Not seen: fullback with shotgun, dog devouring middle linebacker.

The article’s mostly quotes, but it will make you thirst for a day when one could spin a fine carriage to a game with a syphilitic lassie, take a sip of sight-destroying Virginia rotgut, and soil one of the three pairs of pants you owned while watching the youth of America engage in the kind of bloodsport that made this nation strong.

Few players wore helmets, and a close observer declared that as Harvard and Yale pummeled each other, “It was the most magnificent sight … every lineman’s face was dripping with blood.”

Since this does concern a team from the Boston area, we can only assume this was the reddest, most poetic blood ever and that no other blood has been bled so painfully or nobly from an athlete in any sport ever. Additional quoted goodness comes from former Confederate general John Mosby, the “Grey Ghost” who summed up the sport thusly:

The old warrior called football a “barbarous amusement” that “develops the brute dormant in man’s nature and puts the player on a level with … a polar bear.”

BUT POLAR BEARS ARE SO CUTE. Just like Brandon Spikes, who like a polar bear attempts to rip the face off first, then go for the innards. Should you think Mosby was a killjoy still chapped at losing the war of Northern Aggression, he did understand one key element of the game that has endured:

“It is notorious that football teams are largely composed of professional mercenaries who are hired to advertise colleges. Gate money is the valuable consideration.”

And that is how you said “C.R.E.A.M.” in 1905 terms.

*Similar to the Maryland Smokestack I, the Paddy McDuffin offense involved using a spinning fullback located just ahead of the quarterback. The fullback was equipped with a shotgun holding five shells, a blackjack, and a handful of lye mixed with sand, a concoction referred to as “Tiresias Powder” by the Crimson players on the 1904 squad. By rule, only rock salt was permitted as ammo, and headshots were frowned upon as “unsporting” and “Mexico-Spaniardlike in their ruthlessness.

The Paddy McDuffin was outlawed in 1905 along with the Flying Wedges, though its chop-blocking techniques are still employed my many college teams including Auburn, Navy, and Georgia Tech.

The principle is transferable to so many other things, though. For instance, take Brandon Spikes. He is a fierce linebacker, swimming through blocks and sniffing out plays other predatory linebackers miss. He’s practically sharklike, we tell you. Sharks have a lot of positives traits. They kill things well. They never stop moving. They often RSVP for parties well before others and have a natural sensitivity to the issues of LGBT other fish don’t have. They’re sharks, they’re proud, and you can’t take that away from them unless you kill them and eat them. Then you’ve pretty much taken everything away from them, because you’ve eaten them.

Is this Brandon Spikes’ future? With the right insane associative rhetoric, IT VERY WELL COULD BE.

Sharks, who are just like Brandon Spikes and vice versa, can do the same to you, and that’s the problem. Sharks eat things randomly. You might see Brandon Spikes eating a license plate on the side of the road because it’s shiny one day, and then what are you going to do, Florida fans? Let’s not even get on the topic of what happens to pregnant sharks around other sharks.

A pregnant shark at a New Zealand aquarium was bitten by another shark, unexpectedly releasing four baby sharks as visitors watched.

An aquarium spokeswoman said stunned visitors saw the injured shark and alerted staff that they had also seen things float from the gaping wound.

What happens when Spikes finds shark love and then bites open his beloved because, well, he’s a shark and that’s what sharks do? Do you know how much shark day care costs? Or how strained your relationship with your shark in-laws will become, especially because sharks have such difficulty dealing with their emotions anyway? What about when he just begins attacking men who look like Robert Shaw? Do you know how many barrel chested sketchoid guys with mustaches there are in Florida? He’ll never have time for football.

(If this does happen, though, Chuck Amato should grow a mustache, and someone should film this for the benefit of NC State fans.)

WHAT THEN FLORIDA FANS? We’re just saying, he might want to switch to decaf, because then you’ll be stuck with all these shark babies you can’t eat at once, sharkbacker Spikes.

1. Catfish are wily. You know why some catfish grow to be a godzillion feet long under riverbanks, undisturbed for decades on end? Because they’re clever motherfuckers, that’s why. Won’t win any Academic All-American honors, but the catfish’s ability to quickly and accurately distinguish between friend and foe would prevent situations like, say, staring down and throwing directly to a UCLA cornerback when there’s a wide-open receiver ten goddamn yards away.

2. The physicality of a catfish is ideally suited to the Tennessee offense. We’re not asking for much this year. We have a stable of fine tailbacks, a depleted receiving corps, and a talented but overwhelmingly injured offensive line.   All Tennessee needs out of its quarterback is a marked lack of fuck-uppery, and we’ll be golden.  The large lower fins of the catfish are ideal for handoffs, and its lack of fingers will provide an added layer of security to the center exchange, something our current (5th-year) (D-IA) (starting) signal-caller has been apparently unable to master.  Additionally, the catfish’s long and sensitive whiskers will serve as ideal tools for detecting the pass rush.

3.  Even the physical limitations of starting a large fish at quarterback can be turned to Tennessee’s advantage. With no arms to speak of, the catfish cannot throw, but nor can he attempt to wing the ball behind him mid-sack like he’s motherfucking Joe Montana. Joe Montana, Jonathan Crompton is not. Nor is a catfish, but at least the catfish knows this.

