Mancrush unabated, we present still more reason why everyone except Martrez Milner Kenneth Harris loves Reggie Nelson.

Cheap shot? Fair hit? Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.

Any men don’t wanna get killed better clear on out the back.

This week’s Blogpoll Ballot Draft, Halloween edition is submitted below for perusal. Pay little attention to the arrows, since they reflect moves made after a couple of save and edits. (To view last week’s ugly effort, click here.)

Questions and comments follow. Click on the jump…if you dare…

The horrors of our blogpoll ballot are just around the corner, mortal.

(more…)

We can’t decide where we stand on the suspension of Brian Kinchen for using the word “gay” to describe his tender commentary about proper pass-catching technique. (One sentence into this, and we’re already stumbling into double and triple-entendre. Call us the Chris Rix of metaphorical confusion, ’cause we’ll keep throwing into it all day.)

Kinchen’s own words–lost to the bastards who took down the YouTube video–were that in order to be a good receiver, one had to be “tender” and “caress” the football. Then Kinchen, after a thoughtful moment, proclaimed his own description to be “kinda gay.”

The suspension results not from Kinchen broaching the g-word on a broadcast, but in its usage here: gay, as referring to homosexuals in the operant sense, not in the “1926 picnic with some bathtub gin” sense. We know why Kinchen got the suspension–because you no touch the g-word in sport on air, even if the use was somewhat accurate–but we question the meaning of Kinchen’s particular usage. We heard the clip pre-memoryholeage (again, entendres abound,) and Kinchen was right: few men other than gay men would have used those terms to describe the act of catching a football. Kinchen was, essentially, making fun of himself for being a straight guy using verbiage very much not his own.

Would it have been equally kerfufflish if, say, Tim Gunn had described a particular outfit on Project Runway as “a slam dunk?” It’s something only a straight guy would say, sure, but the hypersensitivity seems unwarranted here. We’re not even talking fourth-grade gay like wearing generic brand Jams shorts or anything; we’re talking about referring to something offhandedly as gay or straight, something that’s been pretty well hammered into the popular consciousness over the past decade.

(Plus: the whole thing happened on ESPNU anyway. You’d think they’d be openly popping bottles on air and shooting a gagged and bound Colin Cowherd with paintball guns to get people watching over there, much less freaking out about a guy using the word ‘gay’ on air.)

You might say it’s like putting on your favorite Vera Wang gown to go tchochke shopping at the Crate and Barrel. That’s kind of gay to say. Or is it?

Keep it gay, Brian Kinchen.

The most terrifying bits of absolutely evil but necessary information that will haunt you for the rest of the late morning/early afternoon. Call a priest…if you dare.

–Charlie Weis manages to be completely horrifying, even in a puff piece on 60 Minutes. Follow linkage to listen to Weis as he’s possessed by spirits, spits malignant incantations on inept underlings, and works black magic on the sidelines in his attempt to reanimate the corpse of Notre Dame football. It’s aliiiiiive!!!

I send the players on the field! That’s my job.

–The tasty meat of Big Ten deep threat and its dark secret returns to your football plate sooner than expected: Mario Manningham to return. His dark secret? HE’S MADE OF PEOPLE!!! PEOPLE I TELL YOU…

–Another person gets drunk and dies at the Cocktail Party, bringing the grand, bloody total of the menace posed by the game to…three people over the past three years, meaning that the scourge of lightning still poses a greater danger to the combined student bodies of UGA and UF than drinking at the cocktail party. What are you doing to protect the student body against the scourge of lightning, Michael Adams? Huh?

–Rich Rodriguez kind of sort of is everyone’s boyfriend right now. UNC wants him, FSU wants him, Miami’s batting eyelashes, he’s not exactly turning the whole idea down. A murderous backwoods betrayal lurks if he really is thinking of leaving his alma mater! Where you goin’ city boy?

You ain’t leaving West Virginia, boy.

–Bruins Nation may be overshooting on their short list for coaches, but hey, you gotta dream, right? Unless a murderous, finger-bladed madman is stalking your dreams, that is…

–Urban stumps for Florida, since that’s what you have to do when there’s no playoff or fair way of comparing teams at the end of the season…unless you count the many armed beast who cannot be named who you may call the BCS…Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn…

–Speaking of monstrous tentacles…that’s some gnarly math you got there. (Cue math geek saying “that’s not so bad” in 3…2…1…)

–The spectre of the On Notice Board returns! Once your name is written on it, you will die in 24 hours unless you spread the curse to someone else by creating your own!*

Settle down. That curse is an extremely flexible one.

