That leg! That charm! That musical Biblical name! The boys from Gainesville have found an electric new presence, a thunder-legged Legolas lasering long field goals lethally into the nets of Dixie’s toodly-oodliest of football gin joints. No, his name ain’t Ca-LEG, though you certainly think it could be from the way he uses it!

No, it’s CALEB, a moniker sure to be used as the first name of choice for a thousand bouncing babes across the Sunshine State, since the St. Augustine Striker has the state buzzing with the latest fad in Florida football, THE THREE POINT SKIDOO or THREE THE FOOTSKI WAY, a real hoo-dilly more commonly known in the ol’ rule book as “the field goal.”

Sturgis made double sure that the next time he puts on the old glad rags and gets a wiggle on at his local juice joint he’ll be crawling in Shebas by kicking THREE THREE POINT SKIDOOs tonight versus Mississippi State. What say you, nifty gypsy?

Sturgis, the St. Augustine Striker: “I’m glad I can help. I kick them when we can’t score from the five yard line.”

THAT’S RIGHT, YOU BIG SIX. It’s the craze that’s sweeping Florida football, daddy-o, and from the looks of it you’ll have plenty more chances to THREE POINT SKIDOO your way into being Florida’s most copacetic Heisman nominee this year. Dames: “He’s the bees’ knees!” Fellas: “He’s quite a fella!” Offensive coordinator Steve Addazio: HURRRRRRRRRNNNNGGGGGHHHH WHERE’S MAH THINKIN’ STICK HURGGGNNNNNGHHHH

From here at EDSBS Weekly: You’re the bees knees’, Caleb, and your crazy three-point dance has doing the lindy hop trying to keep up! GET HOT, GONE DADDY!!!

Florida’s offense has reduced us to Jazz Age jibberish. We don’t know what’s going on, either, unless the idea was to feature Caleb Sturgis in this year’s offense exclusively.

#11 Ohio State @ Toledo

Holly: Aaron Opelt IS The Brave Little Toaster IN The Brave Little Toaster. The toast (sorry) of the MAC brings his flingin’ arm up against its first real defensive test of the year. Will the Buckeyes rebound from last week’s debacle when faced with a team that should by all rights be an easy target? Hayll, no. Toledo will cover that unconscionable 20.5 line at the very least, and in fact, let’s pick them to win outright, because they’re named “Rockets” and because if I picked against them, Toledo fans wouldn’t send me poorly veiled and spellchecked death threats. Got a long car trip this afteroon, and I’ll need the entertainment.

Can that guy play linebacker? (And does the Brave Little Toaster die at the end? I forget.

Tennessee @ #1 Florida

Orson: Brandon Spikes IS the County Assessor in DON’T EVER FUCK WITH THE COUNTY ASSESSOR BITCH. You know who’s been teeny eeny weeny mouse quiet? THE COUNTY ASSESSOR BITCH. Brandon Spikes hasn’t said anything all week, but his presence in shutting down the Tennessee run game will mean mo’ Crompton, and mo’ Crompton means mo’ interceptions, since he has thrown many more interceptions than one should as a college quarterback. The County Assessor will decide what real estate you can afford, Mr. Crompton. Considering your credit rating, it looks like you can afford nothing in the ZIP code of 32601.

Holly: Lane Kiffin IS Chuck Barris IN Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Is any of it true? Who cares; we’re just here for the spectacle and the stories. Giant motherfucking catfish rains down the sky, Nick Reveiz racks up thirty tackles, Boo Berry breaks the NCAA career interception yardage record on the road in Gainesville and Tennessee returns to the Motherland victorious by a score of a billionteen to six. (What the hell were you expecting?)

#3 USC @ Washington

Holly: Steve Sarkisian IS Luke Skywalker IN A New Hope. Bratty early Luke who just wants to pick up some power converters. Yoda’s coming to YOUR swamp now, Sarky, and he likes your moves but you’re still Washington. Trojans, but a close enough game to send the Huskies to the locker room with the cuddly moral victory.

Orson: USC IS Martin Blank IN Gross Pointe Blank. It’s not me, says Pete Carroll, as he plugs three in the head of Washington at close range. Even friends get it if the name’s on the contract, Steve BLAM! /picksupdiscovermagazine /readsidly

Tulsa @ #12 Oklahoma

Todd Graham IS Patrick Bateman IN American Psycho . Up the coaching ladder no matter the cost, even if he had to stab people to get an incremental jump from Rice to Tulsa (the equivalent of strangling a co-worker for a promotion from assistant general manager to senior assistant general manager.) Now looking around and noticing the subtle bone-white of other people’s business cards, and sensing the sudden hollow cheapness of his world. I’m not saying he flexes in the mirror while filming his own sexual encounters. I’m saying he flexes in the mirror and screams “Yeah, Todd!” while filming his own sexual encounters. Two entirely different things. (This means Tulsa loses, btw.)

