hot-oregon-cheerleadershot-usc-cheerleaders-song-girls Welcome to CFB Smorgasboard, Week 9. I’m your Peter Marshall (see No. 2 on this epic list), also known as Big Brain on Brett. It’s a reference from Pulp Fiction, which is probably the best movie made in 1994. Other candidates: Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Clerks, Speed, The Professional, True Lies, Swimming with Sharks. Damn, 1994 was a good year for films. My Netflix queue just got fuller than Kate Gosselin’s hoo-ha once she finds an appropriate sitter. BOOM! Hey, I’m here all week — doing a bar mitzvah in the Catskills next Thursday. Onto the Saturday afternoon action.

The Top 5 games of the week

1. USC at Oregon (Saturday night, 8pm, ABC): Two things happen if Oregon wins: USC almost assuredly doesn’t win another Pac-10 title, which would be kinda sorta amazing, and Boise State starts to look a lot more legitimate. It won’t sniff the title game, still, but the Broncos would look legitimate. Cool stat to tell your friends about this game: it’s supposed to rain big-time Saturday night in Eugene. Pete Carroll’s got an awful record (way sub-.500) in games where over half is contested in the rain. You know Eugene’s gonna be intense: Gameday’s there, Musburger’s gonna be quoting betting spreads the whole day leading up to the game, and it’s All Hallows’ Eve, so people’ll be dressing like ducks. This one should be interesting.

barry-sanders-oklahoma-state2. Texas at Okie State (Saturday night, 8 pm, ABC): This is a backloaded weekend in terms of good games, eh? Two things basically happen if Texas wins this: (1) you can probably put them as 1/2 of the BCS title game and (2) if his game is good, you can probably put McCoy at least definitely in New York , and probably hearing his name called by Chris Fowler. If Okie State wins, well, Mack Brown has had two shitty Halloween weekends in a row. Sounds like my childhood.

3. Florida vs. Georgia at Jacksonville (Saturday, 3:30 pm, CBS): Straight up love the Dawgs and think A.J. Green is a man-child on par with Tracy Morgan as a comedic talent (”Have you ever tasted scotch? It’s turrible!”), but their defense couldn’t stop the kids from Little Giants right now even if Mark Richt had the Annexation of Puerto Rico in his playbook. You’d think this will be a blowout, but watch — you’ll flip over to it around 6:45 for a score, and it’ll be 23-20 UF, Georgia ball, 3:44 left. This shit always happen in the Verne Lundquist game.

4. Ole Miss at Auburn (Saturday, 12:21 pm): Frankly, both these teams are (cue Dennis Green) “WHAT WE THOUGHT THEY WERE.” If one waxes the other, which is possible, I’d like to see either Nutt or Chizik (in year 1) get the boot. Love to see someone like UF D-Coordinator Charlie Strong or Oklahoma O-Coordinator Kevin Wilson get one of these gigs, but let’s be honest … it’ll be Dan Hawkins, shortly after getting fired at Colorado. College ADs are dumber than rocks.

kate-hudson-almost-famous5. Penn State at Northwestern (Saturday, 4:30, ESPN): Coulda put WVU/USF here, but USF has fallen off a cliff like whoa. This game isn’t great, but it’s Halloween night… in Evanston… and I personally know tons of people going, even though I didn’t attend Northwestern. The place’ll be hot, their QB is named Kafka, PSU has looked better of late but is still a bit erratic, marshmallows will be on the field, it’ll look good on TV… just fucking watch it. It’s a bridge if nothing else.

Your Flow, If You Drink

1. Unless you want to see Indiana potentially stun Iowa sans Robinson (it will not happen), sleep in or do some chores. You’re a fat, lazy slob and you don’t pull your weight around the house (”pot, meet kettle”) so you got some time to do it now.

tacos2. At 3:30, the only real appetizing game is UF/UGA, and you can join it late, lest it become a rout. You need time to work on your Halloween costume. Seven popular ideas right now: A-Rod with Almost Famous poster taped to crotch; Brett Favre with Judas No. 4 jersey and walker; Edward Cullen [Ed. Fact - Had no clue what Edward Cullen meant, performed the google function.]; Griese at a taco stand; coconut crab (No. 1 on Google Trends, inexplicably, for much of this week); a No. 23 “James” Nets jersey (Russian billionaire + Jay-Z means cue the kid from Angels in the Outfield — “It could happen”); or Eric Mangini with a bag over his head. How would you convey you’re Mangini? Gain some weight, get a big ego, play hide-and-go-seek with your playbook and then emotionally torment your two most relevant offensive players. Or just wear a shirt that says “I’m supposed to be Eric Mangini.”

eric-mangini-brady-quinn3. 8pm has the best two games of the week. Around 7:30, you’ll want to say to your girl, “You know that new tapas place you’ve been talking up?” When her eyes get wide with excitement, follow with, “Yea, you should call (name of generic girlfriend) and check it out.” You won’t see action for 2.5-3 weeks, but with these kinds of BCS implications, it might be worth it.

The Five Most Overplayed Storylines Of The Week

t-boone-pickens-oklahoma-state1. Autzen is a loud place to play.
2. This is the last, best chance for Texas to lose.
3. Florida has been inconsistent, but Tebow is still a child of God and a warrior.
4. T. Boone Pickens is rich, supports his alma mater.
5. Chip Kelly and Oregon has had to recover emotionally from the LeGarrette Blount incident.

Three Sidebar Topics At The Bar (for when people start discussing those storylines above)

1. Some information on a new Adam Sandler project can be found here. Any possible chance this will be good?

this-is-not-doug-glanville-but-see-text2. Although this is not new, been kinda surprised for a while about Doug Glanville’s consistent front-page and NYTimes.com headlines for that paper. (Here’s the latest.) What current MLB player is most likely to end up in such a role down the road? My guess: Torii Hunter. [Ed. While looking for a photo of Doug Glanville, Rob Ducey came up. Not sure how or why.]

3. Wherever did it go?

A Cooler Name For This Column Would Be:

Monte Kiffin and Eric Berry Tag-Teamed My Niece

The Douchiest Thing To Say At The Bar

“Try as you might to convince me this game is all about Colt McCoy, but quite to the contrary, it’s about the edge-rushing matchup of Sergio Kindle and Russell Okung. Not to be droll, but offensively-explosive Big 12 offenses often win games in the trenches. Irony of ironies!”

(pause)

“Another Brahma over here, ma’am.”

My Current Guess at the BCS Title Game

Alabama vs. Texas

Smartphone Clip Of The Week

Oregon vs. Washington, 1994 — “Kenny Wheaton is Gonna Score!!!”

If Oregon is up late — or even close late — and someone near you says, “Man, what is like, uh, the definitive moment in Oregon Ducks history?” pop that sucker up. It’s almost unequivocally No. 1. If you want to see what Autzen might look like Saturday, watch this one.

Picks

Easy: Iowa over Indiana
Hard 1: Okie State over Texas
Hard 2: Oregon over USC