The rest of Football Christmas will come tomorrow. As for tonight, let this put you in the key of football:

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other’s bodies.

–James Wright

Football, dammit. Football.

70. Miller High Life. We really only drink this glorified mare’s urine in the fall, but some alchemy in the season combined with the whiff of nostalgia makes the otherwise substandard brew a choice beverage for any tailgate. Helps in humid sweatbox environments that little, if any alchohol is actually contained within.

The champagne of beers.

69. Breakfast with Gameday. Even Big and Rich couldn’t ruin this one for us.

68. The flea-flicker.

67. The reverse flea-flicker.

66. Fake punts: subtype: awesome

65. The reverse

64. The double reverse.

63. The double reverse pass to the qb (unless called against Michigan in bowl game.)

62. The hook ‘n ladder.

61. Fake punts: subtype: galling failures.

80. Sloppy games in the rain. A mayhem situation of fumbles, slips, improbable catches, and butch-as-hell effects when people hit each other. Super impressive at night when the lights turn the scene into a cliched football movie finale.

79. Quarterbacks who refuse to slide. Dave Ragone, you may be brain damaged today, but even the FSU defense never made you bow. This year’s bet for this title: Joe Tereshinkski.

78. The shine of lights on newly polished helmets.

Oooh…shiny.

77. God bless you, Central West Multidirectional Vocational Institute of Technology. You just keep taking the checks, and big programs keep on sodomizing you on national television in embarrassing fashion. Thanks to the aforementioned Gameday package, there’s even more “toddler versus rabid Wolverine” matches to see. The only man who compares in the whole history of humanity to the quarterback for these teams is the ball turret gunner in a B-17; as Randall Jarrell wrote, when something goes really wrong for either one, they clean you up with a hose.

76. Wes Durham. The silky baritone that broadcasts Georgia Tech games locally has no shortage of awesomeness about him. He’s a huge Earth, Wind, and Fire fan. He comes armed with a bushel of southernisms so colorful they’d put Jean Miro and Keith Jackson to shame. His sense of timing and refusal not to homerize puts Georgia in the catbird seat of state announcing duos along with the indestructible force that is Larry Munson.

Really, really tan, too.

75. The song “Click Click Boom.” No one said you liked all the presents you got for Football Christmas. The song behind 73 percent of all highlight films on the web is laughable nu-metal that you’ll be conditioned Ludovico-style to love by the time you’ve watched your favorite team’s highlight reels played to it 521 times in a row.

74. TiVo. Because you can’t be everywhere at once. Even on drugs. Unless we’re talking about…

73. ProVigil. When we say never miss a game, we mean it. Provigil gets you there!

72. The 3-3-5 defense. It’s like pornography. You may not be able to define it, but you know it when you see it, mister.

71. Complete, utter, earth-shattering upsets. They’re rarer than people think, but when they occur they strike with the unfair violence of sudden death. We mean this: we’re still wondering what the hell happened with UF/Miss. State 2000.

Check out the MSU webcam to watch the campus get ready for ESPN and the birth of a new football season as you shiver with antici…. pation. 

Like you, couldn’t wait to see Cocks at play.

Football Christmas gifts, continued in no particular order:

90. Purchasing paraphernalia only a few hundred thousand people will ever understand. “Punt Bama Punt” bumper stickers. “I Need A Volunteer” t-shirts. Lame single-issue t-shirts for games with slogans like “NEUTER THE WOLFPACK” and “DERIDE THE TIDE” will surely flow from the hands of vendors to fans to Salvation Armies to wholesalers in Africa who then sell them to kids playing soccer in the streets of Luanda. We’ve started our own worthless collection with a “HONK IF YOU SACKED BRODIE” bumper sticker from last year, but hope one day to own something as glorious as the Joe Paterno drink tray Jay once had.

89. De’Cody Fagg, wide receiver, Florida State. “Fagg catches…Fagg scores!” “Fagg gets nailed!” “Fagg dances into the endzone!” The joy will never fade from this name–NEVER.