Holly: Bob Stoops IS Dana Marschz IN Hamlet 2. Completely and cheerfully divorced from reality. Look, it’s entirely beyond possible that I’m not coming back from this weekend alive, so let’s really live and call the upset here as well. Is it really an upset without Sam Bradford? Vegas seems to think so, setting the line at 17.5. Is that even going to be an issue with the departure of Gus Malzahn? What the hell, we’re about to find out. The Golden Hurricane (oooh, singular MLS-style name, edgy!) has torn up two previous (and bad) opponents by a combined score of 81-23. This is only slightly larger than Oklahoma’s last margin of victory at their previous meeting.

#19 Nebraska @ #13 Virginia Tech

Holly: Urban Meyer IS Rosie Perez IN Do The Right Thing. With a gun to my head and Diamonique Cold Meyer at the other end of it, I could not come up with a game I have less interest in watching than this one. Can I pick the West Virginia game instead? Because speaking of Malzahn, he’s about to bitchmake Bill Stewart at Auburn in primetime like the bitch Bill Stewart is.

Orson: Bo Pelini IS Alex Baldwin IN The Bear. The Bear’s antagonist–a bear–all too perfectly sums up what it’s like to play Virginia Tech, a huge, mean animal that, if you have one or two well-aimed bullets, can be killed nine times out of ten. Nebraska has a few of those in the form of an actual offense, something Virginia Tech continues to innovatively play football without. Close, as BEAMERBALL (TM) tends to be, but ultimately leaning towards the Cornhuskers.

Michigan State @ Notre Dame

Orson: Golden Tate IS Pele IN Victory. Notre Dame will go down early to the Spartans. Defeat will be in the air. Doom will tunnel up through the locker room at halftime and beckon the Irish to follow them to a season of bailing right nastily on Weis, but then everyone will remember that no one can cover Golden Tate, and that Charlie Weis should just go back to the four play “Toss-Draw-Deep ball-crossing pattern” offense they’ve been running since halfway through last year, and then it’s Dantonio Face time for the entire second half. Victoire! Victoire! Victoire! It will be just like the end of Victory, except for the raunchy sex with the locals, since that will get you kicked out of school if you do it in the wrong places in South Bend.

Holly: Tate Forcier IS Pete IN Pete’s Dragon, with a special guest appearance by Rich Rodriguez as HOLY SHIT A DRAGON. If we were even keeping track of our scores week to week, I would be logic-bound to take the Irish. We are not, and I am not, and though that one Domer troll has mysteriously disappeared since The Recent Unpleasantness, this is kind of a fun habit. Dantonio over Weis in a surl-off, and Spartans over Irish out of uncut Colombian spite. (I’m sorry, Harrison Smith. Forgive me, Golden Tate. It’s Hate Week, and it’s leaking everywhere.)

Navy @ Pitt

Holly: Dave Wannstedt IS David Spritz IN The Weather Man. Navy and Miami were my ‘09 BCS sleeper picks. The Baby ‘Canes are acquitting themselves quite nicely, but Navy took a heartbreaker of a haymaker early in Columbus before righting the ship against a not-awful Louisiana Tech team. And if anyone’s prepared to deliver a loss when he shouldn’t, it’s the Wannstache. Make it happen, Pitt Kitties.

Orson: Ken Niumatololo IS The Wolf IN Pulp Fiction. I have a mess, Ken. A huge one, since I’m now in week three of Wannstache Upset Alert, and have zero to show for it save for this tripled-down bet on Dave Wannstedt doing what comes naturally to him: blowing a game against inferior competition. I’ll make you coffee, whatever you need, man. Just clean up the dead bodies a suddenly consistent Pitt team keeps leaving in my car. Buffalo’s brains are all over the backseat.

Florida State @ #7 BYU

Bronco Mendenhall IS Kirk Douglas IN Spartacus. Running from the hills to terrorize an old empire wearing nothing but a spear and a jock strap. Okay, more than that, since these are Mormons, but remember two key plot points:

1. Spartacus rips Rome a new one, and

2. He ends up dead in the end.

But but but but BYU is a BCS buster and beat Oklahoma and THAT’S JUST WHAT COLLEGE FOOTBALL WOULD WANT YOU TO THINK. The patron god of this sport is Loki, and he’s telling you that mischief would be a tattered, tottering FSU team rolling into Provo and beating BYU. Mischief, he will have.

Holly: Bobby Bowden IS Theoden IN LOTR: The Two Towers. Not a whisper of an upset here. With a defense that’s as somnambulant as Bowden The Elder himself, and Max Hall in his third year flashing 325 passing yards, this will be over fast, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be pretty.

#23 Georgia @ Arkansas

Holly: Mark Richt IS Edmond IN Edmond. Which is more to be feared? Evil Richt with a chip-shouldered, something-to-prove team or Bobby Petrino leading a squad of indeterminate quality? Depends, are we playing football? Georgia, but not without a few scares.

Orson: Bobby Petrino AS Willard IN Willard Actually, I just wanted to imagine Petrino as the king of Rats. (No reason! We swear!) Remember what happens when SEC East teams go to the West? Horrible, terrible, unpredictable things, for the most part, especially against an improving Arkansas squad. Holly says “scares;” we say “hordes of rats devouring Joe Cox.” Arkansas gets its first big scalp in the Petrino era in a shootout.

