GBH Viewer's Guide: Week 11

All times Central - your preferred candidate probably didn't win the election. Blunt your sorrows with four more years of football and homemade shine. I'm going to Canada tomorrow with @magnoliaaffair and scurrying back for ACTUAL football on Saturday.

Friday, November 9

Pittsburgh at UConn | 8 PM | ESPN2

Do literally anything else. It will be a more constructive use of your time. I'm probably going to whittle a nesting doll of Lane Kiffin.

Saturday, November 10

Wisconsin at Indiana | 11 AM | ESPN2

Northwestern (24) at Michigan | 11 AM | ESPN

B1G Championship semi-final?! No, seriously. Both these games have championship game ramifications. The Big 10 plays their championship game in a dome in Indianapolis because the stodgy old suits in that league are idiots. Play the game at Lambeau or Soldier? Nah, we might get too cold!

I really hope it is an Indiana-Northwestern B1G championship. Imagine the lore and boredom. The winner gets a sunburn and an ass kicking in the Rose Bowl.

Louisville (9) at Syracuse | 11 AM | ABC

I don't think Louisville is a Top 20 team. The quarterbacks in this game are solid. Teddy Bridgewater and Ryan Nassib can both sling it around and will both eventually end up on NFL rosters. I'm taking the ORANGE in my Code Orange Upset. Code Maroon Icy Whites to follow.

Iowa State at Texas (17) | 11 AM | Longhorn Network

Texas is running their first play of the game out of the Wishbone as a tribute to the recently deceased Coach Royal. Certainly a nice tribute. I say take it a step further and run your whole first drive out of the Bone. Maybe you go three-and-out, but maybe you score. That'd be pretty cool.

11 AM games are the pits. It's even worse when they are on your own network. Can't fault ESPN/LHN, they got the better game in the primetime slot.

Oregon State (11) at Stanford (14) | 2 PM | FOX

These two admiral squads get a crack at each other before their shot to take down Oregon in the next couple weeks. The triggermen for the Beavs and Cardinal are both backups in Cody Vaz and Kevin Hogan respectively. Vaz took over after the injury to Sean Mannion, and Hogan took over for Josh Nunes to light a spark in the Cardinal offense.

Palo Alto on a November Saturday afternoon should be elite for football.

Texas A&M (15) at Alabama (1) | 2:30 PM | CBS

I said my piece, but I'm not done. I admire Alabama fans and their passion and love for the Crimson Tide, but I'm convinced the overwhelming majority of them don't watch any other football besides their team. On the whole, not the most football-literate bunch I've witnessed.

Calling my shot - if Texas A&M doesn't lose the turnover battle, they're walking out of Tuscaloosa with one of the biggest wins in program history and the BCS gets turned on its head. I can't wait.

Mississippi State (21) at LSU (7) | 6 PM | ESPN

State has come crashing back to earth after embarrassing losses in consecutive weeks to Alabama and Texas A&M. To commemorate the occasion, they get to go to Death Valley at night to face a pissed off Tiger team. The Bulldogs will be lucky to get a touchdown.

Louisiana Tech (20) at Texas State | 6 PM | Longhorn Network

Dennis Franchione is coaching a primetime game on the Longhorn Network against a ranked opponent from Ruston, Louisiana. Nothing is real in the world anymore. Sonny Dykes' Dogs will stroll into San Marcos and hang 50 on the Bobcats. Education is certainly not the winner in this matchup.

Kansas State (2) at TCU | 6 PM | FOX

Sneaky game here for the Wildcats. Clearly, this all hinges on Collin Klein's health. Surely by now you heard that Klein didn't kiss his now-wife until the two were married this past year. The guy is the bizzaro Casey Pachall.

Notre Dame (4) at Boston College | 7 PM | ABC

I went through all the stages of grief and a 12-step program during the Notre Dame-Pitt game last weekend. We Irish folk bottle up a lot of angst and drain a lot of bottles. Or so I'm told. We all know that 18-22 year old guys are vacant, selfish dopes that sometimes need to get knocked down a peg or two. Well, Pitt did that. The Irish are very good on the road (methinks less distractions), and they'll be ready to paste a truly abysmal Boston College team that will probably hire Luke Russert to be their coach in some feeble, idiotic publicity stunt.

Oregon (3) at Cal | 9:30 PM | ESPN

Poor Jeff Tedford. He is about to get humiliated by the program that launched him into the job that he is getting ready to lose. Football is a cruel, vicious business. I'm told if you hold a protest from up in a tree in Berkeley, they can't fire you, so there's a thought. Meat is murder and Tedford is one tender piece of meat on the chopping block.

Kenjon Barner averages 7.2 yards per carry which is deceivingly low. Those damn end zones keep thwarting his average. Dicks.

UCLA (18) at Washington State | 9:30 PM | ESPN2

I finally finished Swing Your Sword by Mike Leach and Bruce Feldman. What a treat of a read. Mike Leach is an incredibly thoughtful, unique guy. He's already in some sticky situations in Pullman. He suspended the best player on the team - wide receiver Marquess Wilson - indefinitely. Leach apparently put the team through a grueling practice after being embarrassed 49-6 by Utah.

Leach called his offensive line's performance "bordering on cowardice" and made them face the media as a unit. All balls, in my opinion. Leach had some choice quotes from his presser this week:

"If somebody doesn't pull the rope as hard as everybody else, you shake them off and get new people. It's as simple as that."

Losing is a sick, contagious virus that is hard to rid from a program. Washington State has that virus. Apparently players' parents are getting involved (sound familiar?; Remember the Five), and the program is going through serious growing pains. Let Leach get his guys in there, turn them into men, and challenge for Rose Bowls.

Parents: stop being so involved. Join a tennis league and blunt your overprotection tendencies with pinot grigio and vanity. Like a Kennedy.

Drink of the Week:

Pickleback!

Recipe:

- Shot of Jameson

- Shot of pickle juice

- Follow with a sip of a cheap domestic, if you must

Verne Lundquist, if you're reading this (and you very well may be), I thank you and hope to see you in Steamboat for scotch and SEC soon. Thanks for reading.

What did I miss? Enjoy the games, gang.