Sorry to be tardy to the party this week, y’all. But be honest: did you really think this game was gonna happen? According to WVU, they are Super Shredder Spreaders!

That’s right, this week the Texas Longhorns take on the Branch Covidians of Waco, and those jabronis have literally cancelled more games than they’ve played this season! Texas has only played about 6.5 quarters of good football across 4 games. But Baylor has only played 8 quarters TOTAL. To their credit, like Texas against Oklahoma, or me on the golf course, Baylor went double OT in one of their two games because “I’m here, I’m not very good, but I’m gonna get some reps in because who knows when I’ll get back out.”

For 3 quarters last week, Texas got caught with their pants down like Rudy Guliani with a 15-year old, then Sam woke up and realized there was ample room on his broad shoulders to put the team on. We’ve had a bye week and now everything will be fixed and it will be completely different, this time we just know it! This week Sam is gonna get a handle on this thing right from the beginning and choke the life out of it like he is Jeffrey Toobin and ESPN is just a bigger zoom call.

Unlike the trip to the Cotton Bowl earlier this month, this game will be at home in DKR. And while that is obviously a home game for the Horns, it does have the potential to feel familiar for any of the older Baylor fans who remember when the Bears played in front of socially distanced and tarp-covered stadiums week-in and week-out.

Speaking of the good ol’ days, I’m old enough to remember when The Eyes of Texas was just a secret society aimed at rigging Student Government elections and getting O’Rourke elected.Now apparently it’s a song that we occasionally play at the end of games? Either way, stay Zesty my friends.

Hook ‘Em

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Better Know a Roster

Coaches;

Dave Aranda:

Larry Fedora: Lawrence Fancy Hat is the offensive coordinator at Bayor after doing the “Alabama former head coaches rehab clinic” but in the much nicer Austin location. The one question we always meant to ask him during his time on the 40 was why he has a built in Tom Landry-esque hat brand but it completely beholden to the visor?

Joe Wickline: Back in Austin again, but he traded a home field of mountains of Morgantown for the Wendy’s of Waco.

The Team:

Trestan Ebner (RB, Sr.) - when I see this name I can’t help be transported to a simpler time when the only screw job between USA/Canada was Earl Hebner ringing a bell for Brett Hart to lose via sharpshooter. Now, our national screw job makes it so we STILL can’t cross the border for delicious poutine or Tim Horton’s.

Raleigh Texada (CB, Sr.) - This very much sounds like a Texas Volleyball drill (that’s “#1 Texas Volleyball” to you).

Gavin Holmes (WR, So.) - You know Sherlock, you probably know Mycroft (from BBC or Kareem’s books), you may’ve even seen and scrolled past a trailer on Netflix for Enola Holmes...but do you know Sherlock’s youngest cousin? “Gav the Chav” from Huddersfield?

John Lovett (RB, Sr.) - There’s a Pod Save America/Pads Save America joke in here somewhere.

Kolby White (WR, R-Fr.) - One of the cheesier names of the season.

Chateau Reed (S, Fr.) - this is one of my favorite names in all of college football, if only for the fact that his name evokes a posh manor with lush, verdant lawns and noble horses upon which landed gentry play polo and sip champagne — when in fact he moved from Lawton, OK to Waco, TX!

Byron Hanspard, Jr. (CB, So.) - son of a Doak Walker winner and a 4* recruit himself, there is a good pedigree here. But the thing I am more concerned with is why he didn’t choose to honor his father by wearing the number 0. Oh, I realized his dad wore #4 while rushing for 2,000 yards in a season, but I am of course referring to his spectacular 0.00 GPA his final year in college. And that’s at Texas Tech, so the equivalent of negative GPA at a real school!

Hakeem Vance (LB, R-Fr.) - remember how good Grand Theft Auto Vice City was? With the Lance Vance Dance and all!

Griffin Speaks (S, R-Fr.) - Does this not sound like a podcast he does after getting kicked off the team for Clery Act violations? He also looks like the worst Manning brother.

Jackson Gleeson (WR, So.) - I wonder if the 20-year old even knows why people shake their first at him and say “one of these days Alice…” in hilarious homage to old-school domestic violence?

Shevin Smith (CB, R-Fr.) -This is #1 on my “I would like to hear Lou Holtz pronounce this” list for the season.

Micah Mazzccua (OL, Fr.) - according to the Baylor roster guide, this is pronounced so that it rhymes with bazooka. I need to hear Gus Johnson shout this one.

