The Lazy Fan’s Guide to Week 8 in the SEC

So, did you enjoy your Third Saturday in October? Was it the most thirdsaturdayinoctober you could ever remember? Did Pawwwwwwwwwwwwwl leave you a nice shiny gift under your life size Roy Kramer tree as he does for all the little girls and boys who’ve been good (or good enough in the SEC kind of way)? Did Peyton and Eli drop unnecessary amounts of Papa Johns off at your tailgate and then quiz you on how to run an out route? These are all things that good SEC fans get on THE THIRD SATURDAY IN OCTOBER! But really, like all things the hype outpaced the games which were fine (not for us) but still fine. Now this weekend, well this weekend is the Mizzou weekend of all Mizzou weekends. It’s HOMECOMING baby and we invented that thing. Floats, parades, alums, potentially winnable games, we did that. You owe us college towns and distributors of shirts that invariably disappoint. Bow down before us as we let you enjoy the idea of coming back to campus to relive your glory days, WORSHIP us! Seriously, we’re Mizzou, this is ours, own it and jam it in everyone’s face that doesn’t know about it. Then make them read my piece from 2015.

Anyway, last week one of us had a good week, and one of us had a less than good week. Clearly not watching games isn’t working out so well. Stupid busy schedules and stuff.

To the records!

Well for the third straight week a picker would have paid out well, and another less so. All hail Chris of the fake last names for he is dominating the fake betting college football landscape! Seriously, I’m just picking things that seem possibly right, and kristina is watching actual football, so still go with her and take the wins with the losses. In the end, it’s important to remember, we do this for you, the reader, the degenerate gambler and the potentially absentee partner in the fall. You’re welcome.

(Editor’s note: No, I am not watching actual football much lately. HHKB just doesn’t listen. Well, outside of the NC State/ND water fest. That was fun.)

To the games!

Good lord UMass is back, back again. It’s almost as if UMass just decided to bang out its whole nonconference schedule against the SEC and then move to something else next year. I hope it’s the Pac 12, ALL THE MILES TRAVELED! But seriously, it’s weird that they play so many SEC teams this year, quite weird. Was it an SEC decision or a UMass decision? Is the SEC expanding to include the upper north east? It’s EXPANSIONPALOOZA2016 staring the Minute Men of Massachusetts.

Scale of Watchability: SEC Defcon 4. It gets a four because it’s football. But seriously, you’ve seen UMass now three times, do you need to see more of them? And SC, my god man, no! Sleep in, wash the car, bathe the dog, water the plants, do something else. But if you must watch, well, I guess you must. But this game, well its barf.

kristina: INSERT (One of these days, I should just leave the first INSERT here as to scare the rest of RMN’s fine editing crew again.) Better chance than not I’m going off the grid on Saturday, so sadly, I can’t even watch this affair. Is football like pizza, I mean, mediocre pizza (you know, Imo’s, frozen Shakespeare’s) is better than no pizza.

Chris: The SEC East is coming alive now that Vandy beat Georgia! It’s all up in the air if you forget about Tennessee and Florida. The battle for third rages on! So take the Gamecocks and this early morning affair because folks, they need this win. Also, if someone could check the water in the other Columbia that would be great, it’s gotten people there cookoo. Frank Martin (he of the always imminent explosion) said that all 14 teams in the SEC could make the NCAA tournament, on television. Seriously? The water has been replaced with Everclear, it’s the only possible answer for such a brash and crazy response.

Well we’ll just see if Bo Scarbrough learned his lesson last week. First, ticking off Saban doesn’t sound like a really great idea, and second, you didn’t even get the high-five in return, just really an utter fail. (If what you do after an 85-yard TD run can be considered a fail, we Mizzou fans wouldn’t know.) Disrespect! Two undefeated SEC teams and it’s on in the middle of the afternoon.

Scale of Watchability: SEC Defcon 2. Mainly, because good little Mizzou fans will be switching the channel shortly after this one starts, if you’re not at the actual game and semi-drunk already. (Semi-drunk ‘cause if we start to lose, you can quickly go to full-on “good thing I’m not going to remember this anyway” drunk) Anyway, it’s like the best game of the day so enjoy it while you can.

kristina: I’ll never learn, not with picking Mizzou over Florida. Anyway, ‘Bama. May have been a tougher call but especially being a home game. It’s silly this is on so early.

Chris: You know what I would like? For CBS to move its really strong SEC game to the evening, run it against whatever Big 10/Big 12/Notre Dame fiasco ABC is running and see who truly is the strongest. Mid afternoon games are complicated! And this game is good, but I can’t see it as I will be working in Orlando, and it’s gonna be meh! Can A&M pull the upset, just as they did in 2012 in Alabama? Those were different times my friends. I say no, Bama gets the win and Nick Saban cracks the smallest of smiles and somewhere a sinkhole opens up and swallows a dairy plant.

Homecoming. It’s here. Chester Brewer when he said, “Hey friends, come on back and we’ll play football” was thinking something, something grand and glorious, even gargantuan! This is not what he had in mind. He did not wake up and say, “Hey friends, come home as Mizzou embarks on the trappiest trap game of all time.” But that’s what we have, a game ripe for Akbar mentions! It’s going to be tough, so sayeth the oracle, Bill C and that my friends, terrifies me and should terrify you!

Scale of Watchability: SEC Defcon 1. Mizzou in the mid afternoon and Homecoming to boot? You just tell everyone you know you’re busy. Moving? Get someone else! Open Heart Surgery? Can’t perform it today, tomorrow sounds good. Scaling Mt Everest? Rain check. This is appointment television for everyone in the black and gold!

kristina: Mizzou, though to be honest, after all my other “bad idea” Mizzou picks, not feeling all that confident. Maybe since I can’t watch this one, we’ll win big. Uh, sure, that’s the problem for this season. Hey, but basketball’s right around the corner!

