I say ridiculous, not because its implausible, that a high school student could transform himself into a wolf.  Or that Scott Howard’s condition was hereditary.  Or that wolves apparently like to do hand stands on top of moving vans.   In fact one night inspired by probably this in itself,  the night before Thanksgiving.  Which in Philadelphia was code for get as drunk as humanly possible.  We were leaving a bar, and my friend, who I’ll call “Blind Tommy”, told me that I had to drive his car.  He was simply  too drunk to drive.  I appreciate him being responsible and not putting us in jeopardy.  But maybe being named “Blind Tommy” was reason enough not to be driving in the first place or it could have been the eleven Rolling Rocks, I don’t know.   Not exactly sober myself and now driving,  I was shocked when a set of hands appeared on top of the car’s windshield.  No biggie, it was “Blind Tommy”.  He had just climbed out of the window of the moving car and onto the roof.  So here I was, probably not able to pass a field sobriety test, with a blind guy on the roof of a moving car, on the largest drinking night of the year.  How I was not someone’s new shower buddy, is still a mystery.   Good times.

Teen Wolf seems to laugh in the face of anyone who has ever watched, played or spelled the word “Basketball”.  O.K. I get the willing suspension of disbelief, which is why I am going to write this with the understanding that apparently wolves are really good basketball players, not to mention incredible dancers.  That being said, it’s shocking that more teams haven’t experimented with wolves as players.   South American point guards, Eastern European sharpshooters, centers from the republic of Congo.  Why not a wolf?  Hey New Jersey Nets forget sending scouts to Europe, how about getting your asses out into the Alaskan Wilderness and get yourself a guy who can play the 4 spot.   If only.

Teen Wolf came out in 1985, and is set in a Beacontown Nebraska.  I looked it up.  It doesn’t exist.  Fiction.  Which explains why the two rival high schools are the Beavers and the Dragons.  But it doesn’t explain why they are both wearing tight-fitting, oddly stripped uniforms.   This supposed to be Nebraska, not Leningrad.  Leningrad, by the way, one of the worst Billy Joel songs ever written, and that’s saying a lot, because once Christie Brinkley arrived, that dude threw up some turds.  This film has stuck with me for twenty-five years, simply because from a basketball stand point, I don’t know how the wolfless Beavers managed to beat a far superior Dragon team.  So I’ll break it down.

The Beavers have reached the championship game on the efforts of Scott Howard’s inner demon, the Wolf.  But not for this game.  We get 5’6″, 110 pound, neck scratching, Scott Howard.  There have been some diminutive point guards to date, who were outstanding  Too many to mention actually.  Scott Howard is no Mugsy Bogues.  We get the metaphor.  He just needs to be himself.    I’m sure looking back now, there is some regret.   He’s saying, how many opportunities did I have to dunk on people and pull premium tail?   Hindsight is 20/20 Scott, but from this forty-year olds perspective:  you blew it.  Outside of Michael Phelps and Lebron James, there’s not a guy in the world who wouldn’t have traded places with you.

The Dragon’s are sticking it to the wolfless Beavers.  I don’t know why that sentence is funny.  It just is.  Say it out loud.  The Dragon’s are sticking it to the wolfless Beavers.  Mick has just leveled Brad.  A running forearm to the chest, obviously a flagrant foul.  I mean he tattoos him.  Should be two shots and the ball, right?  Instead no call.  It’s a championship game, I guess they’re letting them play.  Coach Finstock calls a time out.  Enter Scott Howard already in uniform and oddly, carrying his gym bag.  There is 2:10 left in the first quarter.   Eight minute high school quarters.  The Dragons are up 22-3.  This thing is a clinic.   Scott gives a uninspired speech about how they can beat these guys, and let’s do it ourselves and we can do this.  I mean cue the eye roll.  So right out of a time out naturally there would be a jump ball.  What?  Scott Howard gets the tip and passes it to his boy, Chubby.  Oddly the largest guy on the court is standing at the top of the key.  Chris Webber somewhere is smiling, but Chubby clearly should be down on the block, banging with the big boys.  Chubby holds the ball for almost twelve full seconds.  You get five seconds to make an offensive move, but again, they’re letting em play.  So Chubby with little regard for any concept of team basketball, fires a one-handed push shot from the right elbow which oddly goes in from a left side trajectory.  Maybe it was the editing or maybe it was his Shawn Marionesque release point.  Needless to say the Beavers are on the march.   I’ve can’t help but notice #45 on the Beavers.  This guy can play.  Maybe he got lost in all the wolf hoopla.  But he just hit a fall away jumper, blocked a shot, and threw a one-handed baseball pass the length of the court for a lay up.