–San Diego State suffers the Curse Of the Former Bob Stoops Assistant As Your Head Coach! This only confirms that he is the Daywalker, and will suck your talent dry before tossing you to a struggling program to flail.

–The undead rise! They need no sleep, or people skills, actually.

–A Rutgers blog? And a Baylor one too that compares A&M to North Korea? Shocking monsters on this internet, indeed! Information beasts…truly the food of the gods…

This one’s for you, TCOAN.

*Margin of error=+/- 100 years.

As the saying goes: “Don’t go negative first, but when it happens, go hard.” These guys must have had this one in the can, because the Big East has responded to the SEC’s attack ad with a smear campaign of their own.

To quote the venerable Admiral Josh Painter:”This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.”

Any holiday that comes during football season, and which involves candy and sexy costumes is alright with us. 

 

Throw in the mix the opportunity to show your school spirit with a pumpkin, and it is hard to beat. 

(HT: D. Brown)

(more…)

With USC finally going down for the Beavers this weekend, the BCS race gets wide open and nasty. The human element means significant politicking will be necessary, and the black ops men on both sides of the equation have already begun spinning the conference propaganda their way.

Shockingly, the SEC has entered the fray first, targeting the Big East in a vicious attack ad. We’re appalled. By the time Mack Brown enters the fray, the discourse of American college football will hit previously unseen lows.

Rather than pile on the smoking conflagration that is Miami football, we’d like to let the delicious irony of two things speak for themselves:

Exhibit A: Sign featured before 2004 game with Tech (HT:Nathan):

Exhibit B: The photo seen below, which while not pertinent to the 30-23 Georgia Tech victory, certainly sums up what has happened to Miami this year.

(more…)

Various other notes from around a weekend of football watching.

Nature over nurture, example one: [NAME REDACTED.] The most dangerous game for exactly two quarters this coming week will be Illinois versus Ohio State, because the Illini will take the field, go up by at least ten points, and convince every gullible soul in eye’s reach that they are about to pull the upset of the century against Ohio State. (Century only 6 years old–really all that great a statement?–ed. )

Then they will attempt to run out the clock, play a soft zone, and surrender no less than thirty points to Ohio State in a soul-crushing defeat involving two or three strategy decisions of such dubious judgment that Ray Goff will fall from his sofa at home. Which is precisely what we would have told Wisconsin fans when they fell behind 24-10 to the Illini: you’ve got them right where you want them, boys.

Well-developed triceps. The brain, not so much.

It’s astonishing how little a coach can learn about game management and strategy despite having years of ineffective performances by his units as evidence. Then again, perhaps he’s just three or four plays away from winning, or sees improvement. Or maybe he just needs his players. Or this is just ‘noise in the system.’

Ohio State fans, just remember: a ten point deficit at the half is ideal, as it all but guarantees a win against the Illini. Nature triumphs nurture again, at least when the waterskiing wonder of Champaign-Urbana’s flexing his guns in a vain attempt to stop the opposition from gouging his defense in the fourth.

–Terry Hoeppner’s Hoosiers don’t even make it funny against Michigan State, beating them 46-21 with most of MSU’s points racked up in lackadaisical garbage time scoring. Cue inevitable leap to plaudits and bowl predictions: Indiana’s last three games are: at Minnesota, Michigan, and Purdue. Minnie and Purdue were both bowl-circling also-rans a month ago, which means Indiana could probably defeat both. They will have to face Michigan, a game where pain will visit them in previously unimagined ways. So they break 2-1, end up 7-5, and go to a bowl game. If that astonishing feat and kicking a tumor’s ass does not win Terry Hoeppner some variety of coaching award, we will be forced to drive to Bloomington and give him a pie we baked ourselves.

Mark our words: we’re sending Terry a pie if doesn’t get coach of the year.

–Missouri’s ballyhoo and fooferaw evaporates against an Oklahoma team that wasn’t going to take any nonsense. But the grass on the hill in Columbia looked to be an especially deep shade of verdant green, y’all: game ball to the groundskeepers.

