Inspirational thought of the week:
“Are you surprised?”
“Surprised, Eddie? If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be more surprised than I am right now.”
— Clark Griswold and Cousin Eddie, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the storage trailers that hold all of the makeup and rubber noses required to attempt to make Glen Powell look even remotely unattractive in “Chad Powers,” we, like Chad’s South Georgia Catfish teammates and coaching staff, sometimes struggle with recognizing who and what is actually standing before us. Then, when they reveal their true identities, which we’re assuming Chad will do at some point, we are left standing with our jaws on the floor and face in our hands like Hugh Freeze during another replay review.
See: Last week’s much-anticipated Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Mega Bowl between what were then the Bottom 10 third-ranked UMess Minuetmen and the fourth-ranked State of Kent. And we weren’t alone in our anticipation of a close game. The wiseguys in the desert with their calculators next to the shrimp buffet had Kent as a 1.5-point favorite, and our ESPN Analytics team’s Ouija board Win Probability Index believed UMass had a 43.9% chance to emerge victorious.
Final score: Kent State 42, UMass 6.
See, Part 2: Penn State, which just three weekends ago came within a couple of knuckles of beating Oregon in overtime, was facing its second consecutive Bottom 10 contender, Northworstern, having lost to the then-ucLa Boo’ins the week before. And the Nittany Lions lost again, their third straight defeat, then fired James Franklin, who had coached them to within three points of playing for the national title just 10 months ago.
Let’s check on Penn State…
Sources tell Bottom 10 JortsCenter that when James Franklin drove home from the office with his box of stuff, he was greeted in the driveway by Charlie Weis and Bobby Bonilla, who gave him a signed copy of “How To Make a Mattress From Your Pile of Money” by Scrooge McDuck.
The Woof Pack started the year with a loss to Penn State back when Happy Valley was still happy, and followed that with a win over Sacramento State. The rest of the year has been like another former Reno-based late-night show, HBO’s “Cathouse.” And just like that brothel reality program, we never admit that we’ve watched, but secretly we can’t look away.
If you were wondering when MTSU and Novada might play in their own version of the Pillow Fight of the Week, we have bad news. It already happened. The Blew Raiders scored two TDs in the final six minutes to win 14-13 back in Week 3.
When Trent Dilfer was fired by UAB, he went down to the locker room to tear a bunch of stuff up, but after 2½ seasons of him exploding like the red Anger guy from “Inside Out,” there was nothing left to break.
The Pillow Fight of the Week, Y’all Edition, is the college football equivalent of that pointing Spider-Man meme, as Georgia State Not Southern travels to Georgia Southern Not State, which is 2-4. The winner retains exclusive rights to “GSU” for the next year. The loser has to change all its logos to “GUS.”
For those of you — and we are talking to ourselves here — who are still bummed about the lack of substance in the UMass-Kent State game, picture in your mind Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda sitting on a Dagobah log as Luke Skywalker flies away to get his butt whipped by Darth Vader. “That boy was our last hope.” “No … there is another.” These Other Huskies travel to UMass on Nov. 12 … and host Kent State over Thanksgiving weekend. Also, how great would it be to see Obi-Wan and Yoda wearing #MACtion gear? Speaking of the Midwest, I’ve heard from a lot of Wisconsin fans that the Bad-gers should be in this spot. Yeah, I’ve seen your schedule. You’ll be here soon enough. To quote Luke’s dad — Skywalker, not Fickell — it is your destiny.
Waiting list: State of Kent, EMU Emus, South Alabama Redundancies, Oklahoma State No Pokes, Charlotte 1-and-5ers, Wisconsin Bad-gers, Bah-stan Cawledge, UNC Chapel Bill, clapping with fingers.