Like any good team down this many, after a made basket you would naturally press.  The Beavers do just that.  Scott Howard picks up Mick at half court.  Classic battle, mano e mano.  Howard picks an errant pass and outlets to a teammate, he follows the play up court and gets cleaned by Mick.  An obvious clothesline, and again a flagrant.  This guy is an absolute barbarian on the court.  He makes Rick Mahorn look like Dorothy Hamil.   Howard goes to the line.  Despite the fact that the play was away from the ball, and he wasn’t shooting and it wasn’t a flagrant, yet he goes to the line.  Odd.  Let’s face it.  Scott Howard’s free throw motion needs a lot of work.  But if they go in, I guess you don’t want to mess with it, see Rick Barry.   I mean he really does shoot like a Canadian who grew up playing Hockey.   The Beavers sink back into a zone.  Howard is playing the middle in a 2-1-2.  Finstock obviously is channeling the ’80 Lakers, who used a smiling rookie named Earvin Johnson at center to defeat the Philadlphia 76ers.  Allowing Magic to play all five positions in this series had nothing to do with him later contracting a near fatal disease, that somehow became not fatal, and allowed him to become a pioneer of coffee and potato skins for African Americans.   It works, Howard gets a steal and again gets it to Chubby, who unconscionably nails a hook shoot from the elbow.  To which Howard jumps on him and hugs him.  Hey how about getting back on D, buddy?  Celebrate when it’s in the books.  #45 is playing out of his head.  I count three blocks and at least 12 points in the second half.  But the focus seems to be on the all right-handed Scott Howard.  Does the Dragons coach not see that he can’t go to his left?  Pop out on him, force him left.  He’s killing you with his right, and it’s all drives to the basket.  Make him beat you with a jumper.  C’mon coach, this is 101 shit.  There’s a black guy in the game? Dragon’s coach, where has this dude been?  He’s wearing the Sabo goggles.  He’s obviously a defensive stopper.  Why isn’t he on Howard?  Why was this guy rotting on the Dragon’s bench?  Ah, the politics of mid-west white America.

Amaxingly the Beavers have closed it to within one.  The score is 52-51, nine seconds left and Howard has the ball at half court.  Time for a little chit-chat with Mick.  Hey, Bird and Jordan didn’t shut up when they played each other, and with three to go, he dishes to Chubby for a give and go.  Mick hammers him with no time left on the clock.  Mick, what are you doing?  Don’t foul!   The whole gym knew he was going right.  This is on you buddy.  That’s now like nine fouls on Mick and he’s done.  He and Howard exchange some pleasantries at the line and then, apparently in Nebraska high school basketball, after you foul out, you can creepily saunter away and stand under the basket while the opponent shoots two very important free throws.  Again, you’re allowed to stand under the basket while your opponent shoots two very important free throws.  Talking about renting real estate in a players head.  Another opportunity for a technical, blatantly ignored.

You know the rest.  Two awkward, jump foul shots that shockingly go in, and the wolfless Beavers win it all.  I mean Howard’s foul shots use more rim than a gay porn star.  Let’s be honest.  There are a lot of people to blame for this, and I’m sure there was a lot of finger-pointing after this loss.   The Dragons let the Beavers back in it.  They were outscored by an astounding 48-30 margin.  The Dragon’s coach did nothing to stop the bleeding.  Coach you’ve got a bunch of time-outs, use ‘em.   Maybe he had a game plan for the Wolf?  Maybe being up a bunch in the first he took his foot off the gas.  Mick let his emotions get the best of him.  I get that his girl tried to bang the Wolf in front of the whole school, that he didn’t go to, but was at the dance anyway, but buddy…you’ve got check that shit at the door.

Kudos to Coach Finstock.  Sometime you’ve got to let your guys play their game.  In this case, an awkward mix of unathletic junk that seems to go in.  He mixed up his D, and he seemed to play to his teams strengths, despite the grossly underutilized #45.  Seriously this guy can play.  I’m sure he went on to play a little juco ball somewhere.  But more importantly he didn’t let the officiating get the best of him.  He kept his cool and that in turn kept his players calm.  What did we learn from this game?  One.  It’s never O.K. to jump hug a teammate in the middle of the game, and it’s certainly never O.K. to jump up and front straddle your dad, in celebration.  I don’t care if you’re both part wolf.  It’s creepy and it certainly has no place in a high school gymnasium.  But as Coach Finstock says:  “Always get at least twelve hours of sleep.  Never play cards with a guy who’s first name is a city, and never go near a lady with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.  You stick with that and everything else is cream cheese”.

Take the points.

