Are You Not Entertained? SEC Games of the Year

Completely speculative guesses on games occurring weeks and months into the future. As always, subject to scorn, ridicule, mockery until such time as I revise and/or issue a mea culpa:

Sakerlina @ UGA -5 (9/7/13)

In a series that has been, for as long as I can recall, usually very close, wild and pretty chippy, I hate Georgia laying 5 this early with a rebuilt defense, even with the second best offense in the SEC (ahem, Roll Tide). Sakerlina is going to be a quiet defensive killing machine this year, but may not have the horses on offense to win this one S/U. That said, USCe is not going to lose by two FGs either.

Rambo, and we don’t mean Bacarri, loves this one

Florida -4.5 @ Miami (9/7/13)

Florida could have the best defense in the entire country. The offense, meanwhile, is essentially held together by Bondo, three pieces of old gum hiding in a rediscovered Ron Zook track suit, and blind optimism that it has to get better (Spoiler: It will not). Miami, with the deep back field (and serious, holy shit, old-school Miami speed) will be the darling in this one. But, until an ACC team actually steps up against the Improbability Machine of the SEC-East, I’m not putting cash on them to do so. Florida wins a lemur asshole-ugly kind of game (and covers!) in the least intimidating home field south of Mason’s-Dixon’s.

Joaquin Phoenix either hates this pick or is aping ‘Canes fans on their bath salt binge.

Tennessee @ Alabama -28 (10/26/13)

Unless #ButchPlease plays to lose close a la Lane Kiffin, expect some of the worst, one-sided football the rivalry has ever seen. Since 2007, save the aberration in 2009, these games have not been remotely competitive. It’s like asking the now-departed Zelda Rubenstein to fist-fight The Rock, except that Dwayne Johnson has mercy where Nick Saban has none. Take Alabama as a mortal lock, and feel free to reflect on the karma that visits low-down snitches in that tho’up orange.

At least Zelda Rubinstein was scary in Poltergeist…

Alabama -12 v LSU (11/9/13)

This is the SEC’s Chinnamasta: An erotic, esoteric violence that you cannot turn away from. Is it the fountains of blood eagerly lapped up by we, her handmaids; or is it the rivers of gore that fall on us, as the copulating couple? Whatever it is, it makes us tingly in our britches, and is Exhibit A for the virtues of MANBALL. With that in mind, the only time LSU will lose to Alabama by 13 points is in a BCS Championship game, with Jarrett Lee is standing on the sidelines. Will Alabama win this game? Yes. Will it be in the neighborhood of 6-9 points? A lot more likely. Les Miles, for whatever reason (and that reason is sheer madness/fuzzy logic) gets in Nick Saban’s head like no one else. For one magical Saturday a year, The Hat coaches. It will be this game. Take Alabama on the money line, but steer clear of the Tide on the points.

WOULD!

Sakerlina -3.5 v Florida (11/16/2013)

Last year’s most baffling result occurred as these two seemingly even-matched, top 10 teams met in The Swamp. Florida 44 South Carolina 11. Aside from a surfeit of turnovers, and a gameplan that consisted of "running clock," USC brought nothing to the table in this one. More surprising (and aided by USCe turnovers) Florida had like three games worth of offense out of Brent Pease. This time, alas, the game is in Brice-Williams. South Carolina is the better team, and while it will be a low-scoring, ugly affair, I like Sakerlina S/U and to cover at home, somewhere in the neighborhood of 17-13.

Like Ewe Boll’s BloodRayne series, the antithesis of Alabama-LSU, this game will be violence for violence’s sake, but without the redemptive beauty of my Norwegian loin-muse, Natassia Malthe #TeamNorge

Alabama -6 @ Texas A&M (9/14/2013)

By proof we feel / Our power sufficient to disturb his Heav'n, / And with perpetual inrodes to alarm, / Though inaccessible, his fatal Throne: /Which if not Victory is yet Revenge. –Milton, " Paradise Lost". Revenge has a terrible way of driving those for whom the taste of failure is a more lingering taste than the fruit of success. This is Nick Saban; it is the fear and shame and embarrassment of losing which drives him more than fleeting acclamation and victory ever will. In this case, with an offseason to plan, scheme, and stare in the mirror at the man who will always adjudge a scoreboard deficit as a permanent shortcoming, it bodes poorly for the Aggie. Dear reader, Hell is coming to College Station riding a Crimson horse. Take Alabama and the points in a one-sided, physical massacre.

Ah, Nick Satan memes. They must not know that Lucifer means Light Bearer, and there is some truth to that as the blinding light from these crystal footballs can attest.

Florida v UGA -2.5 (JAX 11/2/2013)

For four quarters, minus one play, the Georgia Bulldogs were the best team in the country (or would have at least won the SECCG and visited grievous harm upon Notre Dame, but tomato/tomahto). Florida, at times (in a defensive effort against LSU, the trucking of Sakerlina, Manballing TAMU, running wild on FSU) looked like the best team in the country. Then came last year’s WLOCP which dispelled all notions that either team can see past Gator/DWAGS helmets to put together a competent football game. In easily one of the worst games of the season, the only redeeming characteristics of the WLOCP were the Driskel-interception-drinking-game and the sheer, childlike joy on Jarvis Jones face as he was the most terrifying thing with braids since the Predator. Faces change, but I doubt the outcome will this year. UGA is simply a better team, with a better offense, as much talent (though unproven) on defense, are better coached, and for the first time since 1987-1989 the Water Thief Flagship will win a third straight over the Gators with relative ease as Evil Richt returns. Take the DWAGS and the points.

Seriously though, Georgia, stop with the water-thieving shit.

LSU @ UGA -4.5 (9/28/13)

Someone want to explain why a team that won 11 games last year is suddenly chopped liver? It’s not like the losses (which are substantial) are any worse than Alabama’s or Texas A&M’s departures. The offense is almost intact (good news here is the bad news here), the defense will be ferocious, and still likely better than 100 other teams, even if they start eleven 9^th Graders from Bayou La Batre. For whatever reason, Les Miles wins one game a year for no reason other than the sheer caprice of the Football Gods. And, for whatever reason, I think it is this one on the road.

Les Miles, as the grinning avatar of a fire giant who sired a world-devouring serpent, a god-devouring wolf and the mistress of Hel…or , Les Miles really just enjoying some TGI Fridays. No one knows.

Next time, we’ll look at the National Games of the Year.