Welcome to Week 3 of the Pembroke Mafia Football League, the world’s only non-GMO, gluten free and free range PMFL. We’re going to get right to the skinny this week, not that any of us are skinny.

Well, maybe a few of us are somewhere in the neighborhood of skinny, but most of us don’t miss many meals and are therefor pretty healthy.

So that’s fake news. Many of us have gone from healthy to pleasingly plump, as my late Uncle Pee Wee often said – about himself.

And that’s OK. You only go around once in this life, might as well go around round. Besides, despite living in the shadow of the Evil Orange and Purple Empire (Clemson), which has filled up with yankees of late, Uncle Pee Wee didn’t really care much about college football. He liked model trains and picking guitar in a gospel band, and was good at messing around with both. He even cut a cassette tape with my late Aunt Mary back in the day. I have it on CD. Come check it out. However, Pee Wee’s son and my cousin Gordon, or Gordie as we called him growing up, is a huge college football fan – both literally and figuratively.

Actually, being a black sheep in a family chock full of pleasingly plump, front-running, overallwearing Clemson fanatics, Gordie (now Gordon) in recent years turned himself into a UGA fan for some reason. Maybe he thinks he looks better in red, but I suspect it’s probably just to be ornery. Regardless, my guess is he’s eagerly awaiting what he believes will be a Georgia beatdown of the Gamecocks this weekend.

Happily he likely will be sorely disappointed. After losing to Arkansas last week, Shane Beamer’s team of straight A-plus students are apt to unleash themselves upon Kirby Smart’s bunch. I.e., expect Williams Brice Stadium to be swaying and the Gamecocks to be playing, and that’s all I’m saying.

Standings: Mike Clark and Noah Covington are in a tie for first with five misses so far. The Rev. Lawrence Butler, Ted O’Neil and Dr. Gene Wallace, DMD, have six mixes apiece to tie for second. In third are Carter Infinger, Ben Taylor and Jeff Whitten (that’s me) with seven misses.

Mike Brown and Dawnne Greene are in fifth place with eight misses so far, and Mike B. was the only guy to pick Georgia Southern over Nebraska. Course, Mike probably covered Otto Grange when the Corn Huskers beat Jim Halas and the Lord Fauntleroys in the 1896 Rose Bowl, so he saw it coming. Alex Floyd, B.J. Clark and Freddy Howell are in last place with nine misses so far.

This week’s picks, with a whiny editor’s note here: Our two PMFL members who were late and missed BJ’s deadlines will not have their picks listed in print, because your’s truly doesn’t have time to go poking around looking for their emails to see what’s what, but they will be accounted for in next week’s tally. Penn State vs. Auburn: Mike B, the Rev. LB and our resident grill doctor Gene pick the Nittany Lions.

Ole Miss vs. Tech: Rebels in a landslide.

Mississippi State vs. LSU: Mike C., the Grill Doctor and your’s truly take the Starkville Stink.

UGA vs. the real USC: Everybody takes UGA but me. I’m like King Leonidas.

GSU vs. UAB: Ted picks UAB, everybody else is chuffed about the Eagles and that wide open passing attack led by the Ginger General, and so what if he’s from Ohio. So was Bucky Wagner and Mike Sewak. And they were OK.

Miami vs. Texas A& M: Me and Mike B take the Canes, who are about to give Jimbo Fisher another case of chapped cheeks.

Old Dominion vs. Virgina: BJ, Mike B. and you’re truly take the Monarchs. They may have dumb looking helmets, but they’re not butterflies. Michigan State vs. Washington: Amphibious Alex goes it alone in taking the Huskies.