I just took a pretty good look at the College Bowl lineup.  That Central Michigan/Troy game looks tasty huh?  There are some ridiculous teams playing bowl games this year.  C’mon, does Iowa State really deserve a bowl bid, Bowling Green?  Middle Tennessee St?   I actually prefer to see teams like Ohio, Idaho, and the Temple’s of the world.  Up and coming teams who have turned their programs around.  I would much rather see them over a Tennessee or Florida State.  Big programs that honk, and we get to see how bad they honk because they’re on T.V. every week,  but they get into the “Couldn’tgivetwoshits Bowl” because of how their conferences have aligned with specific bowls, and they won six games.  Thanks.  The good news is that I get 34 more opportunities to gamble on college football this year, and being a Temple Alum, I have never been more excited for The Eagle Bank Bowl.  My girlfriend’s birthday is that day, December 29th.  I asked her what she wanted to do that day, despite my suggestion, going to the Temple/UCLA game didn’t even crack her top 30.   Unfortunate.   Coach Newheisel:  guys I’ve got bad news and I’ve got really bad news.  First the bad news.  If Army wins, we don’t go to a bowl.  Which means we don’t have to fly across the country to play a bowl game in a three-quarter empty, snow-covered stadium against a team that over the last thirty years has been one of the worst in College Football.   Now the really bad news.  There is no way Army is going to win.  Ahhh…Good times.  I will watch these games and I will eat more chicken.

Every year I watch an unhealthy amount of College Football.  I bet on it.  I read about it.  I ignore essential life and relationship commitments to do so.  But come Bowl time, I’m prepared.  I pick my spots and load up.  I waited five weeks to bet Texas Tech last year.  Loser.  Oklahoma State, Oregon State same thing.  Oregon State, a 3 – 0 win over Pitt.  One of the ugliest games ever.  I had money on it.  I had to watch every diarrhea filled second of it.  Stuhl was 7/24 for 52 yards.  Pitt was getting 3 1/2.  They covered by a fucking hook.  Brutal.  Happy New Year.   Here’s the thing.  No matter how much I think I know about certain teams, I’m shocked but the number of Dogs that cover during bowl season.  Also, I can’t account for another team having a month to prepare.   No one can.  It’s a crazy amount of time.  We saw that last year with Oregon.  They were an absolutely different team by the time they played Oklahoma State.  I don’t have the luxury of watching every team practice for a month, so honestly I have no idea what’s what.  Basically I don’t know squat.

Now what I’m about to propose is arguably one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever had.  It sits at the top of the incredibly long list of moronic shit I’ve done in my life.  I once put a tapped quarter keg in the back of my parents station wagon, so my friends and I could have a moving party on I-95.  It took an unfathomable amount of time to get arrested.  It wasn’t until we hopped a public swim club at 3 in the morning did shit go awry. I never got caught.  I was later arrested by phone, but never actually physically apprehended.   My wallet was in a car they impounded.  Apparently that was enough.  O.J. gets acquitted of double homicide with a bloody glove, but they have my wallet.  “Hello, Yes this is the Police Department.  You’ve been arrested.”  “Can you do that?”  Long Pause.  “I think so…”  “I didn’t go to community college like you officer, but I think you need to go back and reread your cop handbook.”

This brings me to what I’m calling The Degenerate College Football Dog Experiment.  This bowl season,  excluding the 5 BCS games, I will not read, I will not research.  I will not be informed.  I will ignore Herbstreit and I will take every dog.  I will not, despite my better judgement, bet a favorite.  I will sit back and watch.   34 bowl games minus 5 BCS games.  That’s 29 games all dogs, and when I see a line moving in a Dog’s favor, I will double that action.   I know that there is going to be a day in late December, when I’m really gonna regret this.   But every year I have that day any way.  Nothing 12 Yuengling’s can’t fix. That means Christmas Eve I stand in my cousin’s kitchen, with said adult beverage and  money on SMU.  I laughed just typing it.

Today marks the official start to Bowl season.  Whooo-Hooo!  The New Mexico and The St. Petersburg Bowl.  There should be another name for that bowl.  Starts with T and ends with oilet.   What shit fest that is.  Tonight I’m on Wyoming and Central Florida.  I’ve seen Fresno play a bunch this year, and they have an unbelievable rushing attack, normally I would be all over Fresno, but I’m kicking off The Dog Experiment with the Cowboys of Wyoming and The Knight’s of Central Florida.  Tomorrow I get to take Middle Tennessee.  I just had to look up their nickname.  Blue Raiders, really?

Wyoming +10

Central Florida +2 1/2

More to come.

