Cal hasn’t won the Big Game since the invention of Google Glass…will Saturday change that?

Stanford is 12-point (ok fine, 12.5) favorites on The Farm Saturday, but Cal has its best opportunity to take the Axe back to Berkeley this decade. Will they?

By Andrew Pridgen

The once 5-0 Bears are now 6-4 and losers of 4 of their last 5 hoping for that Vegas Bowl bid/late December matchup with Boise State. Stanford at 8-1 was in the hole shot to be the lone Pac-12 hope for postseason CFP play, but sloppy defense and Kevin Hogan put an end to those dreams last week in Palo Alto.

Now, Stanford’s playing to stay out of the Holiday Bowl and Cal is showcasing Jared Goff for the draft. But it’s not about records or relevance or even the present on Big Game Saturday. It’s about a blade mounted on some maple and 123 years of folklore, folly and frankly…nerds loving football on the West Coast.

Here, a look back and 30(.5) reasons Cal can spirit the Axe back to Berkeley via CalTrain and BART tonight.

30) The Axe: In 1899, Stanford yell leader Billy Erb used the Stanford Axe at a baseball game between Cal and Stanford. Shortly after, Cal stole the Axe and put it in a bank vault for three decades. On April 3, 1930, The Immortal Twenty-One, a group of Stanford students whose names nobody can remember, stole the Stanford Axe at Cal’s annual Axe Rally. Three years later, the Big Game’s victor was awarded sole possession of the Axe. Cal is facing its fourth straight year without the Axe.

29) Cal’s only lost more than three Big Games in a row once since 1989. 2015 would be their sixth-straight loss.

28) Chunk went to Cal:

27) Danny Pintauro went to Stanford:

26) With the exception of 2010’s 48-14 blowout, Cal has either met or beat the Big Game spread every year since 1997.

25) Stanford has met or beaten the spread three times at home this year (UCF, Arizona, UCLA) but has failed to cover in the last four games.

24) 1924: Both teams came into the game unbeaten with a berth in the 1925 Rose Bowl on the line. With its star Ernie Nevers sidelined due to injuries, Stanford trailed 20–6 with under five minutes to go, but rallied to score twice to force a 20–20 tie and earn the Rose Bowl bid. Cal is still looking for revenge.

23) Of Stanford’s seven double-digit wins this year, three (Colorado, Washington, UCLA) were by more than 20. But only three at home.

22) Being the Big Game underdog doesn’t have much to do with the outcome for either team: In 1947, at the 50th Big Game, winless (0-8) Stanford led the Pappy Waldorf-led 8–1 Bears with less than three minutes left in the game. Cal scored on an 80-yard Hail Mary from Cal QB Jackie Jensen to Paul Keckley to clinch a 21–18 victory.

21) In March 2007, the National Football League announced that it intended to trademark the phrase “The Big Game” in reference to the Super Bowl, but soon dropped the plan after being faced with opposition from Cal and Stanford. This is the last time either team banded together against anything corporate (both schools signed a contract with Nike four years later sealing the fate of both as a soulless institutions for sale rendering this game, nay, this list, obsolete.)

20) In 1959, Stanford quarterback Dick Norman threw for 401 yards (then an NCAA record, and still a Big Game record), but it was not enough to hold off the Bears, who won 20–17. Stanford QB Kevin Hogan is currently averaging 172.3 passing yards per game (11th in the Pac 12).

19) After three years of no Big Game, (Cal didn’t have a football team) heretofore non-existent Cal won the 1919 re-match 14-10 …this year, Cal similarly hasn’t had a football team, nor shown up for the Big Game the last three seasons.

18) Cal likes showing up for the Big Game at the end of particularly terrible seasons: In 1980, the Bears were 2-8 going into the Big Game. Much like this year their season included having just come off a humiliating loss (60-7) to USC. Stanford at 6-4 was led by sophomore QB John Elway and had also taken down number one Oklahoma (in Norman) and Cal was a 15-point underdog. The game came down to Stanford’s final possession. Cal Safety Kevin Moen (recognize the name? See: Number 8) blitzed John Elway on fourth down late in the fourth quarter and Cal won 28-23.

17) …Then there was 1986, when a 1-9 Cal team defeated a 7-2 Stanford team 17-11 in head coach Joe Kapp’s last game.

16) …Or how about 1970? Jim Plunkett led the Cardinal to an 8-2 season (6-0 in the Pac-8), an Stanford outscored its opponents 302-167 with a Rose Bowl berth already in the bag. The 5-5 Bears facing #11 ranked Stanford got a lucky pass interference call in the fourth and took the Axe 19-14. Plunkett ended his Stanford career without ever winning the Axe.

15) …And who can forget 1941? Against common opponents, the Indians had gone 5-2, the Bears 2-5. Cal played masterfully on defense and was pitching a 9-0 shutout. Late in the fourth, Stanford, punting out of its end zone, was blocked by Jack Herrero resulting in a Cal touchdown. The final: Cal 16, Stanford 0.

14) A Cal victory in 2013 would have been the biggest upset of all: Cal was last in the Pac-12 in scoring offense, last in scoring defense, last in total defense, last in pass defense and last in red zone offense. Nationally, Cal is last in pass defense and 123rd (out of 125) in scoring defense. And yet, they even covered then.

13) The last time the Big Game was played in ’15, it was a rugby match (no, that’s not a metaphor). Even then, heavily favored Stanford only won by five.

12) Also in 2013, NCAA data revealed Cal’s football team, at 44 percent, has the lowest graduation rates among 72 major-conference schools, which means most Bears starters probably skipped statistics, ostensibly rendering the spread obsolete.

11) The Big Game has ended in a tie 11 times. That won’t happen this year even if the competition was about something Stanford/Cal students really care about: Minecraft.

10) The biggest margin of victory in a Big Game ever was in 2010: #6 Stanford, in a 48-14 victory, tied Cal’s 1975 record for most points scored in a Big Game. Though technically that would beat the spread this year, Stanford no longer has Andrew Luck under center. More importantly, Cal no longer has Kevin Riley.

9) In 2009, the last time Cal had the Axe, the Bears’ Michael Mohamed intercepted a pass at the Cal three with 1:36 left to preserve a Cal win over #14 Stanford, 34–28. Stanford was a three-touchdown favorite. Heisman favorite Andrew Luck’s stat line: 10 for 30, 157 yards, 0 TDs.

8) Eight seconds. 1982: The Play-—Cal, six-point underdogs, was leading 10-0 at halftime, but the Bears’ took the backseat in the second half on three Elway-orchestrated drives. Then, with :08 left, Stanford coaches called a time out and got the field goal unit on. The kick was good, and Stanford led 20-19 with :04 left. This is what happened during the ensuing kick-off (you know, in case you need a reminder…)

7) More than 40 percent of Big Games (48) have been decided by a touchdown or less.

6) More than 20 percent of Big Games (25) have been decided by a field goal or less.

5) 2013 was the last year of Big Games hosted in odd-numbered years by Stanford as they’ll play the new home of the 49ers (Levi’s Stadium) next year giving the Tree back-to-back home games. Consequently, Cal has its majority Big Game wins in odd-numbered years, which really, like most stats, means absolutely nothing …but 32 reasons is a lot.

4) Stanford leads the series 54-39-11 but the combination to the safe that holds the Axe is actually 54-40-11, thereby ensuring victory for Cal this year.

3) Regardless of what happens, Saturday’s match-up shouldn’t be as big a disaster as the inaugural (as in first time they called it the Big Game) Big Game in 1900. The game was played on Thanksgiving Day at Richmond Field in San Francisco (before the “new” Kezar was built in 1925). During the game, a group of fans watching from atop the nearby S.F. and Pacific Glass Works fell into the building when the roof collapsed. Thirteen people died and 78 were injured. To this day the Big Game’s Thanksgiving Day Disaster remains the deadliest accident at a sporting event in U.S. history.

2) Cal has never lost won a Big Game since the release of Google Glass.

1) Stanford won the Nobel Prize in Medicine AND the Big Game in the same year only once. The year was 2013 when Stanford professor Thomas Südhof won the 2013 Nobel prize in Medicine. Neither school took home a Nobel Prize this year, which means its anyone’s game.

.5) *Cal only doesn’t cover at home.

Pints and Picks Week 11: Road Trip!

Each week, during college football season DPB’s Kyle Magin and Andrew J. Pridgen pour on the prose with Pints and Picks™. Who to wager and what to drink while doing it. This week: Road Trip.

Kyle,

Holy cow! Have I got a Saturday planned.

So, about a half-decade ago, I fled Park City in my Forester with exactly $3.78 in loose change a half-eaten ‘neath-the-seat Slim Jim and an interior covered in Border Collie hair. The car finally broke down on the Central Coast of California and it’s here I’ve been living ever since—watching housing prices desperately try to keep time with the Bay Area as the job market floods with newbie Cal Poly polyglot brocoders each spring.

It has been, in other words, a long time since I’ve been both mentally and physically ‘back’ to Utah. But lo, a quarterly budget-centric, um, you know, examination of our credit card bill and my significant other (who moonlights during the day as an accountant) feels the $80/month spent on a storage unit windowless Airbnb rental near the Kimball Junction McDonald’s (#doubledrivethru) is a drain on both mental and monetary resource. It got to the point where I couldn’t even say the word ‘park’ without inducing a cringe-worthy cringe.

And so, she generously volunteered for 26 hours of solo parenting in exchange for me to go ahead and hop two states over to clean out my past. I agreed and decided it’d be a morning flight there and an afternoon flight back, with nary the time to make a lunch date in between; my tacit acknowledgement that this was an all-about-business trip.

But what of your stuff, she asked. I said I’d either drop it at the Park City thrift (where you can still score last year’s Bogner onesie for under $100…sequined and fur-lined and all) or carry-on/ship some of the more keepable keepsakes back. Nope. That was a no-go. I won’t bog down with the details or take my creative license to misquote the conversation (it’s already a sore enough spot) but I will say, to you and to our generous reading public, she is 100 percent right. That I didn’t just blow two grand to have a bunch of skis and half-tees sit in a shed only to let it flick away into the rarefied Utah mountain ether like a MGD wrapper skipping behind the Circle K Dumpster.

I could, in other words, be recovering the Ark of the Covenant or three giant bags of plastic spiders. It doesn’t matter. It’s coming home.

So, I present to you Kyle, the itinerary of my ballsiest/most comprehensive and audacious Western States road trip to date.

Saturday, Nov. 14:

6:15 a.m. — Check in at San Luis Obispo international (state one, Calfornia. Check). At SBP, there is a single airline agent who also checks your bags, puts ‘em on the plane, sells granola bars at the magazine rack and even works the Avis counter. San Luis Obispo is no hub and there’s always a connector to be had, but the longest I’ve had to wait to be scanned by the 92-years-young TSA agent waving the old-school wand is about three minutes…whether I have ID on me or not.

8:20 a.m. — Wheels down at PHX/Sky Harbor (state two, Arizona. Check)…Resist the urge to Uber it to the Coach House in Scottsdale to down a $4 morning pitcher of Coors heavy and pretend it’s Spring Training already during my two-hour layover. Note: Upon Terminal B to Terminal A gate switch OJ sprint, I had to pause and take a shot of this…yes, this awful goes down in AZ in fewer than two months:

Noon — SLC Int’l (state three, Utah. Check)…Pick up that azure Ford Focus and be on my way from the best airport in the world to ever get to pick someone up at: SLC features a waiting corral/parking lot with flight arrival times up on a big board so you don’t have to keep circling and can read a book instead.

12:28 p.m. — Quick detour off the 15 en route to the 80 to Epic Brewing Company on State Street. Epic can’t give you sample pours in their brewhouse because they’re all high-point suds. Clever blue laws Utah. In the five years since I left, Epic went from a single vat, double bro-with-beards operation in the shadow of the Temple to a pretty big Utah/Colorado macro-micro movement that sticks with its roots in providing not-too-hopnoxious flavors to the local climbers and riders. Can’t wait to clink clink clink out of there.

1:09 p.m. — Sunridge Perimeter Trailhead Snyderville, (suburban Park City) USA. Kyle, I can’t NOT go out and do a quick out-and-back on one of my favorite aspen-lined tacky single-tracks of all time. My lungs won’t be acclimated and I’m 10 pounds of baby weight not yet shed more than my last time out. But this is 50 minutes I’m going to take to stretch my legs, breathe in that pure Utah mountain cush and re-set.

2:05 p.m. — El Chubasco. (Translation: The Chubasco). If you’re ever around the Wasatch Back, be sure to check out the salsa bar that most salsa bars dream of becoming (hint: try the mango). Unfortunately, I’m taking this to go.