–The Chris Rix Award for Colorblind Interception Throwing for 2006 may have to go to Brent Schaeffer, who can toss ballcrushing interceptions of disastrous timing with the best of them this year. He did so against Auburn on Saturday, turning confidently off a play fake and zinging a beautiful ball directly to a waiting Auburn linebacker at a time in the game when Auburn really felt the evil spectre of the Orgeron threatening to stuff them in his sack o’ dead varmints ‘n whatnot. We like qbs who throw picks with gusto: not just piddly floaters that flop into opponents’ hands, but bullets tossed right into the chest of stunned defenders. The kind of throw even quarterbacks think about like, “yeah, it was a pick. But I threw the shit out of it, didn’t I?”

Brent Schaeffer, you throw them with pride, son. Almost Brock Berlin-esque, actually.

Throws ‘em with gusto: Brent SchaeFFAH!!

–Trevor Matich should frighten you. Last week, the in-booth shots of Matich, Gilmore, and, um, Whathisname the announcer moved Matich, who must be 8′7″ in his massive slippers, moved Matich away from the foreground and into the background, where for a single night he appeared to be merely huge. This week Matich was back in the foreground for the Rutgers/UConn game, and poor Rodney Gilmore looked like a seven-year old next to Matich, who loomed so large in the frame he appeared to be angrily eyeing our beer through the television. (Really, dude. Please. Take it and stop staring.)

–Colt McCoy, despite having a fake name, may be the best qb in the Big 12, if you like shiny numbers. (Oh, and we do.) While BON might say that Graham Harrell’s numbers are a product of the system, they’re still huge numbers; Tech turned the first half of the Texas/Texas Tech game into an ABA game, and then found themselves bound at every turn by some knot the Texas coaching staff had tied them in at halftime. Texas simply settled down, ran the hell out of the ball, and did what good teams do against Mike Leach: stay disciplined and focus on the guys who hadn’t touched the ball in the first half.

McCoy was beyond…well, just plain beyond: 256 yards, 4 tds, and 68 yards rushing just because he could. He may set the record for Texas passing tds this year as a freshman. All of that and he doesn’t even dance like Vince Young did, and has made no additions to his coach’s iPod. Mack Brown just recruited this awesome preschooler out of Lubbock, too. You’ve got to see his mechanics to believe them.

You haven’t heard of Tyrus Stedler yet…but Mack Brown has.

[taking off orangeandblueglasses codex begin]

Ten minutes into the game the thrashing alert sounded–Georgia was down fourteen points, we were down six Warsteiner Oktoberfests, and the rout, for all intents and purposes, had begun. Then the rest of the game happened. Both teams went into swoons, coughing up easy points and making what should have been a Florida sprint for four quarters into the football equivalent of an Ironman finish: ugly, wobbling, limbs moving in directions dictated not by a confident body moving with all parts in harmony, but by desperate, discombobulated neurons moving randomly in search of a lucky strike.

Like Chris Legh, Florida’s offense collapsed late. Hopefully the offense we’ll have a Gatorade sponsored recovery, too.

Leak–who was evidently shaken up–appeared in his underwhelming Office Depot game manager duds again, missing open receivers, refusing to take shots down the field (which were there) against a team that had bled against the pass all season long. The o-line windmilled in vain on both pass and run plays, and not just against the obvious monsters like Quentin Moses on the UGA d-line. After the first three series, Florida’s offense tanked and sent the bill to the defense, who classily picked up the tab as it has all season long, frustrating Matthew Stafford into rushing throws and making sure UGA couldn’t break plays and tie up what became a close game.

Florida wasn’t the only team to lay steaming heaps of offensive offal all over the field Saturday. This may be Mark Richt’s reekingest team in his tenure at UGA: bad passing, feeble blocking on the offensive line, and a severe aggravation persistent rash of dropped passes by Bulldog receivers across the board doomed them. We’d toss some blame Martrez Milner’s way, but he’d just drop it, so we’ll just leave it over here with his name on it, since he dropped fine passes from Matthew Stafford all day. Stafford, by the way, will be very, very good. Richt should just let him play the rest of the season, get his ass kicked in an educational sort of way, and then reload for next year. Joe T. can enjoy the privilege of being on the roster and earning his way into the banking/real estate/other lucrative good-ol’-boy network job he’ll undoubtedly get as a result of being on the Georgia football team. He’ll always have that…and the Cherrishinksi, of course.

