Fearless Dilettante Football Predictions - 2008 Lid Lifter Edition

Is it time already? My goodness, it is, so we begin again with our weekly fall series of Fearless Dilettante Football Predictions. Since it's my blog, I pick games involving teams that I care about. That would include the following:

• My high school alma mater, Xavier High School in Appleton, Wisconsin


• My college alma mater, the Filene's Basement of college football, Beloit College


• The two local high school teams in SD 621, Irondale High School and Mounds View High School


• My beloved Wisconsin Badgers


• My brother Stinger's beloved Minnesota Golden Gophers


• My beloved Green Bay Packers


• The local professional squad, known here as the Purple Helmeted Love Warriors


• And any other random games that strike my fancy

So let's get to it.

Xavier Hawks 34, Freedom Irish 6. As Kris Kristofferson reminded us, Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. And Freedom football loses a lot, especially to the mighty Hawks.

Totino-Grace Pizza Eagles 14, Irondale Knights 10. The Knights handed Totino their only loss last season. Irondale should be pretty good this year but it's usually a safe bet to pick Totino, one of the true powers in Minnesota high school football.

Mounds View Mustangs 24, Woodbury Royals 6. Woodbury tends to be either very good or very bad. Mounds View is good all the time.

Wisconsin Badgers 52, Akron Zips 9. I'm not sure how good the Badgers are going to be this year, but Akron is supposed to be putrid. No mercy is shown at Camp Randall, either.

Minnesota Golden Gophers 31, NIU Huskies 21. The Gophers weren't very good last year but NIU is weak even by MAC standards. I've got tix to this one so Stinger and I will give you the skinny.

The pros start next week, as does mighty Beloit. We'll check on them next time.