College football Week 5 schedule: Grove is in the Heart

Didn't make the connection. Good catch.

 

Dave Neal: “We’ll keep an eye on the kicking game.”

Production truck: Cuts to opening kickoff already squibbing down the field.

And then Spencer Rattler throws a pick on his opening snap. This is basically going to be a weeknight Jefferson-Pilot hurricane party and I am here for it.

 

Fullcast After Dark last year talked about the headband-to-interception ratio for quarterbacks and I think of that every time I see Rattler.

 

In a year or two -- once a class enrolling in the one-free-transfer era has had four or five years -- it'll be interesting to see how many QBs remained in the same place for four or five years.

 

And here's the benefit of small time college football. Driving from my home to Protective Stadium *might* take me five minutes longer on game day. Our tailgate is on top of a parking deck a block and a half from the stadium. We buy passes that reserve a parking spot in that deck for twenty bucks a game, park, and take the elevator up to the top, walk eighty feet or so, and we're there.

Our seasons are on the 50 at the top of the lower bowl and the pair costs me less than $500. It's a brand new stadium, well designed, state of the art for a non-NFL facility.

No, it's not like going to a 'Bama game with all that entails, but going to watch my team play is virtually painless unless we take a bad loss, and it won't take me an hour plus just to get back to the interstate heading home.

 

Question: Does it take a lot of time to get out of a parking structure after a game? I'd think that with everybody leaving at the same time, a parking structure would be a nightmare, unlike a mall where people come and go. Honda Center and Anaheim just completed a deal to renovate the entire area with all the usual stuff. The mock-up showed Honda Center in the middle of an entertainment area that took away all of the parking lots. They are going to build a parking structure next to the arena.

 

Games I like this week:
• Arizona -17.5 vs. Colorado - I have a feeling Arizona is going to be my crazy abusive gambling girlfriend this season. This is the third time in five weeks I'm betting on them, even after they burned me the last two times. But it's a late-night booty call and they're bringing their trashy friend Colorado along for some fun, so what can go wrong ... I asked before waking up on Sunday morning in a puddle of my own vomit and shame.

• Washington -2.5 at UCLA - I'm not sure either of these teams are good. I think Washington is probably a little bit better, so with a small spread give me them.

• Kentucky +7/ML at Ole Miss - No way Kentucky should be a touchdown underdog against Ole Miss. And I'd probably say the same if Ole Miss was a 7-point underdog against Kentucky.

• Indiana +5/ML at Nebraska - Nebraska has issues that getting rid of Scott Frost won't cure. Indiana isn't great, but it can certainly win here.

• New Mexico +14 at UNLV - New Mexico gave LSU a tougher game last week than the 38-0 score indicated. UNLV seems much improved as well. Neither of these teams is terrible, which makes that +14 a juicy number.

And some games that I don't necessarily like, but put a few bucks down on as value plays:
• Virginia U52 at Duke; Virginia Tech U55.5 at North Carolina; UTEP U54.5 at Charlotte - I'm literally betting on the weather here. All three of these totals could be tempting without the possibility of a hurricane blowing through around game time. I think the forecast has it clearing up in North Carolina by tomorrow afternoon, but I'm hoping for a lot of lingering wind and rain, and not a lot of points all along Tobacco Road.

• Texas A&M +4/ML at Mississippi State - Texas A&M isn't as good as people think, and Mississippi State isn't as bad as people think. Still, similar to the Kentucky-Ole Miss and Indiana-Nebraska games, when you can get some nice money line odds in a game like this it's worth taking them. I took A&M, Kentucky and Indiana in a three-team ML parlay, $5 to win $103. As a calculated risk, that's not bad.

• Tulane +3.5/ML at Houston - Yet another coin flip game with a team that's a bit underrated (Tulane) and one that's a bit overrated (Houston). Two of Houston's games went to overtime and another came down to the wire, so the 3.5 number is nice to have in case we get into one of those stupid overtime two-point contests or somebody kicks a field goal at the end.

 

Holgerson -- dirtbag coach for a dirtbag program.

 

First thing: You can't dust for vomit. So nobody will know you made the bet.
Second thing: Please put more than a few bucks down on the Virginia-Duke over/under. Virginia can't score under any circumstances. And if the rain comes as expected, conditions will be even less favorable to offense.

 

Every college town has that one towing company.

 

Britt McHenry to the white courtesy phone ...