2023 Week 1
September 7, 2023
Welcome back to the world of college football!
We had a wild off-season, with players coaches and schools switching around like they were my good friend Marv Albert at a swingers' club.
I'm still not sure what's up with all these teams changing leagues. Texas and Oklahoma apparently wanted to make the Red River Shootout a league game so left the SWC and Big 8 respectively for the SEC. I get the SEC wanting two big-name programs like that, though I'm sure Texas A&M will be angry about being left behind by the guys in Austin. They'll probably add another verse about UT to the Aggie War Hymnal.
Other leagues seem to have different motivations. The Atlantic Coast Conference added Cal, Stanford, SMU, and Las Vegas Bishop Gorman High School, apparently to earn frequent flyer miles thanks to all their sports.
The Big Ten added USC, UCLA, and Oregon to upgrade their cheerleading, then added Washington University in St Louis for the geographic fit.
One of the most aggressive moves was in the Southwest where the Western Athletic Conference grabbed several Southwest Conference teams plus Colorado to join WAC mainstays Arizona, Arizona State, and Bring 'Em Young. The WAC really went after Texas as they also brought in the University of Texas at Houston. U.T.A.H. should be a good fit with crosstown rivals the Houston Oilers and the Rice Awls.
I'm sure we haven't seen the end of all the switching, but things seem stable at least for this season.
As for the games, we saw more pre-season games this year than in the past few years. Notre Dame pummeled Navy in an exhibition game on the Emerald Isle. I thought the Midshipmen would do better as they really had home field advantage, being so near their European bases, but Notre Dame easily handled the hostile environment in Ireland. In another game UTEP lost to Jacksonville 17-14. They put up a good effort but I'm not sure why they decided to play a pro team like the Jaguars.
Most of the Labor Day weekend games were cupcake games. Mid-major Tennessee teams had a really rough go of it, with Notre Dame blowing out Tennessee State, Georgia clobbering Tennessee Martin, and Alabama rolling past Middle Tennessee State. Regular Tennessee, however, had no problem with the University of Virginia. I predict that Vol quarterback Joe Milton will win two Heismans and the Uncle Rico celebrity football toss.
Other powers had easy times too. Oregon destroyed Portland State 81-7. USC beat Nevada 66-14. Penn State opened its schedule with a big win over Western Virginia.
In one of the odder school matchups, Bring 'Em Young shut out the Sam Houston Institute of Technology, 14-0. I told my good friend Dave Diles that I expected better S.H.I.T. output. He suggested some Ex-Lax.
One of the most exciting games was in Laramie, where Wyoming defeated Texas Tech 35-33 in double overtime. Now I'm still trying to figure out these overtime rules. In the second overtime Tech scored but went for two and missed it. Then Wyoming scored, but instead of kicking the extra point to win they went for two as well. Fortunately they made it and won the game.
The Miami Hurricanes won their intrasquad game 38-3. They also lost it 38-3. They're kind of mixed up in Coral Gables.
The most exciting game of the day was in Dallas as the TCU Horny Toads took on the Colorado Golden Buffaloes. Colorado won a great back and forth game 45-42, kicking off the bigtime coaching career of Coach Prime Directive. I just hope that coach brings back Jenny McCartney to entertain the players the way she did during her father's years at CU.
They had a pretty interesting weekend in the Carolinas. You'll recall one of the great new bowel games, the Coach K Jizz Bowel, where the winning coach gets dunked in some of Coach K's, uh, stuff.
Apparently Coach K's jizz output has grown prodigiously, because there's not just a Coach K Jizz Bowel, there's now a Coach K pre-season jizz classic and the Coach K Jizz invitational. He must be going to some of those special websites advertising men's medications that advertise on the Pac-12 network.
In the Coach K pre-season jizz classic North Carolina defeated South Carolina 31-17. And in the Coach K Jizz Invitational his Duke Blue Devils shocked Clemson, 28-7.
So we're back and running with college football. I can't wait to see how this season plays out. Talk to you next week!