Texas Tech @ #2 Texas

Holly: Will Muschamp IS Ben Wade IN 3:10 to Yuma. Say, did you know these two teams have a history? Because it seemed very important last night in the midst of an actual football game being played on television at that moment that concerned neither Texas nor Texas Tech that we know Texas Tech and Texas have met before! I wonder how that turned out? Anybody hear? I’ll take a jittery McCoy over an unfinished Potts, though if he hadn’t gone and shaved his beard this would be a treacherous pick.

Orson: Taylor Potts IS Hudson IN Aliens. You want some Texas defense! (Discharges 5 TDs in a noble loss.) HUH BITCH? (Fires seventy passes constantly throwing until the final whistle.) Oh, now you want some? (Scanning for open receivers, sees none, tries to buy time.) IS THAT ALL YOU GOT? (Fires off fifteen yard completion as he his eaten and killed by Sergio Kindle.)

Praise be to Allah and his only prophet Mohammed, and Go Gators. Madame, please cover your hair and go behind that screen. You are making me nervous with your chin and visible mouth. My religion does not approve.

Praise be to Allah that he has seen to give me so many talented teammates, the blocking to keep out infidel pass rushers, and my brother, Brandon Spikes, who crushes those who would oppose our jihad by even considering running up the middle. To Allah all praise is due.

The sword shall fall on Charleston Southern tomorrow. They stand in the way of our holy war against all that is evil in college football. May God mete out the punishment that is due to them, and let their blood water the grass of Florida Field so that its brilliant green may shine into the next week and forever.

We shall take their complex blitz packages seriously, or at least as seriously as you have to take a team that placed third in the Big South Conference last year.

They shall be destroyed, inshallah, before the second quarter’s close. Then I shall sit on the bench and wear a headset while jumping up and down enthusiastically. Let Allah be praised, and let us wreak fiery destruction upon the enemy unto our caliph Meyer’s satisfaction.

Praise to all Albert’s creation, and may God Bless You all, except the infidels here, who shall die in a fiery apocalypse of their own making. Apologies. That’s not really negotiable here.

Listen and stand back from the speakers, because it really might give a hater permanent insomnia, have your girl droolin’ for their toolin’, and turn a sucker mc into a pumpkin on the first listen.

One quibble: “Retard Erickson likes it on the back door/usually on the bathroom floor.” Untrue. Back in the seventies the Cap’n might have let a woman tap gently on the garden gate to Prostate Park, but once the eighties came along and everyone got sane it was strictly private property signs back there and all business to the front entrance, please.

Oh, and good morning to you. TWO DAYS GET YOUR WAR ON ALL CAPS GRRRRRRR.

…and we have our new favorite linebacker in the Big 12, because anyone who appreciates the Ghost Town DJs and who form tackles well is a friend of this site. (HT: Mizzourah.)

Got that? Did you count up all the things that looked wrong? Good, now check the answer key after the jump and let’s see how you did:

1. It’s all about Sandra Bullock. Not that the woman Bullock plays, Leigh Anne Tuohy, wasn’t an integral part of the story Lewis told in his book; she worked as hard as, if not harder than, anyone to lift Michael Oher up out of poverty. But she wasn’t the main character in the book; she looks like she’s going to be the main character in the movie. And that probably means that . . .

2. We’ve got another white-woman-saves-poor-aimless-black-people story on our hands. You could, if you were so inclined, condense The Blind Side down to that very cursory description, and to some extent film adaptations can only ever be stripped-down, USA Today versions of the books on which they’re based, but still, The Blind Side was so much deeper and more complex than that. We could’ve gotten at least an attempt at translating that complexity to the screen, but instead it looks like what we’re going to get is a lot more along the lines of Sandra Bullock being, in the words of Jack Donaghy, “Michelle Pfeiffer to your angry black kid who learns that poetry is just another way to rap.”

3. The “You threaten my son, you threaten me” scene. Is my memory of the book completely faulty, or did that never actually happen? Someone telling Mike Oher to “sleep with one eye open”? What are your cheap gangsta theatrics doing in my peanut butter?

4. The use of The Fray’s “How to Save a Life” in the first part of the trailer. Of the grown men I’ve known who have ever expressed any affinity for that song (or The Fray in general), all of them fell into at least one of two categories: a) Guys who had at least circumstantial evidence against their heterosexuality and b) guys who played it on their guitars so they’d look brooding and sensitive enough to pull in chicks. I’ve kind of gotten off topic here, but the point is The Fray has no place in any film that purports to be about sports.

Bright spots? Well, Quinton Aaron looks suitably mountain-sized to pass as Michael Oher (no mean feat), and Sandra Bullock is smokin’ hot as a blonde. And there’s always the cameos by Saban and Orgeron to look forward to. (Window treatments FTW!) Otherwise, it looks suspiciously like we’ve got some heavy football movie/chick flick miscegenation going on here, and the outlook, as the Magic 8-Ball might say, is not good. We’ll have to save the final verdict for November 20, of course, but this grand jury is still prepared to at least hand down an indictment.

Cross-posted at Hey Jenny Slater.