2:39 p.m. — Going all in for my own #storagewars. Everything that fits in the Focus comes with.

3:01 p.m. — Back on the 15 pointing south. Look out Provo, St. George, Northwest corner of Arizona…I’m coming down hawt. Setting the cruise control at a responsible 82 and looking for that sub 5 hour, 30 minute throwdown to state number four which is…

7:49 p.m. — Viva Las Henderson, Nevada. No, my math’s not wrong, I gained an hour getting back to PST. Second-half wagering on the Oregon/Stanford game at the Green Valley Ranch Sports & Race Book awaits.

*Beer Break*

Sunday, Nov. 15

6:14 a.m.— Bid farewell to my host family (former college roommates) and their three daughters and his kegerator. And get back on the 15 for the homestretch 420 miles. Barstow to Bako to SLO.

12:39 p.m. — Back at SLO int’l. Crack open an Epic and transfer gear from rental car to full-time car. Remember that no matter where you are, it’s there that you are.

My Picks:

Oregon +8/5 @ Stanford

Is this the wrong time to profess I had a dream this week that Oregon was leading 45-25 in the fourth quarter? I don’t believe much in dreams Kyle, so I’ll go ahead and talk about the things I’ve learned in the waking hours from watching these two Pac-12 North rivals:

1. Ducks’ OC Scott Frost is going down to The Farm for nothing less than a 3 hour 23 minute job interview for David Shaw’s gig. He’s got the Stanford pedigree (not to mention degree) and, you know, Ken Doll hair. Unlike Shaw, Frost doesn’t branch off the Harbaugh coaching tree but if the Stanford Tree needs a suitable sideline replacement next year to run the offense a bit more up-tempo, he’s the obvious choice.
2. Oregon D coordinator Don Pellum’s DBs are starting to learn how to turn around and find their place in space. Plus Stanford’s Kevin Hogan can’t throw the ball more than 15 yards. True sophomore/NFL-bred RB Christian McCaffrey is the Cardinal offense’s singular attraction and will be tougher to bottle than genie Shaq. Pellum will let the son of Sir Edward Thomas have his 35 touches and 220 all-purpose and key in on the wideouts and tight ends instead. Oregon is 105th in the nation on points/yards allowed per game, but of late has an answer along the lines of 660-plus yards of total offense per game (777 last week). However, with so much ‘explosive offense’ hype happening pre-game, I’m feeling Oregon/Stanford will take it into the locker room 10-3 at the half before the six guns come out in the third.
3. Oregon playcaller Vernon Adams is finally creating under center and he has shown the last three weeks that can be a dangerous post-graduate transfer when given a little wiggle room. Stanford’s D line is one of the better fronts in all of college football, but with Oregon’s chorus of five-star RBs starting to find their extra gears the Ducks could forestall the Cardinal from locking up that bid to the Pac-12 championship game for one more week.

SJSU +1 @ Nevada

The Spartans and the Wolfpack have transposed records (4-5 vs. 5-4) but San Jose State is a better team with a tougher schedule. Spartans’ running back Tyler Ervin is top two in the Mountain West in rushing yards (1,239) and total touchdowns (14). Of those 14 touchdowns, a dozen came on the ground and a handful are of the 20-plus yard variety. That’s gamebreaking speed that probably won’t slow much in the communion wafer-thin Reno air. The Wolfpack’s D-line is anchored by Ian Seau and Lenny Jones who know how to sneak into the backfield like it’s the buffet at the Peppermill. But once Ervin is sprung into the Pack’s secondary, it’s on.

Last week, San Jose State juco transfer quarterback junior Kenny Potter had the Spartans rolling in the first three quarters against BYU and was a PAT away from a tie and some overtime action at home. If the Spartans’ defensive front seven can similarly contain the increasingly dangerous Wolfpack RB tandem of James Butler and Don Jackson and apply their formidable pass rush to QB Tyler Stewart—who when the heat is on is less light on his feet than Gary Busey doing the Nae Nae!—SJSU should leave Mackay Stadium with a dust of snow on the helmet and a minor upset.

Minnesota +12 @ Iowa

Kyle, I gotta say Minnesota has been getting better every quarter in the bid to keep HC Tracy Claeys employed. A couple weeks ago, the Golden Gophers barely let Harbaugh and co. out of Minneapolis with a complimentary set of little brown jugs (which I only just now realized wasn’t a euphemism for over-spray-tanned strippers). Last week, Urban Meyer’s Ohio State Buckeyes looked like they were dying to let one slip in a really big way against the Gophers and their suddenly stingy D. For three-and-a-half quarters, the pre-season favorite to repeat looked like they were going to sleepwalk to their first L at home in a calendar year.

This week, it’s a different type of ____eyes the Gophers are attempting to derail. Iowa has the opportunity to be 10-0 for the first time in school history and is carrying a giant head of team steam into the CFP top four if this week’s SI jinx doesn’t create a ripple. The Grapple on the Gridiron event Saturday morning outside Kinnick Stadium should surpass 40k and all those folks queuing up at the cornfield to see a bunch of racist baseball players—and James Earl Jones—under the lights, have made their way to Iowa City.

Is this heaven? No, it’s a school that finally is in the spotlight enough to have an alternate uniform. Props to The Guy Who Looks Like the Guy Who You Want to Be Your Next-door Neighbor Iowa HC Kirk Ferentz for taking a shot back this week at Fox-sponsored bag ‘o wind Colin Cowherd and his brand of assured drivel infused with not-so-informed hatespeech. This, and the fact that Iowa can replace a vestigial SEC franchise during the January bowl miasma, is enough for me to root for them to get over, but just barely, on the Gophers.

Kyle, would you like to join me on the road?

AJ, 

I’m jealous of every aspect of your trip, save one. Dropping off a rental car is one of the most painful experiences known to man. OK, maybe not man who owns one of Carroll Shelby’s famed rides or some obnoxious one-percenter who waxes every weekend and bristles at watering restrictions, but the rest of us. Look, even if you opt for the Focus or a souped-up Go-Kart like an Aveo, it’ll nearly always have a nicer interior (and probably exterior) than your current whip. There’s no coffee stain on the front seat. Your dog hasn’t tracked 10 pounds of the world inside with her after countless trips to the beaches and trails and post office (where she always finds the most fascinating dead animal to roll in.) It’s almost always a product of the current administration’s auto policy and carries a music system that will make yours sounds like an eighth grade band concert. Cousin Michael learned all seven notes to Jingle Bells.

For a brief time in the sun, you get to drive the living shit out of a new car. I’ve never not repeatedly redlined a rental and really opened that sucker up. You’ve got a God-given opportunity to cover a lot of not-real-populated desert real fast on your way between the two intermountain meccas of Mormonism and Payday Loanism. I envy that most of all, and I’m not even a motorhead.

Onto the picks…

Oklahoma State -14 @ Iowa State

This may be more of a sure thing than the over on 60 in this game. Mike Gundy is firmly in ‘look-at-me’ mode with his 9-0 OSU charges this weekend. The team is on the outside looking into the playoff right now, so it’s vital they build their case in the most sadistic way possible in Ames against a sad-sap 3-6 ISU team coming off a throttling at the hands of Oklahoma. That means Gundy will be turning his quarterback JW Walsh loose both early and often and also late and frequently when the Pokes are up many, many points. The Cowboys need a(nother) statement after beating TCU last week. They also need so, so much insurance because a frankly unimpressively-scheduled Baylor Bears team plays a strong Oklahoma team on Saturday (more on that in a moment) before the two get together next week. If Baylor were to lose to the Sooners, big, bloody wins are going to be OSU’s best argument to lay at the feet of the playoff committee. A victory in Ames needs to be decisive, and I imagine that’ll happen.

Oklahoma +3 @ Baylor

Boomer! How did the 8-1 Sooners ever lose to Texas? That’s an enigma wrapped in a mystery. I can tell you how they’ll keep it real close on 8-0 Baylor and maybe even win. That’ll be by the Bears continuing their maybe-we’re-not-that-dominant trend. In the past four weeks, their margin of victory has dropped from 59 versus Kansas to 24 vs. WVU to 18 vs. ISU to 7 vs. Kansas State. OU’s Bob Stoops is both a slightly better coach and a man with far superior talent to the band-aids and walk-ons Bill Snyder rides to winning records every year. Art Briles’ bunch at Baylor just haven’t seen this kind of attack in Waco (<<S.E.O. S.E.O.!) Oklahoma hasn’t given up more than a touchdown in a road game since week 2 and they’re eyeing upcoming dates with TCU and OSU to bolster their playoff resume, too. I expect OU to come out on top.

BYU @ Mizzou +6.5

Everybody knows what happened at MU this week so I’ll spare our readers the re-hash. The key thing to remember is that Gary Pinkel stood by his guys, and then on Friday announced his impending retirement due to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I like the idea of a siege-mentality team, even a 4-5 one, coming out to fucking play against a 7-2 Cougars team who last saw real competition before Hotline Bling dropped.

PNP Recap:

AJ:

Last week: 3 and 3 (need to bet the NBA more)

Overall: 17 for 28 (one tie)

Oregon +8/5 @ Stanford

SJSU +1 @ Nevada

Minnesota +12 @ Iowa

Kyle:

Last week: 1 for 3

Overall: 18 for 34

Oklahoma State -14 @ Iowa State

Oklahoma +3 @ Baylor

BYU @ Mizzou +6.5

Pints and Picks Week 2: Musings on exposure to concentrated amounts of the one-percent, prescription meds, David Carradine, IT guys and the bets we make to make up for it all

Each week, during college football season DPB’s Kyle Magin and Andrew J. Pridgen pour on the prose with Pints and Picks™. Who to wager and what to drink while doing it. Here, the boys are talking about South Bend, Carmel, outside looking in on the one-percent, the elusiveness of the made-up game and wagering better through self-awareness, prescription meds and Craig Biggio sightings.

Here, ready to kick it 4,000 words live…Andrew J. Pridgen:

Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.

I hope you made it back from South Bend. South Bend is one of those places like Disneyland to me. Like, I never really want to actually go there because I never feel like I’m going to have as much fun as the people are having in the pictures. I also never really believe that campus and its history and grandeur will hit me in real life like it should. It has so affected and informed me in my fantasy world there’s no way the real thing can work out. Fantasy life: I went to Notre Dame instead of Oregon and now split my time between my regular home in Scarsdale, my summer home in the Berkshires and my winter cabin/writers’ retreat just outside of Woodstock, VT. A lot of khakis, that Jeep Grand Wagoneer with the wood paneling, some kind of Tartan fishing gear bag hangs in my mudroom and I can recite back the changes to the LL Bean catalog by season.

Instead I’m all flip-flops and burritos.

Life sometimes has a way of turning out different than you imagine.

I did, however, get a taste of the Lipitor/Cialis/sweater-tied-around-the-neck sect this past Labor Day/kickoff weekend. The family and I took two days in tony Carmel-by-the-Sea (as if Carmel could be anywhere else) California. No, the wine and cheese weekend wasn’t from my UNLV/NIU winnings; I just happen to have a buddy whose grandparents bought a little chalet four blocks from Ocean Avenue. in the early ‘70s. Rumor has it they were taking a weekend to test drive cars and this tiny beach cottage with no heat, no power, was selling for approximately the same amount as the Crown Victoria they had their eye on. They chose beach bungalow (<–they chose…wisely). It was built more than a century ago as a little community gathering lodge and has had (rumored) lives as a still, a flop house for hippies and musicians and currently stands to today (still no heating, still no TV, still no wi-fi) as an homage to a retreat in the day where people used to be OK sleeping to the sound of crackling pine breathing from the hearth and ocean foam exploding on the shoreline. So, maybe there is a little LL Bean in me after all.

Fortunately for me Brophy’s Tavern exists one enchanted walk on an overgrown wooded stairwell above the home. ‘The Broph’ is the place where through the decades I’ve gone and drank with professional Pebble Beach caddies, the wait staff from Hog’s Breath and pretty much every surly bronze sculpture gallery manager divorcee with a slur and lip gloss all over her teeth. More than this, it’s probably the only true sports bar/pub in that particular cypress- and conifer-studded zip. Maybe it’s a sign of the economic times, the fact that Carmel homes now cost decidedly more than a five- or six-figure income can afford, that every patron this weekend was all veneers and plugs to go with prescription drugs. I was decidedly two decades the junior of most in attendance and I’m not younger than anyone anymore.

Whilst there, a wind storm blew a giant branch from a dying conifer fell into my buddy’s backyard. Seems that the tall trees in Carmel are slowly perishing. They used to get their water from fog. But because the world is on fire and Carmel is no longer socked in and darker than the inside of a Titleist, these trees are slowly starting to perish. No trees = not as much charm. Not as much charm = not as many charming tourists. Not as many charming tourists = no economy.

