In this space during the coming football season you will find no expert analysis, no efficient number-crunching formulas for success, no inside scoop that will lead to wins and riches for you. None of that here. You’ll get that from the rest of the guys in this newsletter.

Not that you need me to tell you, but we’ll start this week with the obvious lesson that many people, Average Joe included, learn the hard way: Bourbon, while having many fine qualities, is not your friend when it comes to betting on the game. It’s inevitable that I will get smashed some Saturday this fall and blow my bankroll on a series of increasingly terrible bets. It’s my inexorable destiny, and no amount of self-awareness of this fact will change it. You don’t blame a tiger for his stripes, and you can’t fault a guy like me for being, at some root genetic level, a lummox. (See the first chapter of Lummox, by Mike Magnuson, for a thorough explanation.) Put more succinctly, as Popeye would say, “I yam what I yam.”

But that’s not always a bad thing. Sure, being a lout is not the best way to score with supermodels, become a famous television personality or win a political campaign; but it is a very fine way to have a lot of fun. There’s a certain freedom to knowing what you are and accepting early in life that you aren’t going to suddenly become a different person. Some people call it living in your own skin. There’s a reason that there are more drunk guys with beer guts than there are male fitness models – it’s more fun, and much easier to achieve. If you embrace your lot in life, as the Average Joe has, and that lot is that of a lout, there is a lot of fun to be had.

Part of that fun comes from sports wagering. If you’re reading this publication, chances are you would much rather make a substantial profit with your wagering than piss all your meager winnings away on stupid bar bets with your dumb-ass friends. That’s fine for you, and a smart decision too, but it’s not the way that my path travels. Maybe you don’t have any dumb-ass friends. I certainly do. We’re actually very smart people, The Crew, but I’m never short of amazed at some of the astoundingly dumb things I have seen and done. I have had my head shaved after losing a foggily-conceived and poorly thought out bet about an Ole Miss-Mississippi State football game. My adversary got his comeuppance the next year, though, when the same character that shaved my head had to walk around for a week with an F-bomb etched into the back of his head after another Egg Bowl bet.

That was the kind of stuff that happened in college. I will go out on a limb and assume that most of you are responsible adults that would not even consider wagering your hair on a football game, but rest assured that there are those out there who will. The thing about losing your hair is that it will grow back, and it’s free. Losing large sums of money is another matter entirely. I’ve got a buddy that basically had to sleep on my couch for two months because he lost so much in college football two seasons ago. He was on such a bad run that his bookie would actually bet against every bet he made. It worked out pretty well for the bookie, too, because this guy was uncannily good at betting on a loser. He would bet huge favorites and make ridiculous five-game parlays, and he had a supernatural ability to be on the wrong end of a miracle cover. He’s still part of The Crew, but we don’t bet with him anymore because it’s so easy to take his money that it’s not that fun. Besides, if you take all his money, you wind up getting stuck with his bar tab, and that’s not a pretty sight. I once goaded two Army firemen just back from the desert into a pint-chugging contest with him, and they were not happy about getting smoked by this round little man with the obnoxious carnival-barker friend. It’s a good thing we knew the bouncer.

So, to review this week’s lesson: Drinking is fun, but it will cause you to make bad bets. Take that to heart. If you don’t believe me, just wait. You will find out for yourself, probably sooner than later, and then you will have to deal with your own self-loathing for not listening to the Average Joe. And by the way, despite what you will likely hear from pundits across the country this week, Memphis is not going to beat Ole Miss, despite the mountains of evidence that suggest they will. I could go on at length, but in this case I‘ll keep the reasoning to myself. Listen to Joe on this one. Take the Rebels, baby.