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Saturday’s Card: When’s the last time your favorite team bought you a steak dinner?

November 7, 2009 in ATS, BCS, BIG 10, LSU, Main Content, SEC | No comments

Housekeeping…before we get to the picks, let’s clear the air on a few things that have upset members of the Flock.  Enough about Spikes!  It was a chippy game, he’s a good guy, and really, the only reason to be upset is because Pope Urban caved to pressure from national toolbags like Lupica, and Mike Golic and suspended him. 

Golic, bye the bye, has confessed that in the days of yore’ he tried to choke a man in the pile a la John Wesley Harden of “Time Life Book Fame” (that’s right, the look and feel of hand-tooled leather!). If that’s not enough, Golic is corpulent and decidedly unfunny, and as clever as it may have been at the time for E-SPIN to pair the hefty, quasi-burly Golic with his effeminate, eunuch of a counterpart, the cache has long since passed and these two should fade quietly into the night only to be seen on reality TV. 

Steve Czaban has also been openly critical Meyer, but he’s so damn funny, we here at SNL have turned the other cheek.  Seriously folks, make the switch from “Tubby Mike and Skinny Mike,” and hit up the Czabe, it’s like going from box wine to Dom. 

Finally…..remember and weep ye’ of the soft-heart…

Moving on….

Vanderbilt (+35) at Florida: Pops won’t like this pick, so it calls for an explanation.  Some years ago, when Spurrier’s Gators were kicking the bejeezus out of everyone, Florida opened with a directional school and the spread was Florida -56!!!  At the time, SNL had a policy of not picking for or against the Gators, even against the spread.

The following Tuesday, SNL presented at the rear of Sal’s “Fine Italian Eatery” to fork over some hard earned dough to Vinnie “Hands” Moresci, who sat smugly at his table as he always did (and does)-as he should because he’s always flanked by at least two Italians who are north of 250 lbs. and look they would poke your eyes out with an icepick if Vincenzo gave them the nod. 

I counted out my losses (SNL wasn’t as sharp back then) and Vincenzo said, “Why’nt take Northern Illinois (or whoerver it was) kid?”

“I don’t bet against Florida,” I mumbled in reply.

“Let me ask you somethin’ kid,”  Vinnie said in a way that let me know he wasn’t really “asking” me anything, ““When’s the last time the Florida Gators bought you a steak dinner?”

The Florida Gators still haven’t spung for the steak,  and the lesson has stuck with me.  And that, Flock, is what we call “the moral of the story.”

Today, I get my steak, Vandy covers, 42-13.

Oklahoma (-5) at Nebraska:  SNL had an epiphany of sorts last week while watching Nebraska squeak past Baylor:  Nebraska’s offense sucks.  An equal but opposite (at least for today) truth occurred some weeks ago when watching Oklahoma:  Oklahoma’s defense is gooood.  That Flock, is what we call “science.”  and SNL is in love with this pick.  Lay the 5 with confidence and while you’re watching your investment mature, think about how horrible that Big 12 Championship Game is going to be. 

Northwestern (+15.5) at Iowa:  Ahhhh, the chic conundrum that is Iowa.  What do we do with them?  Where do they rank?  How good are they?  These enigmatic Hawkeyes have vexed the hard-of-thinking national heads, like Mandel, and Feinbaum, but not us.  Quick digression, SNL once met a whole busload of Iowa sorority girls at St. Augustine beach, and nary a one was hot.  Saddest day of my then eighteen year existence. 

Here’s your answer Flock.  Iowa is ok, but SNL believes we should ride the doggies until Iowa gets some hot chicks or shows some signs of consistent quarterback play, we’ll keep taking the points.

Houston (-1) at Tulsa:  Like Terrelle Owens and Lindsey Lohan, Tulsa is living on reputation of years past.  Houston, conversely, hasn’t been seen much since Phi Slamma Jamma and cell phones the size of shoe boxes were sweeping the nation.  Keenum for Heisman!!  Kidding aside, this is another pick we feel pretty strongly about.