So maybe the one-percenters I saw at The Broph were the last of a very literal dying breed. Maybe the new one-percenters are just at Burning Man, and if that’s the case, could give a fuck less about trees, or galleries or anything that isn’t directly vibrating on their genitals. I, in other words, was preoccupied by the end of something while watching Oregon struggle to beat Eastern Washington…even with the Eagles’ best player under center. Watching Harbaugh throw his Ann Arbor comeback on the DVR and watching your father’s golden domers look every bit as good as their independent counterpart from the Family City USA (Provo) both notching a win for their version of god and Jesus and his back-up dancers.

Which all leads me back (quizzically) to Arizona State and what to make of them… more on that below.

Kyle, your reflections on the alma mater of the real Joe Montana and the movie version (Vince Vaughn) of him?

AJ,

Campus is actually pretty near the fantasy, you just have to be willing to pay for it. Loads of cream-bricked gothic buildings (even the uber-trendy status symbol student apartments and shiny architectural marvel of a hockey arena are strictly on-brand when it comes to the veneers) and stately elms. There’s something especially arresting about campus at this time of year, before the trees are denuded and it only shouts GOD AND LEARNING AND FOOTBALL HAPPEN HERE. We even saw a Glee Club out on campus during our pre-game stroll. It seems like every one of the school’s 15,000-ish students are involved in something–’save the kids’ in Africa cause clubs sell hot dogs in the quad, a group of women were selling charming Longhorn Steak House t-shirts depicting Touchdown Jesus standing inside Notre Dame stadium with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other ready for the ‘Horns to come in for slaughter, which they did. I think proceeds went to closing cleft pallettes or something. The whole scene is definitely bucolic.

The only disheartening thing was that, like far too many experiences, you pay to play in the club. Commerce permeates the whole affair, which shouldn’t be surprising. Some combination of miracles and familial roots in Michigan’s far southwest and Indiana’s most northerly reaches produced face value tickets at $125 a pop–by hundreds of dollars the best deal for anyone who wasn’t chasing a degree there. We attended a tailgate immediately adjacent to the stadium–and I’m not talking about ‘close’ but ‘holy shit that’s the ‘88 title team’s line walking past the tailgate’ close. Somebody saw Craig Biggio. There had to be $1,800 worth of booze behind the four-table setup, complete with a Dish Tailgater(™) TV setup and fried chicken and cakes and sandwiches and meatballs and a general air of ‘we could feed an army.’ The next thing that grabbed your attention was doing a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation of the money bomb Texas brings with it, even in embarrassing defeat. A fleet of private oil money jets–even today, in the era of $45/barrel oil–were lined up adjacent to the runway at SBN. So much Burnt Orange was shuffling around Chicago that the Cubs played Texas Fight over the loudspeaker at their Friday home game. A motorcade of party buses plied their way from the Windy City to South Bend loaded with guys doing the Texas Tuck and girls in neon Raybans, sundresses and cowboy boots. On Friday, I was fortunate to hit the calm waters of Lake Michigan on a pair of charter fishing boats with our Longhorns family at a Benjamin a man for lake trout and king salmon. The flights, the rentals, the play, the drinking, not to mention the tickets–the thump a visit from UT provides had to mean 7 or 8 figures across three states and 12 counties.

One wonders where there’s space for the common man in this sport of college football. For someone of modest means–someone who didn’t grow up with a family who heads to South Bend or Austin on Saturdays in the fall or even flies across the country to follow a team–gaining entry to the club seems like it would require a minor miracle. One also wonders about the future of the sport when it relies on such a small subset to fill its cathedrals and buy its telecasts. In short, it’s a spectacular experience, maybe everything you dreamed it would be, but who are you gonna share it with?

Anyway AJ, you wanna pull us out of the literary xanax coma I just wrote us into?

Kyle,

To quote the prophet Jonathan Utah, “Whoa.”

Along with the above being one of my most favorite things you’ve written since your visceral takedown of one Brady Hoke I think your heartfelt travelogue raises some of the same questions I’ve been wrestling with/researching for the better part of a year as I try to figure out how I’m going to be able to one day afford to take my son to a baseball game. That’s right, a game.

Sometimes, I feel like being alive any other time in history—I mean, my lifetime has overlapped with that of all four Beatles, Richard Pryor lighting himself on fire (surviving) and the Godfather II. Any other place or moment, I’d have been as likely to get stoned, boiled, tarred or starved to death. Other times, I think we’re just standing on that cliff’s edge, kicking down a few errant pebbles just to see how far we’re about to fall. Of course, everyone thinks they’re living at the end times when it’s really just the untetheredness (<– not a word) of it all, the lack of real assurance that there’s any ‘there’ here nor is there anything beyond it that chases away our conscious thoughts of what we should be doing right now to take advantage.

Yes, this is me chewing on the arm of some glasses and jotting notes in my therapists’ pad while I shift in my Harvey Probber chair, but I think what you realized this weekend in South Bend is more just a pinch of mortality and a dash of morality. At once, you’re recognizing the homogenized consumer nation we’ve become. Insanely accessible communications technology has stripped away the things that used to make us individual—turned the dialogue into a single thought bubble. Your kitchen with granite and stainless and subway tiles. Your flight, business class. Your attire, decidedly China-bred neoprene with associated team logo. Your meals, curated from a thousand errant charms of chefs past and distilled for the palette of the monied and unconcerned. Raw tuna. Raw steak. Raw oysters. Your chosen method of communication, black screens garnished with cartoon face of your finger tip.

We’re not thinkers anymore. Not just that, we’re thoughtless.

But the problem has been identified. The question is, what are you going to do about it? My answer, wager:

Cal -7.5 vs SDSU/over 61

The 2015 Golden Bears’ sample size is small but mighty. Week one, Cal rolled up Grambling State 73-14. Head coach Sonny Dykes took a little heat in the comments section for running up the score (if you call putting up 35 in the first quarter and playing reserves most of the second half a dick move) but the reality is the final could have just has easily been 87-0. Yes, Grambling is a FCS school and the Aztecs are coming off a convincing win against cross-town rival USD, but the reality is Grambling gave the Bears a nice warm-up/look at the 3-3-5 defense—which SDSU head coach Rocky Long has implemented since the early ‘90s at Oregon State.

For those uninitiated or living east of Carson City, the 3-3-5 means three D linemen, three linebackers and five DBs. It’s not something oft-practiced outside the Mountain West/Pac-12 and mostly counters a spread, rifle or zone read offense. The only problem for SDSU is Cal QB Jared Goff, if not for Kyle’s boyband crush The Rosen One in powder blue, would be the talk of the conference. Last week, Goff led the bear’s offense to 656 total yards augmenting his already staggering totals as a junior: 7,481 yards and 53 touchdowns coming into this year’s campaign.

Dykes’ no-huddle “Bear Raid” (reminds me of Dazed and Confused) offense is kind of a hybrid of those listed above and plays more like half-court basketball. If just one of the DBs breaks down in coverage or gets picked up on the blitz, that leaves Goff with endless room to create with his feet, dump off underneath or hit the post.

In other words, if Cal’s able to execute—which they’ve shown they ab-so-frigging-lutely can, putting up school record numbers game one—then it could be a scary long afternoon for the Aztecs at Memorial Stadium. Look for the tone to set in the form of a flurry of jump balls thrown the way of bear wideout Bryce Treggs, who at 6’3” has a good four inches on any SDSU DB. Treggs also hauled in a trio of TD grabs against Grambling in last week’s first half.

If there’s a way for SDSU to keep it close to the spread, it’s by exploiting Cal’s unproven defense. Dykes’ bears in his half decade in Berkeley have yielded the most yards and second-most points in CFB. Last week his all-senior D line put the Tigers on lockdown as junior middle linebacker Hardy Nickerson, who may be a first-rounder in April, let nothing go by and Cal’s still questionable DBs only allowed 170 yards in the air.

If Cal starts out hot, look to be seeing the second unit by the third quarter. Even with a slow start, an Oregon-style second-half track meet should tip in favor of the Bears. I don’t see Dykes easing up on the throttle this early in the season as he tries to gain stature in the suddenly suspect Pac-12 as well as grab the eye of pollsters.

OK Kyle, I hope your faith in humanity is somewhat restored if not reinvigorated with a little Ommegang time this week. I’ll have a trio of picks on the other side to wrap…but for now—back to you:

AJ,

If only Ommegang were that easy to find. I’ve actually been binging (and this will surprise none of our readers) on my favorite Bell’s beer–Third Coast. I’ll blame that for my picks being so damned lousy last week (1 for 4, ugh).

Anyway, if I haven’t depressed the readers enough, I want to get back to Texas for just a second. I have no idea if the Horns were as bad as Notre Dame made them look or if Notre Dame was that good, but I suspect it’s a mix of the two. The Longhorns program is a sad place, especially when QB Tyrone Swoopes and his… 7.6 QBR is considered un-replaceable. There’s literally nobody else on that roster Charlie Strong feels can top his 7/22, 93 yard effort last week. His backup Jerrod Heard got two plays before he looked sufficiently mystified for Strong to pull him for Swoopes. I have nothing constructive to say about the Horns’ defense heading into this weekend’s matchup against Rice because their offense mustered just three series that lasted longer than two minutes last week and the boys were getting annihilated. Anyone who tells you they have a solid read on Texas’ defense is on Charlie Strong’s staff or a liar. Either way, let’s do this…

Rice +15 @ Texas

The Owls can rightly be expected to bear the brunt of the Horns’ displeasure this weekend. An off-brand in-state rival is a great way to take out aggression, but I’m just not sure how Texas intends to dispense its justice since it’s walking into a gunfight with an airsoft. Rice can grind on your with its rushing game–their 56-16 destruction of Wagner in week one fueled by seven rushing touchdowns at least proved that. They can also strike lightning quick–one-play drives of 3 and 6 seconds and a two-play, 77 yard touchdown drive were all the results of turnovers versus Wagner. Rice isn’t likely to bring pressure upon Swoopes like Notre Dame could, but they don’t appear to have the kind of offense that’ll back down if its counterparts get scored on early and often. Look for the Owls to cover a too-large spread.

Boise State @ BYU +3

I think this line would be different if BYU’s Taysom Hill–who landed in the New World with Cortez, founded Mormonism, served six consecutive missions and will be gunning for a rare 17th medical redshirt next season–was healthy. The thing is, I’m not sure it shouldn’t swing the Cougars’ way regardless. Look at what Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall asked Hill’s redshirt freshman, 22-year old backup (God blesses missionaries to live with the playbook, a workout regimen and zero other technology in a foreign country for two years) Tyler Mangum to do as a replacement versus old man river:

Mangum- 7/11, 111 yards

Hill/Themosticles- 21/34, 268 yards

It’s roughly the same amount of usage and success once you control for snaps, albeit in a small sample size. What I’m saying is that Mangum might not be that big a step down, and that should worry the lethargic-looking Broncos who barely eked out a 3-point win in a huge 16-13 defeat of their old coach and his Washington Huskies on the Smurf Turf last week. A night game in Provo is not an ideal environment in which to dial in an offense that went 8 straight punts to finish last week’s game. Look for the Cougs to cover.

UCLA -30 @ UNLV

Sign me up for Josh Rosen’s newsletter. Honestly, the Bruins’ freshman quarterback might be every bit the world’s first ‘6-star recruit.’ Kid waltzed into the Rose Bowl last week, just four months after prom, and mercilessly mollywhopped a game ACC squad in Virginia by hitting 28/35 for 351 yards and three touchdowns through the air. Coaches–Jim Mora least of all–aren’t just handing out 35 attempts a game to freshmen anywhere else in the country. Add in the fact that UCLA’s fanbase has the kid on their radar and Vegas is just a sun-scorched four-hour drive away and UNLV’s home base will be rocking for a primetime showdown. It’s almost ancillary to the equation that the Rebs were giving up 14 yards per catch to a MAC school last week, and that they allowed four touchdowns on the last seven drives they saw.

Oregon @ Michigan State Over 66.5

Neither defense looked great last week, and both offenses soared. I’m licking my lips at the potential for a shootout between the squads of this site’s proprietors. AJ, we saw Michigan State pile on the points early last year and then fall flat as heat and the Ducks’ D took a toll up in Autzen. The weather is going to be 66 and maybe cloudy Saturday for a beautiful night of football in East Lansing. I think if it stays dry Ducks QB Vernon Adams and Spartan trigger-man Connor Cook light it up. May the best squad win.

