Well. An interesting few days of events. I'll be honest, I had an inkling of a theme this week to appeal to Longhorn fans everywhere. It was a viewing guide set to Foreigner's unquestioned aural masterpiece, I Want to Know What Love Is. Which, despite it's unfortunate title ending by way of preposition, was the perfect ballad to appeal to the Longhorn fan-base this week. It talks of loss, pain, and most of all a desperate, longing appeal to one particular Athletic Department woman to turn around the singer's poor fortune. Seriously, all of the themes are there to see, even to the most hardened or casual observer of the Longhorn program. It would have practically written it's damn self.
But then a funny thing happened on the way to my blog post. Jesus Shuttlesworth over at Barking Carnival sister site Recruitocosm, announced this morning that Greg Davis is onto bigger and better other things. It was the culmination of a story that he'd been on top of and screaming for all to listen since last week and even earlier. Congrats Jesus. Congrats for stealing my ready-made viewing guide theme, you totally inconsiderate and selfish asshat. Well, La Dee Da Your Majesty, you scooped everyone else by days, but you couldn't just wait one more for the announcement and help a brother out? Thanks. There are tons of words for you, but they will no doubt be edited out by Sailor and Scipio, so let me just say you're a big meanie and I'm looking out for the first opportunity to put sugar in your gas tank and personally fertilize your back porch welcome mat. #2. Be ready.
And to you, gentle readers, you're going to get the same damn song, because it's too good to be ignored and because I'm too lazy to come up with something else on short notice.
I WANT YOU TO SHOW ME...Mack
Seriously, congrats Shuttlesworth. But tonight...you. On to the games.
Thursday:
Arizona vs. #23 Arizona State (ESPN): Yay, a rivalry game that no one cares about thanks to Championship Weekend. Any other Thursday of the year, we'd all be slobbering at the mouth and playing pocket pool over the idea of this as a Thursday night game, but now it's just kind of a "Meh, cool" type of feeling. Since the Pac 10 has already been decided, this is just a rivalry game between two schools from a generally non-aggressive state. If they really wanted to pique our attention, they'd jettison the actual football and have a Wet T-shirt contest between the two competing female student bodies. Holy shit, is that something that America could get behind. It would even capture the small but financially potent power lesbian demographic. And don't even try to tell me that wouldn't be astronomically more compelling than watching a Stoops Brother match coaching nitwits with a walking corpse who's personal scale teeters just about even when you measure his morality against remaining years alive. You're welcome ESPN, this one is gratis.
Good luck 'Zona. State has real cred.
Friday:
Illinois vs. Fresno State (ESPN2): Seriously? Why the fuck is Illinois even playing this game? Did someone forget to tap mongoloid Zook on the shoulder and remind him that the Big 10 finished their season last week? Way to go Pat Hill, your team will travel anywhere, anytime! Even to the frozen wasteland of the Mid-West in December to play an irrelevant Big 10 team that's too stupid to realize they should have finished their schedule a week ago. They're like the pathetic obese person who "runs" a marathon in just under 12 hours and forces the rest of the staff to stick around and delay cleanup until they get their Feel Good Finish. Pathetic. WILL YOU NEVER STOP HAUNTING ME WITH YOUR FOOTBALL, BIG 10!?!?! Insanity Wolf, what are your feelings about the Big 10 and this game?
Indeed, Insanity Wolf. Indeed.
Saturday:
11 a.m.
Rutgers vs. #24 West Virginia (ABC): Hello Big East, yet another conference that seems to be confused by the concept of rivalry week programming and a lack of a championship game. Or Bye Weeks. Or fucking something. The Backyard Brawl was last weekend, which West Virginia won handily, ending yet another quintessential Wannestache season. And now they play Rutgers? Enlightened readers, honest question, is this a rivalry game that has just slipped under my radar? Should I know about this game? Am I TOO high on cough syrup, if there is such a thing? Or is it just something the Big East threw together a couple years ago when they thought that Rutgers would actually sustain their on-field success? Either way, it looks shitty. I've stared down hangovers more compelling than the promises offered by this game. Rutgers, has lost like 5 straight. Real fighters, they are. Hell, they only have 4 wins, and 3 of them are to schools that Finished in the bottom 5th of college football. And Connecticut, soon to be Big East Champion. Big East Football! Their new slogan should be At Least We're Not The Big 10.
SMU at Central Florida (ESPN): Booooooring. George O'Leary sleeps in a hyperbolic hyperbaric chamber filled entirely of scotch, and June Junes looks like a Dandy wearing that stupid Lei. June, you're not coaching at Hawaii anymore. I think you know this. A campus full of absurdly hot rich ass, and THAT'S the Lei you go with? Dude. I'd have gone with this Lay.