Temple University is neatly tucked away in the quaint little village that is North Philadelphia.  Shit Hole cannot even do this neighborhood justice.   For a time the Army was rumored to have been training their doctors how to deal with gunshot wounds at Temple Hospital.  If you can believe it, the hospital is in an even worse neighborhood than the main campus.  Temple had the third largest police force in the state.   Put that on a brochure.  I had my car stolen while I was there.  Well, my parents car, that I drove.  It was President’s day.  I remember it was a primo spot.  Right behind Annenberg.  Normally I was really late,  due to my belief that I could get anywhere in twelve minutes.  Usually I wound up parking in front of the Cecil B. Moore projects.  Not fun.  But not today.  Today I had Rock Star parking.   I was now only gonna be late, instead of really fucking late.  Of course when I came out, my car was gone.  The spot was so good, that I figured I had parked Illegally.  I called the parking authority and the voice mail informed that they were closed for the Holiday.  Fuck!  They got my Dad’s boss ride, his Grand Prix.  The good news was that the car was later found…on fire.   Ah, College.  I knew a girl who got the drive trans stolen from her Dodge Dart.  A fucking four-hour job.  You have to put the car up on blocks.  Crazy.  Throw that in your recruiting pitch.    Come to Temple, you’ll duck crack heads, get mugged, and you will see a gun.  Not good enough, the athletic facilities were a multi use turf field, that covers one city block.  Everything, but baseball happens on this glorified parking lot, everything.  The upside, you might win one or two football games.  What kid in their right mind would come here to play football?

When I was there I experienced a teacher’s strike, where I had to go to class during the Christmas Holidays, and a race riot.  One thing that I’ve learned is when Farrakhan shows up, it’s time for my pasty ass to get the fuck out of dodge.  To say that a Temple education prepares you for the real world is about as gross an under statement you can make.  It’s like saying chic-fil-a makes a chicken sandwich.    If you were looking for something more, join the Marines, or hike Everest in shorts and a tank top.  A couple years after I graduated, I was coming out of one of the finer Times Square titty bars for a friends bachelor party.  A very aggressive black woman came up to me and starting rubbing my junk, telling me how cute I was.  Now, I would like to believe that I’m the kind of guy that women just want to run up to on a crowded New York City street, and uncontrollably molest my sack.  Unfortunately, I am not.  I quickly figured out that she had her hand in my pocket and had my cash in her hand.  I grabbed her wrist and threw her against a phone booth.  I’m dating myself, but this bitch had my cash.   She opened her hands to show me she didn’t have it, seeing this, I let her go.  When she stepped away a wad of money fell from her hoo-hoo.  My money.   By now I was picking up my stash and everyone in my group was wondering why I was rolling a hooker in middle of Times Square.  You see kids, before the internet, the ladies of the evening would walk the streets.  You had to go out to find your  strange.  I wasn’t looking for it, it found me.  To this day people don’t believe that story.  They ask me “how did I know she had the money?”  Because I dealt with that shit everyday for four years wherever I went on Temple’s campus.  Walking to class, in front of the lunch trucks, coming out of the library.   If you had a backpack, you were a mark, and you quickly figured out it was fuck or fight.  No time to think about a 1 and 8 football team.

As a teenager I went to a lot of Temple football games.  “Mom, can I go to the movies?”  “We don’t have the money for that.”  “What about a Temple football game?”  “That we can swing.”  We used to go see future Heisman Trophy winners light Temple up.  Robbie Bosco, Vinny Testaverde,  and because there was nobody at The Vet, we could get up  close.  Temple also had Paul Palmer, who was the Heisman runner-up in 1986.  That season was later wiped out, because Palmer had signed with an agent before graduating.  Probably one of the most obscure Heisman runner ups ever.  In fact when I used to go visit friends at other schools, we would go to parties and I would pretend to be Paul Palmer.  It didn’t matter that I’m white and he’s black.   Nobody ever knew the difference.   Nobody cared.  While I was at Temple I never went to a game.    I couldn’t I was working, going to school.  Make no mistake, my time there was unbelievable.  Great teachers, great friends, overall and unbelieveable educational experience.  If it weren’t for the persistence of some of my teachers, I never would have had the balls to even  attempt something like grad school.  I wanted to be a football fan but that was ’89 to ’92 Jerry Berndt was the coach and his record was 11- 33.   Ron Dickerson followed who went a staggering 8 -47 in his five years as Temple’s head coach.  He’s now a defensive backs coach at Lambuth University, a Methodist, NAIA school in Tennessee.  I never fucking heard of it.  Then came Bobby Wallace.  He was an unconscionable 19 -71 and got us kicked out of the Big East.  Take your shitty program and get out.  He did beat Virginia Tech, in what is still called one of the greatest upsets in college football history.  I still remember the highlight of Temple punching it in from the two, with time running out, just pissing all over everyone in Blacksburg.

