The $ix Rack is back, baby. And that can only mean one thing: football season is upon us yet again!
(FYI, I spent like 4-5 hours making the Six Rack logo and that’s the best you’re gonna get from me.)
*Editor’s Note: Good work, Trav*
We will be looking to build off of last year’s less than stellar 47-43-2 record (52%). It goes without saying that the guest pickers (3-12-1) will be riding the pine to start the season and may not see any playing time barring an injury or suspension.
Week 0 of college football always seems to sneak up on college football fans, but not me. Let’s just say that anyone who has the audacity to fire off, “The college football season really starts NEXT week” is dead to me. It makes me so happy to proclaim that there won’t be another Saturday without college football until January 2022. Someone kick me, I must be dreaming.
Speaking of kicking, let me kick things off with a six rack of things I’m most looking forward to this year:
1. Hawaii Warriors football
My Warriors will kick things off this weekend. After many late nights together over the past couple of years (watching some shitty illegal stream I found after thirty minutes of desperately searching Reddit and Twitter), I couldn’t help but contemplate attending my second favorite team’s game while in Hawaii in October. As it turns out, the stadium is collapsing so they have to play in a makeshift 9k seat stadium.
Don’t think for a second this has completely ruled out the game though. Stay tuned.
2. Lions HC Dan Campbell
Let’s assume the average IQ is 100. Figuring in well-established IQ deductions, simple math tells us this man’s IQ can’t possibly crack 80.
- Born and raised in Texas (-3)
- Played tight end (-1)
- Name plate outside office door says “The Dude” (-2)
- Wants a pet lion (-5)
- Missed only 10 days of practice after surgery for a burst appendix (-10)
Why is it zero percent surprising Dan Campbell pulled a Dwight Schrute? But in real life. I’d have paid good money to be in the interview with the Lions official who came out thinking “We haven’t won a playoff game in 300 years, but I think we found our guy.” I give it until week 4 for this guy to go for 2 up three points or challenges a play that results in the other team getting a touchdown. Needless to say, I’m very excited to see how things shake out with “The Dude.”
3. Urban Meyer
This seems like it’s either going to go really good or really bad and initial impressions are it’s going to be the latter. Drafting a RB in the first round when you already have a legitimate one and the Tebow experiment right off the bat certainly made for a curious start.
As a medical professional, I’m very curious about the brain cyst thing as well. Does it heal only when the appropriate opportunity presents itself? Or has this magically healed? It would seem coaching in the NFL would involve quite a bit of stress. I’m establishing the over/under on Urban Meyer sideline collapses at O/U 2.5 and I’ll take the over.
4. Can Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs repeat?
I think this is a no. In fact, I’d almost be surprised if they did at this point given only one team has repeated since 2000. They do return all their starters as we’ve all heard 100 times by now, but they did look rather pedestrian at several points during the regular season last year. Bruce Arians is still Bruce Arians and for god’s sake, we all watched them lose to the Bears on Thursday last year. A weak division makes it unlikely, but count me in as someone who would love to see a playoffs without Tom Brady. The take home gambling implications here is I think the Bucs going off as the second favorite (around +600-700 depending on your book) fares well for futures bets for the rest of the field.
5. College football kickers
I don’t know what else to say other than excluding maybe five guys, I’m assuming any kick from 40+ is 50/50 in college football. Sometimes I purposefully text the editor as the kicker lines up just for him to give me a percentage of the kicker making it. Nothing gets me going more than getting a “20%” text back while watching Texas Tech’s kicker miss wide right from the dead center of the field from 43 yards away. The spin zone here of course is college kickers make every kick that much more exciting.
6. Chris Fowler and Gus Johnson
Just listen to this:
And this:
And the only thing left to ask is…
Yes, Hank. I am ready. The irony of this post is that I initially wrote how I actually decided to sit out Week 0 and just enjoy the games, but by the time I finished writing this blog, I already had action on more games than I’d like to admit.
I think we started off 1-5 in our first week last year so let’s assume things can only get better this year. If you’re new here, all my picks will be roughly 50/50 spreads. I am currently a psychopath and have five different books on my phone, so I will (as one would expect) take the best value I can get.
THE PICKS:
Illinois +7 (vs. Nebraska)
Following a quick google search, I determined that sixth-year senior Brandon Peters is returning as Illinois’ starting quarterback. Truthfully, it didn’t really matter because I’ll take Bret and co. versus an almost always overrated Nebraska team to keep it within a touchdown regardless.
Illinois vs. Nebraska UNDER 55
Nebraska averaged 23 PPG last year and Illinois averaged 20 PPG. Subsequently, I just don’t see a scenario where this game averages two touchdowns a quarter barring multiple pick-6’s or special teams TD’s.
New Mexico State +10 (vs UTEP)
Some analytics guy at the Athletic named Austin Mock is convinced this is a one-score game so that’s good enough for me. I graduated with James Mock and my dad graduated with his dad, Bill (or maybe Steve) Mock so this “Mock connection” seems like destiny.
Hawaii vs. UCLA OVER 68
My Rainbow Warriors return Chevan Cordeiro and UCLA returns Dorian Thompson-Robinson so I don’t think either offense will miss a beat to start things off. Mark this down as the game I’m most excited about in Week 0.
UCONN (vs. Fresno State) total points UNDER 17
UCONN football is officially back after last year’s hiatus and can’t wait to see what they have in store for us. I genuinely thought this total might be in the single digits so I’ll take the odds that they don’t score three times on a west coast trip.
Alcorn State -13.5 (vs. NC Central)
For a million dollars, I couldn’t have told you that College Gameday will be attending this game this weekend in Atlanta. But what’s even better than having a million dollars is having the MEAC/SWAC rivalry alive and well after both conferences opted out of the 2020 season. That’s right – we’re getting the Air Forces Reserves Celebration Bowl in Week 0 people! Attempting to make an educated guess on this game is realistically impractical but for a spread this large in a “rivalry” game I have to presume Alcorn State is substantially better than NC Central. We’ll roll with the Fighting Air McNairs in this one.
Enjoy Week 0!