Back over to you for the big finish…

Thanks Kyle. Just like Scott Boras wants to limit Matt Harvey on pitch count, I’ve gotten similar word from my agent re: word count. Nothing more than 3.5 4k says he. So my picks, like Jessica Simpson’s time with John Mayer, will be quick and dirty.

Michigan State vs. Oregon (Pick ‘em)

I choose you Michigan State. And no, this isn’t some clever ruse for me to bet against my alma mater to give them that extra sprinkle of cinnamony goodness they need to ‘win the day’ Saturday; I just don’t think Ducks are the Pac-12 Norse team of record this year. And I’m tired of all the bars/restaurants in Eugene with offerings on the chalkboard. Like, just give me a fucking menu. Ducks’ head coach Mark Helfrich, who looks like my IT guy and has the same amount of charisma, seems to choke against the Big-10 more than Carradine in a closet. Scott Frost is the real head coach but he’s up in the booth penciling out his Stanford contract. Oregon’s D is more porous than Stan Gable’s mesh practice jersey and I’m still not sure picking up an Eastern Washington graduate fellow in Vernon Adams to take snaps was the most savory move by the Nike flagship. As Kyle mentioned, the Spartans are at home, one year the wiser on defense and Connor Cook had 12 months to figure out how to not fade in the third quarter. Sparty wins by two scores.

Oregon State +14 at Michigan

My second Pac-12/Big-10 matchup is Oregon State at Michigan and I’m taking the Beavs. Yes, I may be backing the wrong Oregon to best the wrong Michigan on paper, but whatever. I feel like everyone, including Vegas, has been infected with the Harbaugh bug. If you checked in on our pre-season podcast you’ve learned I’m no exception. But, I took a suppository and my fever broke and now I’m off that. Granted, Harbaugh will receive a US Women’s Soccer-style welcome in his backyard homecoming, but the Beavs will be primped and ready. This is the biggest game on OSU’s regular season dance card and head coach Gary Anderson (formerly Wisconsin’s Gary Anderson) is looking for some kind of statement air mailed all the way from muddy-ass Corvallis. Michigan is a recruiting class or three from having the right set pieces and even though they should be a field goal better than the Beavs, look for a lot of jawing for the khaki and Sharpie’d one as this goes down to the final minute.

Central Florida +16 at Stanford

Both UCF and Stanford stumbled out of the blocks last week. Stanford got out-nerded by Northwestern and Central Florida lost 15-14 to FIU in an equal battle of wits. The Knights were held scoreless in the second half despite having a pair of 100-yard performances from wideouts Jordan Atkins and Tre’Quan Smith, so QB Justin Holman’s offense was rolling but not converting. UCF’s defense was eviscerated from last year losing its secondary, two linebackers and half of its D-line with senior D tackle Demetris Anderson bowing out for the season with a knee injury. They may have a chance to get healthy against the Cardinal. Stanford had one nice play last Saturday—a 27-yard run by Christian McCaffrey on the first play from scrimmage—but ended up with 58 total rushing yards on 28 carries. Fifth-year senior QB Kevin Hogan was also a victim of the young and undersized Stanford O-line as he suffered three sacks at the hands of the Wildcats. Though unproven, the Knights’ defense is still better than the prior and Stanford, as mentioned above, may be head coach shopping by mid-year as David Shaw gets ready to take his turn as a coordinator in the NFL in 2016.

PNP recap:

AJ:

last week: 3-4

overall: 3-4

Cal -7.5 vs. SDSU

Michigan State vs. Oregon (Pick ‘em; I pick Michigan State)

Oregon State +14 @ Michigan

Central Florida +16 @ Stanford

Kyle:

last week: 1-4

overall: 1-4

Rice +15 @ Texas

UCLA -30 @ UNLV

Oregon @ Michigan State Over 66.5

Pints and Picks Week 11: Gettin’ too old for this

Each week DPB’s Kyle Magin and Andrew J. Pridgen will pour on the prose with Pints and Picks™. Who to wager and what to drink while doing it. Here then, is their point-counterpoint for Nov. 15, 2014. Or, if you’re in the car, simply scroll down for the recap (they may be verbose, but it’s better than clicking through a slideshow).

AJ: Once Bernard Hopkins at 48 showed he could take down the competitive and serviceable, if not light puncher, Karo Murat, he became the grill-less George Foreman of his time. Old guys, or guys who are getting older—which is all guys—embrace that story line.

There’s something about seeing a man in the ring on the cusp of 50—never mind the Cialis bathtub, I’m still viable, I’m still here—that reaches just beyond inspiring and into that ether of “What, then, am I doing with my life?” Knowing Jake LaMotta was already performing stand-up and had served time on a chain gang by the time he turned 38, makes Hopkins’ storied career all the more valuable. (An aside, LaMotta is still alive and married his seventh wife at age 92 last January.)

In the lead up to his fight last Saturday with Sergey Kovalev, Hopkins was every bit the outspoken elder statesman. He blamed race, not boxing’s still-paddling-its-way-back-to-the-mainstream, as the locus for the fight’s lack of embrace by the sporting public at-large. “Because I’m black,” he said citing that he’d been an upstanding and law-abiding citizen for more than a quarter century in his sport’s limelight and yet has never gotten the run he’s deserved outside the welcoming confines of the insiders of the most insider of sports.

I think Hopkins does have a point; race is a factor in the way of his branding. But race is not the whole story. It’s that, by all counts, Hopkins is a cerebral fellow. A good guy in and out of the ring. A grinder. He’s not betting three million on the Superbowl, “hosting” $40k/week fantasy football leagues or Instagramming himself sleeping in piles of money. If anything, Hopkins’ mattress swells from what he’s stuffed underneath it. There’s a personality there, that’s for sure (a recent physical performed whilst he wore an alien mask—his nome de plume) is proof of that.

In the end, Kovalev proved too much for Hopkins, and—to be fair, established himself as a contender. As both Harold Lederman and Max Kellerman pointed out early and often announcing ringside, it was Hopkins’ fight to lose from the opening bell. Kovalev isn’t known as a late-rounder and Hopkins’ surgeon’s precision in the ring featuring some still spry footwork kept him in the bout for the distance without ever being in the fight.

Though the decision was unanimous and Hopkins took nary a round, it was a victory for the Alien. Not because “Old Guys Rule” or any such pap, but because he showed a very human side. Before, during and after—comparing the bout to labor in the post-fight presser. To me, that is humility only a true elder statesman can conjure.

Feeling a little bit weary in the afterglow of last week’s big bets and bigger losses. So I’m going to go ahead and pass the peace pipe for one round from you and then I’ll dive into an even dozen (count ’em) picks for this week. I’m taking the Kirkland/Costco approach hoping quantity gets me off the schneid.

KM, I know boxing’s your thing, so hopefully I didn’t steal too much thunder in the aftermath (notice I’m trying my best to avoid MSU/OSU).

Kyle: AJ-You summed up my feelings on Hopkins beautifully. He’s a marvel of consistency at 49 that we all wish we could be at 19, 29 or 39. He’s still putting together fight plans and obviously putting in work in camps when most fighters his age are having a hard time putting together a sentence. The approach is just as impressive as the finished product, and as you said, there’s no shame in losing to Kovalev. Just too much power there.

Anyway, I’m going to get right to the picks this week:

Florida State -2.5 @ Miami
I’ll be hoping against hope that the ‘Canes make me look foolish here. They do one thing really well—run the ball. Miami RB Duke Johnson looks like a Sunday player who averages nearly 8 yards per carry—in addition to 13 yards per catch. Alas, I’ve seen the Jameis & Jimbo shitshow pull too many rabbits out of the hat this season to expect anything else than a late FSU win in Coral Gables.

Eastern Michigan @ Western Michigan -27
With a Northern Illinois loss in some weekday #MACtion on Tuesday (which is actually sneaky entertaining. The MAC is still a conference where a pimply-faced freshman CB can match up against a league-ready WR and provide a few fireworks) the Broncos (6-3, 4-1) are in the MAC West title hunt. The Eagles (2-7, 1-4) have been terrible and beaten Western in their last three matchups. But, coach PJ Fleck called out Kalamazoo and Western’s student section for still idolizing the prettier girls (MSU, ND, UM) this week and I think the city & students respond to really tilt the homefield advantage.

Nebraska @ Wisconsin -6.5
Chalk! Bo Pelini can’t beat good teams on the road, and the crowd at Camp Randall will be freezing and therefore drunk & ready to jump around, chiefly for warming purposes. There’s a three-way tie atop the B1G West between ‘Sconny, Nebraska and Minnesota. The Badgers win the eliminator on their home turf and cover for good measure with the nation’s third-stingiest defense.

Ohio State @ Minnesota +14
Yes, AJ, the Buckeyes outclassed my Spartans last week, convincingly. Their running game is among the nation’s best. They’ll need it at TCF Bank Field on Saturday, where the highs are expected to hit about 25. That’s (new) Gopher football weather, exactly the kind of home game you hope for/hate to attend when you build an outdoor stadium in Santa’s backyard. Look for a low-scoring contest between the leaders of the East and West divisions with Minnesota keeping it close and maybe pulling a W out of their hats.

AJ: I like the no-nonsense approach this week. And, truth be told, I got nothing left after last week’s top-20 barrage. Away we go:

Ohio State @ Minnesota +14: Gophers keep this close till the final ticks. ‘Cept for the Hawkeyes, the Golden G’s haven’t lost by double digits all year. Hangover game for OSU, so take the under.

Temple +11.5 @ Penn State: The Temple will sneak up on you like Cosby in a hotel lobby. Penn State should falter at the Beav.

Clemson @ Georgia Tech +2.5: Clemson needs to get the fuck out of the top 25. It’s like when you’re losing at Battleship and you just start calling out numbers, that’s Clemson. Georgia Tech and the money line.

Virginia Tech +4.5 @ Duke: Duke hasn’t realized FCS isn’t lacrosse yet; the Hokies aren’t half bad. Take the moneyline and again on the under.

Nevada +2.5 @ Air Force: Nevada and the moneyline.

Rice +21.5 @ Marshall: Oh snap. Rice and the points and the under all day. Marshall will stumble.

TCU @ Kansas +27.5: This is a week-one point spread. The alma-mater of one Ladanian Tomlinson will put up some points but won’t rawk hawk the jayhawk this week. Teams are injured and slower and TCU gave all it could to best K. State last weekend.

Utah +7.5 @ Stanford: Stanford hasn’t met a spread it likes all season and Utah’s just too quick. The Utes were one historically bonehead play from going 14 up on the Ducks last weekend at Rice-Eccles and the Cardinal have been soft on D and weak up front all year. Utah and the moneyline.

The PnP Recap:

Last week:
AJ: 3-5
Kyle: 2-5

Overall:
AJ: 21 for 36
Kyle: 18 for 28

This week:

AJ:
• Ohio State at Minnesota +14 under
• Temple +11.5 @ Penn State under
• Clemson @ Georgia Tech +2.5 (moneyline)
• Virginia Tech +4.5 @ Duke (moneyline)
• Nevada +2.5 @ Air Force (moneyline)
• Rice +21.5 @ Marshall
• TCU @ Kansas +27.5
• Utah +7.5 @ Stanford (moneyline)

Kyle:
• Eastern Michigan @ Western Michigan -27
• Ohio State @ Minnesota +14
• Florida State -2.5 @ Miami
• Nebraska @ Wisconsin -6.5

Pints and Picks Week 7: Keeping it Sucka Free with GGG

Each week DPB’s Kyle Magin and Andrew J. Pridgen will pour on the prose with Pints and Picks™. Who to wager and what to drink while doing it. Here then, is their point-counterpoint for Oct. 18, 2014. Or, if you’re in the car, simply scroll down for the recap (they may be verbose, but it’s better than clicking through a slideshow).

AJ: So, here’s where the story ends for Notre Dame.

Maybe.

To me, the annual Notre Dame-wakes-up-and-can’t-find-its-wallet-or-keys week never arrives soon enough. 2012 may have been the most excruciating. I was made to wait till after I got my W2s to watch Nick effing Saban deliver the L in a January game of consequence but little national interest.

The second-most-exciting thing to happen to me this month (first being the entire Friends cannon available for the first time on Netflix) was that it might happen against Stanford on Oct. 4

…But then I remembered David Shaw is still mad about not getting the call up to the NFL because in the end the NFL is run by a bunch of plantation owners. And, well, life’s not so bad down at the farm even as a carefully disguised malcontent making $3 million annually backed by a $19 billion endowment win or lose.

Either way, it’s going to have to come down to this week where I actually have to root for Florida Fucking State in Tallahassee to get the job done.

Or do I?

It is a terrible terrible conundrum.

