NORMAN LOSER'S-REAL OPENING DAY

Well Vandy mite near licked all the red off Johnny Reb’s candy again last night.  Neither team could have felt too bad because both seem better than last year and played for a full 60 minutes.  Both showed the rest of college football the way the game should be played and will both end up in bowls again this year. 

I also heard what a Tar Heel is from my boy Bubba.  He explained it is that mound of used tars taken from wrecked cars and trade-ins that pile up in a junk yard before they catch fire and burn for six months.
Thus ‘Tar Heel’

Now for the real opening day.

GEORGIA vs CLEMSON
Hide your women and children and put the dog outside because this one should be a slobber knocker.  Both the Dogs and the Tigers should score a bob tail truck load of points.  Neither of the head coaches, who happen to both be former Mouseketeers , have ever been able to win one or two games each year that would really set them apart.  They both have tremendous offenses with all kinds of explosive skill players so the two questions here is can either on stop the other of who will have the ball last.  Both should be in their conference championship game if they can figure out how to give their defenses a huge dose of Kaopectake and stop the other a couple of times.  Determining factor here for me is how can I pull against a guy from Alabama with guts enough to go by the name of ‘Dabo’. 
NORMAN’S  LOSER:  GEORGIA  by 5. 

MISSISSIPPI STATE vs OKLAHOMA STATE

Bless his heart the little troll, Dan Mullen, has had Mississippi State fans under ether for several years now.  They are about tired of hearing how he coached Tim Tebow and was the real brains in Gainesville during those glory years under the bigger fraud Urban Meyer.  In the meantime Mike Gundy has just about proven he is a ‘man’ and is now a few years past 40 which he claimed qualified him to be a man several years ago.  Oklahoma State has proven they are contenders with Oklahoma, Kansas St. and the other real teams in the Big 12.  Mullen has some experience on the offense in his QB and RB but they can’t play with the big boys and the Cowboys will ride them like Roy Rodgers on a 10 year old mare. 
NORMAN’S LOSER:  MISSISSIPPI STATE by 2 touchdowns. 

ALABAMA vs VIRGINIA TECH

‘TURN OUT THE LIGHTS, THE PARTIES OVER.’  ‘Little Nicky’ will not let the band open with Don Meredith’s old song out of respect for Frank Beamer’s legendary career,  but it is only because he has good West Virginia manners.  The CIA, FBI, Finebaum nor any other expert in finding weakness can find one on the Alabama team.  They can probably be beat, if they beat themselves, but it won’t happen in an opening game where Sabin, Kirby Smart and Wesley Neighbors have had 7 months to prepare.  Yeldon , Cooper, McCarron and the rest of the first team should not play beyond the first quarter and the babies behind them will have a hard time keeping this game respectable. 
NORMAN’S LOSER:  VIRGINIA by   (you name it)

WASHINGTON STATE vs AUBURN

What happens when a pirate goes head to head with a bus, the pirate ends up road kill.  The pirate Mike Leach’s air attack will look like the Hindenburg when this one is over.  Neither team should have played in a good Pop Warner league last year, they both stunk.  The difference here is that Auburn had some real players, they just had no idea how to coach them.  The Cougars on the other hand had the Pop Warner guys and they have not had the time necessary to equip Leach with the tools to perfect his air war.  Ellis Johnson’s defense will win this one in a hurry.  This is a perfect opener for the Gus Bus to teach a little driver’s education to a talented but untested Nick Marshal and Rodney Gardner’s chargers will feast on a much smaller and less athletic offensive line. 
NORMAN’S LOSER:  WASHINGTON STATE  by 15

KENTUCKY vs WESTERN KENTUCKY

Bobby Petrino is back on the motorcycle and riding the country roads again.  Mike Stoops like the last 34 football coaches at my old Kentucky home has had nearly a year now to convince the 6,000 football fans in Kentucky football is a real sport, but selling and producing are two different matters.  Coach Bryant is credited with saying he could take his and beat yours and he could take yours and beat his.  This game will prove Coach Bryant right.  Neither team has the talent Motorcycle Bobby is use to but he will take his and beat Wildcats like he should before he packs up and heads for Austin Texas to replace Mack Brown. 
NORMAN’S LOSER:  KENTUCKY by 10. 

LSU vs TCU

The battle of the initials. Say what you want, Les Miles is a factor.  Like a big old cat lying in the bushes, Miles has suffered the last 7 months in silence following a less than stellar year.   He has quietly reloaded and is ready to surprise a lot of people this year.  ‘The Hat’ is never short on talent and has a staff that can coach them.  Gary Patterson on the other hand has his picture in dictionary next to ‘big fish in a small pond’.  He continues to astound fans with his winning ways playing in a conference (Big 12) with at most 4 teams out of 12 that could compete in the Sun Belt.  ‘The Hat’ is coming back strong, he will contend in the SEC this year and may be the only real outside challenge to ‘Little Nicky’, so don’t think TCU will even  be in this one much past kick off. 
NORMAN’S LOSER:  TCU by 21. 

The other SEC games are not worth ole Norman’s time.  Somebody has got to stop this kind of bloodletting just to have a few exhibition games. 

