It’s time. What time,
you ask? Why, it’s the most wonderful
time of the year of course. No, not
Thanksgiving. Not Christmas. Not my birthday, for once. Even better, it’s Minnesota week. The one weekend of the year where we get to
watch the inferior teams from our western neighbor state get ritually
sacrificed to the great gods of green, gold, red and white. This year promises to be even more sweet,
since the brain-damaged populace of Minneapolis/St Paul has somehow convinced itself
that their puny Golden Gopher football team has a chance to dethrone the
college football king of the upper Midwest (Ohio isn’t upper Midwest, I don’t
care what you say). But before we get to
the two most important games of the week, I need to fill you in on the
going-ons of my increasingly boring life.
You see, Thursday night marked the 23rd birthday
of my good friend Alex, a fellow med student at UW. And seeing a good excuse to free my balls
from the vice that is second year of medical school, I jumped at the
opportunity to act like a normal 23-year old on a Thursday night. I told myself “Chode, you got way too drunk
and missed Friday classes last week, so try to keep it under control tonight,
okay? Good talk.” WRONG.
Somewhere between the 6th beer and 5th shot at
Church Key Bar and Grille, I realized I was going to miss my 8:00 AM
lecture. Fast-forward through a drunken
blur and I woke up in my bed at 12:30 PM with no money in my wallet and having
missed all four hours of class. Whoops. Yo soy fiesta.
#19 WISCONSIN BADGERS (8-2) at #25 MINNESOTA GOLDEN GOPHERS
(8-2)
First of all, congratulations to Minnesota on winning four
Big Ten games in a row for the first time in 40 years. Truly an impressive feat, and certainly one
that nobody expected this season. Also,
we get at least that many every season.
The truth is, the Gophers’ eight wins have come against inferior
competition and are a sign of how weak the Big Ten has become outside of Ohio
State, Wisconsin and Michigan State.
Expect the Gophers to be exposed by an actual quality team in that
pathetic joke of a stadium today. As
long as Melvin Gordon can keep his new fumbling problem to a minimum. Gophuck yourself, Minnesota. Have fun in the Little Caesar’s Bowl.
WISCONSIN by 17
Another note about the Badgers. There’s a very real chance that this team
will finish the season 10-2, yet not ranked high enough to snag a BCS at-large
bid due to that awful officiating blunder against Arizona State. Should that happen, try to remember that we
got to play in the Rose Bowl last year with four losses. Four.
So let’s not complain too loudly about the Capital One Bowl.
With regards to the Heisman race, it appears that Jared
Abbrederis is once again going to be gypsied out of the trophy ceremony. Right now Jameis Winston has the inside
track, but AJ McCarron, Bryce Petty and the Tallahassee Police Department are
hot on his heels. Note that I left Turd
Manziel out of that sentence because he and the Aggies just got crushed by
LSU. Sorry Johhny, you gotta win those
games if you want another Heisman.
One last college football note: last week Oregon’s
De’Anthony Thomas said that going to the Rose Bowl would be “not a big deal”
because “we’ve already won it, so whatever”.
Dick. Count me as one of the many
fans happy to see Thomas and the Ducks get their asses handed to them by
Arizona. Congratulations,
De’Anthony. You got your wish, and you
will almost certainly not be playing in the Rose Bowl this year. Take another hit from the bong and try to
forget that you were ranked #2 at the start of the season.
Alright, time for some pro football…
MINNESOTA VIKINGS (2-8) at GREEN BAY PACKERS (5-5)
What a great quarterback matchup. Scott Tolzein versus the Christian
Ponder/Matt Cassell/Josh Freeman shit sandwich.
What’s the opposite of a shootout?
Pick-six fest? Puntapalooza? Regardless, it’s going to be ugly and
depressing. Or just another typical
Sunday if you’re a Viking fan. Tolzein
has to win a game eventually, right? Normally
I’d be worried about our pass defense in this game, but when you’re playing the
Vikings in 2013, “pass defense” doesn’t really apply. As long as we can hold Peterson to under 150
yards, I think the Packers get back on the right... ugh. You know what? Fuck it.