On the one hand, if Notre Dame wins, they finally get to exorcise the blight of the Seminoles from title talk (and yet, it actually muddies the national picture and the ridiculousness of a four-team playoff. Would you join an online dating service with exactly four people, three guys and one girl?)

Regardless of Saturday’s outcome, Notre Dame is going to lose, big-time, at Arizona State on Nov. 8. They’re not fast enough and Vince Vaughn isn’t their starting quarterback. They’re also going to get beaten at season’s end by SC for good measure, because the Trojans are a second-half team and well, both will be out of FCB final four talk by then.

By comparison, Florida State plays nobody for the rest of the year.

In fact, they pretty much have everyone’s pre-season doormats en route to another ACC title: Louisville, Virginia, Miami, BC and Florida. The two-loss Gators looked somewhat formidable until they got doubled up by Bama and batted around by some limping Tigers.

Should FSU still have a 0 on the right side of the dash come Thanksgiving, you can bet Florida fans will load up Gentle Ben and fan boat it up to the state capital to try to remind fans of Burt Reynolds’ alma mater along with the rest of the nation that the state is one TCBY-built-on-a-sinkhole mess. Plus it’s humid. Plus there’s only one Golden Girl still above ground.

But wait, what’s this? Jameis Winston proving he knows how to spell his name: e before i except after …never mind—for cash and a fistful of Papa John’s Chkn Poppers resulting in the unrealized threat of a non-start. I say good for the quarterback who just woke up to what it usually takes football players of his caliber five years post retirement, two failed restaurants and 1.38 arrests to realize: I should’ve gotten paid for my signature before the only value it had was on somewhere on the bottom of an affidavit.

Florida State, 10.5-point favorites before Sharpiegate and back on the board as much as a dozen once his start was announced Friday.

FSU doesn’t have the quicks it purports and Notre Dame actually showed some lockdown D capability against the Cardinal, allowing only one touchdown in three and three quarter quarters. Because the game’s gonna end up 14-10 someone, the safe bet here is the under—which is always a safe bet in a battle of bottom-feeders.

Oh, breaking news (for real) Winston rescues puppies.

Kyle, save me from myself here.

Kyle: AJ, I’m not sure I’d look this way for salvation. I’m still flushing my system from a gloriously boozy trip to San Diego last weekend. I drank a lot of Stone beer on Day 1 (the Stone smoked porter is sort of like Where the Wild Things Are in a glass—sweet, a touch dark and mysterious but ultimately soothing), dabbled with something at Pizza Port on Day 2 called ‘The Mexicutioner’ (which made me goddamn amazing at the jet boat arcade game, putting me on the podium in all three of my tries) and really pickled the liver at the Belching Beaver on day 3.

This week I’ve been hitting the pool a lot (100s on the 2 minutes, which your hunch-backed ancient great uncle who swims will think sounds pretty fast), going to bed at 8:30 and hoping the LCS baseball games will get over at a reasonable hour. During my convalescence I’ve been thinking about this Alabama -13 line at home against Texas A&M. The #21 Aggies (5-2) are in full-on free-fall mode, having lost two straight to great teams in Mississippi and Mississippi State. They’ve managed to keep Kenny Hill’s passing game on track, but the wheels are coming off the Aggies rushing attack—they managed just 1.5 yards per carry against Ole Miss and converted less than half of their third-down carries against Mississippi State.

Hill even got (slighlty) bottled up by the Bulldogs, who allowed only 5.5 yards per completion to the heir to the Tannehill/Manziel throne. You can damn well bet Saban was studying both tapes and is dialing up a gameplan befitting his third-ranked defense as the No. 7 Crimson Tide (5-1) look to pull back within spitting distance of the playoff. Pretty much nobody of note is better on third down than Alabama’s D, and with that much pressure on Hill, 13 points is friggin’ charity.

Football is really just an app for me this weekend–bacon wrapped dates, so a nice date app, but an app nonetheless. I’m really looking forward to Gennady Golovkin’s march toward the middleweight belt against Marco Antonio Rubio.

Golovkin (30-0, 27 KOs including 17 straight) a 3-1 favorite to end this thing within three rounds, and it might be alright to take Rubio (59-6-1) to survive the early bells. Nobody’s stopped the Mexican middleweight before round 9 in 60-plus fights—that’s more than 10 years—and I think that with his (total bullshit) WBC interim belt on the line, Rubio keeps his shoulders over his feet until at least round four. The guy is built like your grandmother’s vanity and will be bolstered by a pro-Mexican crowd in Carson that might get him over the hump against Golovkin, who will probably win, and will probably do so by knocking Rubio the hell out. I just don’t really see it happening that early. As a side-note, it’s very interesting to see Golovkin actively promoting this fight as ‘Mexican style,’ which is apparently shorthand for going toe-to-toe until someone mTBIs their way to the canvas a la Manny Pacquiao in his loss to J.M. Marquez.

For the kinda white, kinda Asian-looking Kazakhstani, it’s as good an effort as any to try to appeal to a broader audience than his sparsely-populated home country as a he makes a bid for the kind of exposure that will necessitate a committed fan base to make Pay-Per-View buys. And, Mexican boxing ain’t exactly what it used to be. Marquez seems to only really be relevant when he’s fighting part 16 of his clash with Pacquiao, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., really likes weed and really dislikes training with any frequency, Gilberto Ramirez is probably still two years off and Canelo Alvarez is a little tainted after the (completely understandable) Mayweather loss. Maybe it’s an open market. Maybe you’ll have to go offshore as Vegas shut down the action after Rubio couldn’t help but make a stop at Randy’s Donuts en route to weigh in.

AJ, how about some thoughts on a sport people who aren’t Latino or 70-plus give a shit about?

AJ: Actually, I think some of your GGG platitudes does portend the return of boxing.

I remember a handful of years ago when Real Sports with Greg Gumbel’s little bro started profiling the rise of UFC as the energy drink, shitty olde english grafitti tee and tribal tat answer to fight night complete with piece puffery on Dana White as the second coming of the France Family. It made me think the sport one Gina “yeah, but can she act?” Carano was going to have a quicker turn at the top than Juvenile’s 2006 release, Reality Check and thus far, I’m (sorta) right.

Now that Rousey is an Expendable and angry-looking bikini model, UFC’s biggest pay day is a half-decade gone and because of a newer audience international (including the 122-million-plus directly south of the border) it hath given way back to the ring with four equal sides.

Numbers don’t lie: Mayweather Medina generated almost a million PPV buys …That’s about 500k short of UFC’s biggest PPV match of all time (UFC 100: Lesnar vs. Mir 2) back in 2009.

While boxing hasn’t reached that heavyweight stratosphere since ’91 (Holyfield/Foreman) the new golden age of middleweight (assuming Floyd will jump up) is upon us. Think of it in these terms: HBO is about to cut the cable and go to online-only subscribers which could increase their base by 80-100 million paying customers domestically.

HBO is currently owned by Time Warner and accounts for about 20 percent of the company’s revenue. Revenue is projected to double with online subscipitons. Boxing is seen as a growth enterprise by HBO—one of the channel’s early wins and most consistent performers for more than two decades, so you can be the odds are good that a fighter like GGG will get his day and his due over the peak next four years of his career.

In the meantime, I’m still a little jealous that you had a pint called ‘The Mexicutioner’. That’s a perfect name for the Nacho Libre sequel I’ve been writing one tweet at a time for the past 18 months.

Beer-wise, I took a detour down the Malt Liquor back alley on my similarly foamy 20-hour sojourn to the giant sand box that is the LA Basin. Speaking of, did you know LA actually rises from the ocean rather than sinks into it? This explains why nobody feels a sliding sensation even as their dreams and days slip down the hourglass of traffic and time. …And why Don Mattingly still has a job.

LA has some decent offerings on tap. Golden Road’s (take the 101 to the 23 to the 118 to the 5 to the 170 (south) to the 134, turn off on San Fernando Road, right on Doran, left on West San Fernando Road …and you’re there) IPL is delicions and available at Trader Joe’s. The Placentia-based Bruery (see: above directions and throw in a detour on the 57 south to inland Orange County) is into corking Belgian-style and ryes. It’s actually pretty good stuff but you have to keep your mustache wax in the front pocket of your flannel and line up for brunch and think that starting a business out of cricket flour is a good call to fully appreciate it.

Post Rose Bowl appearance our session beer whilst trying to revive with some Crystal Geyser and Bubble Tape was Lagunitas’ a Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale. After I stung my tastebuds into submission with stadium-temperature Mickey’s before noon, you could’ve put a bottle of Coors heavy in my hand and I would’ve called it more than good, but this offering was so good I pretended I could go back in time three decades and make a scratch and sniff out of its foamy head and wheaty finish. That and NLCS game one was a grown up version of cereal and cartoons, such a sweet, flavorful little pairing, I got nostalgic for that evening while living it. A 12-oz time machine back to the present day …mmmmm beer.

I’m going to make one more football and some World Series picks in a minute, I think… till then, it’s GGG by KO in the 7th.

Kyle? Maybe we should be doing video game reviews instead. Those guys actually read.

Kyle: AJ, you hit the nail on the head. 4.8 million-plus people bought the newest FIFA videogame title this year, that’s roughly a third of Guardians of the Galaxy’s to-date take. Your average Call of Duty: Murder Foreigners rakes in bigger opening weekend takes than a Bond movie or a whole weekend of NCAA football.

We probably should write to that crowd. Problem is, you and I both seem to spend all of our time using technology to talk to seven people instead of, you know, blowing up zombies and making runs with Cristiano Ronaldo in a stadium of our own design. I was going to make a mouthbreathers/no girlfriends joke there, but I’m bugging my office’s landlord to put a new florescent tube in my overhead light and the guys at EA are deciding between the suite and a beach house for the next E3 convention. C’est la vie.

Since I’m riding a bit of a hotstreak, I’m heading back to the well of small college action. I like Colorado State (5-1, 1-1 MW) -5.5 in Greeley this weekend against Utah State (4-2, 1-0 MW). Both teams are hot, but the Aggies have relied far too much on their passing game with an almost completely lackluster rushing attack (138.2 per game) and the unbalanced look isn’t going to play well on the Front Range, where temps are going to be in the mid-40s by the 7 p.m. kickoff. With the win, it’ll be a three-way race in the Mountain West, with both of Saturday’s teams and Boise State continuing with just one league loss.

AJ, I’ll slide it back over to you for the grand finale.

AJ: Though been cooling off on the gridiorn, my 13-1 wild card from The (Sucka-Free) City is heading into battle this week against their second Missouri-bred foe of October. I’m going to go ahead and double down and say Giants in six. But because I know about as much about AL Central baseball as, well, your typical baseball fan—real quick Kyle, what say you about these Royals besides the fact that they don’t have a good DH like Michael Morse?

Kyle: As far as Royals dirt, you’ll find from even a cursory glance that Ned Yost is Mattingly-level bad.

Bochy is going to have a field day with his ass. No joke. In that wild card game, he probably gave away eight outs on a predictable caught stealing and sac bunt every inning from the 6th on. I love the running game and think there should be more of it in baseball, but he strokes it every night to the thought of Lou Brock and Rickey.

Also, look at their attendance figures. Outside of 10k people, nobody in that town woke up to this team until four-five weeks ago. Some of their September attendance figures were White Sux-level bad. Now Paul Rudd (see: clip above) is being seen at games. My buddy edits a sports page in Cards country and says the entire redbirds fanbase is reemerging in blue.

AJ: But you’re still pulling for the home division out of solidarity for your Tigs?

Kyle: You’re forgetting, I’ve been to San Francisco lately.

AJ: You have an aversion to locally sourced Douchebags?

Kyle: Exactly.

The PnP Recap:

Last week:
AJ: 2-4
Kyle: 3-3

Overall:
AJ: 12 for 19
Kyle: 7 for 13

This week:

AJ:
• Notre Dame +9.5 at FSU under 57
• Giants win World Series in 6
• GGG KOs Rubio in the 7th*

Kyle:
• Alabama -13 vs. Texas A&M
• GGG win by KO or decision but only after round four*
• Colorado State -5.5 vs. Utah State

*If you can find it.

Pints and Picks Week 4: No bye week for bad bets

Each week DPB’s Kyle Magin and Andrew J. Pridgen will pour on the prose with Pints and Picks™. Who to wager and what to drink while doing it. Here then, is their point-counterpoint for Sept 27, 2014. Or, if you’re in the car, simply scroll down for the recap (they may be verbose, but it’s better than clicking through a slideshow).

