Eight are tied for No. 1 spot in local ESPN football contest after Week 1

Alabama's Nick Saban

The first official weekend of the new college football season is in the history books and so is the first weekend of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em contest.

When the dust settled after Saturday’s games, we had eight contestants tied for the No. 1 spot in our local contest. Those contestants included Travis Presley, Drew Skipper, John Johnston, Steve Stacey, Katie Knight, Jeremy Matheny, Casey Grant and Robert Riley Jr.

Ten contestants were tied for ninth place. They were Greg Turner, Cody Thomas, Calvin Casey, Darrell Burch, Brian Waters, Robbie Moorer, Tom McLendon, Luther Upton, Terry Dailey and Michael Bishop.

The other contestants, myself included, were in 19^th or lower place.

With that said, if you weren’t in the Top 10 this week, don’t sweat it. As many of you know, we’ve got 13 more weeks to go, and it’s best to remember that this contest is a marathon, not a sprint.

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By my count, we’ve got 12 games this weekend featuring SEC teams, including two head-to-head conference matchups. For what it’s worth, here are my picks in those games. I like Alabama over Arkansas State, Auburn over Alabama State, Georgia over South Carolina, Florida over Kentucky, Clemson over Texas A&M, Mississippi State over Kansas State, Vanderbilt over Nevada, Missouri over Wyoming, Arkansas over Colorado State, Ole Miss over Southern Illinois, Tennessee over East Tennessee State and LSU over Southeast Louisiana.

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Looking over this slate of games, I got the urge to give myself another geography lesson as I wasn’t 100 percent sure where some of these colleges are located. Arkansas State University is located in Jonesboro, which is in the northeast corner of Arkansas, not far from Missouri and Tennessee.

Colorado State University is located in Fort Collins, which is in eastern Colorado, just north of Denver. Southern Illinois University is in Carbondale, which is about 100 miles from St. Louis.

East Tennessee State University can be found in Johnson City, which is way up in the northeast corner of Tennessee, not far from that state’s borders with North Carolina and Virginia. Last, but not least, Southeast Louisiana University is located in Hammond, which is about 45 miles northwest of New Orleans.

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I watched every snap of the Alabama-Louisville game on Saturday night, and was especially interested in the small controversy sparked by Nick Saban’s short, post-game interview with ESPN reporter Maria Taylor.

While Saban later apologized for his terse response to a question that Taylor asked about the “quarterback controversy” at Alabama, I was OK with his response to the question. Taylor is a professional reporter, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she crafted her question to get the response she received.

After all, Saban is a human being and if you ask a loaded question, he may react in a way that’s hard to predict. Viewers should also remember that football is a form of entertainment, and many fans, no doubt, found Saban’s answer to be highly entertaining.