defend the BCS and the illegitimate BS that it is based on (seriously, what the hell is a Sagarin rating?)…but right now, it is serving it’s purpose: weeding out teams like an 8 am math class during freshman year. There are solid arguments on both sides but know this…

The Grayson Publication has been working on and will be presenting it’s own Playoff Scenario to the NCAA. We will consider everything: Incorporation of the Bowls, Ad dollars (apparently this is where money comes from), time away from school for the athletes (you know, the subject that the NCAA says is the biggest issue concerning a playoff scenario when in reality it’s all about the dollar bills ya’ll), who all would be invited, the BCS’ involvement, and the always essential dress code for Jake purposes.

We will post it the week before we submit the draft so you may bask in our incredible detail and GENIUS idea. Yeah, we’re pretty humble about the whole thing. Now to business…

Texas/Oklahoma is the greatest college football rivalry. Biased? Absolutely. Without due diligence? Of course not. For those who have never experienced the weekend, you cannot understand the party, the Fair, and the HATE. Until you have had a Fletcher’s corn dog at 10 in the morning sided with a beer and a black eye from the fight the night before at the West End, you just don’t get it. This day at the Texas State Fair is like no other. There are no usual fair goers surveying the fried food vendors and peering in at the car shows. Instead, it’s two huge gangs circling each other and glaring at one another, hearts pregnant with angst, and surrounded by carnival games. It’s the Jets and the Sharks minus the snapping and extra tight jeans. (Yeah, that was a West Side Story reference. Sorry, but my wife reads this and I have to keep her interested in some way) Florida and Georgia have their cocktail party. Notre Dame and USC have their patty cake match, and Auburn and Alabama have the Iron Bowl. We have our shootout. We call it that because about 70% of the crowd is probably armed and at any given moment might be tempted to go ahead and exercise the 2nd Amendment. The cocktails are a given but no other rivalry has as much probability of gun play. Well, maybe Army/Navy but when was the last time that game had National Championship implications?

We split the tickets from one fifty yard line to the other. We get one end zone, they get the other. Crimson red on one end and Burnt Orange on the other. The Pride of Oklahoma with their ridiculous drum major who you just want to throw a rock at and laugh as he shutters unconsciously to the ground… and the “Showband of the Southwest”-so big they can spell Texas across the field. It’s loud, it’s violent, and is in no way civil. You have friends in Oklahoma? Not on the second Saturday in October. You don’t mind the color red? On that day, it nearly makes you vomit on your boots. I was introduced to the game at birth but started attending in 1988 when my dad took me to my first Tx/OuSux game. It was on that day that I came to realize what all Longhorns know: A&M is a rivalry. OU is WAR. “Put the women and children to bed and go lookin’ for dinner.”

Oh yeah, LSU and Florida also play this week. Top 25!


1. Oklahoma 5-0- It’s 9:45 pm PST and OU STILL SUCKS! Had to. Look, this is the first season in almost a decade where both fan bases have every right to be excited, nervous, and damn near delusional so please forgive all alumni this week if they seem a little distant or testy at work. Our minds are in a different place, ok?

2. Missouri 5-0- When your quarterback is a 5’9” and bearded version of the Stay Puff Marshmallow man with a rocket arm, your need for defense is minimal. Here’s the problem for the rest of the conference- they found a D.

3. Penn State 6-0- Spread HD is rolling through the Big Ten like an SEC team in a National Championship game (Hello Buckeye fans!). The Lions get a down Wisconsin team this week who is prepared to lose their second straight game at home for the first time since Reagan was in office.

4. Texas 5-0- The comparisons to Brett Favre for Colt McCoy are both warranted and a little scary. Let’s not throw inadvertent interceptions in big games or attempt to force a 99 mph fastball between three defenders off your back foot, please. First sign of a Wrangler commercial or five ‘o clock shadow as a new “look” for Colt and we will have problems. I’m not sure if it’s Brett but the kid is channeling something.

5. LSU 4-0- Ricky, you don’t inform the opposing quarterback that your initiative is to take him out of the game the week before the game. Don’t go all Pacman on us. That’s like telling the hot girl at the bar that your plan is to have sex with her that night before buying her that first Appletini. You just do it, apologize for your less than classy actions the following morning and be on your way. You shall receive one of the first copies of my upcoming book: “Where are my pants? The Jake Edwards Story” It shall be you mantra.

6. Alabama 6-0- You have to think that just like every other SEC team, it will be impossible to make it through the season without at least one loss especially when you have an overrated quarterback whose name immediately makes you think of the theme song from “Deliverance.”

7. Texas Tech 5-0- Poor Nebraska. One week, it’s Missouri and the next week it’s this: A liquored-up head coach with a pirate fixation who allows his offense to practically draw plays in the sand so that they can just pile on the points. Scoring in the 50’s? Try closer to 70.

8. BYU 5-0- Max Hall is actually a legitimate Heisman contender and this team WILL end up in a BCS game. No, no joke this time. I am serious.