But over the years I still paid attention.  Through one squinted eye,  like watching your drunk aunt dance at a wedding.  Then came the man on the white horse, Al Golden.  Who’s was this guy?  Did he really turn down the UCLA job to stay in North Philly?  Is he really wearing a tie?  Appreciate the effort but is that really necessary?  I guess it’s better than Ball Coach’s visor.  He went to Penn State, that’s good.  I watched three Temple games last year, and I actually bet on them quite a bit, because our three decade stench as one of the worst teams in College Football history, garnered inflated lines.  Temple covered a lot last year, and I made money off of them.  They were pretty decent.  Adam DiMichelle had a good arm and was a smart quarterback, good enough to be in the Eagles camp for a while, he’s now a Winnipeg Blue Bomber in the C.F.L.  I’m sure the wider field suits his game more.   They lost two games by field goals in overtime and America’s darling Buffalo Bulls needed a hail mary with no time left to win by four.  Everyone was screaming for Turner Gill to get the Auburn job, c’mon man he needed a fucking miracle to beat to Temple, does that really get you an SEC job? It seemed like everytime I saw a highlight I was looking at an almost temple win.   But Al Golden had the Owls on the come.  His Defense was good.  Currently they’re ranked 28th in the country.  They don’t turn the ball over and they don’t commit a lot of penalties.  They started the year with an uninspiring loss to 1 AA Villanova.  Then a loss to Penn State.  Sometimes it takes a little luck, that came in the way Roger Craig wannabee named Bernard Pierce.  He was recruited to go to Ohio State, but got into some trouble and found himself at Glen Mills.  You actually have to get in a lot of trouble to get sent to Glen Mills, but that got Ohio State out of the picture and he committed to Temple.  He played sparingly in the first two games and then an injury forced him into a starters role.  Since then he’s racked up 1308 yards on the ground and 15 TD’s.  Good enough for third in the country amongst college running backs, and in my opinion a sure fire pre-season Heisman candidate for next year.  Hopefully he doesn’t dick around with an agent so we can all rest easily and enjoy this run for a couple more years.   But the dude is nails and as a result the Owls have won eight in a row.  Their longest winning streak since…wait for it…1973.  Thirty-six years ago.  That’s basically my lifetime.  And are in first place in the Mid American East, and going to a Bowl Game.  Their first since 1979.  They actually went 10-2 that year and beat Cal in front of 55,000 people.  I don’t think 55,000 people combined have watched a Temple football game in the last ten years.  I’ve been able to watch several this year.  The Navy game was on CBS college sports.  I was fully prepared for the loss, after all Navy should have beaten Ohio State, and later beat Notre Dame.  I watched the Miami of Ohio game online and I Tivo’d last weeks game against Akron.  That’s when it looked like it was all coming crashing down.   But this new brand of Temple Football is tough and no quit.  Temple was down 17 – 7 in the first quarter.  Then they just dropped the hammer.   I witnessed it for myself, they’re a legit football team.  I cheered, I yelled at bad calls.  I celebrated touchdowns.  I’ve got to say, I’ve always been proud to be a Temple alum, but now I’m actually proud to be a Temple football fan.  And for a moment I thought maybe I’ll go to Detroit and cheer on my OWLS in the GMAC bowl.   I know, I’d have to be crazy to go to Detroit in December, right?   Nah, no sweat, I can handle it, I went to Temple.

I went to see Jimmy Buffett in 1988.  The best part of the show was that someone had a battery powered blender.  What?  I can drink margarita’s in the parking lot of The Mann Music center?  You had me at Cuervo.  So I drank a lot, went in,  made a complete ass of myself, and made out with a girl who I wouldn’t have made out with without having nine margaritas in me.  It’s not fair to say I was out of her league.  I wasn’t.  But sober, I thought I was, and therein lies the difference.   It was fun.  Once.  I got it out of my system.   I’m not gonna lie, in the right situation, “Changes in Latitudes” is an okay song.   He did his thing and he went to Key West, and I was okay with that.  I remember hearing a story about a bunch of refugees washing up on the shore in front of his house in Key West, apparently he went in and got them all a Budweiser, and welcomed them to the States.  Nice story, but complete bullshit.  I never have more than two beers in my fridge, you know why?  I fucking drink them.

