Monday Morning Hangover - Week 4

On paper it looked like one of those weeks where you say, “Hmm…maybe I can skip some football this week. The matchups aren’t great, I could be a normal person this weekend and maybe see a movie (The Kingdom looks good), visit friends or family, normal people stuff. WRONG. I had to check him again. (Wait, I’m not Charlie Murphy. Ok, that makes sense because I’m neither large, black nor wearing a Kangol hat. Good to know.) Then you end up with 5 of the top 10 teams losing in college football. The lesson here: Avoid all semblance of a life starting in September. Work 60 hour weeks and watch 16 hours a week of football. Your social life is non-existent. At least for me. Let’s go through my reactions to these losses (because I know you, the reader, woke up this morning and said, “I wonder what Barney has to say about these so-called “upsets” in the college football world. I pray that he has an opinion on these.” You sir, are in luck, because I’m about to summarize my feelings on these loses in order of least surprising):

West Virginia – This gets least surprising status because I saw them a -7 on the road against a team that beat them last year in Morgantown and nearly did a backflip. Unfortunately, I was too busy on Friday at work (I left the office at 9) to let anyone know that I thought the University of Southern Florida would be a wise choice in this matchup (How about this matchup? Like 1 person will get that reference. Probably because only 10 people know of the hilarity of Nasty Nate. I will do an episode on that man, I promise.)

Texas – I’ve been waiting for the inevitable Texas loss ever since I saw the youtube video of them doing the Solja Boy (or whatever the hell his name is) dance on the sidelines of an actual game. I was absolutely dumbfounded when I saw that. I’ve been on plenty a sideline of college games hurt, and even then I didn’t think about dancing. Nevermind if I was playing.

Rutgers – This team doesn’t seem to do well with success.

Oklahoma – I kind of thought this team was a fraud. Colorado proved it. Between this win and one of their fans giving the finger on national tv, I might start watching Colorado.

Florida – How do they overlook Auburn when that was their one loss last year? Looking ahead to LSU next week? Possibly. I went to bed (read: passed out) last night with them down 14-0 and still thought they would come back.

I had a revelation this weekend regarding college football: Every team sucks. I started to come up with this theory a couple of weeks ago when trying to determine if any team from a state that was in the Union during the Civil War will ever win another national championship again (My conclusion was that only West Virginia had a chance because the Big Ten is fuckin’ awful. Consider that theory scrapped. Not the whole thing, just the West Virginia part). I’ve now expanded it. Move Vanderbilt to the ACC, and have USC play in the SEC. The conference champion is the national champion, no questions asked. (I know you’ll say, “USC is at a disadvantage in that it has major travel issues for every road game.” My response: “Yeah, well every team going out to USC has travel issues for everyone of their home games. They cancel each other out. Plus, USC has the advantage that recruits would be in Los Angeles, with thousands of hot women, while their competition would be recruiting to such sprawling metropolises such as Gainsville, Florida, Baton Rouge, Lousiana, Athens, Georgia and such. I think this is a fair deal.”) Wait, you think other conferences are worthy of the crown? Let me rank each BCS conference in the suckiness scale, on a scale of 1 to10, with 10 being the most sucky:

ACC: 14 on the suckiness scale. Wake Fuckin’ Forest got your BCS bid last year. Louisville rocked NC State this week. Miami got demolished in Stillwater. Until Miami and/or Florida State become relevant, they’re out of my new conference (If Randy Shannon gets Miami together, they can replace Mississippi State).

Big Ten: 13.9 on the suckiness scale. I’m hoping Michigan runs the table in Big Ten conference play this season just to prove that its no better than I-AA ball. Ohio State set this conference back 10 years with its pitiful performance in the Fiesta Bowl. The fact that Penn State and Michigan consider themselves national powers is a joke.

Big 12: 13.8 on the suckiness scale. Remember 1997 when people were worried that this conference was a super power? Well I do, and let me say, those fears were unrealized. It’s basically the Texas-Oklahoma winner, and unless Vince Young is your quarterback, you ain’t winning in January. Plus, Oklahoma embarrassing itself in a bowl game is becoming America’s second favorite New Year’s tradition besides promising to lose weight but not doing so.

Big East. 13.7 on the suckiness scale. At least the Big East has the common courtesy to win its bowl games. But as of right now, its teams in first place are Syracuse, South Florida and UConn. That is not a legitimate conference. Though South Florida intrigues me in that after Florida’s loss, it could be the # 1 team in Florida

Note, this suckiness scale will be revised weekly in Monday Morning Hangover to reflect any additional suckiness So let’s just go with LSU, Arkansas, Florida, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi State and USC and the winner is the Champ.

Also, lets cut out three months of crap and just have USC/Cal play, and the winner takes on LSU. 4-8 are Ohio State (haven’t beaten anybody this year), Wisconsin (nearly lost to UNLV and The Citadel), South Florida (wasn’t even a program 11 years ago), Kentucky (ummmmm…) and Boston College. Not exactly a murderers row. I don’t think any of them get within 3 touchdowns of USC, Cal or LSU.

And just when you think college can’t get any wackier, we find out that Whale’s Vagina sucks (me and my dad’s reactions were both the same: You must really suck as a coach if you lose to Herm Edwards), Baltimore got old over night, and Pittsburgh loses in Arizona. I’m telling you, you cannot skip a week if you think there are no matchups.

I’m one more loss away from jumping on the Jets tanking bandwagon. I want DeSean Jackson (McFadden obviously, but I’m not letting myself go down that path quite yet. I don’t want to be disappointed). Of course, we’d still have Pennington to throw him the ball so his speed would have to be utilized within 15 yards.

A couple more things, then we’re done:
As mentioned in last weeks MMH, my company was holding a happy hour at a bar named McFadden’s. I said how I would get belligerently drunk against the Big Ten. Well, that probably wouldn’t have happened. I read in the paper who was performing at McFadden’s that night…Vanilla Ice. Over/under on ridiculous comments made by me would have been set at around 450. I'm pissed that I missed this.

This is being written on Tuesday because in true Monday Morning Hangover fashion, I was too hungover to write it on Monday. I wasn’t able to hold down food until 7:30 at night. But I still made it through work, no one was the wiser. Anyway, its Irish Day week. Look for my preview of the best day of the year.