AJ: Kyle, why are there bye weeks in college football? I mean, I get why they’re there in the NFL—basically an opportunity to get arrested in the club and for the league to fuck with fantasy owners who deserve to be fucked with. But there’s no reason for this in college other than maybe to see what FCS campus gets the biggest spike in date rape and frat house electronics raids over the idle weekend.

I only ask this because bye weeks in college used to not exist and now that they do, it brings an even bigger air of “professionalism” (air quotes) and indentured servitude to the amateur gridiron ranks. If the NCAA said, “We schedule bye weeks around midterms because academics” I’d be good with that. Happy even. But the real reason is to stretch out the post-season and turn college football into a 20-week endeavor (i.e. almost two-thirds the academic year) for the almighty bottom line—of which the athletes themselves see not a penny (and that’s where the lap top thefts come in).

Since you’re pretty good about finding out the why of things the way I’m good at identifying the season of Magnum PI (and episodes) where he tries to track down the ghost of his allegedly deceased wife, let me know if you know.

Otherwise, I take it now that you’re off the schneid you’re not taking a bye this week.

Me, I’m still trying to feel this week out like a Junior High dance. There’s no match up that stands out as a stone cold lock; and it has to be watchable to be (not a word: betable). <-One of my cardinal rules—the other is to never trust a Yelp reviewer whose mouth is wide open on their profile photo.

For now, a couple quick comments:

• Why is Wyoming traipsing around the country in pursuit of getting bitch-slapped? Is it like an anything-is-better-than-staying-home-and-risk-getting-shot-in-the-face-by-Dick-Cheney thing? First Oregon and now Michigan State? It kind of reminds me of those Pat Hill-era Fresno State teams which burned through their Southwest miles to go get rolled up by the SEC and ACC and Big-10 before limping back to the parched Valley and dominating, um, Wyoming …and most of the rest of the Mountain West. To be fair, Wyoming does have a slightly guttier squad than they originally got credit for (think corn snow-fed defense) and should give Sparty fits for at least a quarter or two. If you can get a first-half prop bet for the Cowboys at +10 or above, that’s better odds than your drunk-as-fuck out-of-town guest trying to pull a credit card advance on the gaming floor.

• Missouri on the road at South Carolina getting only 6.5. The Gamecocks are hotter than a rescue pit mix locked in a ’93 Aerostar in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly since forgetting Manziel was in the NFL and dropping their opener against Texas A&M. The Cocks have won three straight and Missouri is reeling from what should’ve amounted to a midweek January stumble on the hardcourt to the Hoosiers at home last week. Can Mizzou regroup or will South Carolina’s Mike Davis and Brandon Wilds harass QB Maty Mauk who already has four ints to go with 14 teeders …and, you know what, this spread sucks. Fuck this game.

…I’m going to pause right there and say I was running some errands with a buddy during the lunch hour today (he’s planning a birthday party for a one-year-old which basically means crappy burgers, a weird sheet cake that is actually just flypaper with white frosting and a couple of fifths because apparently one is too young to remember seeing your folks and their friends black out) and we ended up at Costco. Still $1.50 for a polish and a soda.

The thing is, we were the only sub-octagenarains dining there. All these Burns-postured McMurphys who’d escaped from “Serene Gardens” next door were gumming on these intestines and entrails pressed into a tube while gangsta leaning off their Rascals made me wonder: Do the old folks know something I don’t? Like, If I have one meal left, it’s gotta be Costco (because it is glorious, especially when you remember to ask for the slaw) or does it just kill a lot of time to try to gum down a dog the size of your shriveled and veiny neck midday on a weekday when you’re at the station of life when time, quite literally, can’t go any slower—and yet, you don’t have much of it left.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is, I just have a lot more questions than answers this week.

Kyle? You there? You still reading?

Kyle: AJ, the middle school dance analogy couldn’t be more apt. I have an overwhelming urge to skip this week completely and tell all of our readers I was off doing some really cool stuff. In reality, I’ll probably be reading Madeleine L’Engle and trying to stay up for MadTV and hope my father (who, coincidentally, is visiting this weekend) doesn’t come out and turn it off when they swear for like the only time in the whole show.

MadTV featured the stylings of Michael McDonald (not this one, not that one, this one), a USC alum, and that’s my segue into talking about one of the only games that probably matter this weekend. With no ranked matchups, it’s going to be interesting to watch Oregon State-SC (-9) in the sense that it’ll be interesting to see your neighbor walk out the door with his 14-year-old dog tomorrow. Hey, still on the right side of the dirt, eh Fido?

The 2-1 Trojans are a technically, I suppose, still in the playoff race. Stanford exposed SC’s inability to get anything done in the red zone with a run game that’s hampered when it doesn’t have room to breath in a game the Trojans won 13-10. Boston College pantsed SC’s run defense in a 37-31 victory on Chestnut Hill. Both of these tell me the men of Troy aren’t yet sound in their line play. Mike Riley’s Beavers aren’t very good at running the ball on aggregate—they’re 91st in rushing in the nation—but in the first quarter, few offenses are as effective at running and passing the ball as 3-0 Oregon State, who put up more points early (10.5) than every other team in the Pac 12 North. If they can kick the Trojans’ line in the teeth early, I think OSU Quarterback Sean Mannion can play keep-up with a very potent SC passing attack.

Surveying the rest of the college football landscape leaves that bye week to be desired.

American Conference favorite Cincinnati visits Ohio State as a 15.5-point dog, and that’s halfway intriguing. Looking at the rest of this schedule is sort of like looking at the area surrounding Charleton Heston after that ship crashed in the first Planet of the Apes. Guess we’ll have to get walking.

AJ: Kyle, nice call on bringing the pops to town during the week of bettors doldrums. Now, instead of sitting indoors and inhaling the second-hand smoke of the sports book, the two of you can ramble around the Sierras inhaling the first-hand smoke of arsonists.

I think we agree this is a trap week as far as NCAA wagering goes. None of the spreads seem at all enticing and, as you pointed out, the dearth of compelling matchups (besides conference-centric spoiler games like Stanford at U-Dub) make this the week to take a BCS breather—and set the crosshairs on October baseball.

Namely Mr. Magin, the prospect of four very disparate and very under-(over?)achieving-for-different-reasons West Coast franchises making it to the playoffs.

It’s a Freaky Friday moment for baseball West of Lovelock. You’ve got the perennial lovable A’s who went out and made a splash at the trade deadline, only to wallow in the second half like so much locker room sludge through the AL West with dead arms and a listless clubhouse en route to a wildcard berth.

You have the predictably unpredictable Giants across the bridge who had a fiery start and a nine-game lead in May only to lose two-time world champion aces Matt Cain from the starting five (still unknown injury) and Tim Lincecum (still undiagnosed velocity problems) but somehow picked up where Oakland left off and went not with the big trades but with the white-flag youth movement: Hunter Strickland, Chris Hesten, Erik Cordier and even skipper’s son Brett Bochy have all contributed on the mound. Back-up backstop Andrew Susac has been clutch off the bench and in spelling Buster Posey and infielders Joe Panik and Matt Duffy have been key contributors plugging the middle whilst performing at the plate. The suddenly youth-infused G-men didn’t have enough in the tank to catch the boys in blue with the quarter-billion-dollar payroll and the world’s greatest stadium, but they do have a good chance of beating the Pirates in the wildcard sudden-death scenario and finding themselves the object of Joe Buck’s scorn again.

In Southern California, it’s a battle of swollen payrolls and depleting expectations. The Halos, who had all but given up on The Last Investment Albert Pujols till he decided to come out of the orange groves and hit a respectable .273 with 28 bombs and 104 RBIS (and he’s not done yet). Mike Trout is baseball’s lone superstar right now and the singing cowboy’s starting rotation featuring innings eaters Jared Weaver (18-8, 3.52 ERA), CJ Wilson (13-10, 4.61 ERA) and Matt Shoemaker (16/4, 3.04 ERA) suddenly looks like baseball’s best even without the services of Garrett Richards (13-4, 2.61 ERA). The hedge fund-backed Dodgers’ have the best pitcher in baseball in Clayton Kershaw. The once-in-a-generation starter-next-door has mastery of three pitches usually thrown in a way three different pitchers might; fastball, 90-plus, a makes-you-swing-from-the-heels slider in the high-80s and an elevator curve in the mid-70s. It’s like facing vintage Barry Zito, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddox—in one at-bat. Kershaw recently notched his 20th win, has an ERA under 1.80 and tosses 100-pitch complete game shutouts like Drysdale the get away afternoon after a Saturday night bender. Kershaw alone almost makes one forget that any player who came up under Castro thinks hitting the cut-off man is a Fredo Corleone reference.

You got your Tigs Kyle, but the prospect of not only an all West Coast World series, but LCSs makes me giggle. I know Fox shares Erin Andrews’ resting bitchface scowl when it comes to the knowledge that KC, not NY will be in the playoffs and Mr. Jeter’s farewell bonanza is but a week away from coming to a cleaned-out-locker and teary press conference halt. All that historic footage from the pre-device ’90s shelved for roll out at Cooperstown in 2020. And what the fuck will Ken “He shoulda been-a dentist” Rosenthal talk about as Buck cuts Harold Reynolds off on the cutaways with no DJ?

With that, I’d like to be a sort of World Series wager Sommelier. First off, like a fine wine, many teams age into BETTER odds of winning Bud Selig’s final Commissioner’s Trophy as the season matures. But like your great aunt’s Bradford Exchange plate collection, not all teams go up in value. At the start of the season the last-place Red Sox were 12/1 (ditto Rays). The aforementioned Yankees, who are now 300/1 to take a Champagne bath, started out at 14/1. The Orioles who started the season at 35/1 are now 13/2—not bad for a runaway division champ. And your Motor City hardballers are a solid 6/1. For my money though, I’m liking either the A’s or the Giants at 12/1 to bring the hardware back to the Biggedy. After all, Giants fans, it is an even-numbered year.

Kyle, I know you’re headed out the door to see nature’s splendor with the man who pulled you out of oblivion and plopped you on this big blue-infused chunk of spinning granite, but I KNOW you’re laying down your World Series picks this week… so, (Pacino voice) what’dya got?!

Kyle: AJ, I’ve never been more happy to talk baseball during betting season, a sport I usually avoid at the book like the plague. It will also grease the wheels of conversation with the old man while we’re waiting for his knees to stabilize after I drag him up a few thousand feet above his normal playing altitude.

I, too, think the road to the World Series is definitely coming through California. Too many hardball-related planets are aligning with the Golden State. Dave Stewart is LaRussa’s new lapdog in Arizona. Scully is back again next year! I found out, just this week, that they still have an MLB team in San Diego.

As a Tigers fan, I hate to say it, but the Los Angeles Angels of Disneyland at 9/2 to win the series is the best bet at the book. Jeff Weaver is a horse, Matt Shoemaker has walked one guy for every 9 he’s struck out since the break and Wade Leblanc hasn’t given up a run in his last two starts headed into the postseason. Everybody has been getting on in front of Albert Pujols and he’s been driving all of them in—he’s got roughly an RBI per game over the last month, while Mike Trout continues to ape Barry Bonds with his slugging prowess. Gordon Beckham and Howie Kendrick have gotten on-base as often as anyone in the league over the last month. There’s just no way I see someone getting around this time save some massive power outage from Pujols and Trout.

In the NL—and I know this won’t be popular with much of our readership—I like the Dodgers. I don’t love them at 9/5, but in the “who’s going to win this thing” sense, I think we’re geared up for a freeway series. Which, wow, Randy Newman is going to RAKE royalties from FOX. It’ll make Erin’s Dancing with the Stars schedule manageable—I won’t have to put up with her whiny-ass Instagram posts from a private jet about #grinding from coast to coast.

We’ll get some hoity-toity reminders from the New Yorker about all the poor-ass people who got bulldozed out of Chavez Ravine 60-plus years ago to make way for one of the top-five stadiums in baseball. It’ll be gross and engrossing, all at once.

The Dodgers’ Matt Kemp, Justin Turner, Carl Crawford and Scott Van Slyke have been hitting the living shit out the ball over the last month—all four are in the top-15 of OPS over that stretch. Even with Puig’s second-half power outage, I don’t see how anyone else keeps up with the boys in blue. Selig passes out his last trophy south of the Grapevine.

AJ: Gotta agree it may be Los Doyers’ year and hey that Randy Newman song was supposed to be ironic; like how big a shithole-where-small-town-dreams-go-to-die-with-a-gooey-tarpit-center LA is. It makes me laugh every time the Dodgers notch a W and it bounces off the Hollywood sign and into the night. I love it! I love it! I love it!

Oh, yeah, the Huskies are better than David Shaw’s listless and unproven farm squad. Take the dawgs and the 6 points against the Cardinal (at home!) for a share of the Pac-12 North lead.