If you find yourself in Key West, you might go to Margaritaville, or you might be running from the I.R.S., none of my business.  There are certainly better bars.  Hey what you do on your vacation is totally up to you.  But apparently a lot of you went there, spent your hard earned money, got drunk, sang “Grapefruit, Juicy fruit”,  acted like assholes, and bought t-shirts.   You feed the beast and it grew.  Tourist destinations all over America got one.  Then he teamed up with Outback Steakhouse to open, Cheeseburger in Paradise.  When I went to the website to find locations, it showed me a map of the World.   Look I can’t fault someone for being industrious.   This country was built on that very principle.  Good for him, but ask anyone from Georgia what Kudzu is?  They’ll tell you, it’s the vine that ate the south.  A weed that grows a foot a day, and can’t be destroyed.  It’s a pain in the ass.   Last year Inbev, the largest brewing company ever conglomeratized, bought Budweiser, the King of Beers.  What did they do?  They partnered with Jimmy Buffett to make Land Shark Lager.  This is a joke right?  No it’s not, people are buying this shit.  All across America guys are cradling Land Sharks trying to get laid.  She/ He/ They, are not gonna fuck you.  You’re holding a Budweiser with a lime in it.  Who looks dumber than you.   But people are buying it.  They are buying so much of it that they changed the name of Dolphin Stadium to Land Shark Stadium.   Don’t the Miami Dolphins play there?   One of the greatest football franchises ever.   Mercury Morris, that guy got busted with coke, before coke was even popular.  Remember that image of Larry Csonka, blood trickling down from his forehead or The Epic in Miami?  The University of Miami also currently plays there.   A school that gave the finger to all things academic, and accepted some of the baddest mother fuckers ever to play the game.  They took cash, they had cars and they won national championships.  There are former players all over the country still living off booster money.  They gotta live somehow.  That’s an alumni association.   A school so loved/hated and bad-ass that It’s now just simply called “The U”.  Legends, Jerome Brown, Ed Reed, Ray Lewis, Michael Irvin, Vinny Testaverde, and countless other quarterbacks who turned out to be huge N.F.L busts…I could have just said Geno Torretta.  You can’t even name all the notable names that played at Miami.   New drinking game, “Guys That Played at Miami.”  I’ll go first, Duane Johnson.  This was their house, and now when you score a touchdown at during a Dolphin game, you hear the worst sound known to man, “Fins” by Jimmy Buffett.  It blares out of the PA system, like Karaoke hell.  It’s criminal what they’ve done to that hallowed ground.

What Jimmy Buffett has done is nothing short of remarkable.  He has branded a state of mind.  Think about that?   Stop, have a thought, and figure out how to market what you just thought about.  He has patented the idea of a good time.  It doesn’t seem possible that people still give a shit about Jimmy Buffett.  They do.  Not Jerry Garcia or Bob Dylan,  Jimmy Buffett.  He’s got a grill in Sky Mall magazine for $400.  The hook?  It attaches to your tailgate.  Bad news, now you’ve got to buy a $35,000 truck so you can attach your $400  grill.  Who gives a fuck?  What am I gonna do, drive around with a grill hanging from the back of my truck?  Why not just pull a thirty foot banner behind it, that says “NO DETECTABLE GENITALIA ON BOARD.”   I got an idea, why don’t I just put my grill in the back of my truck, and then when I get to the fucking parking lot, I can just put it on the ground.  Genius.   You can also buy a $300 battery powered blender.   So for 700 bills you can attempt to achieve paradise, or you could just take that money and go to the Bahamas.  That’s up to you.  Me,  I would just drop 12 beans on a sixer of Mike’s Hard pounders in a can, and get my party on.  Two of those equals poor choices.

I want to like the Dolphins.  They’re having a good year.  They made the playoffs last year.  Ricky Williams is a great story, of a guy who really struggled with social anxiety disorder.  A disorder that may or may not be real.  But welcome back.  I like Bill Parcells, and I like Tony Sparano.  I love Pat White, and I don’t hate the Wildcat.  Ask the Jets?   But Dolphin’s fans you should be ashamed of yourselves.  You handed the reigns of your illustrious organization to A Mr. Chuck E. Cheese.  Going to a professional football game dressed like a pinata.  It’s embarrassing, watching you celebrate touchdowns with an open hand on your forehead, dancing around like my drunk uncle, then cut away to a five foot two Mark Anthony, shirt open, and gyrating his hips, loving to hear percussion.  I hope for your sake some team flirts with a perfect record this year only to have it snapped in week 15.  That way they can parade Shula, and Griese and Nick Buoniconti and all the great ’72 Dolphins out at half-time dressed in straw hats, Hawaiian Shirts and bright orange Crocs.    Nothing says undefeated like a rousing rendition of, Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw.

The only saving grace for Dolphin Stadium is, it’s not Texas Stadium.    You ever look down the Vegas Strip and see that ridiculous albatross at the end.  “What the fuck is that?”  “That?  Oh, that’s the Stratosphere.  They’ve got a roller coaster on top.  Rooms are only twenty-nine bucks and you can get a steak there for thirty-three cents.”  The house that Romo built.  That thing will be half full by November. It’ll be home of Ringling Bros. and Cirque du Soleil in no time.    As for Jimmy Buffett, I’m glad you have part ownership in the Dolphins, and I’m glad that you currently have more money than the Federal Reserve, but c’mon dude, tone that Carnival down, would ya?    For the love of all things sacred?