88. The traitorous guy selling score posters outside the stadium. Your best friend after a victory, selling instant verification of the ass-stomping your team just bestowed on the opposition; your worst enemy following a loss, a Benedict Arnold sitting atop a thousand replications of how much your team just sucked that he will sell and profit from.

87. Johnsonville Brats steaming hot off the grill. Ah, the smell of it…

86. The Vol Navy. Sure, they’re the enemy. But just getting that many people in boats and not killing anyone represents the greatest feat of naval engineering since the evacuation of Dunkirk. And they do it six or seven times a year.

A feat of alcoholic engineering.

85. ATV commercials. For some reason, advertisers think college football fans like them. If we didn’t already own three of the goddamn things, we’d think that, too.

84. Play action. One of the most sublime spaces in college football is the fatal space between a bamboozled defender and a streaking wideout who cannot and will not be caught running wild for a touchdown. Cue satisfying click of planning becoming reality in brain.

Thought we were running, right? That’s so unfortunate.

83. The Gameday Plan. For under three hundred dollars, you can get all the distraction you’ll ever need ever. It’s cheaper than crack and twice as good…not that we know that empirically, mind you…

82. Calling someone at a very inappropriate hour to scream school motto into ear repeatedly. Tactic best employed by Cuddles Swindle, 1:30 a.m. E.S.T, October 15th, 2001, where “WAR EAGLE” was repeated six times in a row to an unconscious Orson Swindle over the phone.

81. Cocktails named after marginal players. See The “Cherryshinski” or “The Bear Bryant.”

On the hour, a list of the gifts–real and potential–for the upcoming season.

100. The sound of Brent Musberger pulling a muscle on a touchdown call early in the first quarter, capped with a guttral “hhhhyyyyYEEEEEESSS!!!” Histrionic, overdone as a hospital cafeteria hamburger, and as essential to the milieu of college football as a good sunburn. If it doesn’t sound like Brent’s just been punched in the stomach by a Hell’s Angel, then it’s an impostor who must be thrown from the press box with all due speed.

Let the Musbergames begin!

99. Gravitation beyond reason: reader Pool Hall Bill, who at this moment is suspended above the Pacific Ocean on a jet on the way to see his wife, son, and the Georgia Bulldogs against Western Kentucky on his leave from duty in Korea, who has been thinking about this game despite sitting just a stone’s throw away from half a million North Koreans armed to the gills.
Welcome home, Bill.

98. Flicking off complete strangers on the interstate based solely on the window flags flying from their windows.

97. Outlandish wastes of capital on items used for 12 weekends of recreation a year. Sure, guys like Peter just put a little bit of the spicy mustard on an already typical American level of overconsumption. (In most of the world, ownership of an SUV, a generator, and a satellite dish makes you “Minister of Sketchily Defined Department of Something” by default. Here it makes you, well, normal.) And some people get their truck tricked just for football season. In case you were wondering, the Tail Gator? Not ours…yet.

96. Mascot violence.

95. Cursing Lee Corso’s mere visage with every atom of our soul. It’s become a hobby, really, with Corso transcending the merely loathed into a Cossell-ish place of hated necessity. This year’s bonus: wondering out loud during games if the shield-faced, unbelievably tanned announcer has in fact had an eyelift.

94. Drunk people. Sometimes they give you hot dogs and beer; sometimes they throw cinderblocks at your car. Either way, they’re rarely boring and come in ample supply at a college football game. Being unpredictable and belligerent is sometimes entertainment enough for a visiting fan provided the tar and feathers don’t come out. We’re looking at you, Morgantown.

93. The roseate sunlight of dusk on the pine trees ringing the fringe of Memorial Stadium, Berkeley, California.

92. A hit so hard an audible “SHIT” can be heard from a sideline bystander on the mike. God bless the lack of delay on sports broadcasts, because that only echoes what every viewer on the couch is saying out loud to themselves and their impressionable, innocent children.

