Larry’s Losers in the SEC – Bowl Losers Part One – 2015
By: Larry Burton
Well sports fans, now the nitty meets the gritty, now the SEC fans can unite in booing the bad boys of the other conferences and playing for pride to bring back hardware to the homes of the SEC’s best and in some cases the SEC’s mediocre teams.
Staying home this season are the Carolina Cluckers, who lost both their Spurrier and their spurs this season, Kentucky, who started as Wildcats and ended as Mildcats, Vandy, well because they’re Vandy and Missouri, who could have played, but chose not to go with a losing record and concentrate on starting over with life without Gary Pinkel.
That leaves ten teams tussling with top teams from towns all across the US and we’ll cover the first five bowls that play in 2015, then come back with the teams that play in 2016 and then wind it all up with hopefully the first Larry’s Losers in the SEC – Championship Game edition. But that’s getting the cart way before the horse.
We’ll list these losers in order of appearance and I thought that we were going into bowl season with the right plan. I was going to take a cruise in Caribbean and rest my noodle, clear the cobwebs from a seriously sizzling season and leave the pigskin pickin’ pooch to peruse the publications of the other conference teams and then we’d begin our battles with my instincts and savvy versus his opinions from all his study. But when I got home, I found out our house sitter didn’t quite see him tow the line with those studies and when I came home, I found him like this…
Bacardi enjoying unusually warm Florida December weather.
I guess next time I leave him here, I’ll lock the door to the Tiki Bar before I leave. But he’s pulled an all nighter and double dog dared me to find fault in his picks, but after a lot of barking and badgering back and forth, we came up with the following picks and riding a hot streak of two perfect weeks in a row, we’re ready to go for three.
Dec. 29th – The Texas Bowl – Houston, Texas – NRG Stadium – 6:30pm (all times Central time) – Texas Tech vs LSU
Les Miles is all smiles as he dodged to firing bullet this season by the skin of his teeth and his boys who all hail the Mad Hatter aim to go out and show the LSU big wigs that they made the right decision to return the grass gobbling guru to lead this squad into next season.
But across the Texas turf, the Red Raiders from just a mosey down the trail come into this game thinking they’ve got the home field advantage and a hot hand going and with one big win already in the books over a good SEC team, they figure they’ll hold that Tiger too.
This game is such a contrast of styles, the Texas Tech Red Raiders play a red hot offense with no defense and the Bayou Bengals beat the drum with a dangerous defense without much of an offense. Now Bacardi the Wonder Dog reminds me that defense usually wins a big game, but I seem to feel that Fournette wants to show the Heisman voters that they counted him out too soon and with that dreadful defense they Red Raiders rely on, it could be a long night. Larry’s loser – Texas Tech
If Les wins this one the caption can read, “You were going to fire me? I’ll get you fired big boy!”
Dec. 30th – The Birmingham Bowl – Birmingham, Al. – Legion Field – 10:00am – Memphis vs Auburn
The Memphis Tigers, just two points away from being a 10 win team, wonders why they have to play their Auburn cousins in the worst bowl the SEC can offer. With one big win over a much better SEC team, these Tennessee Tabbies figure it won’t be pummel these Pussycats from the plains and add to the misery that these terrible Tigers have been troubled with all season long.
Meanwhile, for a team was thought to rule the SEC West this season, Auburn finds itself as the bad mouthed Birmingham bowl but former coach and Auburn advocate Pat Dye says the fans should go to the game, embrace it and have a hell of a time. Sadly that’s like telling kids who were expecting a pizza with everything to enjoy their collard greens and dance with joy.
Now Vegas has the plain’s Pusscats a three point favorite over the Memphis maulers, but neither the prognosticating pug or I can see that. What we see are some Tigers in turmoil, the Auburn variety that is and the men from Memphis catch their cousins in a downward spiral and add to their woes. In the end, it’ll be the Tennessee Tigers that’ll take home the trophy and whatever glory comes from winning this bowl and whipping this team. Larry’s loser – Auburn
Or you can bring a canned good for entry we’ve heard.
Dec. 30th – Belk Bowl – Charlotte, N.C. – Bank of America Stadium – 1:30pm – Mississippi State vs N.C. State
The 7-5 Wolfpack gather the group and travel just a few miles down the road to take on Mullen’s Mutts and kick some butts. Yes, they’ve lost three of their last five games, but they were to teams that were all in the hunt for a national title, so they figure they can handle these SEC mid packers and be the big dog at the end of the day.
