The Idiot’s Guide To Week 7 in College Football

Last week was a fun week in college football. BC handled its business well, Louisiana jumped ahead of LSU in the rankings without playing a game (Louisiana’s game got postponed to Wednesday due to a hurricane strike), and Houston, mercifully, got to actually play a game. But a lot of other nonsense happened, so we’ll talk about it here.

The Idiot’s Guide to Week 7

Saturday, Oct. 17

Irony over Dan Mullen; We are breaking tradition in previewing these games in chronological order, because honestly we wouldn't be doing this column justice if we didn’t showcase the biggest idiot in college football after his pièce de résistance.

So Dan Mullen and the Florida Gators went down to College Station, TX to play the Texas A&M Aggies. It was a competitive game, honestly a game that was probably more deserving of the 3:30 CBS slot than the game that actually filled it. In the end, Texas A&M won. Now, they won for a lot of reasons: the stellar play of senior Kellen Mond, a bad fumble by midfield, a porous Florida defense that set up a chip shot field goal to win the game. Dan Mullen could have blamed the loss on a literally almost anything and not sounded like a complete idiot.

Instead, he blamed it on the amount of fans in the stands. And not only that, he wanted Florida to make a change.

Now, to be fair, UF’s president came down swiftly to say “yeah, I don’t know about all that,” and Florida also doesn’t have a monopoly on science denying college football coaches, but this seems particularly stupid. Just because something is now legal for reasons passing my understanding doesn’t make it a good idea, and while reasonable minds may differ on if having limited people in the stands is advisable, no person worth their salt is seriously considering having stadiums at full capacity, particularly in SEC country. Having thoughts like that, putting the health of everyone in the Gainesville, Florida community behind the fact that he didn’t have his SEC team prepared to weather a Kyle Field crowd at all of 24% capacity, is selfish, and represents all that is wrong with having a football-first mindset when approaching public health.

Oh well. At least nothing poorly timed happened after th—

There it is.

Life comes at you fast.

On the bright side, I have a new headline: Florida Man Asks For Thing, Then Proves Why Thing Is Bad Idea.

Thursday, Oct. 15

Arkansas State over Georgia State

Friday, Oct. 16

SMU over @ Tulane: Has anyone ever pointed out that the Tulane athletics logo looks like a Smurf that’s sick?

BYU over @ Houston: Hey, Houston got to play a game last week! And they won! In all seriousness, I feel really bad for Houston considering they had part of the season wiped out through no fault of the players, so I’m glad it finally got to see the field. But BYU will be just a hair better than them.

Saturday, Oct. 17

(for real)

Clemson over @ Georgia Tech: Straight up forgot Georgia Tech was in the ACC for like two days this week. Oops.

Cincinatti over @ Tulsa: Is Cincinnati really only three point favorites over Tulsa? Someone is asleep at the switch in Vegas.

Miami over Pittsburgh: It gets easier, Pitt.

Auburn over @ South Carolina: I officiated collegiate flag football at the regional level and I also have a law degree, and I still don’t understand the SEC’s explanation of what happened last week at Auburn.

Tennessee over Kentucky: I think Tennessee got pretty well exposed last week against Georgia. Kentucky, however, is also not that great either.

Navy over @ East Carolina

Texas State over @ South Alabama: South Alabama’s abbreviation is “USA” and it doesn’t market itself as America’s Team? Seems like a missed opportunity.

Syracuse over Liberty: OK, now y’all are messing with me. There’s no way Liberty is a 3.5 point favorite over Syr… oh!

West Virginia over Kansas

Army over UTSA

UAB over Western Kentucky

Notre Dame over Louisville: Some poor kid who showed up to Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Con Law or Civ Pro class unprepared for a cold call just yelled “Oh, sure! SHE gets away with not wanting to address a hypo!”

NC State over Duke

UCF over @ Memphis

Ole Miss over @ Arkansas: I am mildly intrigued by this Ole Miss/Arkansas matchup. 2020’s gone too far y’all.

Eastern Kentucky over @ Troy

Texas A&M over @ Mississippi State: Let’s see how the Aggies will do outside of the brutal 22,000 people in a 100,000 stadium crowd.

Virginia over @ Wake Forest

Georgia Southern over …UMass? UMASS??????: Did we know that UMass was actually playing football this year????? Good gravy y’all, at least UConn still has the sense to not play. I’m not even talking about COVID right now.

Middle Tennessee over North Texas: Party in Murfreesboro.

Marshall over @ Louisiana Tech

North Carolina over @ Florida State: Remember when Florida State didn’t lose to teams like North Carolina? I realize that the downfall of a program like Florida State is complicated and there are Things That Happened, but boy, that did not go well.

Southern Mississippi over @ UTEP

Alabama over Georgia: Bless whoever’s heart who is getting in the way of Nick Saban’s practice this week after a scary effort against Ole Miss.

Oh. COVID got in the way of practice this week. Neat.

Boston College over Virginia Tech: Let me tell you something. If BC ever gets its offensive line shored up, and for real, it can take on anyone in this conference, and I mean that sincerely. I think the Eagles line up really well against Virginia Tech, and if BC can stop, or at least slow down the run, the Eagles can absolutely keep up. I certainly do not buy the 11.5 spread in favor of Virginia Tech.

Florida International over @ Charlotte

Postponed

Baylor/Louisiana Tech: This is the third game Baylor has had to postpone. Two of them were its fault!

Vanderbilt/Missouri: If we’re going to get SEC fans to care about COVID-19 implications, how better than to get a game cancelled between two teams the SEC can never do without like Vanderbilt and Missouri?