Reasons to Worry

I take an opposite approach to college football expert predictions normally. Mostly because I don't think these people know any more than some drunken moron at the end of the bar (namely, me).

So as I've been reading about the SEC Championship Game this week, I've grown slightly unnerved at the support for the Dawgs. Let's remember that LSU is still a hurricane-affected overtime game against a team at the time ranked in the top 10 away from causing every BCS apologist's head to explode. They still have a rock solid defense and the best playmakers (and these four guys) in the SEC after Prothro's injury. If anything, on paper LSU should be a heavy favorite. And picking against them might lead to some of that "disrespect" bulletin boart stuff.

In any event, I don't like all the support Georgia's been getting. I'd rather be picked to lose.

Here are the fools predicting the Dawgs (and remember, these are only "national" writers; I'm not talking about the Athens Banner-Herald here):

Tom Dienhart (Sporting News)
Matt Hayes (Sporting News)
Bruce Feldman (ESPN Insider - subscription)
Rich Podolsky (ESPN Insider - subscription)
John Walters (CNNsi)
BJ Schecter (CNNsi)
CFN Fearless Prediction
Pete Fiutak (CFN)
Mark Risley (CFN
Eric Edholm (Pro Football Weekly)
John Tamanaha (MSNBC)
Erick Smith (USA Today)
Terry Freaking Bowden (Yahoo! and ABC)

Thank the lord for imbeciles like the entire CBS Sportsline staff and Stewart Mandel.

And for clarity, I think almost all writers deserve no more respect for their opinions about games than I'd give to myself. And I'm an idiot. So when it seems like all these numbnuts are going my way, I worry. Obviously, I don't want them to be wrong. I want Lil' Stewie to be wrong. But I worry that it's the "conventional wisdom" that's wrong.