SCENE: A muggy midsummer day in an expansive backyard in a Knoxville suburb. Five young men occupy a treehouse high in the branches of a stately oak: Tennessee head coach LANE KIFFIN, assistant coaches ED ORGERON, EDDIE GRAN and LANCE THOMPSON, and strength and conditioning coach AARON AUSMUS. KIFFIN bangs a mallet on a wooden box.

KIFFIN: This meeting of our super-secret club will now come to order! Gentlemen, I have called you all here because you are my best friends and the perfect people to become charter members of the most secret club in all of Tennessee. You can’t tell anyone about our clubhouse or about this meeting, understood?

ORGERON: WHEDDUHSNAXXAT? AHWONSUMMOHTATTACHIPS!

GRAN: What’d he say?

THOMPSON: I think he said he wants some more potato chips.

KIFFIN: Dangit, Ed, you just ate the entire can of Pringles! If I want more, I’m gonna have to go all the way down and sneak some out of the kitchen, and my dad’s down there! Now, the first order of business is to decide what kind of club this is gonna be, and I’ve got an idea that I think is really —

AUSMUS: The superhero justice league!

KIFFIN: No, Aaron, that’s stupid —

THOMPSON: Pirates!

GRAN: Mike Leach already took pirates.

ORGERON: WAMPRATUNNAJUNGAFATTINFOWAHHSS!

GRAN: What’d he say?

THOMPSON: Swamp rat, jungle — OK, I have no idea.

KIFFIN: No, no, guys, I already have an idea! We’ll be the “Super-Secret Junior G-Men Club.”

GRAN: Uh . . . what’s a G-man?

KIFFIN: Like a FBI agent. They fight crime and catch bank robbers.

AUSMUS: Oooh, let’s be bank robbers!

KIFFIN: No, Aaron, I just said we’re gonna be G-men!

AUSMUS: Why? I don’t want to be a G-man.

KIFFIN: But I already got all these decoder rings! I had to eat five boxes of Raisin Bran to get these! All right, time to vote: Who votes that we become the Super-Secret Junior G-Men Club?

KIFFIN’s hand shoots up, and ORGERON’s and THOMPSON’s follow.

KIFFIN: That’s three votes! So it’s settled — we’re the Super-Secret Junior G-Men Club, and our mission is to foil the plans of evildoers. Now we need to decide on officers. Since this club was my idea, I think I should get to be president. And as president, I appoint Ed my vice-president, since he’s my muscle and my right-hand man.

ORGERON: YEEEAHHHH! AHMMAVAHPREZNENT!

GRAN: What do I get to be?

KIFFIN: You can be the treasurer and handle all the money.

THOMPSON: I want to be prime minister!

KIFFIN: We can’t have a prime minister and a president.

THOMPSON: Russia has a prime minister and a president!

KIFFIN: We’re not Russia. We need someone to take down the minutes of our meetings — you can be the secretary.

THOMPSON: Secretary? That’s a girl’s job!

KIFFIN: But this club is no girls allowed.

THOMPSON: So what, I don’t want to be secretary! I didn’t even have to come here in the first place, you know — I could be hanging out over at Nick Saban’s house right now. He has a Wii.

KIFFIN: All right, all right — I’ll be the prime minister, since that one’s more powerful, Ed will be my, uh, vice-prime minister, and you can be the president.

ORGERON: YEEEAHHHH! AHMMAVAHPRAHMINNISTUH!

KIFFIN: And Aaron, you can be the secretary.

AUSMUS: Why do I have to be the secretary?

KIFFIN: Because we need one and there’s no one left! Now that all that’s decided, we need to recruit more members. Ed, you take the neighborhood around the lake, Eddie, you take the mall . . .

AUSMUS: And then we go foil the plans of evildoers, right?

KIFFIN: No, once we have about a dozen members, then we have a big club meeting with all the new members, and we’ll talk about how to recruit even more people.

AUSMUS: Um, are we ever gonna do anything besides recruiting?

KIFFIN: Do you want this to be the biggest secret club in town, or not?

THOMPSON: Besides, recruiting is more fun, retard!

AUSMUS: If all we’re gonna do is go out and recruit more members, I don’t know if I even wanna be in this stupid club!

KIFFIN: Then guess what, you’re no longer a member! You’re banished from this clubhouse!

AUSMUS: FINE! Maybe I’ll go back and re-join Steve Spurrier’s club! HE has a national-title ring!

AUSMUS storms out the door and climbs down the rope ladder to the ground, and stomps off in a huff.

ORGERON: YAKNOWWHAAA, WEGON’ HAFTACOMMUPWIFF SUMMFORAHH NEWMEMMUZTADDOO. MEBBEWEHSHUDDOOO SUMMASIDES RAKROOTIN’.

GRAN: What’d he say?

THOMPSON: Think he said we’re gonna need something for our new members to do, so maybe we should do something besides recruiting.

ORGERON: YEEAHHHH! SUMMASIDES RAKROOTIN’!

KIFFIN: Yeah, I guess we’re going to have to launch our mission against Urban Meyer eventually.

THOMPSON: You mean like . . . fight him?