Chris: Hey, Mizzou! Yeah, you the googly eyed Tiger mascot loving people! Win this game so the darkness that has enveloped our very souls can be defeated before this stretch of bowl game clinching affairs. Make it so! Mizzou wins by 24 pts and we all celebrate like celebration dog would want us to.

Maybe this one will go to five overtimes this time. If you’re an Arkansas fan and a betting type, Vegas (at the time we started rambling) had Auburn by 9 or 9.5. Screw that, take all your money, head over to the roulette table, and just throw it on double zero. Why doesn’t (at least from what we searched) this rivalry have a name yet? Auburn’s done well since Rhett Lashlee took over the play calling, most SEC name ever. Clearly, that’s Mizzou’s issue. We just don’t have SEC names.

Scale of Watchability: SEC Defcon 3. Most Mizzou fans are celebrating Homecoming and a win or drowning their sorrows in trops. Either way, do we really care what happens here?

kristina: I’ll never learn. Auburn, ‘cause I refuse to pick Arky. Plus, can run with that cliche of hey, they’re coming off the bye and rested and Arky’s just trying to get there. What’s worse than Paper TigerEagles? Asian Tiger mosquitoes, that’s what. Seriously, they bite all day long and find DEET (and any other repellent) tasty. I give up.

Chris: Someone explain to me why Auburn is ranked? I’m serious, what happened? Are there no other schools that can be possibly included? Did someone turn down said offer to be #21? Again, haven’t really watched much TigerEagle football this season. So that makes me think they’re “Paper” TigerEagles! Let’s lay the house on Arkansas and their coach who loves to wear red at all times. Do you Kool Aid Man!

You’re having a nice little Saturday, got some stuff done, you’ve enjoyed a Mizzou victory and you finally replaced that leaking faucet. And then you settle down to this. This monstrosity. Kentucky vs State in a game that is all precursor to something equally bad on another channel at the same time. Damn you SEC for assuming all your fans are either a) sleeping by now or b) still partying. Look away, LOOK AWAY!

Scale of Watchability: Defcon 3. Why not 4? Well that’s saved for what’s next. It’s the evening game on the SEC Network brought to you by pain and suffering! This game, man, this game….oh man….

kristina: I’m so glad I send my picks over to Chris ahead of his rants and raves, as then I at least have something “on paper” to go back and revisit when my short/long term memory goes AWOL, as it always does. For whatever reason, I picked State. Manly because all of Kentucky’s energy is devoted to hoops by now, right? Moar cowbell. (Yes, I know it’s an away game) Uh, I can’t do worse than I did last week, can I?

Chris: Mississippi State has looked like dross all season and it’s not changing when they visit half filled Lexington Stadium. Kentucky will win this game and inject life into their veins as they fight to own third place in the SEC east as well. Their 10 fans who wandered into the game by accident will stick around but really, they’re too glued to the sight to move on, and they will see what some will describe the next day as… “football?”

Atmosphere aside, of course, it’s slightly amusing to call this a road game for Tennessee State when they’re traveling all of about maybe three miles. Vandy ruined Georgia’s homecoming, why not have the Nashville Tigers (so many Tigers) ruin some fun of their own? And no, ruining all the homecomings is not what we’re going for here. Vandy’s win wasn’t pretty, but as we all know, style points don’t count.

Scale of Watchability: SEC Defcon 4. Outside of an upset, and who doesn’t love those outside of your own teams, nothing exciting about this one.

kristina: As my record isn’t amazing, like last year’s, I’m just going to go for broke here. Tennessee State, ‘cause, well, we can. It seems there are a lot of things Mizzou is incapable of doing this year. (Getting to a bowl game better not be one of them.) This is why I shouldn’t watch any football, I turn it on and we throw two pick-sixes. (Too soon?)

Chris: Oh good lord this is worse than the game above. But Vandy beat Georgia, something Mizzou was incapable of doing and Tennessee barely did. So by that logic, all hail your 2016 SEC Champions the Commodores of Vanderbilt! The parade starts to the left. Honestly, this is going to be brutal. Vandy will regress while beating not creamsicle Tennessee and we’ll still wonder why this ended up on ESPNU and not the SEC Alternate.

LSU is good again! Ole Miss is failing again! Narratives are writing themselves people. This is a fun looking little game and my best friend Leonard Fournette is back! Will Ole Miss starting Chad Kelly notice? Not a chance! He’s engaged in a twitter war with an adult film star (no, not The Accountant, a naked kind) instead of learning his playbook. It’s a revenge game for Coach O as he takes on one of his former employers. And to think he appeared as himself in the Blindside movie and didn’t get considered for an Oscar. RIGGED I TELL YOU!

Scale of Watchability: Defcon 2. It’s a night game, it’s death valley and really what else do you have going on? WATCH THIS GAME

kristina: Ole Miss. I should just start using a dart board at this point, or at least attempt to watch a few games outside of the Mizzou ones. Can narratives write our post as well? Remember, we’re lazy, folks.

Chris: Coach O has got it going my friends, plus Fournette is back AND Chad Kelly is more headcasey than usual? Oh the money’s on the Tigers, put it all on purple and yellow at night in Death Valley. ALL THE MONEY.

This week’s final picks to wager Junior’s college fund on brought to you by Beaujelois Nouveau dans quelques semaines...

And that’s your lazy picks for Week 8. As always, thanks for reading and have fun this weekend, let down the guard, be free! It’s almost Halloween week and all the candy! Trick or treating where the adults are offered booze is just about the best thing ever.