Here we go again, running down the projected scores of this week’s games based on the Massey Ratings that are published online by USA Today. The computer went 19-8 (.703) last week, so it’s 30-13 (.698) for the season on the games we’ve looked at.

Like bomb disposal and undersea construction, this seems like a job that’s best left up to the robots.

Walnut 35, Alcorn Central 21

New Hope 20, Amory 9

Baldwyn 16, Saltillo 14

Belmont 23, Tishomingo Co. 15

Booneville 21, Center Hill 18

Ackerman 24, Bruce 8

Calhoun City 19, Water Valley 18

East Webster 17, Vardaman 15

Marshall Academy 29, Falkner 9

North Pontotoc 32, Kossuth 17

Nettleton 16, Hamilton 12

Hatley 35, Thrasher 12

Byhalia 21, Holly Springs 16

South Pontotoc 40, Houlka 9

Houston 26, Okolona 21

TCPS 32, H.W. Byers 21

Itawamba AHS 19, Tupelo 18

Lafayette 27, Oxford 22

Mooreville 27, Mantachie 12

New Albany 30, Corinth 21

Ripley 37, Lewisburg 18

Starkville Academy 20, Heritage 18

Meridian 29, Starkville 12

South Panola 30, MUS 19

Wheeler at New Site, no projection

Pontotoc at Aberdeen, no projection

West Point at Columbus, no projection

Kemper Academy at Calhoun Academy, no projection

Let’s cut to the chase – how much difference will it make if Jeremiah Masoli can’t play this fall for Ole Miss?

With him, the Rebels have a chance in every game except the Oct. 16 trip to Alabama. The first five games, it might not matter who’s taking the snaps if they’re merely competent in running the offense.

So you’re talking, what, 5-1 after Tuscaloosa, with or without Masoli?

But there is where things get interesting. The next two games, at Arkansas and home against Auburn, having an X factor might really make a difference. If the trip to Fayetteville turns into a shootout, doesn’t Masoli vs. Mallett sound like the matchup you’d want?

The fans at Phil Steele’s web site think Auburn wins at Oxford, but again, Masoli could be a game-changer if he can get on the field.

That back-to-back November road challenge at Tennessee (always a tough place to play) and LSU (ditto) would look a lot different, too.

If Masoli could play to the level anticipated, it would give Ole Miss, if its defense lives up to its billing, a chance to go 10-2 or maybe even 11-1. Difficult, but could happen.

Without him?

If Nathan Stanley can get the job done, Ole Miss is looking at a strong start and a challenging October before a tough stretch run. Still, there no reason the Rebels couldn’t take the field for the Egg Bowl with a chance to reach 8 or maybe even 9 regular-season games.

If Stanley can’t get it done, or if he got hurt, then there are at least five very losable games before Mississippi State visits.

But this is a very dangerous moment for Ole Miss. The game on Saturday is one they can lose if they don’t come to play, regardless of who’s taking the snaps. And that loss would color everything we’d think about the remainder of the season.

Jeff Sagarin, the stats guru for USA Today, projects that all 12 SEC teams should be favored for their season-openers … yes, even Vanderbilt, although the Commodores just squeak past Northwestern when you add in the generic 3-point homefield advantage. And we wonder if Vandy really has a homefield advantage, generic or otherwise.

Anyway, here’s the way Sagarin sees it:

Thursday:

South Carolina by 11 over Southern Miss

Saturday:

Alabama by 35 over San Jose State

Auburn by 24 over Arkansas State

Arkansas by 43 over Tennessee Tech

Florida by 42 over Miami (Ohio)

Georgia by 28 over Louisiana-Lafayette

Kentucky by 2 over Louisville

LSU by 11 over North Carolina

Mississippi State by 14 over Memphis

Ole Miss  by 27 over Jacksonville State

Tennessee by 39 over Tenn.-Martin

Vanderbilt by 1 over Northwestern

Updated: The computer went 19-8 this time, so it’s 30-13 for the season. Much better than flipping a coin … and real close on several of the scores.

Folks seemed to get a big kick out of this thing last week, so here’s another installment of high school football scores from the future.

These are projections from the Massey Ratings website maintained by our old friends at USA Today and are for entertainment purposes only.

