Pre-Season This Week's Picks

In 2002, I found a website designed for alumni of my high school called Wheeleralumni.com. It had a message board section where you could post a thread on any topic you wanted. I’m pretty sure it was designed for topics like Suzie looking for Stephen. The topics, however, turned very broad and like everything else about the Internet soon took a nasty tone. (For some reason, on the Internet a discussion of “Rock-Paper-Scissors” will almost always turn into some sort of flame war with people typing comical cuss words and questioning the other poster’s sexuality.) One day, during the summer, I was listening to a local sports talk station and they were at the SEC Media Days. So I thought, hey, why don’t I start a College Football thread on the Wheeler page? Nothing brings people together like college football, right?!

When the season started, I began making my selections on who would win the big games and frankly I imitated Jeff Schultz of the AJC and tried to give the teams funny names. Kentucky would be “The Mildcats”, South Carolina “The Illegal Fighting Game Birds”, and so on. For some reason, Auburn was the most fun to make fun of—I don’t know why, that just how it turned out. (Auburn’s nickname is “The Tigers”, but sometimes they are called “The War Eagles” even though that’s not their name but a chant and sometimes they are called: “The Plainsmen”. I have never heard anyone call Auburn “The Plainsmen” but every time I talk to an Auburn person, they mention this name) Sometimes I would call Auburn “The War Tigers”. Other times, I would call them “The Plainstigereagles”.

The thread got a lot of response and it was fun. I remember I bet one guy a bag of peanuts that Georgia would beat Florida. (Of course, they didn’t). A couple of Tech alums presented very detailed Algebraic arguments as to why Georgia Tech is the best team ever in the history of mankind and maybe the solar system. It proved to me that individually College Football fans are fine, affable people. Collectively, they are insane. Very. Like make sure you know where their pills are insane. But, all in all, it was a pleasant experience.

So, I did the same thing in 2003. Same type of response. The only difference was I began including what was going on with my son’s football team and from 2003 to 2008 I chronicled the highlights of the Mighty Kennesaw Mountain High School Mustangs and our favorite sixth to eighth string ( I don’t think he ever made it past sixth string) wingback, BEN MANIS#38.

I expanded it to a competing website called Wheeleralumni.org (don’t ask) in 2008. Then I got the bright idea to start a blog called Humor Me and included it there. In between, I got hooked on Facebook and began to include it there.

So here we are in the ‘Pre-season’ and like most Pre-season polls, college football’s are pure bull corn. However, I can venture a guess that Bamy is going to be very good this year and I can see The Only Ohio State University being ranked very high, too. Everybody else, who knows?

One new feature of This Week’s Picks is our expanded line up. In the past, I just followed the FBS schools. This year, I will not only comment on the major FBS games, I will follow the schedule of The Georgia Southern University ( school motto: “Whoooo, I’m in a Truck…Whooo”) Eagles, which is in the FCS (these are the schools that used to be called Division 1-A).

I’m not forgetting about Division Two. The Division Two Game of the Week will be whoever is brave enough to play The Fighting Scots of Edinboro University of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.

Hey, Division Three, I’m looking at you. We will be following the games of the Birmingham-Southern Panthers.

In what other humor blog do you have anyone following the games of FBS, FCS, D2 and D3 teams? That’s a great deal for your money.

I will step out on a limb right now and make this bold prediction: Bama over Georgia State. Call it a hunch. Tell your friends you read it here first.