The PnP Recap:

Last week:
AJ: 3-3
Kyle: 1-2

Overall:
AJ: 8-12
Kyle: 1-7

This week:
AJ:
• Washington +6 vs. Stanford
• SF Giants (or Oakland A’s) at 12/1 to win the World Series

Kyle:
• Oregon State +12.5 @ USC
• LA Dodgers (9/5) or LA Angels (9/2) to win the World Series

Oregon vs. Michigan State Breakdown: Why the caged duck quacks

Each week DPB’s Kyle Magin and Andrew J Pridgen will play dueling banjos of prose with Pints and Picks™. The season starts with a “very special pick” as Kyle and AJ both have very unique ties to Michigan State at University of Oregon. Here then, is their point-counterpoint. Or, if you’re not at lunch, simply scroll down for their picks.

AJ: I chose to attend the University of Oregon in the early ’90s for three reasons: 1) I loved wearing flannel and wanted to live in a place where it was appropriate to wear flannel. 2) I like when the leaves change and the weather gets shitty. Eugene’s nine months of rain suited my melancholy just fine. And 3) I wanted to go to a school that was national champions at a major sport. When I visited the Oregon campus spring of my Senior year, painted on the memorial union plate glass window were the words, 1993 National Champions: Ultimate Frisbee. Though I could never aspire to such great heights, I knew there would be winners in my ranks and that was good enough for me.

Upon arrival to Eugene the next fall, all my expectations were met—and then some: I wore my flannel until it was (literally) moldy. Note to mom: You didn’t have to throw it out over my first Christmas Break, you could’ve totally washed it. I listened to a lot of sad music and maybe talked to one girl one time—it was in this grammar for journalists class and I sat next to a Heather. I didn’t buy my text book for that class because the professor guy was selling them out of his office, not the bookstore. And I was afraid of office hours. He was later caught for subverting the bookstore process and fired and it was a big scandal so I found myself touting my own integrity. This was the time I learned that lazy = rock-solid values, an ethos most journalists carry their whole career. Anyway, I shared a book with Heather for about half the quarter till the scandal broke and we all had to go buy legit books for the new grammar Nazi. I thought about her way too much when I slurped my dorm noodles and drank five glasses of orange soda with every meal. I think she married a reality show producer and lives in LA now.

The Ultimate Frisbee team did not repeat but the football team went 2-6 in the Pac 10 and 5-6 overall, which was like the best Ducks’ finish in a decade.

My memories of the football games my Freshman year are as such: Filling up a boda bag with Snapple and Southern Comfort (don’t whince at the concoction because it all tasted like boda leather either way). Strapping on the boda. Putting my flannel over the boda. Going to the Burger King for breakfast on the way to Autzen. Walking around the perimeter of the stadium like I was lost for a half. Listening to Oregon fans talk about how “this place really comes to life when Jerry’s in town.” Finding my seat. (Actually, that’s not true, you could basically sit down anywhere, there was an endless Yellow Brick Road-type expanse of gold bench’d seating in the student section.) Swaying around when they played Louie Louie, because Animal House. Stumbling across the train tracks to Track Town Pizza. Getting to the front of the line and realizing I had no money. Going back to my dorm and play the guys on my floor in Super Bases Loaded. Somewhere in this, I discovered why my father referred to Oregon as “Cal’s bye week.”

Now, things are a little different. The last Oregon game I went to was the Halloween “Black Out” game vs. USC a season ago. I thought that meant all the student body get hopped up on SoCo and Snapple and wouldn’t remember a GD thing by halftime. What it really meant was that all the student body buy the SAME black Nike Oregon t-shirt at the bookstore and sit in the stands and take selfless as they crammed in like sardines underneath the foreboding Eugene sky. Then everyone who was an alumni went inside halftime to tell stories about how things were when they went there and spill IPA on their wives and kids’ shoes in the practice facility. Oregon won, I think. And then Pink Floyd stared playing over the PA and all the students lined up and jumped in a meat grinder. This is what happens when flannel becomes ironic and Heather doesn’t share her book with a geek anymore. Things fall apart.

So, the first reason I’m taking Michigan State and the points this week: Oregon’s fickle fan base. Notice how Autzen turns from a stadium that goes to 11 to a whisper and a #hashtag instantly when things start out not great. If Sparty’s D is on point in the first half—which it should be—and can stop chrome trailer hitch corporation from touching up the scoreboard early, it’s going to be a long flannel-less afternoon on the shores of the mighty Willamette.

Oh, one more thing. I also went to Eugene because I wanted to start a Zine. I still want to start a Zine.

Kyle: My relationship with Michigan State (not my alma mater—#FightOakland!) stems from a difference in sales tactics employed by my parents. Up until I was six years old, I was unaffiliated when it came to being a fan of any college team. In my college football-crazy corner of the rustbelt, competing interests are always battling for the hearts & minds of impressionable youths.

My father is a Western Michigan grad and a lifelong Notre Dame fan. My mother is a Magic Johnson-era Michigan State grad and devoted fan of the green and white. Her older sister is a grad and her father and my grandfather have had ties to the school going back to the Great Depression when he showed his 4H cows on the land grant, agriculturally-focused college’s campus. I have various nefarious University of Michigan fans creeping ‘round the corners of my family’s immediate relations and group of friends who saw to it that I had a Lil’ Wolverines hoodie at some point during the time when I shat myself regularly.

In first grade (circa 1991), my father pulled me out of school for the better part of a week and flew me out to Colorado. We summited Pike’s Peak, bouldered in the Garden of the Gods—which, holy crap, how’s that place not a National Monument?—and generally had a splendid introduction to the American West at what I can imagine was no small expense. On our final full day, we went to watch the 5th-ranked Fighting Irish, led by Jerome Bettis and a handful of future NFLers, take on Air Force on campus in Colorado Springs. I was enamored of a plastic cowboy and Indians toy set I’d begged from my father at one of our stops on the trip and watched little of the action.

My mom employed the soft-sell. At some point in the next year, we took a day trip on a sunny fall Saturday up to East Lansing to watch some godawful Spartan team take on some godawful Indiana team. We packed a picnic together and ate it on the banks of the Red Cedar River. We went to the university’s famed student-run Dairy Store and got ice cream. We probably left at halftime. From then on, I was hooked.

It was a lonely existence, being a hardcore, devoted Michigan State fan in an elementary and middle school environment then dominated by the University of Michigan supporters. Michigan beat the living hell out of State most years—they did it with a boa constrictor-defense and an offensive line built like a group of Eastern Bloc shot putters. Layered atop the beatings was the sheen of what Michigan is and what State is. Michigan is where the MBAs, lawyers and doctors went. State turns out teachers, ag science majors, foresters, biologists and veterinarians. There’s a city-country divide and an attendant inferiority complex even an 11-year-old can pick up on.

I went to a college with no football, and in doing so justified my continued Spartan fandom. During those years, the Spartans were shellacked by everyone. Once I graduated and moved West, they hired head coach Mark Dantonio, who’s supervised a massive exorcism of State’s demons. They started beating Michigan (5 wins in the last six tries), won the league by beating Ohio State last year and won the Rose Bowl for the first time since the Reagan administration earlier this year. I suppose my first, narrative-driven reason they’ll beat the Ducks in Autzen Saturday is momentum. I’d have never believed, in my heart of hearts, that they’d beat Urban Meyer and Stanford in the same season. Might as well keep it rolling.

AJ: Wow Kyle, I never knew about your mom and, um, Magic Johnson.

My Sophomore year at Oregon, Danny “Real Deal” O’Neil led the from-out-of-nowhere Ducks to the Rose Bowl where they got waxed by Kerry Collins and future number-one-overall-pick and present-day sports blogger Ki-Jana Carter. Didn’t matter though, the Ducks hadn’t been to a Rose Bowl since the Eisenhower administration and Nike money was beginning to pour in to the University like Everclear and Tang splashing around an orange Igloo cooler on a Friday evening.

As if overnight, Kurt Cobain was dead and nobody was wearing flannel to the games anymore. My days of loving the then-lovable Ducks were pretty much winding down in time to the hit machine that was Better Than Ezra.

Congruous with the newfound success of the Duck gridders was the quick fade of the Ultimate squad, a double-dose of reality. Me, a year older and none wiser, still not talking to girls, still not going to office hours and skulking around in the rain trying to glean something from an album entitled Loveless, simply had wet jean bottoms, too-long bangs and the business of an upstart football powerhouse to attend to. An unlikely pairing in the Willamette Valley indeed.

Let’s fast-forward to Saturday’s match-up. East Lansing’s defensive mastermind Pat Narduzzi knows he’s got his work cut out in Oregon. And yet, with a Ducks’ squad that features no stand-out wideout (Marcus Mariota spread the ball around to 11 different receivers in the Duck warmup last weekend v. South Dakota) and a running back by committee. Duck fans cry, “Too many weapons.” I say unseasoned at the skill positions and ready to be exploited.

I fully expect Mariota to be able to spread some Aloha in the first half, but if Narduzzi’s front five can neutralize the Ducks’ frenetic no-name attack for the first four possessions and not let one or two break free, it’s on.

Also, check the game time and conditions. Kick-off is at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on a day the mercury’s supposed to creep into the mid-90s. Add five degrees on the field and you’ve got three digits bad news for Sparty. Yes, September is Oregon’s nicest month, but a little global warming has contributed mightily to the clouds lifting over the house the Fouts built (and Phil remodeled). My melancholy may be here to stay, but Oregon looks to bask in the summer sun.

…Or will they? (Oh, sorry Kyle about the Magic Johnson dig).

Kyle: AJ, no worries about the mom swipe, it’s been a real pleasure giving you something to ponder besides your daily high-fiber cereal shit. I’d love to pick your brain about the 90s over some Werther’s Originals some day.

You’re right, MSU will probably have a hard time with triple digits, but how well will the Ducks fare? Unless Uncle Phil has a Nike+ saline drip hooked up to all of his human billboards student athletes, I don’t see where a team that plays in games with an average temperature of about 30 degrees cooler than it’ll be at Autzen derives an advantage.

What I’m more worried about is the history between the two squads in Autzen in general. The Ducks curb—stomped MSU’s 1980 squad in Eugene, racking up a 35-7 win. In 1998, the next (and most recent) visit from Sparty to Oregon, the Ducks rolled them up for a 48-14 win in a loss that was particularly painful to then-MSU coach Nick Saban. The home team has never lost a game in this series.

Dantonio’s current team, however, is markedly different than almost every iteration of the Spartans to don the uniform in the last fifty years. I really can’t stress enough how different these teams are than the Spartan squads of my youth.

I remember, distinctly, my excitement over Charles Rogers’ Michigan State career. One day, a very, very cool football teammate of mine came to my job as a lifeguard at the Y to tell me my mom had cleared me to go up to East Lansing with him for a night game against highly-ranked Wisconsin. MSU had been slogging through a bit of rough season but had an offense that was gangbusters led by future addicts in Rogers and quarterback Jeff Smoker. He said we were leaving straight after my shift ended, and I said I needed to grab my State sweatshirt at home. He motioned to a Meijers bag and said my mom had already packed it. It was, of course, the super lame one my aunt had given me from Christmas, some off-Kelly green Steve and Barry’s knockoff and not the official Nike number I’d dropped my 12-hour workweek paycheck on just a few weeks before. She also took the liberty of packing my jeans and dopest braided belt along with like, $10.

I took the cash and sweater but opted to wear my sweatpants. We got to campus and hit his brother’s frat house first. We got some earnest lecture from his brother’s buddy on pledging Alpha-Phi in two years because we were a legacy and ‘obviously a bro.’ We took a shot of Jack and tried not to vomit in front of the cool older guys.

The game was a disaster. Smoker, in his last game before taking the rest of the season off to deal with a coke problem, tossed like four interceptions. Rogers went apeshit as usual but couldn’t keep State in the game. I inadvertently revealed what a loser I was to my buddy by properly identifying a guy on the sidelines as State’s backup punter (to be fair, he was a GREAT recruiting get). At that point I realized that no matter how many stud running backs, wideouts or quarterbacks State had, it never bothered on defense, and that was the reason the team failed.

Nowadays, this team has defenders who can cover just about anyone in the nation. Cornerback was previously a Spartan position occupied by failed running backs and obvious no-hands receivers. Narduzzi, who everyone knows is waiting for the next real B1G job to open up, almost never has a passing defense that gives up more than 170 yards in a game. That’s a little more than 40 yards through the air, per quarter. Save for a big play here and there, nobody really gets off through the air on MSU, and cornerback Trae Waynes is quickly eliminating his side of the field as an option for opposing offenses. The middle linebacker position has been manned by a succession of All-Americans (Greg Jones, Max Bullough, now Taiwan Jones), and defensive end Shilique Calhoun works on offensive lines the way the old man from A Christmas Story worked in implied profanity. It’s a medium he has mastered. This three-level defense has cowed high-level spread offenses like Michigan’s circa 2013 into essentially playing for good punting position. Mariota has been schemed for since January 2, 2014. These factors do not bode well for him.

