Dr. MEAC (aka KING MEAC)

Football Predictions for October 1-2

INDEPENDENT

Our first game is our eagerly-anticipated independent game of the week (the eager derives from the desire to get it over with). Paul Quinn College, the Pride of Oak Cliff, makes its way (in typical Oak Cliff fashion via a stolen bus) to the desolate confines of Winfield, Kansas to play Southwestern College to do what only PQ football players can do: get drubbed like that young Burmese man in George Orwell's "To Shoot an Elephant."

Yeah, nasty ... just like this match-up.

WINNER: INSOMNIACS

SWAC

For our SWAC game of the week, Dr. MEAC has selected the one thing that could lift the spirits of the ever-more-apparently incompetent president of Grambling State University: Dr. J the Lesser.

"What," you ask Dr. MEAC, "is the one thing that can lift President Judson's spirits when all else is so wrong with GSU that even a de facto retired Willie Jefferies ran faster from Grambling than George W. Bush from Katrina?"

Simple, the State Fair Classic with its guaranteed W against Prairie View (other State Fair Classic certainties include corny dogs, turkey legs, Big Tex, and more gun fire than a FOX children's show).

WINNER: GSU
WINNEST: WILLIE JEFFERIES' MOVING COMPANY

SIAC

Here is Dr. MEAC's UPSET SPECIAL OF THE WEEK. The always dangerous (and MEAC-eligible) Albany State Rams take on perennial SIAC powerhouse (and SWAC champion) Tuskegee at home in South Georgia. For fans that don't know, Albany is where championship dreams often go to die (well, maybe that is a bit over the top. Albany is where culture goes to die).

WINNER: ASU

CIAA

Our CIAA game of the week features a team that refuses to pull a Florida Marlins and, instead, is hanging tough in the Race to the MEAC sweepstakes. North Carolina Central is hosting St. Augustine's for their homecoming. Looking at how things are going lately for NCCU's athletic director, there is talk that if NCCU beats St. Aug's, then the Eagle Homecoming Committee might follow NC A&T's lead and quit the series.

Don't worry - that didn't make sense to Dr. MEAC either.

WINNER: NCCU

MEAC 

Our first MEAC contest features Howard taking on still another Division II school in Charleston Southern. If Dr. MEAC did not know better, he would think that Howard is thinking about leaving the MEAC except, unlike FAMU, they are not thinking of joining DI. The Bison appear to be hell-bent on joining the Alexandria Pop Warner League.

Dr. MEAC thinks that they would still finish under .500 in that league too.

WINNER: HU


One of the most intriguing match-ups keeps us in South Carolina as last year's MEAC runners-up and this year's hottest MEAC team takes on an unpredictable Coastal Carolina Chickeedees team at home. CCC took last year's IAA champs out to the woodshed but struggled to beat Del State.

Dr. MEAC is struggling with this pick because he still believes that the Hornets are better than most people want to believe (or Rattlers want to admit) so the DSU-CCC game can be confusing as a barometer of what will happen in Orangeburg.

Different schemes, different coaches, different players all lead to different and therefore "uncomparable" match-ups for CCC and SCSU.

SC State is as hot as Buddy Pough is chubby so that, along with the Dawson Field factor (many fans don't know this but the plastic bulldog with the mouthpiece around his neck on a pole near the visitor's sideline is actually a real-time intelligence gathering instrument devised and personally installed by a certain gifted tactician and strategist of a coach that led the Bulldogs to glory in the late 1980's) lead Dr. MEAC to think that the home dogs should be okay when all is said and done. The caveat is if there are no morale-breaking injuries to a key player or two as well as SCSU maintaining focus and poise.

WINNER: SCSU


If Donald Hill-Ely had to wonder about how big of a hill his team had to climb this year after losing Brad Littlejohn and Company then the fact that Bethune-Cookman moved up its homecoming a week earlier than its usual first Saturday in October should have let him on to something.