Surprisingly sparse Google pics of SMU girls. And their cheerleaders are bovine.
But I know their student body is hot. Compromise: Sarah Shahi, SMU alumna.
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (ESPN): Sweet, more Big East football. And it has no quantifiable effect on any of the bowl games or conference champions! Yay! Seriously, it's hard to quantify Pittsburgh's current state as one of the biggest chokes or swoons in college football history, since they've just lost 2 of their last 3, but lets take a look at this a bit further. In one of the weakest divisions in college football, with no clear cut championship team, Pitt, an AVERAGE team and the odds on favorite, loses 2 of 3 to Uconn and WVU. A Uconn team that lost 26-0 to Louisville, but somehow in this craptastic conference still gets a BCS game. It's not a choke job, but it might be one of the most horrific displays of coaching in the past 10 years. I'm not sure why Wannestache is still coaching there, that guy is worthless and has managed the amazing trifecta of getting worse at every single coaching stop, despite increasingly less difficult competition. Contestants on The Bachelor could run a better D-1 football program than this jackleg. Cincinatti sucks balls too. Your guess is as good as mine, this is me throwing my hands up in the air in complete disgust.
2:00 p.m.
Utah State at #11 Boise State & #17 Nevada at Louisiana Tech (ESPN3/Gameplan): Sorry Nevada and Boise St., you blew your wad last week. And while it was a rather impressive, Peter North style wad, that doesn't mean you get a freebie sect of viewership this week. The annals of history are littered with partnerships that are stronger than the sum of their parts, and destined for failure without their proper counterpoints. Sonny and Cher. Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci. Michael Bay and Don Simpson (alive, preferably). Johnny Depp and the Cast of 21 Jump Street. I can go on and on. The point is, these games can suck it.
#2 Oregon at Oregon State (ABC): I could say that I don't neeeeeeeeeed your Civil Waaaaaaaaaar, just like Axel, but I'd be fuckin' lyin'. Here's one of the better games of the weekend, and even though it's between two unevenly matched foes, The Civil War IS a bitter game. And it's usually extremely competitive when it's in Corvalis. That being said, I could be completely off base here, it being so early in Chip Kelly's career and all, but Oregon just doesn't seem like the kind of team to trip before the finish line. Call it a hunch, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of Stoops in these particular brand of water fowl. Oregon has had exactly one slip up all year, and they still got out alive. Something tells me getting up for a game against their in-state rival, and a hated rival at that, won't be difficult. This isn't the Backyard Brawl, or whoever Nebraska claims is their "rival," there's actually some heat to this kettle. However, the Beavers have been been down all year, stricken with key injuries, and generally being held together with chewing gum and duct tape. Oregon should roll, but that won't stop me from rolling out of bed on Saturday morning like Terry from Bandits screaming "BEAVERS AND DUCKS!" And if you haven't seen Bandits, treat yourself. Insanity, how would you sum up this contest?
Bold. But Fair. I agree.
3 p.m.
#1 Auburn vs. #19 South Carolina (CBS): Good Lord, the SEC East is the new Big 12 North. What a debacle this season. In regards to anything I said about Oregon not having any of the Bob Stoops Patented Shit The Bed model for Big Games, I think you can safely copy and paste in this space in regards to Auburn. It's absolutely apparent after their epic comeback last week in the Iron Bowl that these guys have ice water running through their veins. And I don't think they melted it all coming back from way behind. The media is going to spend a lot of time pointing out how close the first match-up was between these two teams, but that was early in the season while Auburn was finding itself and before South Carolina had their balls drop off the table. Again. As usual. I expect this game to go differently this time around, and I don't expect Auburn to start AS slowly as last week. And if none of you witnessed the gravitational fields of the ChinZik last weekend single handedly slowing Greg McElroy's release and and decision making, allowing him to get clobbered, then you weren't actively paying enough attention. Now extrapolate that galactic effect on Stephen Garcia, a quarterback so stupid he can't even throw the ball out of bounds to win a game and has been on campus for 4 years perfecting the art of being arrested simply so he didn't have to attend film study. And he was too stupid to realize all he had to say to Spurrier was that he wanted to hit the back 9. Ole' Balls Coach would have understood that. No, I think South Carolina is in for a dark day. In his press conference last week, Spurrier already sounded like a defeated man in advance of this contest. So uh, this ends well for him.
6 p.m.
Washington vs. Washington St. (Versus): Apple Cup? More like Apple Core. Washington Rolls. Washington State hasn't won a game of even dubious merit since Britney Spears was scathingly attractive, and sane. There's more Apple related entertainment in the 7 minutes of me reliving my childhood below than there will be in the 3 hours of this contest.