Meanwhile, the Mississippi Mutts ain’t about to let these big bad wolves huff and puff and blow their bowl dreams down. They plan on lots of Prescott previewing his skills for the NFL and lots of SEC defense to grab hold of those wiggly Wolves.
The boys in Vegas are seeing this as a 5.5 point advantage for the Bulldog type canines over their Wolfie cousins and since this is a complete dog show, I’m going to rely on the pigskin pickin’ pooch on this one who says that based on all his instincts as a dog himself, that these Bulldogs are gonna put a beat down on those long tailed big eared cousins from Carolina and win this one going away. No close game here – Larry’s loser – N.C. State
These Wolves thought they were king of the canines, but they were wrong.
Music City Bowl – Nashville, Tn. – Nissan Stadium – 5:00pm – Louisville vs Texas A&M
The Red Birds from the Carolina Coop come swooping into Song City to whistle a happy tune of their own after pecking into submission the Aggies from down Texas way. Louisville’s wily old coach may not know how to ride a motorcycle, but he knows a thing or two about beating teams in the SEC and he plans having his Red Bird’s revving that offensive engine and flying off with a big win.
As the bowls were announced, things looked fine for the Aggies, but they’ve lost more quarterbacks than Oprah Winfrey has lost pounds and now nothing is as certain as it was. But coach Kevin is hoping that this will just make those Cardinals cocky and underestimate his family of farmers enough so he can he spring a surprise or two on them and pull off a win.
When we first started our picks early on, we had the Aggies penciled in for a win, but with all the problems with personnel parading through the program lately, we don’t see it as the sure win we once did. While Texas A&M never stops surprising us with all the quarterbacks that they can pull off the bench, we just don’t think this will be one of them. Larry’s loser – Texas A&M
Nothing’s worse that getting all peckered up at a nice bowl game.
College Football Playoff semi final – Cotton Bowl – Arlington, Texas – 7:00pm – Michigan State vs Alabama
In the last game of the year 2015, the Spartans leave the snow of Michigan for the sunshine of Florida and once again take on the Tide from Tuscaloosa and they figure that they can continue those Bama boys bowl game blues by beating them like they have been beaten the last two years.
But Nick Saban is planning a beat down very similar to the one he gave them the last time they met and he’s got his Tuscaloosa troops in an anti holiday mood. Like the Grinch, they don’t plan on giving nobody nothing this holiday season unless you count a big old butt kicking as something.
But folks, this is going to be a downright war for a while and it may just take all four quarters for the Pachyderms to pummel the people from East Lansing. These two teams are almost mirror images of each other and play the same style of football, but Bacardi reminds me that the Bama bench is much deeper and as the game goes on, they just slap wear out the Spartans and pull away. Larry’s loser – Michigan State
Well that’s it for this week sports fans, but we’ll have part two coming out soon with all the bowl games that play out in the next new year. The folks here at Larry’s Losers central office wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year and wish we didn’t have to maybe put your favorite team on the loser’s list, but hope you understand why we have to be a little Scroogish sometimes.
Now if I want any Christmas mimosas, I gotta let you go, the darn dog is already in the champagne and the orange juice isn’t squeezed yet.
Darn dog can’t wait to add the OJ…
Till next week, enjoy the holidays, but not as much as poor Bacardi!
LARRY HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN ALMOST EVERY MEDIA OUTLET FOR COLLEGE SPORTS AND NOW PRIMARILY WRITES HERE FOR TOUCHDOWN ALABAMA. HE WRITES IS A COLLOQUIAL AND IRREVERENT STYLE FOR THIS SERIES OF ARTICLES. LARRY’S VIEWS AND SENSE OF HUMOR MAY OFFEND, BUT HE AIMS TO OFFEND EVERYONE EQUALLY. IF HE HASN’T INSULTED YOUR FAVORITE TEAM WITH LARRY’S LOSERS, JUST WAIT. FOLLOW LARRY ON TWITTER FOR INSIDE THOUGHTS AND GAME TIME COMMENTS AT HTTPS://TWITTER.COM/LBSPORTSWRITER
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