The Golden Bears are no more dangerous these days than another famous golden bear of legendary status. No, Dr. MEAC is not referring to Roosevelt Brown nor is he referring to Jack Nickelaus. The "famous golden bear of legendary status" that Dr. MEAC is referring to is Winnie the Pooh and, just like Pooh at Rabbit's house, these Bears are going to get stuck out with their rear ends hanging out for the Wildcats to kick and kick and kick and kick and kick.

WINNER: B-CC

One of Dr. MEAC's current favorite signatures here on MEACFANS.com (FYI - I hate DEX and T. C. Cat) belongs to a proud alumnus of Tennessee State University with the profile of a cigar-chomping Big John Merritt.

Talk about "classic."

Yes, those were the good ole days for the Tigers. Dr. MEAC uses the past tense "were" because the only good thing about these days for the TSU football team is the night and that is because the good after parties always start late at night and the freaks come out at night.

So, going easy on the tweeter and heavy on the bass, Dr. MEAC has no other choice but to label yet another TnSU football game as this week's AFTER PARTY SPECIAL. Dr. MEAC does not do this on purpose ladies and gentleman (and outsider). It is not his fault that the Big Blue Tigers play more like Blue's Clues than jungle killers.

To add to the AFTER PARTY quotient is the opponent of the Tigers for this year's Circle City Classic in the always enjoyable surroundings of Indianapolis. If it were not for Tennessee State (and Howard) then North Carolina A & T would be in the lead for the Biggest-Train-Wreck-of-a-Program "award" this year. The Aggies suck almost as bad as GSU's president's management skills.

WINNER: NCAT


One of this week's marquee match-ups features the defending MEAC champions and the one conference team that kept them from having a rare undefeated season in league play. The Hampton Pirates host the improving Delaware State Hornets. The storylines and subplots abound in this game. Revenge is key for HIU while redemption after a hard-to-digest loss to Coastal Carolina stirs the hearts of Hornet players.

Two of the MEAC's smallest schools in terms of enrollment square off in what could be the conference's version of Michigan-Notre Dame in a few years.

Football fans with no previous engagements may well want to head over to the yacht club known as Hampton University for this game. It should be a good one.

WINNER: HIU


Dr. MEAC's penultimate game for this week brings us to CRAP GAME OF THE WEEK. Sure, Dr. MEAC hears what you are saying about how Norfolk State had B-CC on the ropes and, yes, Dr. MEAC hears what you are saying about how Savannah State was able to overcome 402 tackles (401 solo) by NSU's Kevin Talley to win an overtime thriller in last year's game but Dr. MEAC is not paid to listen to keyboard coaches.

Dr. MEAC is paid to be arrogant and close-minded and smug as get-out.

That having been said, Dr. MEAC does not care about anything that happened in the past. Dr. MEAC is here to tell you that these two teams suck. While Dr. MEAC does not expect this game to be as bad as the SSU-MSU game a few weeks ago nor does he expect it to be as bad as any Howard game this year, Dr. MEAC will still tell you that this game stinks like Buddy Pough's "poot" when he's had too many doughnut holes washed down by a warm Bud.

WINNER: SSU


For many FAMU fans, losing at home to the traditionally hapless Hornets from Delaware's next white community college on opening day was very scary. Losing to South Florida was not very encouraging either. But, since then, FAMU blasted Howard (three different times on the same night according to Born in Rattler, DDS), USF pummeled nationally-ranked Louisville by a margin that eclipsed the margin of victory over the Rattlers, and FIU's dreams of playing competitive football at any level much less division one have faded like telephone calls to Don Johnson's agent from producers.

The Rattlers are feeling good which has FAMU alumni in Miami feeling great because the older a Rattler is, the less he/she likes the thought of losing a football game in the legendary Orange Blossom Classic - the original super BCF classic.

Dr. MEAC shares FAMU's optimism (in spite of still hating their guts for trying to abandon us).

WINNER: FAMU

Thank you all, you beautiful people (except for DEX and T. C. Cat).
I am Dr. MEAC and I need a drink.