I’m not a big college football guy. This probably has to do with the universities I went to. Southern Oregon University is in the NAIA, and they’re usually playing loser schools like Menlo. Yeah, that’s right. I went there. On September 25th, Menlo College is going DOWN when they, uh, play that, uh, kind of offense, wait, with the…

…wait, what was I writing about? Ah. College football. Yeah, I can’t get too excited about it. I also root for my true alma mater, San Jose State. That’s a little bit of a different story, as they have a legitimate football program. It’s not a championship contender, though. Not even close. They’re schedule-filler for the teams that do contend, and they get whomped by teams like Alabama.

So I think, eh, what’s the point of following a team that isn’t contending? It’s a pretty narrow-minded way to look at things, though. Because while James Madison isn’t contending for a BCS title any time soon, the whole town of, uh, Madisonville, Virginia is just giddy about the football team right now. Giddy. And all they had to do was beat one of those bowl teams, Virginia Tech. If San Jose State somehow eked out a victory against Boise State one of these seasons, you’d better believe the goalposts would come down. That’s why you watch. That’s what the players play for. If you aren’t going to make the Rose Bowl, try to stick a finger in the eye of the teams that will.

Wow. Three paragraphs about college football to get to this point: The Dodgers are, like, going to try, and stuff. They’re going to try really, really hard. We don’t remember Joe Morgan because of a fantastic championship run; we remember him as a Giant because we got to face south and stick our middle finger up in the air. So when you read things like, "The Giants have an easy remaining schedule – only two of the six teams have a winning percentage over .500!" be afraid. One of those teams is the Dodgers. And if they can’t go to the damned playoffs, they want to set the whole thing on fire, starting with the Giants.

It’s easy to hope that Dodgers’ spirits have been crushed, and that they’re just playing out the string like a nomadic pack of spineless pig-men. I’d like to believe that. I really, really do. I just can’t. Every game in this series is going to be stressful until the ninth inning. It doesn’t matter that Matt Kemp is having an off year, or that the Dodgers are below .500, or that Jonathan Broxton is ugly. This is going to be the most stressful series of the year. Until the next one.

Here’s how evil the Dodgers are: they made you read a half-assed analogy that about college football, with you thinking it was relevant to your interests. For shame, Los Angeles. For shame.

Hitter to watch:

Rod Barajas am become the destroy of Giants pitching. It happed at some time in the offseason. There was a press release and everything. He had a good chance of coming to the Giants this year if we didn’t just luck the hell out and get Bengie Molina back on a one-year deal. Who knows when we would have seen Posey? Barajas had something like a .450 OPS in June and July, when he didn’t play the Giants. That’ll learn him.

Pitcher to watch:

All three of these pitchers give me hives. Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley, and Ted Lilly all seem to tie Giants hitters in knots. It would have been a lot cooler if the Dodgers started messing around after falling out of the race, throwing their version of Kevin Pucetas at us. I don’t know how anyone can look at this series, see Kershaw/Billingsley/Lilly as the three probable starters, and think, "Oh, this should be easy!"

I especially want the Giants to drop six earned on Billingsley, though. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Besides, I was just thinking the same think about Mat Latos. Dreams can come true.

Prediction:

Someone, somewhere will bring up Dave Burba and Solomon Torres without being punched in the neck. That is a problem with an easy solution. I’m not advocating violence, but you could at least close your eyes and think about punching them in the neck. Wait, I guess I was the first one to mention them. That doesn’t count. Carry on.