Last week, we looked at 16 matchups and the Massey site went 11-5. A couple of scores it missed badly on, but it was remarkably close on some others. In theory, the projections should get better as the season goes along and it has a bigger sample size to deal with.

We’ll have the real scores tonight on this website and also at Twitter (twitter.com/NeMissPreps):

Aberdeen 36, Ray Brooks 3 (Aberdeen 64, Brooks 6)

Tishomingo County 23, Alcorn Central 18 (Tishomingo County 39, Alcorn Central 7)

Itawamba AHS 18, Amory 10 (Itawamba 38, Amory 14)

Belmont 33, Mantachie 15 (Belmont 42, Mantachie 7)

Biggersville 23, Middleton 20 (Biggersville 21, Middleton 13)

Houston 24, Calhoun City 23 (Calhoun City beat Houston 41-0)

Corinth 24, Senatobia 22 (Senatobia beat Corinth 13-6)

East Webster 29, West Oktibbeha 10 (East Webster 55, West Oktibbeha 27)

Hatley 31, Houlka 7 (Hatley 50, Houlka 0)

Holly Springs 41, H.W. Byers 6 (Holly Springs 38, HW Byers 6 … almost perfect)

Lafayette 33, Trezevant 13 (Lafayette 35, Trezevant 16)

Mooreville 36, Strayhorn 6 (Mooreville 47, Strayhorn 0)

North Pontotoc 23, Nettleton 20 (North Pontotoc 30, Nettleton 12)

New Albany 31, Ripley 23 (New Albany 49, Ripley 0)

Okolona 26, Byhalia 19 (Byhalia beat Okolona 38-22)

Charleston 23, Oxford 21 (Oxford beat Charleston 24-14)

Pontotoc 36, South Pontotoc 7 (Pontotoc 40, South Pontotoc 0)

Saltillo 29, Caledonia 3 (Saltillo 10, Caledonia 0)

Shannon 31, Memphis East 17 (Memphis East beat Shannon 50-22)

Lamar 26, Starkville Academy 23 (Lamar 21, Starkville Aca. 20)

Starkville 23, Louisville 20 (Starkville 34, Louisville 0)

Wheeler 30, TCPS 20 (TCPS beat Wheeler 41-0)

New Hope 19, Tupelo 18 (Tupelo beat New Hope 33-23)

West Point 28, Mainland, Fla. 18 (West Point 14, Mainland, Fla. 0)

Adamsville 22, Kossuth 13 (Kossuth beat Adamsville 31-22)

Magnolia Heights 31, Marshall Academy 16 (Magnolia Heights 35, Marshall Aca. 19)

South Panola 34, Colquitt County 6 (South Panola 65, Colquitt County 35)

Updated with Friday’s REAL scores in bold.

Original post: Anybody can post football scores after the games are over. So let’s give the Massey Ratings folks some credit for projecting scores in advance.

We’re a little suspicious of formulas like this early in the season, but it’s still a decent liittle guidepost about how two teams might match up, based mainly on how they did last season and where the game is played.

Here are the projected scores for a big batch of games on the Week 1 Friday night schedule. In a few cases, the Massey folks may not have realized teams had Aug. 20 games, so a few – like Shannon at West Point, in particular – don’t have projections.

Baldwyn 28, Kossuth 12 (Actual: Baldwyn 17, Kossuth 13)

Aberdeen 36, Columbus 7 (Columbus wins 8-6)

East Webster 26, South Pontotoc 18 (East Webster 35, South Pontotoc 14 .. pretty close)

Alcorn Central 23, Falkner 21 (Falkner wins 33-13)

Oxford 26, Grenada 15 (Oxford 41, Grenada 12)

Itawamba AHS 31, Hernando 14 (Hernando wins 27-7)

Okolona 35, Houlka 6 (Okolona 57, Houlka 0)

Lafayette 26, Cleveland 14 (Lafayette 48, Cleveland 12)

North Pontotoc 33, Lewisburg 16 (North Pontotoc 48, Lewisburg 15)

TCPS 24, Mantachie 19 (Mantachie wins 48-7)

Booneville 25, New Albany 22 (New Albany wins 27-11)

Biggersville 40, New Site 6 (Biggersville 37, New Site 0 … not bad)

Noxubee County 22, Starkville 13 (Noxubee County 14, Starkville 7)

Pontotoc 23, Velma Jackson 13 (Pontotoc 9, Velma Jackson 6)

Vardaman 18, Ray Brooks 12 (Vardaman 27, Ray Brooks 0)

Walnut 34, Wheeler 14 (Walnut 45, Wheeler 22 … got the margin right)

With just minutes to spare, lefty pitcher Drew Pomeranz signed with the Cleveland Indians on Monday night. According to reports, the former Ole Miss standout got a $2.65 million bonus for signing with the Tribe. Here is MLB.com’s take on the Indians’ big day, which saw them sign all of their top picks.

