Calvin Casey and Travis Presley lead local college football pick 'em contest

Tua, left, is older, but Jalen, right, is taller. 

The fourth weekend of the college football season wrapped up on Saturday, and we also closed out another fun and exciting weekend in our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em Contest.

This week, we had a tie for first place in our local standings between Calvin Casey and Travis Presley. Jeremy Matheny was in third place.

Nine contestants are tied for fourth place, including Ricky Taylor, Casey Grant, Clint Hyde, Mark Peacock, Brett Loftin, Drew Skipper, John Johnston, and Robert Riley Jr. and myself.

We also had about eight people tied for 13^th place this week including Courant Publisher Robert Bozeman, Artie Wright, Robbie Moorer and Michael Bishop.

With that said, if you didn’t do so great in the contest last weekend, don’t sweat it. Like I’ve said before, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. We’ve got 10 more weeks to go, and the standings will change a lot during the next two and a half months.

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By my count, we’ve got eight games this weekend featuring SEC teams, including five head-to-head conference matchups. For what it’s worth, here are my picks in those games.

I like Alabama over Louisiana-Lafayette, Auburn over Southern Miss, Texas A&M over Arkansas, Georgia over Tennessee, Mississippi State over Florida, Kentucky over South Carolina, LSU over Ole Miss and Vandy over Tennessee State.

Last week: 7-1, Overall: 38-7

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Around the watercooler at the office on Monday we were talking about Old Dominion’s 49-35 upset over No. 13-ranked Virginia Tech on Saturday. For the record, that victory is Old Dominion’s only win so far this season against three season-opening losses. So far this season, Old Dominion has suffered losses against such juggernauts as Liberty University (52-10), Florida International (28-20) and UNC-Charlotte (28-25).

Butch asked me where Old Dominion University is located, and I honestly couldn’t say, other than I knew it was somewhere in Virginia. Old Dominion is actually located in Norfolk, Va., which is where Saturday’s game against Virginia Tech was played. I figured that Old Dominion was a really old college, but it was actually established in 1930 as a division of the College of William & Mary. By way of comparison, Virginia Tech was founded in 1872.

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Butch’s son, Jake, also stopped by the office on Monday afternoon, and the watercooler talk turned to Alabama football and a comparison of Crimson Tide quarterbacks, Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts. Somehow or other, we got on the subject of which was the tallest, and I was surprised to learn that Jalen is actually taller than the Tua. According to the team’s official roster, Tua is 6-foot-1 and Hurts is 6-foot-2.

I was also surprised to learn that Tua’s real first name is “Tuanigamanuolepola,” but he goes by “Tua” because his given first name is such a tongue-twister for most folks. Another unusual twist is that while Tua is a sophomore on the team, he’s actually older than Hurts, who is a junior. Hurts was born on Aug. 7, 1998, and Tua was born on March 2, 1998. In other words, Tua is five months older than Jalen.