Long pause. KIFFIN looks uncomfortable.

KIFFIN: No, we can’t actually fight him until we’ve recruited more members. Let’s . . . leave a mean note in his mailbox!

ORGERON: YEEEAHHHH!

KIFFIN: Eddie, since our secretary has been banished from the club, I’m appointing you temporary secretary. Write this down: “Dear Urban Meyer . . . you, uh, don’t know who we are, but we are your worst enemy, and . . . uh . . . we’re going to sing ‘Rocky Top’ all night long after we defeat your club! And we will have a BLAST! Signed, Lane Kiffin’s Super-Secret Junior G-Men Club.”

GRAN: Wait, should we put it in code with our decoder rings?

THOMPSON: Yeah! Put it in code! Then he’ll be even MORE confused!

KIFFIN: Uh . . . guys, I don’t actually have the decoder rings yet. It said they take six to eight weeks for delivery.

THOMPSON: . . . Oh.

GRAN: Should we put it in his mailbox anyway?

KIFFIN: No, no, let’s wait until we have the rings. For right now, let’s just concentrate on new members. Who else do we know that we can recruit? . . .

The treehouse begins to shake ever so slightly, and presently the wizened face of Lane’s dad, MONTE KIFFIN, appears in the doorway.

MONTE: Goddammit, Lane, are you still up here?

KIFFIN: Jeez, dad, we’re trying to have a secret meeting here! We’ve got all these new members of our secret club to recruit!

MONTE: You know what you should try? Recruiting some answers to your homework.

KIFFIN: Dad, I said I’d do it later! God!!

MONTE: Or how about that playbook project you were working on for school? I told you I’d help you out with the defensive part, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna do the whole thing for you by myself. You gonna get to that or what?

KIFFIN: As soon as we finish with our meeting!

MONTE: (sighs) Fine. You’ve got five minutes.

KIFFIN: Ten minutes!

MONTE: Five minutes, young man, and don’t make me come up here again, ‘cause next time I’ll be comin’ with my belt.

KIFFIN: Fine! Five minutes! Just leave us alone so we can make our list of new members!

MONTE: Fine. And maybe while you’re at it you can make a list of places where that can of Pringles might’ve gotten off to.

MONTE, grumbling, clambers back down the rope ladder.

KIFFIN: God, my dad is so embarrassing.

ORGERON: AY, DIDDNYOOSAY YODADDYADDA BUNCHAPLAYBOWAHS INNAHWUHKSHOP?

GRAN: What’d he say?

THOMPSON: Something about Lane’s dad having a bunch of Playboys in his workshop.

KIFFIN: NO GIRLS ALLOWED!!

FIN

We will be celebrating properly, i.e. with wine and explosives, this afternoon. Remember us fondly.

Does the Pope shit in the woods? Quoth the Raven:

[Meyer] turned to me and asked. “Is it OK to make this announcement here?”

I knew what he was going to say because he said something similar when the speculative story surfaced three weeks ago.

Meyer turned back to the golfers and said, “I’m not going to Notre Dame. Ever. I’m going to be the coach at Florida for a long time, as long as they want me.”

OK. So we’re done talking about this now, right? Urban Meyer is coaching Florida. And will continue to coach at Florida. (Finebaum column forthcoming: “Unless he doesn’t!” Tee hee!)

That’s why they make the big bandwidth. There’s scraping by in the offseason content hardscrabble, then there’s getting 700 words out of the hairstyles at West Virginia’s summer strength workouts:

Connolly is no slave to fashion. In his five years here, he has gone completely shorn and shaggy. He is liable to show up with a goatee, a Van Dyke or full beard.

Lazear may be vying with Connolly strand for strand, but Davis’ ‘do, which the DB keeps pinned in with a flourishing pony tail may outlast both of his teammates. Tandy’s hair probably falls a tad shorter than Davis’.

We’re in awe. Truly, madly, deeply.

Still better than I, Robot. This is supposed to look like the Iron Giant or the Tin Man, and other than being made of metal fails completely in both respects. Still, there’s something familiar…ahh, yes. Alabama, the sub-Dreamworks knockoff of football: it ain’t pretty, but does it ever rake in the cash. (Trivia: Terry Bradshaw has a small role in this film as “Broken Arm Bot.” No, no need to thank us.)

The Lord’s work. It’s a buyer’s market for kickoff countdowns this time of year, but the 7th Floor is putting their own…particular spin on an old trick.

This is us, pointing and nodding approvingly at whichever corner of the internet Miami’s staked out. ]]> http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/07/14/curious-index-7142009/feed/ 34 http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/05/14/paulus-move-is-not-new-and-may-not-be-what-he-expects/ http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/05/14/paulus-move-is-not-new-and-may-not-be-what-he-expects/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 17:36:17 +0000 Orson Swindle http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/?p=10267 AP–HOUSTON, TEXAS. Greg Paulus’ move to football from basketball may not be all it’s cracked up to be, says someone who should know.

The kneebrace limits his movement, but even now Dikembe Mutombo can feel the rush of tiny feet beneath him scoring touchdown after touchdown as he backpedals across his living room.