Who's your friend? ME!
#21 Florida State at #15 Virgina Tech (ESPN): I was struck this week by a seemingly impossible confluence of college football commentary. One was the lauding of Virginia Tech for such a great season. This is a team that lost to James Madison. And a couple months later, here we are, and Virginia Tech has in fact rebounded. In unimpressive fashion, mind you. But records are records and Texas fans would kill a hobo to have had that record this past season. Who would have expected that? More baffling to me and entirely indefensible was the assertion by some poor ESPN soul, clearly deserving of being let loose their mortal coil, that Mark Stoops was one of the best defensive coordinators in the country. I was bellowing in rage and throwing things at my television before I even realized what was happening, and then I had to exert a surprising amount of control to keep from shitting my pants. I don't care what statistics say, if this guy is one of the best defensive coordinators in the country then not only is it more imperative than ever that Texas keep Muschamp, but the world as we know it is ending and we might as well all set our couches on fire and get to the looting and pillaging. A defensive coordinator that can be bought or willing to spot points to bookies and family members is not a stout defensive coordinator, imo. The game? Meh, whatever. Both teams have improved over the year, and they're playing for something substantial. Could be a good one. Florida's Incompetent Defense vs. Virginia Tech's Stalled Out Offense.
#9 Oklahoma vs. #13 Nebraska (ABC): Well, if there was one thing that could snap me out of a good mood, it's the reality of the monster affront to humanity and the general laws of karma that is this years Big 12 Championship. Congratulations, the game that might make all Texas fans explode. The veritable No Win Scenario. Do we cheer for Nebraska, the whiniest bag of ingrate this side of your typical Hollywood Celebutante, except really fat? On the other side, we have sworn enemy and flagship for thievery and brother-sister relations, Oklahoma. A team to which the adage of Never Root For Oklahoma has been proven time and time again to be a valid and universal law. A whiny undeserving and over-entitled state winning the final Big 12 championship on their way to rustier pastures? Or a school that represents a state about which I once wrote a college essay outlining the valid and economical reasons why it should be turned wholesale into a penitentiary, like Escape From New York? (A-, Theories of Persuasion Holla!) People often make jokes about cheering for a natural disaster, or an earthquake, or a plane crashing into the stadium, and it's always funny, but I'm actually serious here. I'm cheering for the WOPR to get hacked and someone to start a game of Global Thermonuclear War with the only target listed as Cowboy Stadium. I live in Houston anyway, and after the Cowboys season, maybe that place should be put to rest anyway. Stoops and Pelini are probably hands down the two biggest assholes in college sport, and they both deserve front row seats to their own Viking Funeral, or a month long stay at the prison from HBO's Oz. Is there any doubt that they're going to spend the entire game seeing who can yell louder at the officials, berate more players, and generally look like the two finalists in a competition titled Who's The Bigger Prick? Yes. I propose an alternate theory. That both of them are so enamored with the other's behavior that there's a small, but still measurable chance these two monuments to dickism lock eyes across the field, and then rip off their clothes and sprint to the 50 to consummate their eternal love. Like Narcissus falling in love with his own image, these two carbon copies are destined to fall in love with each other. The only problem is when they try to determine who's going to catch, their dance of dominance is likely going to result in double helix of circling that eventually reaches speeds such that they'll both rocket out of the stadium, propelled into space only by their own twisted lust. The game? They're equally matched in their flaws. Probably OU, because that's just how the universe seems to roll for Texas this season. That, and then we get to enjoy another BCS performance by Stoops. It won't matter, I'll be drunk. Insanity Wolf, any final suggestions on how to wash the nasty taste of this season and this championship game from our collective mouths?
Now we're talkin'. Hello, Saturday Night.
And no I'm not fucking talking about the South Florida and Connecticut game, I don't CARE if it is to decide the Big East Champion, you guys know my stance. Stop antagonizing me!!!!
Everyone, sorry if there's a little bit of zip missing off the fastball this week. Like everyone else, I had a hard time concentrating today looking at all the incoming news and updates because of our coaching situation. Additionally, I'm a bit under the weather and ten kinds of hopped up on cough medicine, and I can assure you, concentrating is a difficult feat at the moment. But on the upside, I can't feel my legs. So I leaned a bit more on hot chick picks and Insanity Wolf than would normally be acceptable. Fortunately, he's a good sport as long as you feed him the souls of the weak.
As always, calls for my head are welcome in the comments, as well as differing opinions on the games. Spelling, grammar, etc, I apologize in advance, especially this week. I can't even see straight right now, much less comprehend the difference between here and hear. Enjoy, everyone, and for all the UT fans reading, Happy Emancipation Day!