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You took Houston...didn't you baby?

Sometimes a golf announcer will say that Sergio Garcia is a “fantastic ball striker.”  I’m a grown man, still it makes me laugh.  I say this, because I want to let you know what you’re dealing with here.  I do not claim to be a College Football handicapper.  Far from it.  I bet on it. That’s it.   In fact the guy that I bet with just told me that he’s excited because he’s never been to a Wendy’s.  He really wants to try it, he hears it’s good.  He’s gonna be happy.  It doesn’t suck.  This tells you a little about the company that I keep.   Sometimes the gambling, I’m good at it, and sometimes I get my dick knocked in.  But  I’ve been getting my dick knocked in less lately,  frankly because I try to avoid big spots.    I also try to avoid teams that routinely ‘eff me.  There’s a lot of them out there, Virginia Tech, Georgia, LSU, just to name a few.   Last week there were several teams, mostly ranked teams, that had either won big, or had a big win the week before.  In all of these games teams were playing an opponent that they seemingly would destroy.   Last week Vegas offered us their version of what you would call in poker, a “value bet”.   I can’t even believe that I have to explain it, but a value bet is when you place a bet so that you can guarantee that you get a call or even better that you would get raised so that you, can then come over the top.  If you don’t know what it means to come over the top, stop reading and go back to World of Warcraft.    I found six of these games.  Vegas Value lines.  Games that I know people pounded.

1.  Clemson (-12.5) Vs. Maryland – Maryland lost to William and Mary. Clemson had looked decent.  I thought this line would be much higher.  Just didn’t feel right, and despite 69 rushing yards by Maryland they won outright 24-21.  The first hose of the day.

2. No. 6 Virgina Tech (-17) at Duke.  This is a walk.  Tech just smacked Miami at home, hung with Bama.   Duke lost to Richmond for crying out loud.   We’re going to Sizzler.  But some dude named Thaddeus lit up Tech for 359 yards passing and if you were on Tech you got fucked.  Hard.

3.  No. 20 Michigan (-4) Vs. Michigan St.  The public loves Michigan. Which in itself is annoying and Rich Rodriguez is a D-bag.  The only people who don’t know that yet live in Ann Arbor.  They were undefeated, Tate Forcier is the next Jim Harbaugh.  State lost to Notre Dame and Wisconsin.  Cash money and a Loser.

4. No. 17 Iowa (-21) Vs. Arkansas St.  Really?  Why don’t you put a bow on it.  Iowa just went into Happy Valley and beat Penn State, during “the white out”.  Arkansas St.  lost to Troy.  Iowa wins 24-21.  A ton of people got the whole fist.

5. Virginia (+12) Vs. North Carolina.  Carolina has been a bit of a disappointment this year, but surely they were 12 points better than a team that lost to William and Mary.   I feel sorry for the people who actually watched this game.  It hurt me just to look at the box score.  Ugly.  Virginia 16-3.  Roll over in the wet spot.

6.  No. 15 Houston (-14.5) Vs. UTEP.  I know people got cleaned on this game.  This was an out and out mugging.  The state of Alabama should give those strippers that partied with Mike Price a pension.   He got his party on, wound up at UTEP and Bama eventually got Nick Saban.   Sometimes life just isn’t fair.  I’ll admit I feel in love with Houston.  I had them against Ok State and I had them against Texas Tech.  I love Case Keenum.  He’s a top ten pick for sure.  Check out these numbers. 51/76 536 yards passing 5 TD’s no picks.  Houston was up 10-0 in this game, are you fucking kidding me?  Press Charges.  UTEP 58-41.

Assery…everywhere.

These lines were juicy.  Too juicy, so I decided to just stay away.  I guess I’ve been fucked enough to know when someone’s trying to fuck me.  Saturday I took Temple, Northwestern, Washington, Stanford, Penn State and Oregon.  Big on Oregon and Penn State.  I went small on Cal and Central Michigan and pushed on Tulsa.  Stayed out of the way and had a surprisingly good day.

Be wary of The Value Bet.  Vegas throws out the line, then reels in the Big Fish.

Saturday we like…

U CONN (+6.5)

OKLAHOMA (-28)

BYU (-17)

FRESNO STATE (-10)

AUBURN/ARKANSAS OVER 66

BIG MIKE’S BIG TEN PICK OF THE WEEK – MICHIGAN +8.

He loves the big ten and he’s 5-o.  So we’ll throw it up there.

