A decent week of picks last week gets me right back to average. Average is exactly where I belong. You can ask my professors or my grade school basketball coaches, they will all attest. I am the poster child of mediocrity. So now I am sitting at 3-3 and I am as comfortable as a Baker Mayfield running to his right side with the ball in his hands.
But now I am back to making entirely not average picks. I am settling in to the moniker “El Pollo” (and also I haven’t received any suggestions for a persona change) so here are El Pollo’s picks for week tres.
UAB’s mascot is a FUCKING DRAGON
I do not know much about the world, whether real or fake, but I do know one thing to be unequivocally 
So now I return to the 1-1 UAB Blazers. I am wholly aware that their program win-loss percentage is sub-.500. I know they have lost the only bowl they have ever made. The fact they lost to Ball State by 20 last week is not unknown by my brain. But I am also aware of the fact that no matter their prowess on the field, their mascot is a goddamn dragon. They are three point dogs at home against Coastal Carolina, whose mascot is some weird chicken thing, so give me Blazers by a billion.
Mizzou is a bunch of quitters
Week two just ended. Normally after week two, there is hope. There is a sense of excitement around campus (except here at Temple because we only beat FCS Villanova by three after getting annihilated by Notre Dame). But, that hope seems to be down the drain for Missouri following a 31-13 loss to South Carolina, which actually appears to be a decent program again. In the wake of the loss, Mizzou fired their defensive coordinator, DeMontie Cross.
Some people will say this is a prospective move so that this is not a lost season. I see it much differently, though. To me, this is a program that already understands this is a lost season. They already know that maybe next season is the year that they return to the prominence of when they had stifling defenses. This reeks of quitting to me. If there is one thing in this world I hate, it’s quitting. And quitters. I actually have never quit anything in my life. The only job I ever cut ties with, I took off the whole summer and then didn’t respond to their emails when they tried to contact me after the summer.
Point is, they’re going to lose to Purdue this week.
Louisiana Tech has heart like you wouldn’t believe
My man Frank wrote today about the play of the weekend, which resulted in Louisiana Tech facing a third down and 93 (!!). That is very bad. Really, Mississippi State is the team that should be appalled at themselves, even though they won the game by almost 40 points. But, I wanted to be positive, so instead of condemning those Bulldogs for the season, I decided to give these Bulldogs some loving.
The play was broken. It was more busted than Ronald Darby’s ankle in the Eagles season opener on Sunday. But, every player on Mississippi State’s team seems to have a tub of “I Can’t Believe it’s not Butter” for hands. That led to the ball bouncing and rolling for what seemed like longer than the endless arguments between Frank Kaminsky and Dan Dakich on Twitter regarding college athlete compensation. At the end, there is an incredibly exciting and shocking development. A man appeared out of nowhere due to sheer will and determination to recover the ball for no reason in particular.
But you know what? Who cares about the inconsequential nature of the recovery. This man showed HEART. He showed that he is a winner. I do not know this hero’s name, or where he is from, but I do know one thing. I know that this man will inspire the rest of his teammates to success and victory over Western Kentucky on Saturday.