ANSWER ME THESE QUESTIONS THREE

This week’s Blogpoll Roundtable comes to us courtesy of Joey at Straight Bangin’, asking that musical question . . .

Which unheralded player on your team will be the hardest to replace? Which seemingly inconsequential player could make the biggest impact?

The hardest to replace will be Warren Holloway, last year’s possession receiver, who flew under everybody’s radar until That Play. Ed Hinkel is back to rip the field, but Clinton Solomon will have to bring a little heat of his own, or it could be a long season without much of a running game.

Meanwhile, look out for Charles Godfrey, the free safety. With the Hawks breaking in a new defensive line, Abdul Hodge and Chad Greenway won’t be able to fall back into pass coverage quite as much. This will probably lead to a few teams trying to cut up the middle of the field with dink-’n-dunk. The early buzz on Godfrey is that he’s very much in the Bob Sanders mold, which means you’d better not throw in his direction unless your tight end has a good dental plan.

Which regular-season game that won’t feature your team would you pay the most money to see this season? Why?

Easy. Florida at South Carolina on November 12th. This game’s got more story lines than the last three seasons of “The Real World.” South Carolina has just learned that Lou Holtz could do in Columbia what he did in Minneapolis. The university is now hoping that they’ve self-flagellated sufficiently to appease the NCAA’s Lords of Discipline without getting the hammer dropped on them. Otherwise, they’re about to begin a long day’s journey into Vanderbilt.

Enter Steve Spurrier, the Karl Rove of college football, anxious to make us all forget that he ever lived as far north as Washington. The man with football’s most well-publicized mean streak would like nothing more than to shut up all those Gator fans whose adoration of him has soured because Spur indirectly brought on the Zook years.

Meanwhile, across the sidelines, you’ve got The Next Guy, Urban Meyer. If they were selling stock in him, you couldn’t afford it. How better could he claim the heart of Florida fans than by heading up to Columbia and steamrolling The Ol’ Ball Coach? I don’t think the outcome of this game is much in doubt. I see visors flying through the air before halftime and, at the end, something operatic: Spurrierdammerung, if you will. But it’s going to be a great game.

If your team were a rapper, who would it be and why?

I grew up in northwestern Iowa, a region of the country so intensely white we refer to the Transfiguration as “the day the Lord’s clothes turned beige.” So if I wind up making a fool of myself here, please understand that I never really had a chance.

The Hawkeyes are Pete Nice. In the same way that Pete Nice looks like the world’s most happenin’ claims adjuster, the Hawkeyes don’t look very threatening on paper. But if you underestimate them, they’re ready to smoke you like a chunk of brisket. And neither one would’ve ever gotten anywhere without a lot of teamwork. The difference, of course, is that the Hawkeyes have actually done something in the past decade. But whatever happened to Pete Nice? Not even Allmusic can say . . .