Eight Feet Deep

Never have I thought myself to be a great sports fan. But as it goes with enjoy­ing other aspects of life of which I claim no exper­tise — art, fine wine, etc. — I know what I like.

I am not the kind of per­son that camps out all week­end long before the tel­lyvi­sion watch­ing first col­lege games all day Sat­ur­day then pro games on Sun­day. If a game inter­ests me or a team, such as the Hous­ton Tex­ans, I will watch a game if I have no other press­ing matters.

That’s always the way it has been for me, pretty much. So quite sur­prised, and extremely lucky, was I some 12 or so years ago when I worked for a small daily news­pa­per as a reporter and found myself among the weekly faces prog­nos­ti­cat­ing foot­ball games on the sports page. I was a reg­u­lar foot­ball for­tune teller dur­ing the sea­son along with the two sports guys, a pho­tog­ra­pher, a copy edi­tor, a local radio sta­tion owner and maybe a few other assorted folks. I say I sup­posed myself to be lucky because I had the best per­cent­age among all the other reg­u­lars who picked the games.

Now I will admit to read­ing the sports pages quite a bit more than usual dur­ing those times, but it’s not like I was some foot­ball genius despite the fact that I knew who “The Big Tuna” was.

So I thought for old time’s sake I would pick a selected num­ber of this week’s games and see what hap­pens. I will admit to fol­low­ing some of these teams though not oth­ers. I won’t say which ones of either. If I just remem­ber to report back the results this all might work. The pos­si­ble com­pli­ca­tion in this is that I am sched­uled to be out of town and out of state all next week. But I will do my best and report my find­ings with hon­esty, if at all. There­fore, I give you my picks.

PICKING AND GRINNING TIME

SE TEXAS HS

• New­ton (34) vs. Woodville (13)

Both these teams are named the Eagles so if you aren’t watch­ing the game you can get con­fused but there should be no con­fus­ing which Eagles should win, that would be the New­ton variety.

• Port Neches-Groves (14) vs. Liv­ingston (34)

I’m just guess­ing here but I think PN-G will win. They have the snazz­ier uniforms.

• Sils­bee (43) vs. West Orange-Stark (33)

Given the two teams’ records and who they have played, WO-S should beat the Tigers like a rented mule.

• Diboll (0) vs. Jasper (14)

I see no rea­son why Jasper shouldn’t win hand­ily over Diboll unless the H1N1 pan­demic rears its ugly head or a nuclear strike hits East Texas on Fri­day night.

• Hamshire-Fannett (9) vs. Orange­field (54)

Orange­field will win. I guar­an­tee it. Of course, my guar­an­tees in foot­ball mean about as much as David Letterman’s vows of  celibacy.

• Kir­byville (38) vs. Shel­byville (0)

The Kir­byville Wild­cats will beat Shel­byville like the  media beats a dead horse.

COLLEGE GAMES

• Okla­homa State (36) vs. Texas A & M (31)

Texas A & M shouldn’t win this one, but let’s say they do.

• Hous­ton (31) vs. Mis­sis­sippi State (24)

Hous­ton saw national rank­ings come and go with their loss to UTEP, so that means that the Cougars will prob­a­bly beat Miss State.

• Bay­lor (7) vs. Okla­homa (33)

The only game I saw Bay­lor play when I lived in Waco was against Okla­homa. It was G0d awful unless you were a Soon­ers fan. I pre­dict a sim­i­lar Bear drub­bing though  prob­a­bly not in the 60-some-odd to 10-some-odd fash­ion as with the game I saw.

• Navy (63) vs. Rice (14)

I have always admired Rice because it’s a brainiac school. But brains alone won’t get you a win, espe­cially since the Owls haven’t seen a win since Hec­tor was a pup. Say what? Say Navy wins this one.

• TCU (20) vs. Air Force (17)

The Horned  Frogs of TCU have this one unless they don’t.

• Texas (38) vs. Col­orado (14)

Unless the Long­horns do some­thing incred­i­bly stu­pid as they are known to do on occa­sion, they should whip Col­orado until they yelp like chihuahuas.

• Florida (13) vs. LSU (3)

Three let­ters, L-S-U.

• Stephen F. Austin (16) vs. McNeese (13)

I’m sure the experts would go for McNeese but I am no expert and I am a Lum­ber­jack and I’m okay. So SFA Lum­ber­jacks get my nod.

NFL MATCHUPS

• Min­nesota (38) vs. St. Louis (10)

Led by 143-year-old quar­ter­back Brett Favre, the Min­nesota Vikings defeated the Rams despite the path from the hud­dle to the Vikings’ side­line being lit­tered with Ger­i­tol bottles.

• Dal­las (26) vs. Kansas City (10)

Unless some young star­let grabs Tony Romo’s atten­tion, the Cow­boys should beat  Kansas City with lit­tle trouble.

• Hous­ton Tex­ans (21) vs. Ari­zona (28)

The Tex­ans should mostly be recov­ered from the Swine Flu so they stand a good enough chance to beat Ari­zona that I will go with the Texans.

Indi­anapo­lis (21) vs. Ten­nessee (9)

Let’s see. Indanapo­lis good. Titans stink. The Colts win, I think.