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Home > Jeff Schultz > Archives > 2008 > August > 28
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Time for predictions: UGA crushes GSU
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Beijing — Sorry. Force of habit. Let’s try this again.
All-Knowing Central — According to my Chairman Mao watch, which cost only $7 and is still keeping time just as well as my $7 Rolex, which I was told by a nice man who seemed in a big hurry that it was a totally real before he also offered me a genuine Chinese gymnastics birth certificate — it’s that time again.
Ni hao. I am back. I’m just not, like, am.
You spend three weeks in a country with an upside clock and it does things to you. Woke up at 2 a.m. again the other day and made everybody breakfast. Completely threw off the dog’s begging schedule.
This is the 15th anniversary of Weekend Predictions. We began this venture in 1993, or not long after Johnny Majors was released from the hospital for bypass surgery and soon realized that one of his doctors must have forgotten his scalpel because something was protruding from between the coach’s shoulder blades and, well, Phil Fulmer said it wasn’t his. (An early-season kiss for the PumpkinNation.)
By now, you should be familiar with how it works. Every week, we give you the winners. It’s just your job to find them.
The weekly tip sheet is sometimes sprinkled with “losses.” But these “losses” merely are devices to throw off competing investment firms. You should be able to easily navigate through these “losses” with the decoder booklet that you received in the mail several weeks ago. If you lost the booklet, I’m sorry. My dog ate my last one with the last breakfast wrap.
Georgia opens Saturday against Georgia Southern. There is no official line on the game. That’s either because Georgia Southern is a I-AA team or possibly because oddsmakers have been scared off by so many Bulldogs fans acting like the deranged blackjack player who keeps saying, “Hit me. Hit me! HIT ME!” even after the dealer says, “Sir. You’ve got 97 showing.”
We have been led to believe that by the time this season is over, Georgia will be the first team to go 14-0 and win the national championship while having a quarterback and running back share the Heisman Trophy and a coach win the Nobel. And then, we conquer Spain.
I’m setting the line at 23. That’s the average margin of victory in Georgia’s three previous victories over Southern. For the record, this will be the last bit of research from me for at least seven weeks.
That’s it. Mao’s running slow, I’m running long. Dogs cover 23.
Early-season Six-Pack (I drank one)
• Clemson vs. Alabama: Just wondering what feels worse in Tuscaloosa: Nick Saban taking you to Shreveport in his first season, or going into the second knowing Tommy Bowden is so much closer to winning a conference title than you are? Tigers cover 41/2.
• Western Illinois at Arkansas: In honor of Bobby Petrino’s first game, the first through 5,000 fans will receive traded souls, although there’s a chance they may expire in the third quarter. Western Illinois has a really cool nickname: The Leathernecks. Unfortunately, I don’t see George Clooney anywhere, just Beelzebub. No official line. Let’s say Porkbellies cover 17.
• Tennessee at UCLA: Fulmer hasn’t coached a team to a BCS bowl since 1999, but here’s the good news: The Vols get to play in the Rose Bowl Monday. It’ll almost be like they’re a factor, except not. Rick Neuheisel and Norm Chow will make things interesting in L.A. Feeling frisky. Vols win but give me the Bruins and 7 1/2.
• Hawaii at Florida: Former Hawaii coach June Jones, ironically a master of the statistically inflated system quarterback, last year referred to Tim Tebow as a system quarterback. Jones is now at SMU — just in case his players want to know where to send the medical bills. Gators cover 35.
• La-Monroe at Ala-Auburn: Just about the time everybody had run out of Saban jokes, Louisiana-Monroe beat Alabama last year. You’d think Auburn would just let them walk in for a touchdown to open the game as a thank you. Won’t matter in the end, anyway. Tigers cover 26.
Etc.
Next week: Matt Ryan screams for help and NFL picks.
Lock of the week: Schlage
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