College Football Breakfast Burrito, Week 10

November 7th, 2009 by Vince Mullins

Since it is obviously Saturday Morning I feel it is finally time to shorten the title of this series. Same great fillings in a lower-fat wrapper…today I am going with Smoked salmon with my egg burrito after an early workout. Protein in full effect.

Weather

Wow is it ugly in the Pacific Northwest – feel blessed that your Boise State Broncos were in Ruston, LA last night tearing it up rather than dealing with the nastiness on the Blue Turf. 25-foot wave off the Oregon Coast and rain-rain-rain. Luckily Oregon travels to Stanford so load up on those flying-high Ducks. Here is the full Top 25 breakdown on Weather.com.

The 30 MPH winds around the Rockies will impact the TAMU-CU game in Boulder CO and also at the highest-altitude field in the land where BYU visits Wyoming’s War Memorial. Both kickoff around 2pm ET/12pm MT so think about how this will affect stars like Jerrod Johnson and Max Hall. Fresno at Idaho is inside the Kibbie Dome so no worries tonight. As of 9am ET the wind only showed at 10MPH but it could spike. Otherwise georgeous weather so focus on the matchups.

QUICK SOCIAL COMMENTARY

News of mass shootings hit close to home this week – I had two friends in the Orlando building and thankfully neither were victims. Prayers go out to those who were victims. The point I want to drive home is that it is tough out there for a lot of Americans – almost 1 in 5 are unemployed or just given up looking for work and the worst of that stress showed itself yesterday. I ask you to do two things at the risk of allowing you your respite from the real world here in fantasy land:

Get involved in your community through whatever means you can to help those less fortunate – the social unrest isn’t likely to get any better for awhile and if you are able to help please consider doing so. If money is a problem for you, your time and assistance at your local church or non-profit often is of more use.
Invite a couple friends over to watch the football games – I know that they may not understand why you have so much emotionally invested in the Navy-Notre Dame Game (Dobbs-Clausen matchup should be awesome) or Arizona-Washington State (Nick Foles is hotter than McDonald coffee at QB for the Wildcats) but I know I am guilty of holing up on the weekends and imagine some of you are also. When things get tough all you have is the support of family and friends – keep them close.

OK on to the Start-sit, gratutitous glamour shot of a USC fan and the rest of the latest news after the jump.

Start-Sit or Prime Time or Pine Time?

QB – Daniel Freer says to sit the firey San Diego State QB Ryan Lindley this week, butt he didn’t get the memo that Bo Levi Mitchell got the vicious pine in the SMU win over Tulsa, so freshman Kyle Padron may get the nod again facing off against the horrible Rice defense.

RB – Drew Smith lines up the Power-I formation (he is more fullback than the tailback)and has already nailed two big plays from the weeknight matchups (Ryan Williams of VT and Chad Spann of Northern Illinois). If you need a spot starter he also dusts off one of my favorite sleepers from the pre-season Keola Antonin of Arizona.

WR – Going Deep focuses on the potential free agent pickups this week, and it may not get better than Goode. Tyshon Goode of Kent State that is…and Razorback Joe Adams is back strongly from his stroke – check him out again.

Brian McDonald goes multimedia on his start-sit at CFFI. Nice find of Kenny Loggins sporting the California Penal Jumpsuit for his seminal hit for 1981 – Indeed, “This is It” is a great theme for Week Ten’s playoffs push. And the dude on bass just defines the funky slap bass technique so take a moment to enjoy that in the background as you feel his sit calls like Terrelle Pryor, LaMichael James and Armon Binns.

INJURIES

Our Dr. William Carroll cuts deeper than anyone in analyzing college football injuries in his Triage Time article. More A-C sprains litter the news, and an update to Wake WR Marshall Williams’ hammy – while the Doc does not like his chances of playing this week, Wake left him off the injury report in the trip to Georgia Tech for their 330pm game. With Riley Skinner a game-time decision I point to sitting him.

ETCETERA and links

Has there ever been a college football game with more characters in the team names than this? Florida International Golden Panthers at Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders? Pretty good Sun Belt matchup of fantasy guys like Dwight Dasher and TY Hilton on ESPN Gameplan at 430pm ET…

I needed a good laugh yesterday (see above) and the Tim Tebow as Lamb of God series on Deadspin did it for me yesterday. see this link or just use the #christ tag for the entire biopic. I have him in my Top Five college players of all time, but sociologically it is understandable how Tebow commands the attention of so many fans and nay-sayers. There just aren’t many players making news for doing acts of good these days, hence the gravitas of this character. Perhaps a great website idea would be to highlight only the good and charitable works of today’s athletes – has this been done well yet?

Finally, there are still some USC fans worthy of our attention. Meet Isis Taylor. You can do your own search if you like for the rest of the photo series….