“I WISH HIM LUCK, BUT TO PLAY FOOTBALL IS SOOOOO HARD,” said Mutombo through a translator.

Disenchanted with the NBA, Mutombo received a waiver from the NCAA in 2003 to play defensive back for Ty Willingham at Notre Dame, using his final year of eligibility the Congolese center had left from his time at Georgetown to attend graduate school at Notre Dame.

Graduate school allowed him to try something a friend of his suggested mere months before.

“I’d heard so much about him, and when he walked in, I thought ‘That’s what we need! A shot blocker to swat down some of those jump balls USC’s always throwing!’” says Regis Philbin, the television host and Notre Dame alum who met Mutombo at a charity function. “I was joking at first, but he couldn’t be stopped.”

“REGIS PLANTED THE SEED, AND I MAKE IT HAPPEN ROAAARRGGHHHH,” said Mutombo, glancing over at the green number five jersey framed on his wall. “HAMMER GURG PLAY WINFIGHTER.”

Mutombo saw his first significant game action against Florida State, but coach Ty Willingham had special plans for the massive corner.

“We thought the idea was an excellent one. Bringing him into the game in goal line situations was an excellent concept we came up with, in so much that putting him against USC’s receivers was going to be part of the process of making this team better, and that’s what we thought would work at the time and give us an excellent chance of winning. That is what our coaches decided at the time to the best of our capabilities. Am I doing this interview like I’m about to be fired? I am, right? I’m sorry. It’s habit.”

In that game, Mutombo entered the game once USC reached the 17 yard line on the second play of the game. Then the grand experiment began to sour in front of thousands of horrified Irish eyes.

“We just threw under him,” said quarterback Carson Palmer in a phone interview. “He kept wagging his finger, and every time he did we just threw slow, lazy passes underneath him.”

Palmer finished the game with 638 yards passing and 14 TDs, all thrown at, around, and more often than not under Mutombo. Palmer had to pause several times during the interview to compose himself in between fits of laughter.

“By the end of the game the receivers were jumping off his shins and catching balls on the carom off his toes. The only drawback was having to change my compression shorts from sharting myself laughing in the third quarter when he stumbled, fell into the stands, and crushed a tuba player.”

Even today at the end of a very successful NBA career, Mutombo winces at the memory.

“IN LIFE MUTOMBO HAS NOT TASTED DEFEAT OR SHAME RORAAHRHRHHGHHHORAAAGUORAAGGRHHH. THIS MEMORY BURNS MUTOMBO LIKE A KINCHASA WOMAN OF PLEASURE BURNS HER CUSTOMERS. FISHCLANK URAANGA LUIS SCOLAMART.”

If you haven’t seen Texts from Last Night, we’re about to alleviate the poverty of your existence with a bailout of unprecedented comic size and pork-itude. Taken from reader-submitted text messages sent in various impaired states or shortly thereafter, it’s pretty much a rundown of your wasted years that you may either look fondly back on, or use as a basis of comparison for your current dissolute life. (We feel much, much better about ourselves after reading it.)

There’s no reason this couldn’t happen in our corner of the universe, of course. Or in yours, football-wise.

(404) How’d the date go? Run the triple option on her? LOL

(404) No. Ricky Jean-Francois ran in and took her before I could.

(865) How’s it feel to be a Tennessee Vol, huh?

(352) This is a wrong number, this is Urban Meyer, and you’re sending texts to a recruit in a dead period.

(865) UR TEXTING RECRUITZ IN A DED PERYUD LOL -KIFFZ

(480) so it turns out you can rearrange the letters in “scottsdale” to spell “milf city.” who knew?

(225) Just split a pair of twos and then doubled down. You’re damn right it worked.

(213) Up at 4 a.m. playing a little jenga with Michael J. Fox. For charity. So inspiring. WIN FOREVER.

(614) Woke up in parking lot of Caesar’s Indiana with my arm in a sling and no pants. Arm is not broken. Tell Krenzel that’s the last time we go out “recruiting” together.

(205) Don’t text me. I’m busy. But next time, buy nipple clamps with real bite, dammit, if you’re gonna use ‘em.

(512) Everyone, let’s welcome Chris Anthony to this world: 8 lbs., 7 oz, and a fine commit to our 2027 Longhorn recruiting class already.

(305) Just come play for Da U. I promise not to tell you anymore stories about people I’ve seen get shot or stabbed.

(517) From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight. Every tie, tied.

(319) What should I do?

(319) Lay low for a few days. Hope no one took pictures. Remind all that snitches get stitches.

(319) Ur the best Coach.

(319) Not Coach either. Call me Transporter. Delete this text message.

(319) Gotcha

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Sarah Jessica Parker Tripp Thornton Oh God Why The Fuck Do Southern Bourgeoisie Insist On Giving Their Children Eight Thousand Names John Parker Wilson. Naked, exposed, and vulnerable: all the things an actor fears, but must embrace in a role. In him, we see our own demise, but gorier and more painful than could possibly be imagined.

Best Animated Short. Jeff Demps in Le Waterbug.