The stankfinger award of the week goes to Florida’s offense though, and mainly for this reason: we want to see them kick some quality ass. Serious, bloody, merciless asskicking of a nature so definite, thunderous, and crushing that the opposing team leaves with a permanent twitch in their right eye and a case of scabies. An ass-kicking like something out of the Bible. An ass-kicking that moves the Caribbean plate three inches to the right. (Lives of the innocent be damned–we need points, Gator fans! Who cares if cities burn–Percy’s gotta run!) Florida’s beginning to be stuffed to the gills with talent, and yet the numbers–as any five cent pundit will tell you–haven’t even begun to equal the numbers put up by Larry Fedora, the offensive coordinator under…[NAME REDACTED.]

We do, we do.

Plenty’s wrong…here’s just a few guesses from someone who, at this point, would shoot off their own pinkie toe to see a game against quality competition where the offense scores more than 30 points. (Really–we might.)

How ’bout a slant? Dan Mullen’s playbook contains seemingly every route constructed by man…except the blitz-beating slant, which defenses live in fear of on downs containing four and five man pressure. Instead, we throw curls.

Please for the love of God exploit the seams. Perhaps it’s Chris Leak’s T-Bill mentality (the safest of all football investments: the check down!), but the vaunted spread lives and dies off exploiting the seams in the defense created by spreading them out. Florida doesn’t seem to do that at all, save for one td pass against Georgia to Caldwell. If we’re going to cash in all those runs for two yards up the middle, how about a few play action breaks between the hashes?

Trust receivers in single coverage. Mike Leach may get somethings completely and totally wrong, but this is not one of them: wideouts have a distinct advantage over dbs because they know where they’re going before dbs do. Leak only trusts one of his receivers in single coverage, and even Dallas Baker doesn’t get the ball when he’s singled up as often as he should. We think we’d trade a few picks for the rare sight of a ball going further than ten yards down the field. Don’t blame us, blame Spurrier, since the vast majority of Florida fans were weaned on bomb-and-run offense, but the nine-man fronts Florida has seen as of late have been daring Leak to throw deep. Thus far, that’s been an effective defense.

Wynn. Deshawn Wynn is healthy and has four or five games left in him as a Gator. Wear. Him. Out. He iced the Tennessee and Georgia games. He’s worked his way out of Meyer’s purgatory and back into the starter’s position. Let him earn some bucks in an NFL signing bonus and possibly even give some bite to the Florida run game Meyer is so enamoured of creating. He’s going to be a ghost in old programs in two months–let him win a few single-handedly and let him throw some sugar on what has been an often sour tenure as a Gator.

[taking off orangeandblueglasses codex end]

[putting on orangeandblueglasses codex begin]

Zombie head, check: we weren’t going to believe that USC wasn’t that good until we saw them lose, a.k.a. the “zombie rule” (Believe the zombie is dead when you see the head bashed in and rolling.) Oregon State brought the shaolin spade, ending their 27 game Pac-10 streak and allowing pollsters to cut the vestiges of 2003-2005 that had kept USC in the 2 spot.

Zombie hunters: If you’re going to fight with a beaver, stay hard to win. USC didn’t.

Immediate, short-term, bum-on-the-streeet-looking-for-food question: How far will the drop? Oh, they’ll drop–oh, lordy will they. The question is how far (Nine spots? Behind Cal? Behind Notre Dame? And behind the Big East twins Louisville and West Virginia?)

Long-term, stodgy investment banker-pondering-investing-in-lunar-colonies question: is this a hiccup or a real change in periodicity for the otherwise boundless potential winning curve of the USC Trojans football program?