Colby Delashaw (S, So.) - A mashup of notable UFC douchebags Colby Covington and TJ Dillashaw, the younger Delashaw is a proud owner of exactly 5 (five) Affliction tees and met his date for homecoming at the Hooters on Southbound 35 heading outta town.

Bryce Boland (K, Fr.) - he has been in 300 different movies cast as “hot shot lawyer/banker/rich person who comes out of bathroom stall and yells “whoo” before popping collar and laughing in a gratingly douche way”

Issac Power (P, So.) - I.Power sounds like the 6-foot cord you buy at Walgreens that lasts for exactly 9 days.

Thor Rodoni (LS, Sr.) Gunnar Royer (LS, Sr.) - Can we talk about the fact that Baylor’s long-snappers are named Thor and Gunnar? And I am still over the fact that in high school, son of Odin was coached by a guy named David Snapp.

Blake Shapen (QB, Fr.) - sounds like some knock-off play-doh.

Christoph Henle (TE, Jr.) - Poor guy game to the states from Austria and clearly lost some letters of each name along the way.

John Mayers (K, So.) - This guy’s body of work is a wonderland. 33% FGM on the season, 100% chance of busting out the guitar after bible study.

Chidi Ogbonnaya (DT, Jr.) - Weird typo on Baylor’s roster — it’s spelled Chidi Anagonye. Baylor seems like a very odd place for a person who dedicated his life to Ethics.

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Rest of Country

• Tuscaloosa, AL: If there is a cure for COVID-19, it will almost certainly be discovered due to booster money from the University of Alabama. After a Nick Saban false positive, groups of people who hadn’t taken the virus particularly seriously decided it needed to be cured and vaccinated, and within hours please. Only after multiple false tests and a God-ordained rule change 6 days earlier, was Saban back on the sideline and the influx of cash to the Alabama CDC re-routed to duffle bags.
• Tuscaloosa, AL: With their coach back in charge, Alabama parked their Mac Jones right in Georgia’s little second half garage.
• Tallahassee, FL: Perennial powerhouse, #5 North Carolina falls to cellar-dwelling, but never boring FSU...is how the headline would read if this was basketball. But no, a prodigy/prodigal son named Mack Brown saw his ranked Tar Heels fail to complete a comeback thanks to THREE consecutive drops on the attempted game-winning drive...because Texas and everything ever associated with is currently cursed with voodoo, hoodoo, and blood magic.
• Atlanta, GA: Clemson avenges Cumberland with a 66-0 run (73-7 final score) against Georgia Tech. You’ll remember a few years ago when the 1916 Georgia Tech team led by John Heisman ran the score up against a Cumberland team that had disbanded the football program a few months earlier. That final score was 222-0. If Dabo hadn’t benched Trevor Lawrence to put the punter at QB and his son at WR, they may’ve had a chance to get at least half way there. One other note: in attendance, recent Texas portal transfer Kenyatta Watson was present to watch his new team get mollyWAPed.
• Texas HS update: tiny Mt. Vernon, who changed the course of their football history by hiring a coach by the name Art Briles, went 8-3 last year and is up to 7-0 this season! They sit at #5 in Dave Campbell’s 3A rankings, just ahead of Tuscola Jim Ned of Colt McCoy fame. I wonder if anyone will try to snatch the plucky, upstart head coach?

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Now! That’s What I Call Moo-zik — Vol. 2.5

Intern Eli is out this week, so in his stead, here is the Country Bear Jamboree Vacation Hoedown from 2001.

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Predictions

Kyle Carpenter: Look, I could sit here and tell you that I know the offense is going to figure out a way to harness tempo for more than a 2-minute drill or that Sam’s accuracy woes are going to self-correct or that the offense will do something other than punt, punt, fumble, punt, interception, punt on defensive stops/turnover...but I’ve got something even better. We’re playing BAYLOR. Easy money, Texas by 3 scores.

Baylor, y’all.

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Parting Shot

Waco is wack and full of wackos. Don’t believe me? Take a look at their Craigslist:

https://waco.craigslist.org/roo/d/waco-just-for-female/7214846054.html

Parting Shot, to the lower back

Do you remember this? Your eyes probably went to Uga scurrying away for dear life — but if you focus on the photographer in the blue bib, he got a little scrape (gotta be faster than a spoiled bulldog, my dude). He joked about it after the fact. Now he wants a cool mil for his trauma.