Best Animated Feature Film. Mack Brown’s All-Singing, All-Dancing, All-Shillling Extravaganza, playing for two straight months in December and January to sold-out audiences on ESPN, with a cast of thousands of shrieking wronged Texas fans.

Best Performance By An Actor in a Supporting Role. Percy Harvin in Braveheart Two (You Can Rip Out My Intestines But That Just Makes Me Faster, Fuckers.)

Best Score. Ohio State fanbase and the original compositions “Screams,” “Screams Again,” and “Continued Din of Communal Screaming Ending in Silent Weeping (aka “Boeckman’s Theme”).

Best Visual Effects. Knowshon Moreno in Die Hard 5 Splayed Out In Midair (But Still Lost To Georgia Tech).

Foreign Language Film – Bowl Winner Notre Dame. Critics say: ACCLAIMED! BELOVED! INCOMPREHENISIBLE!

Best Director: Jeremiah Masoli for the production Sit, Bitch.

Best Documentary Short: My Football Career, By Jonathan Crompton.

Best Makeup: Texas Tech’s Brandon Carter in his stirring role in Attention Whore.

Achievement in Sound Editing: Eric Berry in the zany musical “You Didn’t Need Math and Empathy, Anyway.”

Best Actor in a Leading Role Bill Stewart in I Am A Division I Football Coach.

Best Documentary Feature. The Sun Bowl. Irrefutable proof that documentaries are boring.

Best Achievement in Editing. ESPN, who artfully used the 7 second delay to edit out numerous ethnic slurs, profanities, and incoherent tics from the speech of Lou Holtz, who appeared to be only a borderline personality not in fact kept tied to his desk and at arm’s length from his fellow hosts with a webbing of leather restraints. (Also nominated for visual effects.)

Best art direction. The surreal artwork and ghostly minimalism of the Michigan offense.

Best Screenplay Based On Actual Material. Andre Smith’s It Had Nothing To Do With An Agent, Y’all!

Best Screenplay, Fiction. Collected college football writers of the universe for Georgia: 2008 MNC Champions With Ease And Flair.

Best Picture of the Year. Slumdog Millionaire, by Houston Nutt.

Is the SEC the default national league? Brother Clay says yes, and get used to it. (So what does that make Raycom, exactly?)

We lost all interest in this Mike Leach contract negotiations storyline right around the time the Dread Pirate Cap’n hired a freaking publicist to organize a student support rally on his behalf, but for the Red Raider partisans and the very, very bored, he can be seen here dropping some science on an adoring public. (Point of order, though: That clause in his contract the department wants to add, about all speaking fees, book revenues, etc. belonging to the University? Group 5, is that kind of thing normal? ‘Splain below, if you would.)

Randy Shannon has had just about enough of your guff. Bryce Brown may lose his spot at Miami if he doesn’t quit slutting around.

Excuses to post this picture? You’re soaking in ‘em!

It gets better, now:

Brown’s own personal mishandler, Brian Butler, told the AP that he was “unaware” scholarship offers expired.

Try and contain your shock; it’s unseemly.

The rest of us, meanwhile, aren’t too wild about grown-ass men changing the pronunciation of their last name to shill for awards they don’t even win. Joe Theeeeesman does not care for your new-fangled snap notions. Blah blah Tim Tebow lacks fundamentals gimmick offense rinse spit repeat.

Items We Require, Vol. 249C: From the makers of Bacon Salt, a spread even Joey Sunshine would love. Quoth they: “Everything should taste like bacon.” You’re welcome. ]]> http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/02/18/curious-index-2182009/feed/ 35 http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/01/20/the-edsbs-inaugural-speech-2009/ http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/01/20/the-edsbs-inaugural-speech-2009/#comments Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:48:32 +0000 Orson Swindle http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/?p=8605
HT: Kleph, via Paste’s Obamiconme widget.

[/placeshandonATHFSeasonThreeDVDcollection]

I stand here before you humbled by your choice as your college football meta-chronicler. Literally hundreds of you stand before me today. I will not forget your choice; nor will I remove the annoying Zwinky ads, because they get us that paper, son.

We stand on the edge of a great precipice: the offseason. We have have faced such travails before, and will face them again. Know that we will face them bravely, and that with the help of discounted Spanish wines, drank, online pornography, recruiting service reports, spring football, and endless previewing and re-previewing, we will survive…weakened, sunburned, and likely with five new addictions, but nevertheless intact and ready for the sweet, nourishing magic teat of football to be thrust in our mouths once more.

We promise the following things as we take hold of another offseason:

1. We will uphold the Fulmer Cup. We will not yield to the urge to change the name, nor slacken our eyes’ fixed gaze on the point total, nor be held in thrall by the desire to be unfair to one team. As always, we shall be unfair to all and aggressively so. If this be our Old Testament, we shall play the smite-y god of this chapter with zeal.

2. We shall attempt to follow recruiting sort of maybe okay we’ll gloss over it. Recruiting is creepy and will always be, but it is all we have in this tired hour, so let it be covered. Sort of. As in, we’ll pay attention to the interesting bits about recruits with interesting names and flashy stats. Also, our top story is going to be whatever BARKEVIOUS MINGO is doing right now, which happens to be: dozing off in sixth period geography.

