First things first, if you haven't already, check out last night's RTT Podcast, which featured Spencer Hall, Clay Travis, Holly Anderson, and RTT's own Will and Joel. If you missed the Podcast because you were watching two weak teams from even weaker conferences battle it out in a game whose end result wasn't even linked to ESPN's College Football main page (or at least not long enough for yours truly to notice), then you should strongly consider reevaluating certain of your priorities. If on the other hand you missed the Podcast because you were watching the season premier of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia...well then you're cool by me. But in either event, be sure to give it a listen -- very good stuff (I especially appreciated the last 15 or so minutes of the Podcast because it sounded a whole heck of a lot like countless arguments between my friends and I).
If you make the decision to read this article, you will eventually get to a paragraph where the author -- without quotation or provocation -- favorably compares LaMichael James to Jeff Demps. If you're thinking to yourself that you might now be dumber for having read such a terrible comparison (I mean, in what world is James not appreciably better than Demps at the game of football), please continue reading and this will be canceled out when you learn about how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas came and spoke to the Vols before Thursday's practice. Yes, that is really really random, and no I do not have any witty comments prepared
With Chris Rainey presently detained and reportedly reading books discussing appropriate times to play hard-to-get, the Vols intend to key on Jeff Demps, the other slightly smallish but really fast Gators' skill position player who I slightly disparage above. This is simple logic, and it makes perfect sense...except for the part where Demps usually touches the ball 10 or fewer times a game, and maybe that isn't the guy you wanna have your defense focusing on. Hey, I'm just tossing that out there. What do I know?
Chris "Captain Obvious" Low insightfully reasons that the likelihood of completing forward passes in football is inversely proportional to the skill of the opposing team's secondary. Thanks, Chris.*
[Note: not a quote. A makeshift in-text footnote thinger. Terrible idea? Sorry.]
*I really have no beef with Chris Low other than the fact that he felt the need to brag about his record last season picking SEC games. Why do I have beef with this? Because he is picking the games straight up, not against-the-spread. Any reasonable human being who also happen to be a sports fan knows that you only mention your game-picking record if you're picking those against-the-spread. That's just how it works. And seriously, Chris, reasonably competent 4th graders could go 87-20 picking the games straight up. In fact, if any knows any reasonably well-trained - or even remedial -- elementary school children who did better than 81% last season picking SEC games straight up, please provide us with their stories and information in the comments. Thanks in advance.
Got anything nice to say about David Reaves today? Yeah, me neither.
After the jump, a more optimistic outlook and a reverse-jinx from Rivers Cuomo.
In this article the author appears to think Dooley would make a great comedian, and notes that he will in fact be here all week. And coming straight from Panama City -- a town where I may or may not have had multiple different forms of "misleading" identification confiscated by both public and private authorities -- we get a fine fine article which tends to suggest tomorrow's affair could be a close one.
The man with no discernable chin discusses the top 1% of the top 1%. There is a strong to quite strong chance that I didn't read a single word of that article. I dislike Urban Meyer so much I even boycott electrons devoted to the man.
And, finally, I just wanted to let y'all know that I have a much better feeling going into this game than I did prior to the affair against the Ducks (for what it's worth, these hunches of mine aren't totally worthless as I did quite well on my college football picks last weekend. I mean, I would have done quite well if gambling were legal in these United States). At the very least, I don't envision the Volunteers' performance being anything akin to what Mr. Cuomo groovily describes below:
Have a good weekend. And Go Vols!