91. Ay Ziggy Zoomba!

Now that the season is upon us, we want to remind you all once again of our continued celebration of tailgaters who help make college football the greatest sport in the land.  So, if you have any good shots of tailgating send them to us at edsbsfans -a- gmail dot com.  We’ll sort through them and post our favorites.  We also want to hear any great tailgating stories, especially if they go along with the pictures.  As always, bonus points for kissing up to us (after all, we blog because we’re egoists)

 Wearing one of these bad boys can’t hurt. 

For an example of a good one we received last month, follow the jump.  (more…)

As of midnight, the clock wound down and the scoring closed on the Fulmer Cup 2006 competition with the advent of today, Football Christmas.

And for Football Christmas, Swindle Claus has a magnificent gift for the Marshall Thundering Herd: The Fulmer Cup, given to the university whose football team goes furthest in felonious behavior, maxes out their misdemeanors, and generally makes The Program look like an airbrushed, idyllic vision of college footballdom with their behavior. Way to BRING DOWN THE WHAMMY on the award, boys. The final scoring:

Final notes and honorable mentions:

–No one in the whole state of West Virginia can decide whether or not to charge Geramy Rodamer with anything in an incident outside a bar in Huntington; he was charged, then he wasn’t, then he was…at last account he was, so Marshall’s total remains steady at a conservative estimate of 15 points. Even if he wasn’t charged, however, Marshall’s total easily surpasses that of fellow 1-A rival Purdue, who rode a formidable 12 point lead deep into the competition after racking up points early in the comp.

–Delaware gets the special award for distinction by a 1-AA program and the award for single incident damage with its Scarface-esque home invasion incident. Four players reinvented the concept of team unity by breaking into a fellow Blue Hen’s house and robbing him of steroids, cash, other drugs, and pretty much anything else he had. Though we’d like to stress that the Fulmer Cup competition includes only D-1 teams, Delaware made a ferocious case for small-time programs doing big-time business of their own in the race.

–Florida got six points for Kenneth Tookes discharging an AR-15 in an apartment complex and for Avery Atkins beating up the mother of his child. So that’s our beloved school saddled with an abuse charge and a reckless endangerment charge involving a barely legal assault rifle. That is all.

–The finest individual crime on the comedy scale? An easy question with an easier answer: TurdGate.

–Finally, the real champion here: Ellis T. Jones, the former San Jose State player who allegedly enticed bargain hunters on Craigslist to an apartment complex where he would taser them, rob them, and in one incident, put them in a trunk without their permission. The final tally in the incidents came to 31 points that couldn’t possibly be saddled on a single program alone. Therefore Ellis T. Jones will receive the first annual Ellis T. Jones Award for individual accomplishment in felony and mayhem. Congratulations, Ellis.

–A final note of thanks to board administrator Big Mike, whose enormous penis once inspired John Holmes to put on a sundress and invite all his lady friends to the cutest tea party your little heart’s ever seen. (As part of our contractual obligations to Mike, we’re forced to write complimentary things about him.) Mike’s been the principal interpreter of our hairbrained scoring codes and judgements, and for that alone we owe him an IV of daquiris. (”So cold going in the vein…so warm in my heart!”) Fine job, Mike. We’ll unchain you from the radiator as soon as you show us the respect we deserve, but still, good job and all.

Again, congratulations Marshall. For the next five months, you’re tasting victory no matter what happens on the gridiron. Say it with us:

VICTOIRE!
VICTOIRE!
VICTOIRE!

Who’s on notice in our corner of the universe? Thanks to the wonders of the internets, now everyone can know in convenient Stephen Colbert form. Here’s our list, which you can certainly do a much better job on by clicking here and making your own.

Two are hangover-related. But who doesn’t fear the unending threat of grizzly bears?

We made a virtual trip to Hattiesburg to get trashed on olive lollipops and talk about Florida’s opener with Southern Miss on SMQ’s dime. As always, it was fun.

The ND/Tech game here in Atlanta has filled the coffers at Tech unlike any home game in recent memory. Scalpers are pulling 200 bucks easy for the tickets, which judging from recent home interest in Chantastic! Tech football may be broken down thusly:

$1.25: cost of printing shiny ticket.

