By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

After 8 long months the wait is finally over: the college football season has finally arrived. And nothing welcomes the beginning of a new year quite like the obligatory “Five Week 1 Prognostications Guaranteed To Go Wrong, But It Doesn’t Matter Because I’ll Write About Something Completely Different Next Week And Never Mention These Predictions Again.” Sounds like a good time, right?

• Georgia will beat Appalachian State, but not by much and will actually trail at some point in the second half.

I know I’m not going on too much of a limb to predict a Georgia win, and as much as I wanted to pick an Appalachian victory, I just can’t do it. The Mountaineers return an experienced team on both sides of the ball and a 5th year senior in Quarterback, Tyler Lamb. They should’ve beaten Tennessee last year and will make UGA work for it this year. The Dawgs are too athletic and too talented not to come away with a win, though.

• Alabama will lose to Florida State.

I know it’s not all that wise to go against Alabama, basically ever, but intelligence has never really been my strong suit. What I do know is this, the last time Nick Saban lost back to back games was probably when he was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. He handled that adversity so well he decided to leave the NFL and go back to college. My hope is that if he loses to Florida State maybe he’ll leave college football and go back to high school. One can dream, right?

• LSU will fail to score 20 points on a BYU team that thinks about defense the same way Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor think about humility.

Ed Orgeron did some good things for the Tigers last year after replacing Les Miles; mainly reinvigorating the fan base. Their offense SHOULD be better than it was last year, but then again, I should know better than to eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream before watching Game of Thrones, yet I do it anyway. Point is, a lot of things that should be different, oftentimes never change. See, LSU Offense.

• South Alabama will beat Ole Miss.

South Alabama is a middle of the pack, Sun Belt conference team, that should have no business bearing any SEC team. Fortunately for them, they’re playing the one SEC team that probably doesn’t have any business winning a SEC game either. I have no idea what to expect from the Rebels this year, except it’s not going to be a pretty site in Oxford.

• The Florida/Michigan game will wind up being the most intriguing game of the weekend.

I have no idea if it’ll be because the play on the field will be that exciting or because there’s a 50/50 chance that Jim Harbaugh and Jim McElwain will fight it out Mortal Kombat style halfway through the game. Either way, one of those two things will happen and it will be glorious to behold.

Now that I have channeled my inner Nostradamus feel free to enter this most sacred of weekends with the knowledge that these outcomes have already been foretold.

Of course, if I happen to be mistaken don’t waste your time letting me know. At that point, I’ll have already forgotten what I said and moved on to my next topic. You didn’t think I would hold myself accountable for my own thoughts, did you?