TENNESSEE vs AUSTIN PEAY
Only thing notable here is AUSTIN PEAY’S  battle cry.  “LET’S GO PEAY”
NORMAN’S LOSER:  AUSTIN PEAY by (whatever)

TEXAS A & M vs RICE
TEXAS A&M by 25 even with Johnny Cash on the bench for 30 minutes
NORMAN’S LOSER:  RICE by 30

ARKANSAS vs LOUISIANA (RAGIN GAJUNS )
Will probably be a decent game I’m just too tired to mess with it and don’t really care.
NORMAN’S LOSER:  LOUISIANA

FLORIDA vs TOLEDO
You’ve got to be kidding.
NORMAN’S LOSER: TOLEDO by (a ton)

NORMAN'S LOSERS--OPENING DAY

North Carolina vs South Carolina 

I know the only person who ever lived that could come close to telling us how the North Carolina Tar Heels feel going into tonight’s game was Old Testament hero David.  Not since the day little undersized David slew the giant Goliath with five slick, smooth river rock has anyone felt pressure like this.  Jadeveon Clowney makes Goliath look like Michael Corleone’s brother Fredo.  Sun Visor Steve has been building for this year since he came to Columbia and the S.C. fans are more anxious to see their pit bull released than the Romans were on hungry lion day.  S.C. may go all the way this year and let Steve go out with one more SEC if not National Championship.  It will take Clowney a quarter or maybe into the second quarter to totally suck all the air out of a brave but under matched bunch of Tar Heels (what is a Tar Heel) but believe me this one is at least a 20 pointer.  Norman’s loser, North Carolina.

Ole Miss at Vanderbilt

I know the hype.  Vanderbilt is finally a contender, the little coach that jumps up and down like an old time shortstop has them believing.  But come on, it’s Vanderbilt.  The same Vanderbilt the Smoot kid from Miss State made the offer to not hit them if they did his homework.  Ole Miss is going to be pretty good if they can figure out what they are.  Are the Rebels or Black Bears or just drunk?  Whatever they are still on the high from last year where they actually looked like a football team and the fans actually stayed in the stands and out of the grove until the end of most games.  We need a game to really get into and start practicing our taunts of ‘wait till you play us’ but this is not the game.  Ole Miss by at least 14 and Vanderbilt back to looking for Duke and Wofford.  Norman’s loser, Vanderbilt.

PAPA'S ADVICE--GET AN EDUCATION

I’m going to get my high school diploma, then a degree from college and I will have my ticket punched to fame and fortune.  I know because my guidance counselor told me a degree is the ticket.  Wrong

A degree from any level of formal education is worth about as much as the Vice Presidency was when John Nance Garner described the office, while being sought to fill it by President Franklin Roosevelt,  as “not worth a warm bucket of spit”.  You are thinking old papa has lost his mind.  You know you don’t want your mother or dad to read this.  Poor old Papa has really lost it and should be put away you think, but not so fast grasshoppers.  Papa did not say an education was not important, I said a degree does not mean anything if it does not truly represent the education one has gained to be used the rest of your life. 

We (our country) have become so focused on getting the ‘degree’ we have lost sight of what it should represent.  A ‘degree’ means absolutely nothing.  You can get them by mail order,  get them on-line and really just make one up and fill in the blanks.  There was a time in earlier generations when a ‘degree’ really meant something.  The only place you could get one was from an institution with few students, a dedicated faculty,  single minded and focused on teaching and having their students learn, and students who recognized they were there to learn and develop and not simply to get a thick sheet of paper signed by the president of the school.  In those days even the high school diploma represented a completion of a learning experience and not just a preliminary step to nowhere.   

  

Don’t get me wrong.  I know there are great teachers in every school who do all they can to stimulate you to learn, but I don’t feel they do enough to teach you why you learn and what learning really is.  Even the great teachers are working on timelines and quotas to meet goals designed by someone probably far away that fails to take into consideration the individual student’s abilities, motivations and correct pace to learn.  
Everything is geared to the average and there are few average people alive. 

Learning originally was self-motivated and driven by the individual student searching and seeking to learn something that would serve him/her in life.  Universities grew because people sought out scholars and wise men from which to learn.  There were neither grades nor time period for a course of study.  The student would search and explore whatever he was seeking until he understood it as much as possible.  Soon man learned a well-rounded education prepared him even better and the individual scholars, experts in their own fields, taught in one single geographic location so the students could study the various subjects in one place, thus the liberal arts education. 

The magic here comes not from the teacher or institution but from the student.  Now I hope each of you seek and obtain a Liberal Arts education.  I think it prepares one better for a fuller life.  This may not be the best for everyone, but education is essential for everyone.  You may be better suited for a razor focused specific skill or trade education.  The point I want to make is that no matter what you are best suited for and what you intend to do, don’t expect success just because you obtain a degree.  Expect success when you, by your own wit and intellect seek knowledge and wisdom for the sole sake of making you a more complete person, not for the sake of getting some degree anyone with enough money and time can get. 

Get the education forget the degree.  The degree should evidence what you have accomplished.  It is important to communicate just what it should, that you have sought wisdom, have paid a price in time and effort of obtain it and most important you can apply the wisdom you have learned.  The degree should not represent you stayed long enough to get the teachers and courses necessary to get a passing grade without working, without thinking and without struggling to internalize everything you could.  It should tell the world you took full advantage of the opportunity afforded you. 

LEARN, DON’T JUST GO TO SCHOOL.