$3.25: actual interest in Georgia Tech football in Gailey era. (Mmm…pudding.)

$195.50: Holy shit Notre Dame!!! SCALP ‘TIL YOUR ARMS FALL OFF!!!

This isn’t surprising. Neither is the popularity of the story posted alongside the body of the online article, either. We’ve highlighted the piece we find most sidesplitting using the unstoppable power of Microsoft Paint:

We half expected the headline to continue…”and smile with glee.”

Via Nestor at Bruins Nation, we bring you the single most disturbed ex-communications major to ever drop out of school and decide that the path to salvation lies in working at the Smoothie King by day and filming oddball commentator fantasies in his parents’ basement at night: Hugh Johnson, whose name sounds about as legitimate as “Orson Swindle” or “Bronco Mendenhall.”*

Though you may cringe at first, we guarantee that by the third viewing the hard-drivin’ Survivor soundtrack, bizarre fantasy sequences, and ill-fitting suit will have you green with envy that Hugh Johnson isn’t hard at work wondering on camera if your coach will BRING DOWN THE WHAMMY!!! This, in case you don’t already know, is the new phrase of the season that all the beautiful people are using. Live it. Love it. Be it.

*We know he says that’s his real name. That’s because he is a liar. No one is named that anywhere in the whole wide world.

Our resident rambling, gambling man Solon, the pride of Mill Valley, CA, brings us his best effort at giving us the futures bets in college football that won’t have your friends guffawing at you as you wallow in a gutter of poverty in five months. Enjoy…

Greetings again all. Infrequent EDSBS contributor and resident gaming “expert” Solon here, reporting from beautiful Mill Valley, California, where my summer ended on June 9 when I purchased Phil Steele’s magazine from the local Waldenbooks. Today, I’ll jump into the college football futures betting market; surely some of you will think I am on the sauce with a few of these selections, but I swear that all of the alcohol has been put in the cupboard until January. That said, I reserve the right to crack open a bottle of the hard stuff if the Dawgs somehow manage to topple the Gators this season.

That cork stays in, Solon. In, we say.

For the uninitiated, there are a wide array of wagers you can make with regard to college football futures betting, and I am dipping into many of them. A lot of people do not want to tie up their money for the entire season, which is certainly understandable, but if you can get a good read on some of the teams going into the season, there is great value out there. Please note that if a wager is a ‘plus,’ it means you wager $100 to win that amount; if a wager is a ‘minus,’ it means that you wager that amount to win $100.

All odds are from Pinnacle Sports.*

(*I am not endorsing Pinnacle, although I have no reason to doubt their legitimacy. I’ll tell you this, assuming they are on the up-and-up–and I have no reason to suspect they are not–their odds are impossible to beat. They offer, by far, the smallest house take on sports betting that I’ve ever seen. When betting futures markets, this should be your focus, because often times the odds are ridiculously slanted in the house’s favor. If you know one way or another about Pinnacle, feel free to share your knowledge in the comments.)

WINNER OF NATIONAL TITLE GAME
Southern California (+776)/California (+2767)
Louisville (+2352)

(If I’d gotten my head out my arse sooner, I’d have much better value; last week, USC was at +1001, and Louisville was at +2800 or thereabouts; in fact, just yesterday, USC was at +852. Piss. That said, Cal was at +2632 and Louisville was at +2253 yesterday, so that’s a plus.)

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (#6 AP, #3 Coaches)
It is impossible to say how with any degree of certainty how well the current crop of “talent” at USC will pan out. Carroll’s track record, though, is hard to argue with; when Matt Leinart replaced Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer at QB, he proceeded to win 2 national titles and just failed winning a 3rd. I’d argue that the team Booty inherits isn’t any worse than the one Leinart did; Leinart probably had a better OL, but Booty’s probably going to have a slightly better D; both this team and the 2003 team were (are) well-stocked at WR, and both had (have) a massive amount of unproven talent at RB.

