A Dawg's best friend in 2010? A Beaver, and a Turkey?

Does anybody remember 2004? NASA put a spacecraft on the Red Planet, Martha Stewart was sent to big-girl prison, Janet Jackson was dealing with a "wardrobe malfunction" on a grand stage, Facebook was still a collection of school mug shots your mother kept..... and most alarmingly, an SEC football team, the Auburn Tigers, went undefeated and did not even have the chance to play for a National Championship!!


If the Dawgs do not want to come face to face with a similar fate, they need to reach deep into the animal kingdom and befriend the Oregon State Beavers and the Virginia Tech Hokies.

Why the Beavers? Those big-toothed critters are hands-down the most important team for anybody with a sense of credibility in the NCAA. Ranked #24 in the AP poll, the Beavers open their season Saturday playing #6 TCU at the house that Jerry Jones built in Dallas. This will be the ONLY time TCU plays a ranked opponent all season. If TCU wins this game, they can pretty much sit back, watch the top teams knock each other off, and slip in the back door to play for the BCS Championship. Where is the fun in that? Every other conference out there has to beat up on each other, and overcome grueling road schedules to be considered worthy of the top. Man up TCU, and join a conference worthy of note, or schedule some teams in your own back yard, like Texas or Oklahoma to prove you are even worthy of a mention in my top 25. PLEASE Beavers, knock down these Horned Frogs of TCU not only for the Dawgs, but for the rest of the country.

Why the Turkeys? I mean Hokies.... (for those that have never know, a "Hokie" is defined by in the dictionary as an "emasculated turkey". Soak that in for a second Va Tech fans) Anyway, the Hokies, ranked #10 in the AP poll, open their season Monday night playing #3 Boise State in Washington, DC. After this game, the only other ranked team Boise State will play the rest of the season is.... those Beavers of Oregon State, on Sept 25th. So we are looking at a very similar scenario with Boise State. If they find a way to squeak by Virginia Tech, and likely beat Oregon State later on, they too can sit back, watch the top teams beat each other up, and slip through the back door to play in the BCS Championship. GROSS!!!

I do not think TCU and Boise State will play each other for the BCS. I believe either Texas or Ohio State will skate through their schedule undefeated, and get one of the spots in the game.

So if, and I do mean IF, the Dawgs surprise everybody and run the table this year (and trust me, it's not as unlikely as Kirk Herbstreit or Lee Corso would make you think), and neither the Beaver from Oregon State or the Emasculated Turkey from Virgina Tech do a little bit to help us out, we are staring at the exact same fate as those 2004 Auburn Tigers. We would likely play in the Sugar Bowl, against either TCU or Boise State, whoop them like we did Hawaii in 2007, and have NOTHING to show for an undefeated season.

So from this Dawg fan, I will scream "GO BEAVERS" and "GO EMASCULATED TURKEYS" during the month of September!

4 days til we tee it up between the hedges!!