Folks.

Y’all.

There’s college football on Saturday. Real, live college football. And it comes to us from multiple countries!

Northwestern and Nebraska face off in Ireland on Saturday and we have games going all the way through Vanderbilt-Hawaii late at night. Can the Commodores start the year 1-0? ESPN’s Dari Nowkhah thinks Clark Lea’s crew can potentially start 4-0. We’ll see!

For now, on the eve of college football, let’s dive into this week’s Mailbag!

Grant:

You always hear people say Nick Saban is worth a lot more than the now-$11.7 million he’s making per year. How much should he be paid?

I’m actually fine with his current salary. I think he should always be the highest-paid coach in the country since, you know, he has the most national championships of any college football coach ever. But if you want to make the “he makes the Alabama athletic department so much money” argument, then every coach at a rich school should make a lot more.

If Saban is going to make, say, $25 million per year, then Steve Sarkisian at Texas should make $20 million just based on how much money the Texas athletic department makes every year. Jimbo Fisher should make like $22 million per year or something, because Texas A&M also prints its own money and Fisher actually has a national title on his resume.

Now, I’m not actually advocating for that. I’m just saying that when Kirby Smart inevitably gets a raise to $12 million a year, Alabama should bump Saban’s pay to $12.5 million. When Jimbo Fisher gets a new contract that pays him $15 million, Alabama should pay Saban $16 million.

Just keep making him the highest-paid coach in the nation and both he and the school will be more than happy with the arrangement.

@SChinni12:

What superstitions did you have before a game and what are some of the craziest superstitions you’ve heard of players having?

I don’t think I had any superstitions when I played. Maybe at one point I tried not to wash my socks or my uniform after I had a good game, but my mom probably put a stop to that in a hurry. My high school football bag already smelled terrible on its own and didn’t need any extra assistance from unwashed clothing.

Fun fact: I once left a sandwich in my bag throughout an entire offseason (in a plastic Ziploc bag). By the time I found it ahead of the next season, it had turned into a black goo. I thought it was kind of cool. My parents and sister? Not so much.

As for the SEC, though, the craziest thing I’ve seen was Les Miles and his grass-eating habit before games. That always seemed strange to me. Just have a pregame salad if you need some greens.

Thankfully, football doesn’t lend itself to as many in-game superstitions as baseball. Thank you play clock!

Could you imagine if we had to wait for Cedric Tillman or Kayshon Boutte to go through a whole Nomar Garciaparra-esque glove routine before every snap? College football games are already nearly 4 hours long sometimes. Thank goodness we don’t have to deal with pre-snap superstitions.

Michael:

How long do you think you can stay perfect picking games this year? Not against the spread or anything – just picking winners straight up. Do you think you’d even be able to make it through Week 0 with an 11-0 record in FBS games?

Well, there’s only one way to find out the answer to this question, right? Let’s see if I can pick all 11 Week 0 matchups involving FBS teams correctly. Then, if that miraculously happens (which I doubt), I’ll try to keep it going next week.

So, without further ado, here are my Week 0 picks:

  • Western Kentucky over Austin Peay
  • Nebraska over Northwestern
  • UNLV over Idaho State
  • Utah State over UConn
  • Illinois over Wyoming
  • Florida State over Duquesne
  • Charlotte over FAU
  • North Carolina over Florida A&M
  • North Texas over UTEP
  • Nevada over New Mexico State
  • Vanderbilt over Hawaii

The only real underdog I’m taking is Charlotte over FAU. But, I can’t wait for FSU to lose to Duquesne to ruin my streak before it really has a chance to get started.

I’m not expecting this to be a regular occurrence in this column, but if I can go 11-0 this week, you’d better believe I’ll be taking a victory lap next week.

@Dobbe8:

What should South Carolina’s new gamecock mascot be named? And why is the answer Cock Commander?

Some of the top options thus far include Cluck Norris, Cock Commander and Marco Pollo. I’m partial to Marco Pollo myself, as I think that’s the cleverest name in that bunch.

But, “Cock Commander” was trending on Twitter on Thursday, as it is an objectively hilarious name.

Obviously, South Carolina wouldn’t pick a name that would lead the internet to make jokes at its expense, so we can probably expect a tamer name. If the school doesn’t want to use “Marco Pollo,” which, again, it should, maybe a nod to the stadium could be cool? They could name it Willy B for Williams-Brice Stadium.

South Carolina fans are known for rocking out to “Sandstorm” during games. So, maybe “Sandy” would be a fitting Mascot name. I don’t know. They haven’t asked me. But if they do use one of my suggestions, I demand Shane Beamer have another jug of mayo dumped on his head.

Have a question for next week’s Mailbag? Tweet at us using #SDSMailbag or email me at Adam.Spencer@XLMedia.com.