9. Georgia 4-1- The Dawgs had the week off to spend dwelling on a loss that, at the end of the year, probably won’t even matter. Regardless, it doesn’t take an historian to recognize that Mark Richt’s teams don’t react well to losses and there is also revenge involved. Take the Dawgs. Take ‘em BIG.

10. USC 3-1- Peter Carroll has a new goal for the year: Beat the living crap out of every team left on the schedule. Oregon State pissed off the Hulk and the rest of the conference gets to feel his wrath.

11. Florida 4-1- The Gators will get speed on speed. Great coaching on great coaching. Drunk idiot fans on drunk idiot…you get the picture. It’s a great rivalry in the best conference and in one of the greatest stadiums in the country. At night, it doesn’t get better than the SEC.

12. Utah 6-0- I am going to catch hell for this but the Utes should be 5-1 after last Thursday night’s robbing of Oregon State. For those who didn’t see, Utah got a second shot at a two point conversion close to the end of the game due to a BS pass interference call. When a ball is thrown behind a receiver by five yards and he turns around only to run into the DB who is chasing him, that is called a horrible pass not interference. Thanks to some home cookin’ in Salt Lake, Utah is still on the map in the Top 25.

13. Ohio State 5-1- I thought the crazy addiction to the Bucks ended after SC. Then this Pryor kid comes along. Seriously though, when he learns to throw under pressure and make smart decisions when he is really forced to, call me.

14. Virginia Tech 5-1- Am I the only seeing that Va Tech is playing AND beating quality opponents. How the hell are the Hokies ranked so close to the end of the poll? Do you really want to anger Frank Beamer’s second head that rests under his chin? No, really, not to be rude but what is that thing?

15. Vanderbilt 5-0- Their parents are rich, they have lead privileged lives, and somewhere along the way they figured out how to play the game. Vandy is the Gossip Girl of the Top 25 sans a-holes in blazers who are sleeping with Cougars and malicious females who don’t even understand the dialogue they’re given to read.

16. Boise State 4-0- What would the Top 25 be without the Broncos?

17. Oklahoma State 5-0- This was going great until this week. Headed into Missouri, they’re like the prized cow who is continuously given all the extra hay until one afternoon when she is lead, ever so slowly, to that place at the end of the farm where no cow ever seems to come back from. I HAVE to stop watching 3 am reruns of “Little House on the Prairie.”

18. South Florida 5-1- Without adversity, there would be no celebration in victory. There is no question in my mind that this team still wins the Big East and Jim Leavitt gets shot, once again, to the top of the list of wanted coaches. You think he might take the shot this time or continue to grind it out in Tampa?

19. Kansas 4-1- That was Iowa State we were watching you play on Saturday, correct? That was not Nebraska, Oklahoma State, or any other decent Big XII opponent. No need to worry. Fat Man will chalk it up to getting hosed due to BCS implications and will claim that Coach Chizik swapped his wind jacket with a size XXXL instead of XXXXL thus restricting blood flow to his brain and causing idiotic play calling.

20. North Carolina 4-1- I love watching Notre Dame get crushed especially by a team that, by Notre Dame’s standards, has no business being on the same field. Davis has the folks in Chapel Hill actually discussing football in October rather than UNC/Duke. What a concept.

21. Wake Forest 3-1- Neither Kirk “I have the best job on the planet” Herbstreit or I can figure out what clicked the light bulb on for Jim Grobe at Wake. This is a program that had a tradition of barely beating the SMUs and Dukes of the world before two years ago. Whatever it is, it is working and we are actually seriously discussing the Deacons as a potential conference champion on a yearly basis.

22. Auburn 4-2- Ah, the SEC. You hire a top notch Offensive Coordinator who simply can’t get things going in the first six games and you throw him out on his head. Do you think the administration in Auburn stopped to consider that maybe Tony Franklin’s players at Troy State simply grasped the spread offense quicker and executed better? No, noooo, couldn’t be possible. Noooo.

23. Pittsburgh 4-1- I’ll give him this: Nobody cares more about Pitt football than Dave Wannstedt. Nobody. Seriously though, Dave, enough with the “Pitt of old” references. You can’t bring back Mark May to play the line and there is no chance in hell that those players are going to put on those ridiculous yellow helmets and royal blue jerseys.

24. Michigan State 5-1- I’m just tired of these guys not getting the respect they deserve. Sparty is playing like Gerard Butler and his merry men from “300” and living up to the nickname. Granted, they’re actually wearing clothes, are not in slow motion, and don’t have a mind-melting voiceover to accompany their triumph. Thank God.

25. Ball State 6-0- Oh look, a MAC team.

As requested, here are the Top 5 GP Heisman picks so far:

Chase Daniel- Missouri
Sam Bradford- Oklahoma
Colt McCoy- Texas
Max Hall- BYU
Graham Harrell- Texas Tech

Clemson at Wake Forest
Oklahoma State at Missouri
LSU at Florida
Tennessee at Georgia
Penn State at Wisconsin
Michigan State at Northwestern
TX/OU



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