JK’s Week 9 Best/Worst/Bold Prediction

When I was a sophomore in high school one of my friends asked me to join the cheer squad. And while most of the time male cheerleaders elicit a “Huh. Whatever floats your boat I guess.” from me, I was legitimately interested for a split second. Because these guys were: 1. insanely ripped and 2. could do a ton of flips and stuff. My friend also tried to sell me on 3. getting to hang out with hot girls in their sports bras*.

Anyway, Texas A&M took the concept of male cheerleaders, completely baptized and purified these guys’ motives by removing the women, and called it “Yell Leading”. It’s actually a pretty huge honor to be one: there are only 5, typically elected from the A&M Corps of Cadets**. As far as I can tell this Corps of Cadets is basically a militarized section of the student body that looks like it came straight out of the mind of Emperor Palpatine or Kim Jong-Il. So that makes it pretty obvious who the bad guys are this week.

Oh, I’m supposed to be talking about football? My bad. Here ya go:

BEST case scenario:

• We play like the team we are at home. We’re outscoring opponents by around 100 points when we play at Davis-Wade this season. That’s pretty good for those scoring at home. If we can find a way to take that edge with us into Kyle Field, we’ll walk away with a huge win that could propel us to a pretty sunny and warm bowl game this year.
• We play A&M like we did last year. The 2016 A&M game was a JK Certified® Better-Than-Best-Case game. If it weren’t for eligibility concerns, Nick Fitzgerald may be pushing Forrest Gump’s record of running for 3 years and 2 months straight, all in one football game.
• We win the game in the trenches, running for tons of yards and touchdowns, while limiting A&M’s rushing effectiveness. Kellen Mond is quietly racking up running yards, and the one-two of Trayveon Williams and Keith Ford has totaled 12 TD’s so far this fall. If we stop the run, A&M won’t be able to score many points***.
• Bulldogs win, 42-10.

WORST case scenario:

• Texas A&M plays as good as they played against Alabama. It’s a little weird that A&M’s best perceived game this season was a loss, but I don’t thin anyone expected them to play Bama within single digits. A&M is a talented team, and when they put things together they can be very dangerous.
• Mississippi State plays as bad as we usually do against a team like Alabama. Not to say that Texas A&M has much in common with Alabama this year, but if we don’t play like we expect to win the game, this could end up like our other SEC road games this year [cringes].
• Christian Kirk torches our defense. Easily the biggest name on the A&M roster, it will be interesting to see how we try to limit Kirk’s effectiveness. If we can’t stop him, we’re gonna be toast.
• Aggies, uh, ag? 42-10.

BOLD predictions:

• Sissy bold: State out rushes A&M by over 100 yards.
• Whatever these are bold: Texas A&M loses this game, but somehow Kevin Sumlin keeps his job after the season. Our friends over at Good Bull Hunting spelled out why they believe Sumlin shouldn’t be run out of town and they make some convincing arguments.

JK’S TOTALLY COMPUTER GENERATED ADVANCED STATS NOT MADE UP ON A WHIM ACTUAL SCORE PREDICTION: Your Mississippi State Bulldogs finally put a good game in on the road and win, 32-24.

*Totally, 100% not at all why I was really contemplating this

**As an aside, Gov. Rick Perry was one! Rick Perry! That guy who ran for president that time

***I’m told this is crucial to winning sportsball games.