AJ: I just checked the line on this game and it’s getting ridiculous (Oregon -13). So, let me start by previewing Saturday’s other marquee match-up. USC is going up to the Farm to wax Stanford. Like, by a lot. Like, take the money line.

The Cardinal’s convincing win over UC Davis week one makes them three-point favorites. But I’m not thinking about this season, I’m thinking about 2007 when USC was 41-point favorites coming off a 42-0 win over Stanford in 2006. But all of a sudden Jim Harbaugh’s 1-3 Cardinal shocked the world and rolled up the Trojan 24-23. Pete Carroll came back the next year and ran up the score on Stanford, 45-23, just because he needed to out-jerk the jerk on the other side of the field (repeat on West Coast sidelines for the next six seasons …and counting).

Why am I talking about Stanford/SC and Harbaugh Carroll and a pair of games that happened almost a decade ago decided by jerky jerks? Because, well, USC’s Sarkisian’s the jerk in charge now. Stanford’s David Shaw has at least come off like less of a jerk, but he’d rather be coaching in the NFL this season so that makes him probably a little jerkier—but not jerky enough to win. In other words, USC and Stanford are two schools founded on the principle of turning high school jerks into college jerks and releasing them out into the world as professional jerks with bad ideas that somehow get venture capital or made into movies—or maybe they just all end up working at their dad’s Maserati dealership in Newport Beach, I dunno.

Anyway, take the bigger jerk in today’s um, jerk-off, and the points.

Speaking of tangents, as Kyle pointed out before dimming the lights, slipping some GHB into the Asti Spumante and throwing Jodeci on the five-disc changer in time to sweat the Way(nes?) brother who is MSU’s funnyman/shut-down corner, Oregon’s young and inexperienced secondary will be tested more than co-workers at Kink.com by MSU quarterback Connor Cook. The Ducks are questionable when the balls go, um, deep. With gimpy ankle’d Ifo Ekpre-Olomu shoring up one side and redshirt Freshman Tyree Robinson fielding center, it could be a long day for Don Pellum’s 3-4 package.

And then we have Shilique Calhoun. Yes, Mr. Magin, the guy who wears the heavy crown of Big Ten D-lineman of the year all sideways and flat-billed wants his Mariota slow-roasted on a spit at this luau. While the Ducks have four returning starters in their front five, right tackle Andre Yruretagoyena will have his hands more full than his last name is with vowels.

Wow, that sure didn’t come out right. But you get what I’m saying, right?

To clarify: Take MSU and the points and, oh yeah, the 56-point over/under looks like a sure bet for the under (that’s right). This is one track meet that the Ducks don’t want any part of. Look for a 23-18 MSU upset at Autzen.

Kyle: AJ, we agree the point spread seems a tad wide. Despite all the bluster, I am worried about seeing a well-run read option offense out of the Ducks. It’s something State’s never seen at the caliber Mariota can.

I think the Ducks get loose for a big play early and get the crowd into it. As the night wears on, though, Connor Cook will be efficient and the D will rack up a few stops. State ekes it out late on a fake field goal, 31-28.

Is race the real reason David Shaw won’t leave Stanford for the NFL?

With five head coaching positions suddenly vacant Monday, at least a handful of professional football franchise owners are whetting their lips at the prospect of luring Stanford head coach David Shaw.

During Monday’s Rose Bowl media day, press focus was more on willing Shaw to departure than the task at hand for his seven-point favorite squad. “I have not and don’t plan on interviewing with anybody,” he said when asked if he would jump to the pros to join San Francisco’s Jim Harbaugh, Seattle’s Pete Carroll and Philadelphia’s Chip Kelly — all playoff-bound Pac 12 expats running hybrids of the Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense, just as Shaw does.

The biggest problem and perhaps the sole prohibitor for Shaw’s entry to the National Football League is the one thing he does not have in common with Harbaugh, Carroll and Kelly.

At Stanford Shaw is a football coach — and a damn good one. At 41, he is the front-runner for a third-straight Pac 12 coach of the year honor. His cumulative record is 34-6 with the Cardinal and this year he led his team to its third-consecutive BCS berth.

In the NFL, Shaw becomes a black football coach.

Perhaps more than any professional league, the NFL has fought harder against an image of racial inequality amongst its higher ups and racism within its ranks. As a result, it has singularly defined itself — by race.

For all its self-anointed success in its overcompensation, the league is still the drunk at the bar calling everyone within earshot alcoholics.

Amidst controversy and scandal, from Richie Incognito’s racist rants (against one of Shaw’s former players), to the flavorless cut-aways of Saltine-skinned owners looking ghostly white flinty and lipless as rotting corpses perched in their skyboxes, to player inferences that divisions and racial tension exist and persist as a daily fact of life in the league, the NFL is a victim of its own rules and regulations and even its own spin-doctoring.

So far, the league’s biggest reactionary trope, the Rooney Rule, has either been rendered ineffective as a work-around, or at worst, backfired.

Established in 2003, the rule named after Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and chairman of the league’s diversity committee, requires NFL franchises interview minority candidates for head coaching and front office gigs; oftentimes, minority coaches will be spirited through the hiring process within days or hours of the announcement of a team’s actual hire rendering the rule obsolete in its hoop-to-jump-through application.

If there has been a slight uptick in minority coaches and front-office staff in the NFL, the percentage of minorities in charge does in no way reflect the populace of its athletes nor has it kept pace with the general workplace population.

In fact, there has been a regression of sorts the last couple years. In 2013, approximately 70 percent of the league’s players are black, yet right now only two of the its 32 teams have black head coaches.

This time last year, the NFL had eight head coaching spots to fill and by the time the hiring was done — not one new coach was black.

On Monday, five NFL coaches got the axe including the Minnesota Vikings’ Leslie Frazier, who is black. As of today, only Mike Tomlin of Pittsburgh, whose job may be in jeopardy after the Steelers failed to sneak into the playoffs, and Marv Lewis in Cincinnati, whose Bengals won their division, get to give pre-game speeches.

Though more than 30 percent of NFL assistants are black, many are not skill position coaches which fast track to jobs in the booth and eventually to trolling the sidelines with a headset and Sharpie.

The league touted its own inefficacy, or at least averageness in attempting to address the issue advertising its C+ grade for gender hiring practices from an annual report released by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport last year. If there is a bright spot, the report also noted six black general managers run front offices, and yet, the NFL takes a strangely demoded if not segregationist tone in its own verbiage calling Baltimore Raven’s GM Ozzie Newsome “the second GM of color” to win a championship.

Though Shaw is a Stanford alum, he has had a solid glimpse of life in the league with almost a decade of immersion in the NFL — first as an offensive quality control coach with Philadelphia starting in 1997, then with Oakland as a quality control then quarterbacks coach. He also worked for Baltimore as quarterbacks and wide receivers coach.

Shaw was lured away from the professional ranks in 2006 when he followed his coaching mentor Jim Harbaugh to the University of San Diego, then back to his alma mater 2007.

He succeeded Harbaugh in 2011.

Shaw eschewed a move to the pros last year after signing a multi-year contract extension at Stanford. Currently, he’s the top paid head coach in the Pac 12 pulling in about $2.5 million a year, four million less than what Chip Kelly took home this year as a rookie coach with Philadelphia.

“You never say never, of course, but I love it here. My wife loves it here. Our kids love it here. I’ve yet to find a better job,” Shaw said after signing his latest contract, “than right here at Stanford.”

…These words may not be just to appease the Shaw’s bosses on The Farm. His current employer, after all, is a world-class institution that puts a premium on achievement, not skin color.

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Post by Death of the Press Box.

National audience to decide with bemused indefference whether Oregon or Stanford is the more annoying institution Thursday

No. 3 Oregon and no. 5 Stanford face off on Thursday night football’s nightcap (well after BCS Computer has passed out in front of the Daily Show with a half-empty ice cream bowl in his lap). Bragging rights for the only geographic half of the Pac-12 that matters as well as a potential bid to represent *yawn* at the last BCS national championship game, well after anyone this side of Tuscaloosa stopped caring about college football, are at stake for the Duck.

Playing spoiler to appease all sports scribes east of Winnemucca and bump the Webfeet out of the national conversation is Stanford’s mission for the second straight year.

The Ducks have crept up to a double-digit favorite (-10.5) for the ninth time this season. Disregard the fact that the Ducks are 9-1 against the spread over the last 10 games and 10-2 against the spread in its last twelve Pac 12 match ups, that this game is away from the slippery confines of Autzen may be the singular ticket to covering for the Eugene-based NFL farm squad.

In last year’s 17-14 overtime loss at home to the Tree, the Duck was crippled by a stifling Cardinal D as well as the slick conditions on the field slowing their ground and air attack. All is crisp and fall-like down at the Farm so look for the track meet to resume at 6 p.m. PST.

Pick: Oregon (Ducks will win by two touchdowns, so if you can garnish your wager with extra points, do so).

The real question of this lead-in to collget’s Week 11 isn’t who’s going to come out on top, but which school is more annoying?

Here is our breakdown of which institution of higher learning and aggressive marketing gets the “please just go away” nod from a national audience based on four categories: Student body, band/mascot, alumni/sense of entitlement and general bad-taste (including uniform).

Student body: While the majority of Oregon’s football team hails from places other than the Beaver state, its student body is still decidedly Oregonian (more than 60 percent). Stanford, on the other hand, draws out nerds into the rarefied corridors of West Palo Alto from all corners of the globe (though a Stanford undergrad will be quick to point out only someone from Oral Roberts U believes the world has corners.) Stanford students dream their $225k degree will lead to a job at a company can lose a half-billion dollars in its first six years, make no technical or interface improvements and come up with no business plan, lose 80 percent of its users within the first month, and still trade at $45/share its opening day on the market — so they can afford a $2.7 million one bedroom in with bamboo instead of laminate in South Beach (that’s San Francisco’s South Beach, not the one LeBron shipped his talents to.) An Oregon student dreams of an older brother, the one with the women’s studies degree, hooking him up with a part-time floor-sweeping gig in hopes of apprenticeship at a homespun wool-dying facility in an abandoned garage just off Mississippi Avenue. A money-chasing sycophant who believes the world needs yet ANOTHER version of DropBox vs. a hapless hipster saving to finish his sleeve? Close but…

Most annoying: Advantage Stanford.

Band/Mascot: Oregon, in a handshake deal with Walt Disney during the ’40s, adopted Donald Duck as its mascot. The deal was codified in 1973, the same year the LSJUMB was banned for life from Disneyland due to antics like taking over the mic on the Storyland Canal boats. The Duck can only do boring/cloying things (like push-ups) because it’s still Disney property and the Tree can basically do whatever it wants, because it’s property of the kid who built it. So, Nike essentially owns the Ducks inside the lines and Disney owns the Duck outside of them.

Most annoying: Advantage Oregon

Alumni/Sense of entitlement: Even though Stanford’s 22 living Nobel laureates certainly know how to fill out the prize’s paperwork better than the two to come out of Eugene, at least Phil Knight never separated from his wife because he was banging a 26-year old marketing manger/one of his direct reports.

Oh, and he’s never been seen out in public looking like this:

Plus Ann Curry is an Oregon J School alum. And who doesn’t love Ann Curry?

Most annoying: Advantage Stanford.

General bad taste (including uniform): Oregon should walk away with this, especially with the pink bowling ball helmet stunt against Wazzu that didn’t raise a thing besides eyebrows for cancer. But wait, Stanford has jumped on the Nike train as well, and even though they don’t have as many uniform combinations are there are five-year-olds addicted to Dippin’ Dots, both schools’ pandering cancel out.

That is until U of O’s senior associate athletic director Jeff Hawkins’s recent declaration that “(at) UO we are the University of Nike. We embrace it. We tell that to our recruits.” The AD-with-training-wheels’ sentiment is just as over-the-top as it is, sadly, understated. Oregon was once a public coeducational and research university that now happens to be a billboard for a company whose revenue was almost $3.7 billion this year, which is about the size of Stanford’s endowment; though Stanford’s coffers were not built off the backs of Thai children stitching soccer balls for $3/month.

Most Annoying: Advantage Oregon

So there you go folks, an annoying tie to go with two annoying universities, but at least neither is annoyingly proud of it.

That would be USC.