THE FACTOR SIX PREVIEW: ALABAMA VS. TENNESSEE

by Orson on Oct 19, 2006 12:22 PM EDT

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.

Alabama vs. Tennessee:

1. Mascot: Tennessee, though it's a close fight here since both teams suffer from profligate mascot adoption. (We've got a dog! And some type of woodsman! And an elephant! And a...color-coded concept? Sure!) Smokey is a bluetick hound, though, and its breed description wins this contest easily. To wit:

The Bluetick has a fearless and warrior-like approach to the hunt. This breed may drool or slobber.

Fan/mascot similarity rating: 110%. Winnah!

This is pretty similar to what we imagine most Tennessee fans do on weekends: run around the woods naked and braying at animals.

Tennessee, you've been Factor'd!

2. Head Coach: Mike Shula, since he's totally stoked about his jet-ski. See, there's all this static he keeps hearing about his job, but man, that's just how haters keep you down. It's just football, jeez. He's been in Tampa man, and that is the big time. This gig's just what he's doing Just head out to the lake, man, because being by the water, it just humbles you, man. Especially when you're ripping across the waves at forty miles an hour, man, yeah! His dad, by the way, owns a steakhouse. And he will totally hook you up, man.

Alabama, you've been Factor'd!

3. Team Name: the Crimson Tide. As noble as the origins of Tennessee's team name may be, it's eclipsed by the anachronism that is the name "Crimson Tide." Eschew the historical, and think about what it sounds like: a wave of unavoidable bloody rage headed your way, powered by the very movement of the solar system. With Tennessee, all their name signifies is a blanket willingness to do...something. (Insert joke about Tennessee women and loose virtue here.)

Alabama, you've been Factor'd!.

4. General Aura: Tennessee. Only Vol fans risk the multiple dangers of water transit to travel to the games of their beloved games, which take place in a huge white bowl situated between some ominous-looking hills at the bend of a river. Really: while you only risk crashing and burning to death to get to games, Vol fans throw drowning and being devoured by snapping turtles into the mix. Fiesta! If ever there were a college football Mordor, it would be Neyland Stadium, which at its worst and loudest does seem to be populated by Orcs made of mud and evil. Bryant-Denny, while very, very loud, does not have the same overcast pallor of doom surrounding it.

Tennessee, you've been Factor'd!

Neyland: Abandon all hope.

5. Best Roster Name: Tennessee. Chalk a third accomplishment up for the state of Tennessee, since they've given the world:

1. The Scopes Monkey Trial.
2. Salt-water taffy.
3. Jim Bob Cooter.

Tennessee, you've been Factor'd!

The Factor Six Factor Six: Tennessee. Their fans do not have Brodie Bama Bangs. +5, Tennessee.

Factor Six Preview Result: Tennessee. We're queasy just typing that, but it's science, and science is never pretty. Just look at this picture of Norbert Wiener for proof of that.

You'd want to invent cybernetics if you looked like that, too.

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Comments

tOSU vs MSU redux? (copy/paste error)

by Canuck on Oct 19, 2006 12:24 PM EDT reply actions

Who would win in a fight between Norbert Wiener and Jim Bob Cooter?

by Doug on Oct 19, 2006 12:50 PM EDT reply actions

Canuck, you beat me to the punch.

Also in the team name factor, throw in the name of a great movie. Most with Gene Hackman are good, even the John Grisham knockoffs, with ‘Hoosiers’ atop them all.

by Southern Papa on Oct 19, 2006 12:54 PM EDT reply actions

With Tennessee, all their name signifies is a blanket willingness to do…something. (Insert joke about Tennessee women and loose virtue here.)

You could’ve done the same joke about Alabama’s women….Crimson Tide.

by j.j. on Oct 19, 2006 1:08 PM EDT reply actions

Why do I keep having the thought of Fulmer saying, “That’s my soldier, James Robert” running through my head over and over again?

by Whitey on Oct 19, 2006 1:28 PM EDT reply actions

Cybernetics, hell. It’s all about the Dianetics, friend. Clear!

by PeteJayhawk on Oct 19, 2006 1:32 PM EDT reply actions

I’ve never heard it referred to a “virtue” before. Interesting. In my neck of the woods, we usually just call it a vagina. Crazy Gator fans.

by Aerobab on Oct 19, 2006 1:56 PM EDT reply actions

Jim Bob Cooter vs Sarah Jessica Parker Wilson Phillips.

