CURIOUS INDEX, 7/6/2009

by Orson on Jul 6, 2009 8:00 AM EDT

He danced with the spirit......and rotated the earth backwards with his dazzling speed, no doubt, following a particularly vibrant weekend spiritually for CJ Spiller.

If you can't muddle anything else out of an enigmatic Clemson team that we're having a hard time drawing a bead on preseason, you can count on Spiller bouncing reversing field and then incinerating fescue on several highlight-worthy occasions this season. That's ticket-worthy stuff alone.

Pushing the message. Let's flash some Luntzian muscle here: you're going to read some words about Orrin Hatch and his push to have Congress get involved in the BCS, and we're going use words to help you see the issue in in what we think is a very fair, accurate, and factual way. First, from the Desert News:

This week Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will either trigger a meaningful debate on the legality of how our college football system works, or he'll be castigated as a grandstanding gasbag crying foul because a team from his state didn't play for a national championship in January.

My. That is very interesting. When someone else makes a point, you should recognize it by saying "interesting," even if you don't understand what they're saying. It makes others think you're listening. And now, we present carefully chosen words to push you, the reader towards a specific case.

GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG GRANDSTANDING GASBAG

That'll be $4,000 in consulting fees. You're welcome, BCS. We could be focusing on the really important things, like confirming Robert V. Abbey, of Nevada, to be Director of the Bureau of Land Management. Why? CAUSE HE WRECKS SHIT LIKE EVERY DAY, SON. Hearings are on Tuesday, and promise to be a new low in political-football discourse until the next time this bullshit fiesta occurs again.

Not one. At this point, we comfort ourselves by saying it's because they're threatened by his overpowering masculinity.

Twenty-two schools in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) have hired new head coaches for the upcoming season. How many times did Strong get an interview?

"None," Strong said. "Not one interview. Nobody called me. Zero interviews."

We can't even be worried about about the possible racial element to this, and instead are worried about whatever the hell happened in Strong's prior interviews: smashed furniture, marking territory by urinating, speaking only in piglatin, greeting potential employers with a ceremonial headbutt...wait. Revision: it has to be racism.

But we LOVE gin mills and pool parlors. Beat Visitor has some fantastic rules of yesteryear at Rutgers, including "Freshman must carry matches." For one never knows when one will need them to set a Spaniard ablaze, kindle a rollicking bonfire, or cover the wafting reek resulting from the consumption of ill-prepared lunchwagon meat purchased off a scurrilous Turkoman!

His name is fantastic no matter how you arrange it. Stone Jakeburner, Burn Stonejaker. No matter how you phrase it, he's too big to play receiver now, and will attempt to be the first tight end to play a substantial role in the Buckeye offense since the immortal Brock Granitechewer in 196awesome. We mean, Brian Hartsock in 2003. Doc Saturday thinks he has a chance of doing this.

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Comments

Don’t know for sure, but I have always heard that Charlie Strong was a pretty difficult interviewee. Maybe it is because he is tired of being a statistic and not considered seriously. However, his situation is “interesting”.

by Winfield Featherston on Jul 6, 2009 9:06 AM EDT reply actions

Why doesn’t Florida just fire Urban Meyer and make Strong the HC? Problem solved.

by Techie on Jul 6, 2009 9:19 AM EDT reply actions

On page 65 of the Rutgers manual there are two swastikas. This confirms everything I have ever believed about Rutgers.

by DoubleDawg05 on Jul 6, 2009 9:39 AM EDT reply actions

When you go to the story about TEs at tOSU, the first thing you see is the number 2053 with the comment: number of days since Michigan beat Ohio State. Not a big Buckeye fan, but it’s got to just suck being Michigan these days.

Whenever a ton of money and the appearance of propriety come together, you’re bound to attract that most noxious form of gasbag: a member of Congress.

by ohiodawg on Jul 6, 2009 9:51 AM EDT reply actions

“If you can’t muddle anything else out of an enigmatic Clemson team that we’re having a hard time drawing a bead on preseason”

O, I know you’ve been around this sport (and the Georgia/South Carolina area) long enough to know that there is absolutely nothing enigmatic about Clemson, ever. They look good, get put in the top 20, win early games with maybe a tough loss, win a game or two more to keep their ranking around the 10-12 range…and then comes late October and November. And the problem is solved, as they stumble to an 8-4/7-5 season, complete with the dreaded words “never lived up to their potential”. And then we do it all over again the next year.

by italiangator on Jul 6, 2009 11:13 AM EDT reply actions

Before the Nazis started using it (which obviously changed its meaning forever), the swastika was in wide use throughout the world as a symbol of good luck. Although we’re talking about Rutgers here, so as a USF fan who hates their living guts, I’m not sure there’s much of a difference.

by JD on Jul 6, 2009 12:18 PM EDT reply actions

Now WFVu needs a player named “Couchburner.”

by I'm A Lasagna Hog on Jul 6, 2009 12:31 PM EDT reply actions

Maybe Ben Hartsock would be a better comparison for tOSU.

Ohiodawg @3 – while it woould suck to be a Michigan fan under normal circumstances, I am glad they are feeling the wrong end of the schadenfreude that we experienced in the “Cooper years”. We still have a way to go, but things are beginning to even out. Maybe by 2040, the light they see at the end of the tunnel won’t be an oncoming train. By that time they will join the Ivy League (with ND) and be like former power Yale in de-emphisizing football.

by Crabapple Buck on Jul 6, 2009 12:33 PM EDT reply actions

Hey, I wanted Ole Miss to hire Strong IN 2003!! Clearly I was a trailblazer in the art of Cutcliffe-hate and not seeing color. In football. I don’t wear pink with orange or anything.

by always rebellious on Jul 6, 2009 1:28 PM EDT reply actions

Same ol’ tired refrain from Florida fans who are LIVID that all other football-playing schools ontinue to refuse to interview a Gator assistant – who, by the way, is on his FOURTH separate stint in Gainesville – for a head coaching position. I mean, can’t all of those other schools – and I mean ALL of those OTHER schools – see the genius in Coach Strong that Gator fans have enjoyed from 1983-84, 1990, 1994, and 2003 to present? Why, oh why, are all of those OTHER football-playing schools so GOSH-DARNED RACIST? But don’t blame us here at UF – we’ve been giving this man a supporting role, off-and-on, for the past quarter-century!

You’ll find “hypocrite” under “H” in Mr. Webster’s lexicon…

by Double Dawg Dare Ya on Jul 6, 2009 2:41 PM EDT reply actions

Coach Strong will get his chance soon enough when Tebow ascends to heaven and Urban Meyer goes to Notre Dame so he can still yell: “Touchdown Tebow, er, I mean Jesus, er, no I mean Tebow”.

Praise the Holy Quad – Father, Son, Tebow, and The Holy Spirit.

by BamaBoon on Jul 6, 2009 4:03 PM EDT reply actions