What we learned: ALWAYS take the underdog on Thursday

By Brendan Hall
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

Greetings, from the "I told you so" department.

Every year, this seems to happen: SEC school delivers an upset of a top-five program, finishes the year on a big win streak, wins a bowl game, gets tons of preseason "hype" about being a "program on the rise", eventually gets overblown when everyone else suffers ticks and nicks.

Last year, it was Georgia and the ridiculous preseason No. 1 ranking they got, even as everyone in the program knew they were barely a top-ten program. This year, it's Houston Nutt's Ole Miss boys, who got stopped cold by an "upstart" South Carolina squad 16-10 last night in Columbia.

Strong finishes are one of the main reasons for all this hype. The other, it seems, stems from whether you have a bona fide top five draft pick in your backfield. The Dawgs had Matthew Stafford; the Rebels have Jevan Snead, who may go No. 1 next April. In Snead's case, he has the added benefit of playing for a guy who has produced many an offensive talent, of both legendary (Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas) and lottery (Darren McFadden, Felix Jones, Hart Lee Dykes) status.

All that aside, Nutt knew, just as Mark Richt knew, his team was going to hit a bump at some point. A couple wins over some cupcake teams, and they've become the first team since South Florida and Boston College in 2007 to be totally out of their league being in the top five. There's no way the Rebels were worthy of a No. 4 ranking -- I question whether they're the best team in the SEC West. So with that in mind, what in the hell were they thinking scheduling a Thursday night game? Especially an away game? Do they pay attention at all?

And it's not like South Carolina is a world-beater of a program anyway. Lou Holtz could never get it done, and Steve Spurrier is finding the same struggles. They're forever a middling program, delivering the occasional upset but never capitalizing on the momentum. Christ, their two best players are a linebacker (Eric Norwood) and a kicker. Their quarterback is too busy posting party pictures of himself on Facebook and getting forearm shivers from referees.

A Thursday away game messes up many a football team's routine. Think about the inconvenience -- you should be studying for that Friday exam -- and then factor in all of the other variables: travel itenerary, walkthroughs, pre-game meals. For the home team, the only change in routine is merely the day of the week. For the away team, everything changes, and that can mess you up big-time.

Just look at all the upset victims on the visiting side Thursday in the previous three seasons: USC, West Virginia, South Florida, Louisville, Florida State, TCU, LSU...add Georgia Tech, FSU (again) and Ole Miss to that list now, and the fun will not cease as fall rages on.

Here are some other upsets you'll see in a few Thursdays:

Missouri over Nebraska, Oct. 8
South Florida over Cincinnati, Oct. 15
East Carolina over Virginia Tech, Nov. 5
Rutgers over South Florida, Nov. 12
Texas A&M over Texas, Nov. 26

-- Thought I'd share with you a recent letter I wrote to Sports Illustrated after reading their hackjob of a team preview on the Pats:

I'd like to thank Ben Reiter for wasting five minutes of my valuable time with his pseudo-scouting report of the New England Patriots. Not only did he become the 1,045th self-proclaimed "scribe" since 2005 to "lampoon" the Pats' much-ballyhooed frugality of quotes, but the deepest question he posed is if the Patriots are going to be better with Tom Brady back. Gee, thanks.

Maybe if Ben didn't spend so much time in his limited inches pretending to be so enamored by something that's been overwritten about for six years now (and adds nothing to what he's talking about), he'd actually have been able to divulge into things like: just how the team plans on using Julian Edelman; whether or not Shawn Springs and Leigh Bodden are an upgrade at cornerback; how much Fred Taylor has left in the tank; whether this linebacking corps is stronger in 2009. And then maybe I wouldn't have to go to Yahoo!, ESPN, the Herald or Boston.com to get the information I wanted, regretting that I could have spent the money I just wasted on SI on two coffees or a pack of smokes. If it wasn't for Peter King, Dr. Z and the occasional feature from Leigh Jenkins and Tim Layden, your football coverage wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on.

"Big Red"
Westminster, MA

P.S. I am also wondering how Andrew Perloff and Selena Roberts conned you guys into hiring them. I have a job interview coming up, so I need to know their secrets.

This is their response two days later:

Thank you for your comments, which will be shared with the senior editing staff.

Sincerely,
SI Letters Department

Hitting the big time?...kinda, sorta, maybe...awesome.

-- Watching these "FedEx Cup" highlights on SportsCenter...how many years until some dweeb shows up on the boob tube griping about how Tiger "always loses the big one"?

-- The guy on the left is Klitschko's next opponent. Seriously.

-- So the Paul Gonnella search is over. Dude is at...Miami. Yes, he's at the U as an assistant coach, and I can't think of a luckier guy. In the last three years he's held jobs at UNC, Tennessee and now Miami. Christ Almighty.

-- Mark Whicker, meet your foil. Lead from a gamer this week in a Wisconsin newspaper:

The nightmare of 9/11 will live forever in our minds and memories.

Fast forward eight years later and last Friday, Sept. 11 is a night the Sun Prairie High School football team, coaching staff and Cardinal fans hope can soon be forgotten. Dealt a 22-0 halftime deficit by Madison Memorial in a Big Eight Conference football game at Ashley Field, the Cardinals made an inspiring comeback in the second half but never fully recovered, falling to the Spartans, 22-14.

Another example of why people no longer read newspapers.

-- Text convo of the week:
(978) Just saw a guy with a "PS3" tattoo on his leg
(413) WTF???
(978) Hope he knows it's permanent
(413) That'd be like, imagine if my grandfather got a tattoo of his favorite choo-choo train when he was a kid.