As always, these picks are for entertainment purposes only and comments are welcome.  We’ll check back later to see how the Flock is making out. 

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

Tags: ATS, BCS, Degenerate Gambler, Ealey, Florida, Hawkeyes, Heisman, Keenum, Meyer, SEC, Spikes, Urban Meyer, Vandy, Vincenzo

Gators v. Vols Recap or, Welcome to Flori-bama!

September 21, 2009 in BCS, Degenerate Gamblers, E-SPIN, Gators, Main Content, PAC 1 + 9 | No comments

tebow-volsIt was about this time last year when the Gator Nation was eating its own, attacking Meyer’s offensive acumen and lamenting the Gators desultory (here’s link for the thick of skull flock-members) offense and its inability to score points-alot of them.  This despite easy wins over Da’ U, Hawaii and those wascally Vols.  In the weeks that followed, Florida lost to Ole Miss, St. Tim of Tebow uttered the infamous  ”promise,” and Florida beheaded its remaining opponents like a medieval Monarch.   

Fueled by pre-season hype akin to “Beetle-Mania,” or so I’m told, a laughable pre-season slate, and Kiffin’s yapper, Saturday’s game against the suddenly-cool-to-hate-again Vols was going to be Florida’s Magnus Opus, a beating of biblical proportions meted out by the Orange and Blue Jesus, Tebow.  This game, circled on Gator calendars since Kiffin’s hire, was a statement game, pure and simple.  The statement, however, was not what the blood-lusting Gators wanted, but it’s probably the one they needed. 

First, let’s set out some basic facts.  It was obvious from the second quarter forward that UT could not beat Florida and it was equally obvious after 3 quarters that the Vols weren’t trying to beat Florida.  Florida punted only once and was a Tebow fumble away from posting 30 on UT.  Still, there’s no denying that on some level Kiffin got what he wanted, a “respectable” loss, and the Vol spin doctors are giddy with their “progress” under the Kiffin regime through 3 games.  Lost amidst UT’s euphoria are a couple of facts:  The Vols are 1-2 with a home loss to a PAC-10 team, and Florida is the top-ranked team and most consistent program in the country.  Framed as such Kiffin’s zeal in losing a not-as-close-as-it-seemed game to Florida (UT’s 4th consecutive loss to Florida) is more of an indictment of where his program is than the final score, however lopsided, could ever be.   In other words, the Vols are Ernie Els to Florida’s Tiger Woods.  Kapish?

For the Gators, it may be time to accept this year’s team for what it is, which is an excellent defense and an offense built around a power running game and make no mistake, Florida is a power running team no matter how many guys you see lining up at receivor.    If you look across the aisle Gator fan, you’ll see that your likely date in the A-T-L this year is fiendishly employing this same recipe albeit in slightly different fashion.  Darth Saban, whose Tide looks every bit the equal of Florida through 3 games, like Meyer, knows how to win.  Run.  Force turnovers.  Crush your opponents resolve with bone jarring hits on both sides of the ball.  For some, the transition may be difficult, the hi-fi pyro-technic display seared into our collective psyche by Harvin and Murphy put on last year was great.  Now, the Gator Nation is in effect breaking up with that really hot girl with a store-bought pair and questionable morals for the smart and pretty girl that you can present to the parentals without hesitation.  Sure, there will be the occasional E-SPIN highlight to satisfy the talking heads,  akin to a drunken make-out with your loose ex while your current is out of town, but you must stay the course!    In the end, the pretty and smart girl with a college degree and foresight is more than ample to get you where you want to be.  And, this years lo-fi edition can still do something that no other Gator team has ever done, win ALL of it’s games.  Do this and no one will remember that you didn’t beat Tennessee by 40 points.  A point which Meyer is well aware of. 

