Taking place every Thursday (ALLEGEDLY), I take a look at each game, make a few BOLDHOTTAKE predictions, then declare on which side of the point spread I will place myself. The twist this year is that I’m going to pretend that $4 million of Houston Nutt’s lump sum buyout from Ole Miss, which totaled $4.35 million, was given to me by Nutt for the purposes of “exciting investment opportunities” (Nutt is keeping the last $350k for expansion of the Cotton Bowl wing of his New Mexico home).
For each game, I’ll wager $25,000 because that seems like a wildly reckless bet, yet one Houston would be okay with, and we’ll see how much money I add to his empire, or how much I lose and force him to become the running backs coach at New Mexico (he’ll probably do this anyway).
OFF WE GO.
Last week: 6-3
Money earned: $75,000
Houston Nutt’s fortune: $4,075,000
An extra $75k to use for decorating his office when he gets the SMU job. PONY UP, Y’ALL.
Central Florida at Missouri (-10)
Prediction(s): Fresh off of showing the MAC that getting blown out of games scheduled at JP time is the worst (at least it wasn’t hot), Missouri extends the same courtesy to the American Conference (of Big East and Conference USA ancestry).
Bet: Missouri to cover
Massachusetts at Vanderbilt (-16)
Prediction(s): Vanderbilt’s only offensive points have come by way of a field goal against Ole Miss while trailing 41-0 with 10 minutes to go in the game. They have scored zero offensive touchdowns in 120 minutes of rampaging, incompetent football.
They are like Greece’s World Cup team, only Vandy has been trying to score. The number crunching tells me that they are currently on pace to score 55 points for the ENTIRE SEASON.
And yet, the wizards in Las Vegas have decided to give UMass 16 points? A UMass team that scored 38 points last week against Colorado, a bad team, but certainly not Vandy bad (maybe).
The good news for Vandy is that an offensive touchdown seems likely this week. And when Stephen Rivers scores that touchdown, look for a celebration where he mimics putting on a bolo tie (NEVER GIVE UP ON BOLO TIE JOKES).
Bet: UMass and the points
Arkansas (+1.5) at Texas Tech
Prediction(s): Bert will love Lubbock. The wind will help keep the Bert sweat to a minimum and he has a pretty sturdy base so the wind won’t leave him tilted like everyone else and every tree/building out there. Bert will probably hate the hotel situation because Bert hates everything that throws him out of his Fayetteville routine.
Bet: Texas Tech to cover
Georgia (-6.5) at South Carolina
Prediction(s): Despite Georgia’s best efforts to not use him, Hutson Mason will be revealed as Joe Cox with a fancier name.
Bet: South Carolina and the points
Louisiana-Lafayette at Ole Miss (-27.5)
Prediction(s): Taking a break from snark/yelling/apathy, it was absolutely awful to hear this morning that Stan Sandroni, Ole Miss radio’s sideline reporter, died last night. I didn’t know him, but everyone who did had nothing but good things to say about him.
My only Stan story took place in a bank in Oxford when I was in school. I had to deposit a check or something (I had no deposit slips for the drive-through, so DON’T JUDGE ME) and Stan was in front of me in line.
I immediately tried to play it cool, which I assume no one has ever tried to do for a radio sideline reporter, but I spent hours with my friends talking about Stan’s reports of “yeah, David (Kellum, the play-by-play man), looks like a holding penalty” after Kellum had not three seconds earlier said, “Looks like a holding penalty, let’s go down to Stan”, so this was a big deal to me. We also enjoyed the times it would go down to Stan and you’d hear nothing but static or garbled noises because at Ole Miss, we have nothing but the best audio equipment.
Anyway, as I’m standing behind Stan, who is looking around the room because he wants to talk to someone while waiting for the people in front of us to finish discussing something like a $7.56 account discrepancy, I decide I have to talk to him because he’s STAN SANDRONI. I can’t remember who we were playing that week, but I finally asked him what did he think was going to happen on Saturday.
He could not have been more delighted someone wanted to talk Ole Miss football while trapped in the drudgery of standing in line. Time and too many viewings of Con Air have erased my memory of what he said exactly, but he was very positive and liked our chances.
Other than confirming what had already been said by David Kellum, the thing that will always come to mind first for me when I think of Stan Sandroni is that he loved Ole Miss and wanted the best for it. And that he was exceptionally nice while stuck in an annoying line.
(And screw that bank for making him wait in line. Me, fine, but not Stan Sandroni.)
Bet: Ole Miss to cover
Mississippi State (-14) at South Alabama
Prediction(s): No time for tours of the USS Alabama, there are 80-yard touchdown passes to be given up by Mississippi State! The good news for State is that South Alabama’s quarterback, through one game, only averages 6.4 yards per attempt, so he might only be good for one 80-yard TD instead of three.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that State will miss at least one extra point because they are playing a game of football.
Bet: Mississippi State to cover
Southern Miss at Alabama (-48)
Prediction(s): The Tide wraps this thing up by the end of the first quarter, the goes ahead and handles that whole situation with ISIS before the third-stringers get in.
Roll Tide. pic.twitter.com/Cvmu0M83ij
— Chris Fuhrmeister (@ccfuhr) September 11, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsBet: Alabama to cover
Louisiana-Monroe at LSU (-31)
Prediction(s): Jambalaya and alcohol. So, the usual, I suppose.
Bet: LSU to cover
Kentucky at Florida (-18.5)
Prediction(s): I will miss the chunks-of-brick fight this game was last year. However, I will enjoy Florida’s swift and steady regression to their offensive mean.
Bet: Kentucky and the points
Tennessee (+20.5) at Oklahoma
Prediction(s): Bob Stoops orders that four consecutive knees be taken at the five-yard line late in the game as a way of thanking Tennessee for not bringing their band and making everyone listen to ‘Rocky Top’ 450 times.
Bet: Oklahoma to cover
Rice at Texas A&M (-31.5)
Prediction(s): BOLD FLAVORS HOTTAKE PREDCTION: Things will not go well for Rice.
Bet: Texas A&M to cover
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