Cincinatti (-16)

Miami (-2 1/2)

Ohio State (-14)

Houston (even)

Boise State (-16 1/2)

Leans

Bama/Arkansas Over (58)  Michigan State (+3)

There will be plenty of assery at Rocco’s tomorrow night.   I will be taking the late games and pounding 2 for 1 Perroni’s.

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If I see him this Saturday, I’ll ask, but I can honestly say I thought that Virginia Tech was going to pound Nebraska.  The Cornhuskers played nobody in the previous two weeks.  Tech hung with Bama, and waxed Marshall.   After Saturday, I can honestly say,  Nebraska is a very good football team.  That is one stingy defense.  They are going to give Big 12 teams lots of problems and they are going to win some games.  Bo Pellini has them going in the right direction.  This loss is a heartbreaker for them.  For Tech to score the way they did at the end, just way too much time.  Here’s the thing, I hate betting Virginia Tech.   They always seem to need unthinkable big plays to win a game.  Block punts, kick returns.   I hate betting these spread teams, that feature the run.  The way that West Virginia did with Pat White.  Guess what, Pat White was a really good college quarterback.  The guy had a great arm.   They just happen to have had Steve Slaton, Owen Schmitt, and Noel Devine when he was there.   And when teams keyed the run.  White could kill you with his feet or his arm.  Tyrod Taylor is not Pat White.  Neither is Baylor’s Robert Griffin, nor Georgia Tech’s Tyrone Nesbitt.  Great Athletes.   Far from great quarterbacks.   You make these guys throw, you’ve got a good shot to win.    And guess what Bill Stewart?  While we’re at it,  get with fucking program.  Noel Devine is one of the best backs in the country and you are killing him with Jarrett Brown.  Here’s a line 18/32 – 221 yards.  1 td.  4 picks.   Brutal!  Quincy Carter just winced.  To quote Glengary…Nice guy, I don’t give a shit…good father, Fuck you, go home and play with your kids…Auburn didn’t beat you, Bill Stewart…Jarrett Brown did.  Devine had 128 on 15 carries with 3 TDs.  If you let Devine run, Brown can’t throw it to the other team.  Don’t ignore Devine because you think you can turn Jarrett Brown into Pat White.  That dude stood up and told the NFL, “I’m not Matt Jones, or Antwan Randel-el, I’m a quarterback.”   Got to like the set of stones on Pat White.

It’s weird to see a middle aged man wearing hoop earrings.   But then again, I was never in Mobsters.  I’m done with the Grieco resume, but I really liked Arkansas.  Ryan Mallett has an absolute cannon.  Fuck he can throw it.  Mitch Mustain is the emergency punter now for USC.  Did he think Bobby Petrino was not gonna throw the ball?  Did the hometown boy ever see any of his Louisville teams?  Put him right behind Shelly Long on the What the Fuck was I thinking list?   Maybe he didn’t think he could get into USC’s Marshall School of Business without a football scholarship?  Maybe Mustain is smarter than we think, maybe I’m reaching.  I like Arkansas a lot this year.  They will be the Ole Miss of last year.  When you’ve got a guy that can throw a ball fifty yards hash to hash, you’re gonna catch somebody on their heels.  Now you need to be able to play a little bit of defense.   Holy shit, Georgia lit them up.  Sweet Lou and I had Arkansas.  looking back, Arkansas laying points?  They were never really out of it.  They give you the sense they can score at will.  We haven’t heard the last from Arkansas.   Sweet Lou texted me, he didn’t come to Rocco’s, apparently he hates two for one Perroni’s, (Italy’s answer to Stella.  BTW de-fucking-liscious), and asked me what I wanted to do to help us get out of this blood bath.  I said Texas Tech second half.  Arkansas/Georgia over.  UCLA.  UNLV and the Over.  Shit ten beers in, and the only loser on that list was UNLV (-7), not bad.  Apparently Hawaii has found another kid who no one else wanted, because he’s awesome and throws for 500 yards a game.   My bad. Greg Alexander has 1222 yards, 9 touchdowns and 2 picks in three games.  Hawaii looks like a covering machine this year.

The only bright spot for us, in an otherwise abysmal day of gambling was Cincinnati.   They’re for real.  Brian Kelly won’t be there long.  He’s too good of a coach.  Tony Pike is looking like an NFL quarterback.  They should win the Big East and Pitt seems to be only thing standing in their way.    With and Wannstedt team, they are TBD.

The good news is I have found a bar in the Valley that’s within walking distance of my house.  Good food, I guess…I had a pizza.  Double digit beers,  plenty of college football, and somebody in the bar wanted the UTEP/ New Mexico State game on.  Really?   I think maybe there was another degenerate in the house.

You know what they say…Good enough for Grieco.  Good enough for me.