Clayton Picks All the Week Seven Games Correctly

It feels pretty great being 6-0 at the bye week. Let’s look on and see what’s what’s in week 7.

Last Week: 10-4

Season to Date: 61-28

Our Game

BYE WEEK

The Rest of the American Athletic Conference

USF (5-0) at Tulsa (1-4)

A couple weeks back, I wrote about how the riff from Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” was the only thing I knew how to play on guitar.

One of my esteemed readers, who just so happens to be a fan of the sides at Longhorn Steakhouse, told me about his experience as a bassist.

“Christmas 1993. My grandfather bought me a bass guitar right out of the Sears catalog. In my stocking, I got a VHS cassette tape of “The Doors,” that Oliver Stone movie where Val Kilmer makes friends in the desert.

I watched “The Doors” three times in a row that evening with my cousin Reggie, who came over for crockpot cocktail weenies after he got coal in his stocking.

Cousin Reggie had spray-painted AmWay on the side of his mom’s Chrysler LaBaron and Santa had decided to send him a message.

Cousin Reggie loved the Doors. He knew how to play the opening bass riff to “Break on Through” and he taught it to me. I learned it perfect but I didn’t learn anything else on my bass. I was too busy watching the Doors and learning how to be a vampire from Val Kilmer’s lady writer friend with the mullet.

What I didn’t know about the bass didn’t stop me from signing up for my high school’s cabaret night. I dressed up like Count Chocula and brought my electric bass out on stage that night unplugged. I wanted my sound to be more authentic, more real. I wanted to reinvent “Break on Through” for a new generation, just as Eric Clapton had with his acoustic version of “Layla” on “MTV Unplugged” the previous spring.

And I played the opening riff to “Break on Through” about a dozen times. And then the janitor used his long handled broom to shoo me off stage, Apollo Theatre style.”

Final Score: South Florida 42 Tulsa 24

UCF (5-0) at Memphis (4-2)

This one weekend, I got really into Bruins legend Phil Esposito. This was a while back. Probably before Home Alone came out. I watched a documentary called Slap! Hockey, which I’ve never been able to find as an adult and which I had on video as a little boy. It had a whole big section on how great Phil Esposito was at being really big and standing in front of the net and redirecting pucks past goalies for the B’s.

Apparently, I found the video quite inspiring. I took a black crayon and started writing “Phil E.” on everything I could in the house. On the wall, on the Crayola box, on paper plates, on myself, on every piece of paper in an unused composition book.

It was not well received in the Trutor household.

Final Score: Memphis 43 UCF 41

Temple (3-3) at Navy (2-3)

My Cousin Reggie never returned his Little League uniform. He was on the Giants. Cousin Reggie turned his Giants jersey into his work uniform. He held one-man bottle drives on behalf of the local Little League every weekend and made enough money for himself to buy a silver 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.

Final Score: Temple 31 Navy 24

Houston (4-1) at East Carolina (2-3)

Final Score: Houston 42 East Carolina 24

The Rest of the Country

Georgia (6-0) at LSU (5-1)

Speaking of my Cousin Reggie, he keeps a highlighter handy when he reads the “Day in Court” page in the Sunday newspaper. He likes to be up to date on what’s happening in the motor court. He also collects autographs. He goes door to door to get everybody to do their autograph right next to their conviction on the “Day in Court” page. He’s got a binder and a hole puncher and he puts that binder right on top of his TV and its pretty hot on top of his TV because he leaves his TV on all night because he says it helps him sleep.

Final Score: LSU 22 Georgia 7

Washington (5-1) at Oregon (4-1)

My three favorite passages from Gillette’s Encyclopedia of Sports (1953)

Dugout canoes, crude in form and workmanship but nevertheless actual manmade artifacts, have been ascribed upon good evidence to the Stone Age.

The idea of a self-propelled vehicle on wheels intrigued mankind through many centuries, but it did not take definite form until 1690, when a two-wheeled contrivance made its appearance on the streets of Paris.

Among the world’s least publicized athletes are the gymnasts. They execute, in a single evening, acts of greater daring and perform more physical feats than baseballers, gridders, and cagers do in an entire season.

Final Score: Washington 23 Oregon 21

Michigan (3-2) at Penn State (4-1)

According to David Halberstam, Penn State alum and Portland Trail Blazers supersub David Twardzik was the last man in America to sport a crew cut during the 1970s. Twardzik held out one month longer than H.R. Haldeman, who grew a Keith Richards shag and a louche little moustache to celebrate the spirit of ’76.

Final Score: Penn State 33 Michigan 27

As always, this is a work of parody and not intended to be taken seriously.

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