Larry's Losers in the SEC – 2012 Week Two

Will week two provide as many surprises?

Well folks, the first week is in the record book and as much as the pigskin pickin’ pooch and I would love to praise positive predictions, with as many SEC vs the cupcake games as the SEC played, most people would have hit our mark or better. That one wrong guess makes us wonder if Kentucky will rival Ole Miss for the worst SEC team by the end of the year now.

Going 12-1 may sound good, but this week the results will be rougher and reliable regurgitations won’t come as readily.

With that in mind, let’s get started with this weeks loveable losers.

Starting in the East

Florida at Texas A&M – Last week both teams had cakewalk pansies on the schedule, but the Aggies had to delay the beat down they planned on putting on those crawfish eaters from Louisiana Tech because of the big blow. They could have used that cakewalk to bolster a little confidence for this week’s welcome to the SEC schedule, now they have to get those first game follies out on a decent SEC team.

If Will Muschamp thinks he’s bringing these Gators onto this farm to eat these Aggies with ease he’s gonna be shocked back into reality when these Texans start gigging these Gators and protecting the home turf.

Florida looked shaky against a team the equal of East Western Northern Idaho State and they better not come into this game with the same lack of focus. Yes, the Aggies are no Bowling Green and given their lust for laziness, these Lizards may just wind up fertilizer in the Aggies back 40.

Last week, both me and the pigskin pickin’ pooch would have said the Gators all day long, but after that pitiful performance in not plucking those Falcons, we’re going the other way.

In what may seem like a mild upset – Larry’s loser – Florida

Kevin Sumlin gets his first Gator skin rug for his new office.

Georgia at Missouri – If these two think they played football last week against those forlorn football fellas, then both are going to be in for a shock when the pads get popping this week.

Mark Richt thinks these marvelous mutts from the red clay country are the beasts of the East, but Gary Pinkel is here to show that his Tigers may not need as much breaking in time as people think to show they’re ready to rumble in the SEC.

Last week the boys from Georgia looked liked Dogs indeed against a pitiful Buffalo team while Missouri dispatched cupcake Southeast Louisiana they way you’re supposed to. So if the Bulldogs give up 24 points to a bunch of bumbling Buffaloes, how will they stop these men from Missouri who put up 61 points last week?

In a mild upset, Larry’s loser – Georgia

The next photo wasn’t pretty and showed why Bulldogs shouldn’t play with Tigers

Kent State at Kentucky – The Kentucky Kitties let me down last week causing the only problem in the prognostication parade. Now in the second week of the season and it’s a win that Joker Phillips will need at the end of the year and they’re looking like a two and one team at the end of the third week but they may not see another win until the last game of the year.

Darrell Hazzell is used to having his Golden Flashes play in a glorified high school stadium in front of less than 20,000 folks and his Golden Flashes aren’t even to bright a flash in the Mid American Conference so even a sorry SEC team should flush the flash without fail.

It will be interesting to see if Phillip’s felines let Kent State make a game of it, but the outcome has little doubt, even for a team as pitiful as these pussycats.

Larry’s Loser – Kent State

East Carolina at South Carolina – In yet another David vs Goliath game, I guess the Old Ball Coach will use this as a good practice game and solidify recruiting in the Carolinas. East Carolina had a good team a few years back, but Ruffin McNeill’s roustabouts and the same team that Skip Holtz had in bowl games.
After last week’s game against Vandy that could have gone the other way if the refs had seen a flagrant pass interference that was missed, these almost choked chickens could use an easy team this week to recover.

The truth about this game is that these pack of Pirates from Greenville, S.C. are gonna find they can’t capture this team from the SEC and their cannons are are full of wet powder once the battle begins.

This is gonna be a Pirate pecking party as players plead for mercy from the game winning Gamecocks.

Larry’s Loser – East Carolina

These Gamecocks prove to be the REAL pirates and plunder this win.

Georgia State at Tennessee – Backsliding Bill Curry went from a respectable six win season in the first year of the program to a woeful three win Panther president last season.

After last weeks slugfest with North Carolina State, Dereck Dooley will be glad to have the week off to play paddy cakes with the Panthers in preparation for more a more prodigious partner next week in the form of Florida.

Look for Dooley to rest the nicked up and not be so concerned over piling points on pitiful Panthers, because the outcome was decided as soon as they scheduled these Peach State Panthers.

Larry’s Loser – Georgia State

Found, one dead panther in Knoxville. Reward offered by Fish and Wildlife. No Volunteers have come forward yet with information.

Vanderbilt at Northwestern – These pesky Wildcats aren’t a team to trifled with despite coming from a sub par conference like the Big Ten or Big Twelve or whatever they’re calling it these days. Last season they proved to Nebraska that if you look ahead of Yankee Kitties they can scratch your eyes out.

While most SEC teams came out cake walking, coach James Franklin has been saddling his sailors with teams that could hit them below the water line and this is a team that has that kind of claws in their Kitty paws.