Close call.

by NewAZTiger on Oct 19, 2006 1:59 PM EDT reply actions

At the risk of being a super-shill, I had a pretty funny moment explaining the whole Crimson Tide thing to my girlfriend, which I posted about, a long time ago, on my blog.
http://churchofalbert.blogspot.com/2006/09/alabama-trash-talk-girlfriend-edition.html

(/self promote)

If Neyland is Mordor, can the Swamp be Rohan? Since North Central Florida is horse country.

by Rob G (poster formerly known as Lono) on Oct 19, 2006 2:16 PM EDT reply actions

Excellent, New AZTiger!! That would fit nicely into The Wheel Of Fortune’s “Before & After”.

by Aerobab on Oct 19, 2006 2:35 PM EDT reply actions

Rohan would have to be somewhere Northwest of Neyland…like Kentucky, which probably fits better since they have even more horses.

(And yes, I am a huge nerd. And yes, I go to GT, so don’t even start.)

by A5 on Oct 19, 2006 2:35 PM EDT reply actions

I suspect that at one time Jim Bob Cooter was actually Jim-Bob Cooter, but Fulmer ate the hyphen.

by Paco on Oct 19, 2006 2:42 PM EDT reply actions

Smokey has a bigger set of gonads than Shula

by matt on Oct 19, 2006 2:53 PM EDT reply actions

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but there are t-shirts for sale all over UT campus that say “Jim Bob Cooter Gave Me SIx”. His momma must be so proud.

by Holly on Oct 19, 2006 3:00 PM EDT reply actions

What’s the difference between the Swamp and Neyland Stadium?

Neyland Stadium has more people and fewer teeth.

by jthomas666 on Oct 19, 2006 3:11 PM EDT reply actions

“Well Eli, Smokey just came out of the tunnel, and he’s about 100 yards away from me now, and if I had my deer rifle I believe I could drop him, back to you Eli”

by ness on Oct 19, 2006 3:35 PM EDT reply actions

No tip of the hat to Fulmer? If he wouldn’t sink the damn thing, he’d be fired up about his jet-ski too!

by OhioDawg on Oct 19, 2006 3:38 PM EDT reply actions

Aerobab- I bet they even refer to a man’s junk as a “special purpose”. Jerks.

by crazy tom on Oct 19, 2006 3:41 PM EDT reply actions

Actually I would say Fulmer is more of a pontoon boat kind of guy. It’s tough to not spill your Schlitz tall boy on a jetski

by Pandemonium Reigns on Oct 19, 2006 4:05 PM EDT reply actions

As a devoted Vols fan and UT alumna, I’ll have you know Fulmer only drinks Wild Turkey. Mixed with buttermilk.

by Holly on Oct 19, 2006 4:13 PM EDT reply actions

Lasciate ongi speranza, vuoi ch’intrate Neyland

Inferno, Canto III, verse 9

One stadium to rule them all,
One stadium to find them,
One stadium to bring them in,
and in the Tennessee River, drown them.

by Sean on Oct 19, 2006 4:13 PM EDT reply actions

I always thought of Fulmer as a Schmitt’s Gay kinda guy

by Tater Salad on Oct 19, 2006 4:13 PM EDT reply actions

Sean, that’s outstanding. Can we have John Chavis playing a trumpet with his ass next?

by Orson Swindle on Oct 19, 2006 5:07 PM EDT reply actions

good read, i know i’ve been scared to even watch bama the last couple of years. i plan on heading up to knoxville in my bass boat to join the “volunteer navy” for some pregame partying. does anyone know where black warrior hooks up with the tennessee river?

by loser with socks on Oct 20, 2006 11:16 AM EDT reply actions

Sean’s incantations take on more sinister context if one recalls the fact that a major sewer treatment plant is located just downstream of Neyland Stadium on ‘Fort Loudoun Lake’.

I had relatives that had lived in Stadium Hall — underneath the south horseshoe of Shields-Watkins Field — that referred to the plant as ‘Shit Point’ until they wnet to the Big Kickoff.

I recall a story in my youth in the shadow of Sharp’s Ridge in which a hapless hourly worker fell into the machinery of that plant — body was found in parts in the river and blood smeared on the rim of the tank where Hapless Guy had tried to claw his way out.

All that, genetic damage, no teeth and Peyton Choking Syndrome on the banks of the French Broad River!

by billbattlewuzwrongd on Oct 20, 2006 9:54 PM EDT reply actions