USC’s schedule, as it is most years, is a bitch; 6 road games–5 in conference play–and none of them against bad teams. Fortunately for them, though, the toughest games on the schedule (Oregon, Cal, and ND) are all in LA. And, their schedule is organized in such a manner–closing with Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame, and @ UCLA–that even with an early loss, running the table at the end will put them in a position to play for the National Title.

CALIFORNIA (#9 AP, #12 Coaches)
Cal’s team last year was an oddity; a Jeff Tedford-coached team with a great running game, a strong D, and very poor production out of the QB position. Even with their limitations, they could have very easily still gone 11-1; they lost to UCLA in the last minute, lost to Oregon in OT, and had a 3-point home loss to Oregon State.

As for this year’s edition, the D should be better, and as long as the OL can come through the running game will be strong again as well. The pass offense should be upgraded tremendously; not only are they in better shape at WR, but Longshore will no doubt be an upgrade at QB. Even if he proves ineffective and is replaced, Ayoob will be markedly better than he was last season.

Speaking of gambling…Joe Ayoob, ladies and gentlemen!

Cal sits in a good position, at the fringes of the Top 10. A win over Tennessee will vault them into 6-7-8 territory, and between the opener and their game at Arizona on November 11th, the only road games they have are against Oregon State and Washington State; so long as they can do the business at home and win those, they will probably be in the Top 3 when they go to Arizona, and a win there should put them in a position to stake their claim for a spot in the National Title game when they play USC.

And, given the lateness of the game against USC, it’s possible that even with a loss to Tennessee in the opener, 11 consecutive wins could get them in the Championship game.

In any event, I like the USC/Cal winner to make it to the title game.

LOUISVILLE (#13 AP, #13 Coaches)
If a team from the Big East is likely to run the table and get into the title game, it is probably Louisville, not West Virginia. Not only does Louisville host West Virginia, they will be looking for revenge from last year’s game, where Louisville lost a 24-7 lead in the last 8 minutes, with an assist from the officials, who botched an important call on an onside kick (for which the Big East later apologized). Louisville’s schedule also includes a home game against Miami, putting them in a much more likely position (than West Virginia) to be well-regarded by the pollsters in the event that they go undefeated.

I have two concerns about this Louisville team. While their O is loaded at the skill positions, they are a little light on the OL; the last time they were in a similar position, they stumbled to a 7-5 finish in 2002–to be fair, this year’s OL is markedly better than that year’s edition, as is their talent at the skill positions. Of greater concern, Louisville’s pass defense is fairly weak; they return everyone this season, but given the way they played last season this is not necessarily a plus. Fortunately for them, outside of Miami and Pitt, there is probably no one on the schedule who will have the ability to exploit this weakness.

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS
ACC: Clemson +500
Clemson should be solid this season, they lose little on offense other than QB Charlie Whitehurst, who, quite frankly, disappointed me last season. I think new QB Proctor will be at least as good, if not better, and their running game should be solid with the tandem of Davis and Merriweather running behind an OL that returns all of its starters from last season. On D, they had strength in depth last season, and all of this season’s starters have logged plenty of minutes.

Clemson was probably better than their 4-4 record in the ACC last season. They lost 2 games in OT (BC, Miami) and had a 1-point loss on the road against GT. This season, I like them to win all 4 of their home games; as long as they can split their 4 road games, it should be enough to get them to the ACC Championship game.

Among Clemson’s wins was a 35-14 demolition of this year’s consensus selection the ACC Atlantic, Florida State. As hard as it may be to believe, the score in that game was deceptive; FSU’s TD came off a blocked punt and their O only managed 2 field goals. Truth be told, I look for BC to be the toughest challengers to Clemson for the ACC Atlantic title, not Florida State.

WINS OVER/UNDER
Florida State UNDER 9.5 wins +102
There’s a lot of good options out there for over/under betting–for example, I think Notre Dame and Tennessee are dead-certs to go under 10.5 wins, and 8.5 wins, respectively–but the trick is finding a winning bet with good value. In the case of Notre Dame, they are -188 to go under, and Tennessee is -168 to go under. As a result, the only thing that really jumps out at me this season is Florida State.