Think long and hard here, because programs all ebb and flow differently, but on a hedging historical note did you not think of other dynasties exiting the chrysalis of back to back championships and emerging as…merely good? Or worse still, declining? We wondered at the time if we were watching that instant where coach-poaching, new starters, and the ravages of change had finally caught up with the Trojans. And we think, sitting on the caffeine rocket of a Monday morning, that we finally did see that on Saturday. It’s less similar to Miami/Ohio State ‘02, where OSU beat a team that never dominated like that again; the best comparison would likely be to Nebraska/Arizona State ‘96, where ASU bit the ass of a team clearly in transition between various forms of badassedness. Nebraska would share the national title the next year, which USC very well could do next year. But those waiting for a clear statement of intereggnum in CFB finally got it after a season of close calls, and as we shape our mountain of mashed potatoes at the dinner table, we tell you that…this means something.

Jake the Snake, pre-mustache days, saw a dynasty cruising on past credit take a dip, too.

Call HR, revise incentives package immediately. Another thing that has added up in grand fashion for the Trojans: coaching brain drain. Ed Orgeron may not have been the valedictorian of his class at Huey Long’s School for Bayou Badasses, but he did create lineman who played as if their families’ lives depended on it. (Probably because Ed had them followed by backwoods assassins ready to strike at any time. Black cat, white cat, still catches mice, right?) More pressing still, the duo of Steve Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin, wunderkind coaches that they are, clearly coach at a level just a few notches below the standard established by Norm Chow. Key coaching turnover has likely robbed the Trojans of a few of the margins that used to sustain them through close shaves and blow open potential cruise games over crap opposition.

Talent is king, whether it pulls the strings on the sidelines or throws those beguilingly simple pass routes the Trojans specialize in, and attracting it and keeping it is as much a function of the organization as the actual execution of plays on the field. The Trojans have, at least by the Economist’s standards, done the right things: hired and trained internally, mentored talent from within (see Kiffin and Sarkisian,) and tried to hire the best people they can to coach the team. (If you don’t think coaching is all that important, exit discussion four sentences ago. Sorry for the late notice.) They’ve done the same for recruiting, a sale made easier by the twin aphrodesiacs of glamour and plush SoCal living.

And yet in all systems, there’s a trough, and SC’s hit one. The rest of the season’s plotlines will rush through the hole put in USC’s season on Saturday, making the Oregon State Beavers the most important player in the semi-mythical national college football scene this year. If you’d care to argue that, ruminate on the fact that with a victory in the APOCALYPTICALLY IMPORTANT MONDOMATCH OF THE MILLENIUM on Thursday, West Virginia could put a Big East team in line for a shot at the national title without a surfeit of backflipping by the BCS. Thanks to Oregon State, you’re sipping blue coffee in bizarro world this morning. For that breath of fresh and strange air, our hats off to the Beavers.

This season brought to you by Bizarro Superman and the Oregon State Beavers. You’re welcome.

When sitting at home, thinking about the most juvenile possible EDSBS headlines we could possibly write, it came down to one day dream.  We knew we couldn’t force South Carolina to play Southern Cal…, so our best bet was the USC/OSU match up.  But could Oregon State possibly be the team to end USC’s regular season and Pac 10 streaks??????

 

 Well, it happened and we couldn’t narrow down the headline choices to one.  I mean, “Trojans Busted, Beavers Responsible”  is good and all, but is it a clear winner over “Beavers Turn Back Trojans In The End”… or “Trojans Denied By Beavers”… or “Beavers Defense To Tight For Trojans”. … or ”Impotent Trojans Can’t Penatrate Beavers”.  How could we possibly choose?  Oh yea, and it was like totally the biggest upset of the season and could lead the BCS into controversy…. but its really all about the juvenile wise cracks for us.

We’re kicking off early because it’s rainy and just that kind of day here in Atlanta. If you care to join us, we will be watching the Cocktail Party from the safe distance of Taco Mac in Decatur, where we will NOT spend fifty dollars on vodka tonics as we did during the LSU game. Feel free to stop by and say hello to the man in the flaming couch shirt.

The video below may cause severe brain damage for Georgia fans who watch it. In fact, remove the ‘may,’ because brain damage is a given–it may cause death, which we wouldn’t wish on anyone. Yet.

Fine work by ChrisLeakFan4Life, the Gator video surgeon who pieced this together. We may usually disagree on what music should go behind shots of Florida opponents getting trucked by our beloved team, but this time one thing is accepted as a universal truth: Kool Keith saying “Smack My Bitch Up” to a thumping techno beat never, ever gets old. (Hint: Something unbelievably awesome happens at the 4:16 mark: one of those front-side, soul-swallowing, kodiak bear attacking a fluffy bunny sacks. We leapt from our chair when watching it.)

