Winning and Boozing: Fake Contenders and Fake IDs

By Chris Marler

We close out October with a three-drink minimum of Winning and Boozing. It’s spooky season, so remember you can’t get fooled by costumes, prosthetics or the fact that Missouri is just Vanderbilt with a fake ID. That being said, cheers to another week of great college football.

LSU at Texas A&M 

This is going to be a war, and I can’t wait. A Top 15 matchup with first place in the SEC and a driver’s seat to Atlanta on the line. It feels like this game is finally living up to the rivalry that Aggie fans have been pretending it is for all these years.

LSU has lost three in a row in College Station. That stops Saturday. Texas A&M is a Top 15 team like Jimbo Fisher was a Top 15 head coach. They beat an overrated Missouri team at home and have beaten no one else of significance. LSU is battle tested, ready, and they are the better team. Point blank, period.

The Winning: LSU 27, Texas A&M 23

The Boozing: Vodka and Gatorade. You need electrolytes if you’re going to avoid a blackout. Trust the 38-year-old me. Also, Gatorade helps alcohol into your bloodstream at three times the rate of normal carbonated mixers and beverages. Trust the 19-year-old version of me. That was a rough night.

Texas A&M is doing a blackout this Saturday for LSU. And, as someone who just binged all six Scream movies for Halloween, I can tell you the only thing scarier than ghostface coming after Sidney Prescott, is 100,000 bros playing dress up GI Joe and singing songs as they sway back and forth like some creepy summer.

Listen LSU fans, enjoy College Station. But don’t drink any Kool-Aid, and don’t take your shoes off. That’s how cults get you. Trust Netflix documentaries watching me.

Missouri at Alabama

Alabama hosts a Missouri team that is 6-1 and coming off a huge come from behind win against Alabama’s rival, Auburn. Alabama is coming off one of the worst three game stretches in almost 20 years. Missouri comes to town as nearly a three-score underdog, partially because they are a facade of an actually good team, and partially because their three-year starting quarterback Brady Cook is out for the game.

Alabama needs to get back to basics and do the things that made them successful early in the season. They need to take deep shots through the air, and they need to establish the run game with people besides Jalen Milroe. I think Alabama finally wakes up and blows Missouri out of the water.

The Winning: Alabama 34, Missouri 14

The Boozing: Red Bull Vodka. Red Bull vodkas are designated for really only two types of people: degenerates and early morning golfers. If we are being honest, most of the time those people are one in the same. Red Bull Vodka is basically just an espresso martini for Chads. They aren’t something you drink for the taste. You drink them when you need to wake up. And, Alabama needs to wake the ****up.

I don’t know what happened in the locker room of that Georgia game when they were up 30-7, but outside of my metabolism and Zach Bryan’s love life, few things have deteriorated faster than Alabama after that. So, grab an RBV from the liquor cabinet or cart girl and wake up, Alabama, because against all odds your playoff hopes are technically still intact.

Texas vs Vanderbilt 

I feel bad for sleeping on Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt in this spot, and I, like everyone in the country, would love to see lightning strike once again in that construction zone they call a stadium when No. 5 Texas comes to town this weekend. However, Texas is 5-0 in their last five regular season games following a loss under Steve Sarkisian.

I think the Longhorns bounce back, as much as I hope they don’t.

The Winning: Texas 38, Vanderbilt 14

The Boozing: $8 Bud Light. Welcome to Nashville. Music City is a lot of fun in the same way that Disney World is a lot of fun, in doses and only once every few years. It’s overpriced, it’s super loud and there’s always some 26-year-old girl in a bachelorette tiara or mickey ears crying over nothing.

Paying $8 Bud Light while you listen to some guy named Jace chase his dreams of becoming a C-List country star is a rite of passage as a southerner and an SEC fan. So, welcome to the SEC Longhorn fans. We’re glad you’re here.

I mean we aren’t, and your fanbase has been absolutely obnoxious. But we are glad you are here in your current state. And, by that I mean a state of humility after Georgia waxed you in Austin last week. Have fun in Nashvegas though!