Thursday Night College Football Open Thread

With apologies to Cal and Hawaii, this is the real kickoff to college football season. Tonight brings two televised games featuring SEC football teams. SEC Network will bring you Appalachian State at Tennessee at 7:30. This is not the same caliber of Mountaineer team that took down No. 5 ranked Michigan to start the 2007 season. I have no doubt that the Volunteers are going to stumble (more on that tomorrow, by the way), it just won’t be tonight.

At 8:00 on ESPN we get the night’s main course. It’s a game with SEC East title implications. It’s a clash of SEC titans . . . OKAY I CAN’T DO THIS!

It’s Vanderbilt/South Carolina. It’s SEC football, and while neither of these teams looks to be particular spectacular, watching any SEC football beats a sharp stick in the eye 9 times out of 10. The other time the game is coached by Sly Croom and the stick is actually a calzone. And you get to keep the calzone.

Will Muschamp could play three quarterbacks tonight, including Jake Bentley, the son of a South Carolina assistant who skipped his senior year in high school to join the team early. Vanderbilt returns underrated tailback Ralph Webb and starting QB Kyle Shurmur, who only completed 42% of his passes in 2015 but is still going to graduate with a degree from Vanderbilt, so he’s kind of a winner in that respect. Shurmur also led the Commodores to their only SEC wins last season, over Missouri and Kentucky. So there’s that. I’m actually guessing Vandy takes this one, because I have absolutely zero confidence that the Gamecocks can score 10 points at this juncture in the season. But this could also be one of those games in which there really are no winners. We’ll soon find out.

Until later . . .

Go ‘Dawgs!!!