Enjoy your weekend, sirs and ma’ams.

Welcome to the Factor Six Preview, where we quickly preview games using six completely essential factors for victory:

1. Mascot
2. Head coach.
3. Team name.
4. General aura.
5. Best roster name.
6. The “Factor Six” factor. (Whatever the hell we care to throw in in the way of cultural add-ons, etc.) We could have called this the “Six Factor” preview, but it sounds so much more tuff and Tom Clancy-like the other way, like some sort of shadowy counterintelligence ops thing that uses a modeling agency as cover.

FLORIDA/GEORGIA IN PUANTEUR-VILLE:

1. Mascot: Florida. As previously discussed here, lovable isn’t a close race between these two, since UGA would not conceivably value you only for the stored energy contained in your easily digested bones and muscles. UGA the animal mascot is cute, lovable, nattily attired, and beloved by millions. Florida’s actual mascot could not possibly be brought on the sidelines safely, though we’d break a rib laughing watching this being attempted. (RUN! FOR GOD’S SAKE, RUN!!! REMEMBER: ALWAYS IN A ZIG-ZAG!)

Instead, we’ll argue the merits of the human, suit-wearing mascots, and insist that Albert’s the mascot of mas integrity here. Compare Hairy Dawg…

…to Albert the Alligator.

Which one looks more like a representative anthropomorphic slice of their fanbase? We don’t know many Georgia grads besides Bill Goldberg whose traps begin at their earlobes like Hairy Dawg’s; in fact, we don’t know many Georgia grads who’ve ever seen the inside of a gym they didn’t play dodgeball or four-square in, since working out is for the gays and the ladies.

Now contrast that with Albert. Albert clearly has a slight weight problem, sometimes appears wearing a dorky sweater in public, and is susceptible to wearing a baseball cap at all times, even when one is clearly unnecessary–just like half the guys we know who went to our beloved university. That’s emotional honesty for you, since you, dear reader, are probably less Hairy Dawg and more like the pre-fraternity Hank the Tank figure that Albert represents. In fact, we’re sure he’s got a busy day in front of him, and is unsure how he’ll fit it all in.

Florida, you’ve been Factor’d!

2. Head Coach: Georgia. This was a difficult decision, but two crucial factors pushed it over the edge for us:

1. We watched this CSS bit about Richt having all of his players address the team and talk about their lives. If you’ve never seen this, it’s huge 250 pound kids baring their souls in front of their peers and talking about how they were raised in tin sheds with 15 other kids by a woman who worked 3 jobs despite having cancer, polio, and Guillain-Barre disease simultaneously. If you saw this and didn’t weep, you may finish the cute puppy kebab you were eating for lunch and go about your business. If you did, you have a soul, and can appreciate what a good man Richt genuinely seems to be.

2. Katharyn Richt is spank-momma hot. We don’t know why, but she is despite the mom jeans and the ponytail. If it’s a package deal, we’ll take it.

Mom hot: Katharyn Richt.

Georgia, you’ve been Factor’d!

3. Team Name: Bulldogs. Strictly a strategic decision, since you have to say the word “gay” to say Florida’s team name, a fact tirelessly pointed out by opposing fans. Anyone who points this out is, by default, functionally retarded, since our master plan to stock the Gator O-line with massive gay Polynesians would result in the greatest run blocking line of all time, as well as the best dressed.

Georgia, you’ve been Factor’d!.

4. General Aura: Florida. 14-2. There’s your aura for you.

Florida, you’ve been Factor’d!

5. Best Roster Name: Florida. Wondy Pierre-Louis, simply because he’s the only human being we’ve ever heard of named “Wondy.” Plus he’s got his own snaky dance, which you may view in the first few minutes of this video.

Wondy Pierre-Louis, about to shake Urban down.

Florida, you’ve been Factor’d!

The Factor Six Factor Six: Florida. See banner of blog, please.

Florida, you’ve been factor’d!

Factor Six Preview Result: Florida. Bias and the forces of hard empirical data force our hand: we must root for Florida in the game Saturday. Those passed out from shock should be revived with a hard slap to the face; that’s something people just don’t do enough of these days. If they do not greet you with a “Thanks, I needed that,” slap them again until they do. Life was just so much cooler in the 1920s…except for that “well, I guess I’m stuck with this here syphilis” thing, which would not be cool.