Moving on…SNL is 6-4 ATs through 3 weeks.  Left some easy winners on the table this week, but flock members who were around last year know that weeks 5 through 11 are where the coin is made.  FSUwas impressive and helped UF’s SOS with a dominant win over the Mormon hordes.  Maybe some of the ‘Noles will be “making it rain” in a strip club near you after all.  The Men of Troy, helmed by the Poodle, have blissfully let us all off the hook early this year, losing as a 19-point favorite at Washington.   For those who missed it, Jake Locker was phenomenal in the 4th-quarter.   Unlike year’s past, however, this year’s Trojans suck, predictable on offense, no playmakers at wideout.  Stay tuned, more losses to come, maybe SNL will start following the Poodle’s “tweets.”  LSU is getting better each week, and bye the bye, how impressive does LSU’s win at Washington look now? 

Coming soon……

Thurday’s Picks

Vincenzo’s Revenge

WHY SNL is smarter than you (wayyyyyyyyyy smarter, in fact)

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

Tags: ATS, BCS, Degenerate Gamblers, Gators, LSU, Urban, Urban Meyer, Vandy

WEDNESDAY: CONTINUING TO RIDE THE COPASCETIC EXPRESS

November 5, 2008 in Gators, Main Content, Pope Meyer, SEC, UGA | No comments

Its Wednesday and all remain well in Gainesville.  In fact, things are so blissful in Gatorville that the arrest, incarceration, and expulsion of Gator DB, Rickerson, made not the slightest dent in the copascetic wave the Gators are surfing about now.

Obviously, Weddnesday’s slate of MAC games is interesting to no one outside of the involved parties, except my boy Chap, who would gamble on badminton if that was all there was on TV. 

So, in what has become a game week ritual, SNL scoured the web for Vandy blogs/websites last night, vainly hoping that this would ameliorate (look it up fools!) the post-UGA malaise. 

As you might expect from a school that managed to lose at home to Duke, the Vandy football program has inspired 1 sports blog (as far as SNL is able to discern anyway).  You can check it out http://www.vanderbiltsportsline.com/. (Wordpress link page giving me trouble).

The blog is hosted by a Vandy law student, and more empathetic SNL could not be.  Keeping with the quid pro quo, the admittedly small contingent of Commie fans that a) believe a Vandy win is possible, and/or b) care even the slightest about Vandy football, are apparently putting together a thinly veiled argument for victory predicated on a UF let down.  To bolster this wistful propostion, the blog  cites Vandy’s numerous close calls against UF over the years.

The problem with this is that Vandy is dead last in nearly every offensive category that matters.  Under normal circumstances, you know, when the opposition following a huge emotional victory is plausibly capable of completing a pass or 2, this week’s game would fall into the “trap” category.  This is chiefly because SNL believes that all but the most dominant defenses require some emotion to play at a high level.   In an emotionless game, therefore, defenses that like UF’s, are very good (and potentially dominant), but not overwhelming, often play down to the competition. 

As you’ve doubtless deduced, this general maxim is essentially rendered inapplicable here by virtue of Vandy’s horrible, anemic, putrid, uninventive, ineffective, muddling, rudimentary, inept, and altogether awful (get the point) offense.  Throw in for good measure that UF’s offense will score at least 31 points, and the only viable deduction is that Vandy is going to get beat, and very badly. 

True, its a night game-but let’s face it, this game could be played at midnight on homecoming weekend and it wouldn’t make a difference.  UF will have no problem playing through the midly disturbing noise of 40,000 intellectuals with sweaters tied around their necks. 

For those who wish to liken this game to the Ole Miss game, or Vandy fans who believe that UF is beatable by virtue of the Ole Miss loss, fuhget about it…  The Ole Miss loss is the reason Vandy has no chance, not the other way around.  Remember Tim’s promise Gator fans?  If it were made by anyone other than the god-fearing, heroic, quixotic, dashing, and rugged (all at once!) face of the Gators, we would laugh it off.  But when Tebow talks, people listen. So listen up Commies!!!!!

Florida, 37-10.  Easy, peazy, Japanesy. 

