From the Sports Desk

Welcome to Week 3 - unofficially, the most boring weekend in the CFB schedule!

How boring is it? Usually, when a No. 1 team plays an unranked opponent, it’s considered a boring affair, but the most interesting game today is arguably the repeat National Champion and No. 1-ranked Georgia Bulldogs hosting the unranked University of South Carolina (the real USC) Gamecocks (“You can beat our team but you can’t lick our ‘Cocks!”). After two weeks of beating cream-puff teams (sorry, U. Tenn-Martin and Ball State), the Dogs are finally playing an SEC opponent, even if they aren’t an elite, nationally-ranked opponent. 

But South Carolina has long posed an early-season test for the Bullldogs. We beat them last year, 48-7, and this year we’re 27.5-point favorites. But Bulldogs fans well remember 2019, when South Carolina beat Georgia 20-17 in double OT. South Carolina won 4 out of 5 games between 2010 and 2014 - those losses may have cost former Georgia head coach Mark Richt his job. 

And the history! Georgia first played South Carolina in 1894, back when the President was named Grover Cleveland. The game has been played annually since 1992, although as a result of conference expansion and realignment, it will cease to be an annual matchup next year. Georgia leads the series 54-19-2.

Today’s game (3:30 pm) should be interesting to see, if nothing else, how the Bulldog defense handles South Carolina QB Spencer Rattler.  Despite last year’s Georgia loss, Rattler can be a potent player - he scored 6 TDs last season against Tennessee, going a near-perfect 30-37 for 438 yards. And last weekend, he went 25-for-27 for 345 yards and 3 TDs against Furman, despite getting sacked 3 times. Ominously, Georgia has only one sack all season even though both games were against over-matched, unranked opponents. 

Today’s game may be the first real test to see if Georgia has a team capable of three-peating the National Championship.

Other games today get pretty boring after that. Tennessee vs. Florida would have been interesting back in 2010, but both teams have fallen on hard times since then. No. 11 Tennessee is on the come-back trail, but unranked Florida has lost to Georgia 5 of the last 6 years. 

No. 18 Colorado (2-0) vs. unranked Colorado State (0-1) should have been boring, but it’s gotten somewhat more interesting after the Colorado State coach criticized Prime Time’s fashion sense,  saying something like “My mamma taught me to take off my hat and sunglasses when indoors” after a Coach Prime press conference. Neon Deion came back and said something like, “Oh, you just made it personal! It’s on, baby! It’s on!” The Colorado Buffalos are 23.5-point favorites over the State Rams.

Including the Colorado game, teams representing the ill-fated and short-lived PAC-12 are favorites in 10 of their 11 games today. The only exception is Fresno State (2-0) as a mere 3-point favorite over Arizona State (1-1). It’s entirely possible that the PAC-12 runs the table today and wins all of their scheduled games.

Penix and the Huskies put the Magnificent Seven Championship Belts and the Holy, Moley, Guacamole One True Belt (blessed be its name) up against a Big-10 opponent (Michigan State). Washington is a 16.5-point favorite, but it’s probably the most at-risk the belts have been since Penix took them away from Bonix. 

What else? Not much. None of the Top 25 teams play a ranked opponent. Florida State (No. 3, 2-0) play the unranked Eagles at Boston College and I’ll say it again - I hate the fucking Eagles, man (I'm a BU man, myself). The “Texas Is Back!” Longhorns (No. 4, 2-0) are 48.5-point favorites over the unranked Wyoming Cowboys, and we can expect the boasting to be unbearable as Texas claims “The only real Cowboys are from Texas!” or some other stupid redneck shit.

So watch the games today to see if Georgia passes its first test in the South Carolina game, if the PAC-12 can go undefeated today, and if Penix can keep the belts from going to the Big-10 before Washington joins the conference next year.  Everything else is just mere product for the networks to use to sell some advertising time.