Welcome to the Factor Six Preview, where we quickly preview games using six completely essential factors for victory:

1. Mascot
2. Head coach.
3. Team name.
4. General aura.
5. Best roster name.
6. The “Factor Six” factor. (Whatever the hell we care to throw in in the way of cultural add-ons, etc.) We could have called this the “Six Factor” preview, but it sounds so much more tuff and Tom Clancy-like the other way, like some sort of shadowy counterintelligence ops thing that uses a modeling agency as cover.

OKLAHOMA AT MISSOURI:

1. Mascot: Missouri. Sooner: so stressful. Either you’re a land-hungry, whiskey-soaked, bloodthirsty maniac riding across the plains desperate to shoot an Indian over a few hundred acres of land, or you’re an adjective meaning “hurry the hell up.” Who needs that kind of pressure? Plus when we think of Oklahoma land-grabbing, we always think of Tom Cruise in Far and Away, riding his teeny toy pony out into the vast wilderness to build his own frontier home, complete with sod closet to hide in if he likes. Not the best association.

Missouri’s overgrown Garfield, tame as he may seem, wins this battle. (Remember that among the “Tiger-mascot” schools, only LSU is actually insane enough to keep a live, potentially man-eating Bengal Tiger on campus. This alone says more about the school and state than you’ll ever need to know.)

Cute. Doesn’t make us think of a famous midget riding teeny pony.

Missouri, you’ve been Factor’d!

2. Head Coach: Oklahoma. We met Bob Stoops once, and got the chance to ask him a few questions, and frankly, we’re still frightened. Even though he had his four year old daughter with him the whole time he was explaining his defense to the class, he still managed to intimidate without being cheap about it. He’d be in the middle of explaining the bump Cover 2, and his daughter would pipe up with “DADDY!!! WHEN ARE WE GOING?!?!?” Stoops, without missing a beat, said “Just a minute, Daddy’s explaining something” in a voice fraught with nothing but the purest patience and affection. And just when you were about to fall into the trap of thinking Stoops was soft, he glared back over his shoulder at the class with an eyeful of cold rage: “Back–NOW WE LOCK DOWN THIS CORNER AND USE THE SIDELINE…”

Gary Pinkel, who’s done a fine job this year, has never managed to come across as dedicated family man and borderline sadist in the same fifteen seconds to us.

Oklahoma, you’ve been Factor’d!

3. Team Name: Sooner. Sounds great when boomed across the stadium in coordination with “BOOMER.” Also not shared with at least three other D-1 football teams, two of which also play “Hold That Tiger.” Originality trumps the images of drunk rednecks racing mules across the dirty plains here.

Oklahoma, you’ve been Factor’d!.

4. General Aura: Oklahoma. Not close. Oklahoma’s famous for being a pillar of college football. Missouri’s famous for almost beating invincible Robobeat 1990s Nebraska at home.

Oklahoma, you’ve been Factor’d!

5. Best Roster Name: Oklahoma. C.J. Ah You. Who? Ah, You. Has the advantage of having a coherent and complete sentiment built into his last name.

Oklahoma, you’ve been Factor’d!

The Factor Six Factor Six: Missouri. We’re suckers for stadiums with open endzones, and Missouri’s got the coolest one around: a wide-open swath of tenderly-manicured fescue straight from the fever dreams of starving cattle. Kids want to roll in it, sheep want to eat it, and we want to catch an extra point kicked into it. Add in the checkerboard endzones and the logo ‘M’ spelled out in white, and you’re talking some underrated atmosphere points, here.

When sheep dream: the landscaper’s porn that is the Missouri endzone.

Missouri, you’ve been factor’d!

Factor Six Preview Result: Oklahoma. Science forces us to pick Oklahoma here, though we’re sure fate will find a way of screwing the Sooner’s again: hordes of locusts, a car accident that somehow breaks through the wall of the stadium and takes out half the Sooner bench a la Le Mans 1955, team-wide food poisoning from bad chicken wings the night before…something will happen to them, because this is 2006 and that is their fate.

Oklahoma 2006: ’bout sums it up.