I’m picking the Vikings. I have
absolutely no faith in Tolzein. He’s
terrible.
MINNESOTA by 7
Damn it, Joel Stave.
That’s easily the worst throw I’ve seen all year. Touchdown Gophers. You would think Wisconsin should be able to
recruit a quarterback who doesn’t panic and fling the ball in a random
direction under pressure, but here we are.
Look for Abbrederis to dig us out of this mess as the game goes on.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ (0-1) vs BUD SELIG (1-0)
Yes, I’m still rooting for A-Rod. Not sure why.
If that makes me a bad person, so be it.
But unfortunately we’ll have to wait until sometime in 2014 for
Rodriguez to be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Hopefully sometime before the Yankees win the World Series again.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ by 1
Time for an update on the Chode Points. The correct answer to last week’s challenge
was heads. So ten points to
approximately half of you. That leaves
the standings as:
Sam MacDonald: 35 pts
Zach Niemeyer: 30 pts
Dan Jensen and Ben King: 25 pts
Nate, Megan, Eric, Bianca, Andy, Nick, and Dustin: 10 pts
As for this week, your task for 15 points is to take a
one-ounce shot of alcohol greater than 150 proof. That gives you the options of Bacardi 151,
Everclear or some other knockoff grain alcohol.
You won’t regret it. Actually,
you might. Just make sure you post on
here before you black out and forget that you took it. Speaking of alcohol, my NovemBeer count is at
82, with just over a week left in the month. It seems I underestimated myself a
bit when I set the goal at a measly 90 beers.
Also, I’m pretty sure Nate’s going to be closing in on 200 by the time
the calendar flips to December.
BREAKING NEWS (sort of): Derrick Rose is hurt again. I gotta hand it to the guy, his commitment to
not playing the sport of basketball is really inspiring. It’s often said that you miss 100% of the
shots you don’t take, but in Rose’s case, you miss nearly 100% of the games
you’re supposed to play in. I’m really
looking forward to watching the Heat or Pacers stomp the Bulls again in the
playoffs next May. Also, LeBron makes
100% of the shots he doesn’t take.
More basketball (sorry). Frank Kaminsky broke the Wisconsin
single-game scoring record on Tuesday by dropping 43 points on North
Dakota. This begs the question: if you
break a record playing against North Dakota, does it still count? I’ll say yes, because scoring 43 points on
just 19 shots like Frank did is unheard of.
It was just a staggering display of efficiency, and it makes me feel
like a dumbass for telling him to stop shooting three-pointers last year. My apologies, Frank. It’s going to be a fun season. Also, if you had told me before the game that
a Badger player was going to score 43 and it would be Kaminsky rather than Sam
Dekker or Ben Brust, I would have slapped you in the face. This team could be one of the best Bo Ryan
has coached in a long time. Also, the
schedule during the first half of the season is pretty favorable, and there’s a
legit chance we could start the season16-0.
Now having said that, I’m nearly 100 percent certain that I’ve jinxed
them and they’ll drop a game against an inferior team before then.
FANTASY FOOTBALL: BEAU HAS TINY BALLS (8-3) vs CREMASTER
BALL CONTROL (3-8)
Eight wins. I think
that tops my career high. To make things
even better, I convinced my buddy to trade me Andrew Luck and Julius Thomas for
Tom Brady, Eric Decker and Steven Jackson just before the trade deadline last
week. That’s a fucking steal. I’m not even going to bother keeping track of
this score tomorrow because there’s no way Beau can stay within 30 points of
me.
BEAU HAS TINY BALLS by 37
JEROME’S KNUCKLEHEADS (6-5) vs JUSTIN FORSETT IN HER BUTT
(3-8)
Yeah, the only reason I’m picking this game is because I
wanted an excuse to write Dan’s team name a couple of times. There’s a reason I haven’t mentioned this
league all season in the Picks, and it’s because my team is god-awful. I’m 1-10.
Turns out four leagues was too many.
JUSTIN FORSETT IN HER BUTT by 90
Here’s hoping I’m not still writing the Chode Picks when
Wisconsin makes it two straight decades of victory over the Gophers in 2023.
- Chode Out.
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