Look for Pomeranz to be introduced at a press conference in Cleveland very soon.

The silence out of Cleveland has been deafening as the deadline for signing 2010 draft picks – including former Ole Miss lefty Drew Pomeranz – looms at midnight Monday.

The Indians’ MLB.com beat writer says talks could go down to the last minute.

Update: Cleveland Plain-Dealer reporter Paul Hoynes has tweeted that “serious negotiations” began about 6:30 p.m. CDT. That deadline clock will get to ticking pretty loudly.

It’s likely there will be a flurry of last-minute deals, as 17 of the top 32 draftees – including Pomeranz, selected No. 5 – went into the weekend unsigned. He was the first college pitcher selected, and it’s possible some pitchers taken after him were waiting to see the terms of his deal.

The minor league site MILB.com offers this tracker on the status of top 2010 draft picks.

The Indians had Pomeranz in town for a physical soon after he was drafted, but very little information about negotiations has been seen in the Cleveland media.We saw comments earlier in the summer to the effect that he was ready to sign, but no action.

The team went into the weekend with its four top draft picks unsigned.

The football camp at Northeast Mississippi Community College will see two new faces this week: wide receiver Josh Jarboe and cornerback Deion Belue.

Jarboe is a big-time player who may be down to his last shot after getting tossed off the roster at Troy last week for a violation of team rules. Two years ago, he was dropped by Bob Stoops at Oklahoma after a profane YouTube rap video came to light.

“He knows it’s his last chance,” Northeast offensive coordinator John Darnell said Monday Morning on Matt Wyatt’s syndicated “First Call” radio program.

Darnell said that the 6-foot-4 Jarboe arrived in camp on Friday and would begin workouts on Monday.

Belue, from Tuscumbia, Ala., got squeezed off the roster at national champ Alabama while trying to get his academic status straighted out. By the time that happened, the Tide had its full roster allotment of 105 players established.

Darnell indicated that Belue hopes to eventually transfer back to Alabama.

The induction ceremony on Friday night at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., saw two Dream Teams honored – the USA’s 1992 Olympic champions and their predecessors from the 1960 Olympics.

That 1960 group was led by Oscar Robertson and Jerry West but also included Adrian Smith, who played for Bonner Arnold at Northeast Mississippi Community College before finishing his collegiate career at the University of Kentucky.

Smith went on to play 10 years in the NBA and was the All-Star Game MVP in 1966 – the only Kentucky player ever to earm that honor.

The Lexington Herald-Leader had a great story about Smith this weekend. We’ll try to reprint this story in the Daily Journal just as soon as we can.

Wasn’t it just a year ago that Boston Red Sox fans were worried about closer Jonathan Papelbon leaving Beantown for the hated New York Yankees?

Now, there are questions whether the former Mississippi State standout is the best man for the job of trying to close out wins for the Bosox. It’s a big topic of discussion on sports talk radio and on ESPN’s Boston site.

Even as he struggles through what’s shaping up as a career-worst season – he’s blown six saves and has five losses – Papelbon remains one of the elite closers in the game. And we notice that he’s still owned in 100 percent of ESPN’s fantasy leagues, so there’s no question that he remains productive.

But as the Red Sox head to September, don’t be surprised if young Daniel Bard – a big, hard-throwing righty just like Paps – gets the call in more save opportunities, so that Boston can evaluate its “closer of the future.”

(In case you’re wondering about future trade value, note that Papelbon is making $9-plus million this year and stands to earn $12M next year in an arbitration season. Peter Gammons, who knows about these things, says that would be a big obstacle to trading Paps, even if the Red Sox were so inclined – and there’s no sign of such a plan, anyway.)

Expect that the Papelbon-Bard debate will remain a hot topic as we head to the spring of 2011, especially if the Red Sox fail to make the playoffs.