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

Tags: Pope Meyer, SEC, Vandy

VANDY’S FUTURE v. UT’S PRESENT…

October 7, 2008 in Gators, Main Content, SEC, SEC Fans, Vols | No comments

2 weeks ago UT lost to Auburn.  Last week Vandy beat Auburn-fans who abhor change are likely to find this as unsettling as the current state of the global financial system.  And, for those who employ some sort of empirical system to rate the relative strengths and weaknesses of CFB teams, which is a dubious passion at best, Vandy’s success continues to be an enigma that rivals black holes, Stonehenge, and the popularity of American Idol as some of life’s greatest mysteries. 

In support of this assertion, SNL somewhat rigidly looks to the latests stats, which confirm that Vandy ranks at or near the bottom of every major statistical category on both offense ands defense except one:  Turnover margin.

SNL supposes the obvious nugget to be extrapolated is the hardly Socratean adage “turnovers lose (or win) games,” which we can expect to hear literally hundreds of times per week from the E-SPIN heads, writers and coaches on any given week with predictable mind-numbing effect.

Still, SNL cannot help but believe that Vandy’s best weapon, even today, is that it is difficult for teams to get excited when they play Vandy.  Vandy is now ranked in the top-20 and undefeated.  Nonetheless, SNL is looking forward to the game with the OBC’s Cocks than the Vandy matchup and presumes that this sentiment is shared by many, if not most, Gator fans.

This phenomenon, which is admittedly asinine by any objective measure given Vandy’s current success, has been embedded in the dark recesses of the SEC’s collective brain (yes, SNL realizes this term is subject to attack by way of “oxymoron”) since Vandy began showing up for beatdowns at SEC stadiums in @ 1991 (it was 1991, right?). 

Today, the attention-starved Commodores are gloating like a 7-year old with a new bike.  This, of course, is the natural progression for any contingent that has suffered years of hegemonic dominance at the hands of an infinitely more powerful and notorious rival that unexpectedly finds itself occupying the alpha-male vacuum left in the wake of its rival’s self-inflicted implosion.  To wit, the Vandy message board(s) (SNL has yet to locate more than 1) are rife with bowl projections, delusional recruiting aspirations, and wistful predictions of an SEC East title.

While SNL does not begrudge the Commodores understandable need to revel in the statistically improbable combination of their success and UT’s woes, the evidence seems to suggest that Vanderbilt’s fall from the ranks of the ranked will happen sooner than later.  In fact, Vandy will likely lose at least 4 of its remaining games-please note, this rosy prediction assumes that Vandy wins against Croom’s cerebrally challenged Bulldog’s this weekend, and later against Foolmer’s Vols.  Given Vandy’s penchant for cellar-dwelling, an 8-4 season constitutes an unparalleled success which should result in a New Year’s eve bowl game.  The true test, however, for Vandy and its fans will be in 2009 when the Commodores battle the foe that the heavyweight SEC programs have battled for decades: expectations. 

Now, about those Vols…

The Vols freefall has reached terminal velocity and shows no signs of slowing before the close of the casket that is the 2008 season.  Last week, the Vols manged to play Northern Illinois to a 3-3 tie at halftime, before surging to a 13-9 victory at Neyland Stadium.  In the process, the Vols managed 9 first downs (to N. Illinois’ 13) and around 230 yards of offense.  Rumor has it that the Vols players’ ability to catch, block, run, throw, and tackle was inhibited by the sun’s glare reflecting off the 35,000 or so empty seats in Neyland.

Absent a resurrection of biblical proportions, the Vols will not go bowling this year and the rumors of a booster-led coup to replace the floundering Fulmer regime at season’s end seem to be all that stands between Fulmer and a whiskey soaked mob of coon-skin wearing rocky toppers exacting their own brand of revenge.

For SNL, chronicling UT’s demise has been a sad affair.  Gone is the anticipation of the 3rd game of the season against a formidable foe, and in its place is another “expected win” which yields no upside from a national perspective, but carries with it the danger of a potentially season-derailing upset.   Things will change soon in Knoxville, they always do in this league.

-So Sayeth the Shepherd

Tags: Fulmer, SEC, Vandy, Vols