Coach Pat Fitzgerald has had the Wildcats in post season cat nip for the last four seasons he thinks once he gets the Commodores in his home waters that he’ll have them abandoning ship by games in. But last year’s 23-21 win by them was before Commodore confidence concreted itself upon this team.

Last week, these Song City Sailors almost put the old ball coach’s Gamecocks on the rocks and Northwestern ain’t gonna be near as hard as that SEC foe was.

Larry’s Loser – Northwestern

And Now for the West

Western Kentucky at Alabama – After beating the Meek Chicken Wolverines, a top ten ten team at the time as badly as other SEC teams were beating teams like Our Lady of Weak Knees University, there’s hardly any doubt what will happen when Willie Taggart brings his Hilltoppers in from Kentucky for another big paycheck and pounding.

Really the only question will be can Nick Saban possibly play more players against this over-matched bunch of Hillfloppers than he did against the boys in blue from Meek Chicken?

Look for Saban to rest the pachyderms with pings in preparation for playing the Piggies next week and letting the rest of the herd run wild over these Kentuckians without a clue. If they were smart they should wear a pair of Depends under their pants and bring a white flag.

Larry’s loser – Western Kentucky

This week the Tide practiced perfecting their stomping techniques on pumpkins. On Saturday they’ll try it on Hilltoppers.

The University of Louisiana at Monroe at Arkansas – Todd Berry brings his flocked up bunch of feather brained Warhawks into the Pig pen at Arkansas and is hoping for an upset win while the Hoggies look ahead to Alabama.

What he may not understand is that this pack of pigs can look ahead, backward and sideways and still warp these Warhawks.

In their last Pig pen playground performance, the Hogs started out smoothly on offense and shaky on defense, but by the second half, they politely as possible plucked the Gamecocks from Jacksonville State in pleasing form for the Fayetteville faithful.

The feathers will continue to fly this week in Fayetteville.

Larry’s loser – Louisiana Monroe

The Hogs wind up on the right side of this barbeque this weekend.

Auburn at Mississippi State – Gene Chizik’s Kitties didn’t fare well in the Atlanta cat show last week in the battle of the Tigers while Dan Mullen’s Doggies were simply feasting on a two loss team from last year in the form of Jackson State.

At SEC Media Days, the Dogs from down Starkville way told me that this Auburn game was one that had circled for a long time and that they wanted payback for a game that they felt got away last year and left a bad taste in the Bulldog’s mouths all season.

While the Dogs were firing on all cylinders last week, the Tigers were troubled by mistakes and miscues all day.

While Tyler Russell, the Pooch’s passer looked like a polished pro, the Kyle Frasier experiment with the Kitties looks like it has a long way to go.

This is a tale of two teams going in opposite directions and I don’t see the trend ending after this week’s warfare.

Larry’s loser – Auburn

Mississippi State fans show off their trophies following the game

Washington at LSU – Last week, the Huskies from Washington felt good in beating an eight win team from a year ago and may think that they can catch LSU not taking these hairy Huskies too seriously as the bayou boys know the first half of the season should sail by with ease.

But Les Miles, the grass grazing guru of Tiger tactics isn’t about to let his boys take this tussle triflingly and he’ll use this game to fine tune the Tigers for future follies in following weeks when the teams he plays will pick up in skill size and speed.

Head Huskie Steve Sarkisian is herding the Huskies in the right direction, but this ain’t the week for their breakthrough win.

Larry’s loser – Washington

The tigers let the Huskies know right away they were dreaming if they thought this was a love fest.

UTEP at Ole Miss – Last week Mike Price had his UTEP Miners digging for a golden upset against might Oklahoma and for three quarters, it looked liked they could have a chance to pull it off.

Meanwhile, new head coach Hugh Freeze got the Rebels roused up and rooted the Bozo Bears of Central Arkansas even though it was close for a time before SEC size and strength just wore down the opponents just as Oklahoma finally wore down the miners.

Bacardi was studying up last week while I was vacationing on the high seas sipping salt rimmed drinks and watching football via satellite and tells me that this is what’s going to happen this too. Look for the game to be close until Ole Miss finally wears down the men from the mines.

This could be the game I miss this week as just like last week, you can never guess just how bad the worst team in each division really is and the Rebels fill that bill for the West.

Larry’s loser – UTEP

Well that’s the eleven educated guesses at who will land in the loser’s column this week. There’s certainly some games that could go either way, but after looking over the list a few times, Bacardi gives these picks a high five and a tail wag so I’m feeling good about little batch of smart cookies this weekend.

While I was on vacation last week, Bacardi boned up for both of us on all the details needed for this week’s picks.

As for the mailbag from last week, no, I’m not picking on the Worn Eagles from Auburn. We picked ’em to lose because we felt they would and they did. When they stop relying on pushovers to get to an 8-4 season, we’ll give ’em a little more respect.

Keep those emails flying in, we read ’em all and we hope the team you hanker for does well and won’t wind up in the loser’s column. Till next week, Bacardi and I are out of here!