Scattershooting Week Five: on upsets, unpredictability, and MS Paint tailgating

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Peter Boulware...

• The road game. It is one of the things I love about college football the most. A ranked team, playing in a small but rabid college town, at night, against a lesser opponent with nothing to lose. How many times does this formula result in some sort of upset each season? Hell some Saturdays we as fans are treated to multiple such games. It’s one of the great equalizers in this wild ass sport. It keeps us from having ten really solid, undefeated programs each year. As an Aggie football fan dating back to 1991, I have been on both sides of this coin. Taking ranked teams into Lubbock, or Stillwater, Manhattan, and Ames. And now we get to play the role of huge underdog against the unbeatable SabanTron300 at Kyle Field Saturday night. Nobody is going to pick us to win this game. Nobody will give us much of a chance to even keep it close. But as fans, we can at least embrace this role and do our best to create that strange atmosphere, where crazy ass college football magic can start to materialize out of thin air.
• This electric atmosphere was on full display Friday night. Pullman, Washington. A college town of about 30k, nestled close to the Washington and Idaho border on the Palouse Prairie. Wazzu’s stadium holds a little over 33,500 fans. This isn’t like going into Michigan, Penn State, Auburn, or Norman. But it’s an entirely different feel. The size of the stadium may not be intimidating, but you’re in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rabid fans, and it creates a “cabin at the lake in a scary movie” vibe. Bad juju is all around you. And the scary guy may not be wearing a hockey mask, but he’s a pirate and he knows how to swing his sword.
• If you’re going to the A&M game Saturday I hghly recommend starting your day with a couple of breakfast tacos from Fuego’s. Not only do they taste damn good, but it sets a solid foundation for a full day of tailgating ahead. You don’t want to start pouring Bud chuggers onto an empty stomach at 11:00 am, and then try to rally all the way through a night game. It’s the sixth game of the season, don’t be out there making week one tailgating mistakes.
• This week in crappy MS Paint

• I’m shocked that DACOACHO doesn’t seem to be working out as well as hoped for the Bayou Bengals. So maybe it was a bad idea to replace one of the most successful coaches in program history with a tanned oaf that sounds like you dumped a socket wrench set into a margarita blender. Orgeron failed miserably at Ole Miss, rallied a USC squad for a few games after Lane Kiffin got canned, and then held the team together last year after Les got fired. But there was zero evidence that Orgeron could run a program on his own. The LSU game is the one game left on the schedule I desperately need Sumlin to win. Now is the time. Smite them.
• Clemson is the best team through the first month of the season, and yes that’s me disrespecting the Tide. Three wins (two true road games) vs teams ranked in the top 15, and all three of those teams will have a solid shot to finish in the top 25. Bama’s signature win is either a neutral site win over 1-2 Free Shoes U, or a road win at Vanderbilt. Yes they’ve throttled their opponents, but <inhales deeply> ALABAMA AINT PLAYED NOBODY PAAAAWWWWWL.
• Does anyone else have trouble sleeping at night thinking about AJ McCarron’s ever expanding chest tattoo? Is it a fully inked torso at this point? Does it contain a collage of Brent Musberger holding an alarm clock to commemorate the two times that AJ McCarron was famous? These questions haunt me.
• What’s your favorite small/midsize stadium to watch a ranked team go into for a night game in College Football?