3. We swear to swear. We will invent and employ new profanities with fucking zeal and shitdamned enthusiasm. The key remains Rabelaisian, which is the frilly term for “obsessed with farting, fucking, and using words like fucking” It sounds better when you drop that at cocktail parties than saying “I run a website for the elegantly crude college football fan.”

4. We will unabashedly remain uncommitted on both the BCS and playoff fronts, thus allowing us to stab in all directions. We don’t really care about a clear champion in college football, mostly because we think the idea of being intellectually singular about almost anything at all is sort of peasant-y and tardbillified, and also because the idea of a playoff means you could have the Arizona Cardinals scenario where a middling team hits a hot streak at the end of a the season and steals a championship…all despite having an average season overall. Also, it allows for maximum stabbiness, and as long as Holly’s on board, that remains part of the mission statement.

5. Nothing else changes. Pretty much. There may be a site redesign, and there’s offseason projects a-plenty, but for the most part it will remain Freekery, profanity, actual stories embedded in the fourth paragraph of a mock dialogue between a sex offender Basilisk and a football-related personality, and the occasional thing so bizarre it frightens you a bit. We won’t crack on stupid bloggers or writers for the most part because we believe in the words of P.J. O’Rourke: “Never fight an inanimate object.” It’s like beating a chaise lounge with a sledgehammer, repetitive and always eliciting the same reaction from the furniture.

Let us remember the words of Cthulhu bless you, and may Cthulhu bless the United States of EDSBS, and postpone our inevitable destruction by his thousand eyed tentacles for another day. (It’s either him or Orgeron, and it’s inevitable either way.)

And now, for our invocation, brought to you by Rick Warren.

Rick Warren: Lord, let us–

[/hits Rick Warren in the face with the flat side of a fucking shovel.]

Amen, good people of EDSBS. Tim Tebow loves you.

Bob: So, how does this work?

Kelly: Okay, Bob and Jim. In the fun-for-everyone game of Cranium, the final round is decided by one question we determine at random with a roll of the die.

Jim: Sounds easy enough. And familiar.

Kelly: It should. Now, all you have to do is answer the one question, and you’ll have won the game.

Todd: Please get this right guys. I’m so tired of this game. No one except the women want to play it, and it takes FOREVER.

Bob: Don’t worry, Todd. Jim and I are gonna have us outta here in two shakes, buddy. Roll!

[Forty-five minutes pass. Todd sits at the table with his head in his hands.]

Todd: Okay, let’s see if you can get this one. “ZELPUZ.” Unscramble these letters, and you’ll have the answer.

Jim: No sweat. We got “cattle” earlier. This should be easy. Let’s go, Big Game!

Bob: Right behind you, Senator.

Jim: This is ours. I can feel it.

Todd: Okay, here’s your word. The clue is “activity.” Turn over the timer and….GO!!!

[The card reads: "Sdtgtetriianiiop" The answer is "prestidigitation." They will not get this in a thousand rolls of a thousand dice in the casinos of a very blue and improbable hell.]

Jim: That’s harder than cattle.

Bob: Yes. Yes it is.

[Three hours later.]

Jim: I swear I one one of these games once.

Bob: Okay, we’re gonna get it. What is it? Kelly? WAKE UP KELLY.

Kelly: [picks head off desk.] UM–sorry. I was nodding off there. Guys, we really don’t have to finish this–

Todd: [surrounded by beer bottles] Yeah, seriously guys. We don’t–

Jim and Bob: YES WE DO WE HAVE TO WIN THE FINAL ROUND.

Kelly: But Todd and I won hours ago. Remember? I sensosketched “bus stop,” and we got the last one?

Jim: I don’t remember that.

Bob: Funny, I don’t remember that either.

[Todd and Kelly look at each other.]

Kelly: Okay, the last question, and then you leave.

Jim: Fine, fine. Just ask the question.

Todd: It’s a humdinger. Hum the song. Leave our house it’s 2:30 in the morning. Bob, you’re humming.

Jim: But I like to hum, Todd—

Todd: YOU SHUT THE FUCKING FUCK UP TRESSEL. Bob is humming, and then he’s leaving and we’re calling game.

Jim: Well, okay then.

Todd: Here’s the card. Go. Then leave before I call the police.

[Bob takes the card. It reads: "Hot Blooded," by Foreigner. ]

Bob: Oh, we’ve got this.

[Bob Stoops stands up and begins humming out the guitar line and playing enthusiastic air guitar to the song.]

Bob: MMM MMM mmm…MMM mm MMMM MMMMMHHHHH…

Jim: I’m…I’m sorry. I just listen to gospel and country. Is this a gospel song? Can we have another question?

Kelly: LEAVE.

Bob: No, wait! We can get this! Can we do one with the putty? Those are fun!

Jim: Yeah, the play-doh stuff. We’re good at those.

Kelly: I’m dialing 9 and 1 and waiting for you to leave.

Jim and Bob: WHY DOES THIS FEEL FAMILIAR?

Todd: I hate this fucking game.