Although I was at the SEC Championship game and didn’t get to see much of it, the ACC Championship game–a game in which, statistically, at least, they were considerably outplayed–made a lot of people forget just how bad Florida State was last season. Outside of wins over 1-10 Duke, 4-7 Wake, 1-10 Syracuse, and The Citadel (a game which was 10-3 at halftime, by the way), FSU either lost or was pretty fortunate in the rest of their games. Miami couldn’t do anything on special teams; BC was down 14-0 due to turnovers before they got going, and then their QB got injured; a PR TD broke the game open against VT; another PR TD, along with a fumbled PSU snap deep in FSU territory, made the Orange Bowl competitive. Simply put, this was not a good team last season.

Solon doesn’t think much of FSU. Neither does Jeremy Mincey.

And, this season, they should be even worse; the two strengths of the team last season were the special teams and the defensive front 7. Their punter–who averaged a net 35.7 yards last season–has graduated, as has gamebreaking punt returner Willie Reid. They lose 4 starters from the front 7, but they included three 1st round picks and a 5th rounder; as a result, they will likely be considerably weaker against the run. On O, they return 6 starters to what was a poor unit. They averaged 94 ypg rushing last season; they averaged less than 90 ypg against 1-A opponents, and 59 ypg against teams with winning records. Despite the return of Booker, they have lost Washington and with only 3 starters back on the OL I do not expect significant improvement. QB Weatherford returns for his sophomore season, during which freshman starters often regress. With such a weak running game, he will have to throw passes at a rate of around 40 per game, as he did last season, and opposing secondaries will be excited about that, given his 18 INTs last season. He will have to improve by leaps and bounds for this team to come close to 10 wins, and I do not see that happening.

The schedule does to Florida State some favors, and they have 4 automatic wins from the start (Troy, Rice, @ Duke, Western Michigan). At best, I see them splitting their other 8 games. My honest assessment is that they will go 7-5 during the regular season; if this occurs, I believe this will be Bobby Bowden’s final season in charge.

And that’s what I’ve got.

Please note that all of these selections are provided for entertainment purposes only. Enjoy the season.

He’s suave. He’s unstoppable. He’s going to shower his rainy love all over the eastern American college football scene. He’s Ernesto, and with a magnificent Latin Loverish name like that, who can forgive him for the ridiculous Snidely Whiplash ’stache he’s sporting here?

Si, senor. You are irresistable.

We’re a little behind the curve here, in case you didn’t notice. We just bought a pair of the deckest jeans; they’re really big everywhere, but especially through the pant legs, so you walk around like you just don’t give a fuck or something. And this rap group Onyx? They’re just awesome. And just in case you haven’t had one yet, the Big Montana at Arby’s is off the chain! Especially with gobs of horsey sauce. Eat one of those and you’re ready to start your own ‘zine or something.

One last thing we have to turn you on to: USC football. We’ve been sitting around the EDSBS offices leafing through our old ESPN Magazines, and we’ve come to a crazee conclusion. (It’s not wack–just crazee! Like Crazee Bone from Bone Thugz ‘N Harmony, the awesome singing rap group from Cleveland or Omaha or someplace like that. They’ll see you at the crossroads right after the first of the month.)

That crazee idea is this: we think Pete Carroll’s gonna be all right at USC. In fact, we think they might be national championship contenders when it’s all said and done. You know, once they shake off the cobwebs from the Paul Hackett years. With some phenomenal recruiting under his belt, he may be ready to say WASSUP!!! to success. WASSSSSSUUUUUUUP!

Trojan Wire’s got this video of their new quarterback John David Booty, who’s really lucky to be a person with three names not in jail for multiple murder or a sex crime. The video makes it look like USC’s got some talent on offense, which has totally been lacking since Keyshawn Johnson took his damn ball and left town. We’ve only got one problem with the video: do you want to make a video of your qb playing to a song that talks about how “it’s going down?” What? Him? That’s bad in one way, as in getting sacked, and ambiguous in another way.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to feed our Tamagotchi. Adieu.