4.  Catfish are a renewable resource. With the aforementioned O-Line woes, having a readily replaceable presence under center makes sense, in a conservative old-guard way sure to be appreciated by the Volunteer faithful.

5. Failing all else, catfish are delicious. If Saturday goes ill, no one would think twice about gutting, filleting, battering, and deep-frying a fish. Doing the same to humans is generally frowned upon.*

*unless in Baton Rouge, and no, we don’t play them this year.

—

PAID FOR BY The Orange Citizens For Catfish Quarterbacking Trust: Because you can’t teach football smarts, and you can’t fix football stupids.

—

KIFFIN jogs down a wooded Tennessee lane in the morning mist.

Kiffin: I got that boom boom wow/ tan checks and plaid turnstiles/ I’m coaching them up wow/ boom boom boom boom boom how…boom boom BOOOOOOOM…

KIFFIN notices he is lost.

Kiffin: Uh-oh. This looks as unfamiliar to me as

A bright light explodes from the sky above him. A charismatic man with flowing hair appears above him. The smell of Stetson cologne and cigarettes is overpowering and intoxicating.

Kiffin: The ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze!

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: Hello, Lane Kiffin. You have journeyed far today to a magical place beyond your understanding.

Kiffin: But there’s a Stuckey’s right behind us.

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: Those pecan logs are as far from you now as the moons of Uranus.

Kiffin: [giggles]

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: [sighs, shakes head.] You must now come to the place you have been chosen to see. It is a magical place, filled with enchantment, mystery, and music.

Kiffin: Ooh, Branson!

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: No, Lane. I present to you the magical village of…PRIG-A-DOON!!!

Kiffin: Wait…how’d I get this skirt on? And why am I dancing? Are we undefeated?

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: Yes, you are. You beat UCLA last week. Tennessee is undefeated. You’re going in at even money against Florida. You just got a particularly talented fifth grader with sweet dodgeball skills to commit seven years ahead of time. Ed Orgeron doesn’t urinate on your desk to mark his territory every morning. In short, Lane Kiffin, life is perfect here in Prig-a-doon, all the time, every day.

Kiffin: So I can act like a total clueless dick, and it will still work no matter what I do?

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: Yes, Lane. In Prig-a-doon, everything you do works.

Kiffin: Hey, high school coach? Gimme your recruits, you backwater dickneck who doesn’t understand my impressive credentials?

High school coach with coveted recruits: Sure! I’ll throw in my wife for free!

Kiffin: Dad, wake up! Tell me I got here on my own merits!

Monte Kiffin: [/stirs from nap] Failing with the Raiders is like succeeding as a retirement home pickpocket, son. Either way you’re robbing a sick old man for money. Oh, and you deserve everything you have, and your relentless networking and family connections had nothing to do with your otherwise inexplicable rise to becoming the head coach of a major program. [/falls back asleep]

Kiffin: Ed, get me a cup of coffee!

Ed Orgeron: PUTTA DA CREMEINDERE JUSSALIKEA YOULIKEIT. WIFFATWOSPLENDAFORMAHBOSS!!!

Kiffin: Wow, Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze! Everything IS perfect in Prig-a-doon! What about Jonathan Crompton? Is that him over there playing horseshoes?

Jonathan Crompton, dressed in barmaid’s outfit with lace up bustier and wig: Hey, coach! Watch!

Crompton winds up and throws three horseshoes in succession hitting a small girl in the face, breaking a window twenty feet to the right, and fumblng the last out of his hand before completing his throw.

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: There are some things not even the most fantastic fantasy can fix, Lane.

Kiffin: That’s okay. Say, when can I come back here?

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: Everytime you win a game, Lane Kiffin, the magical village of Prig-a-doon will appear in the woods behind this Stuckey’s. Then you may enter and feast and dance to your heart’s content.

Kiffin: Wow, so I can come here every weekend, then!

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: We have you scheduled for four visits this year not counting the Ohio game, and most definitely not after this weekend. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to ramble on, Lane Kiffin.

Kiffin: Hey, Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze, pain don’t hurt, right? Unless it’s the pain of having multiple inoperable tumors, right?

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: You’re gonna have to leave now.

Lane: But I’m having a good time!

Ghost of Road House Patrick Swayze: You’re too stupid to have a good time.

GHOST OF ROAD HOUSE PATRICK SWAYZE roundhouse kicks LANE KIFFIN into Stuckey’s parking lot and out of Prig-a-doon.

FIN

Burn…you will burn…you will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell…

There is a special place in our blackest of hearts for Tennessee, and it is entirely personal. We don’t especially like where we’re from, mostly because it’s one of those places where ketchup is considered spicy, the slightest wrinkle of oddity is cause for grave concern, and country music of deplorable quality bubbles from its pores like congealed fat hardening on the surface of fetid stew. You like it? Great. We don’t, and that’s why we live in Atlanta, home of Adult Swim, a quiet but huge adult industry, a horde of swamp real estate investors spending money poorly, and a crumbling infrastructure and half-assedness more suitable for our tastes. Interstates are magnificent things.

We have, from birth, hated Tennessee: the indigestible-to-the-eyes shade of orange, the somnolent pre-games, the sludgy brand of football designed to eke out wins by field goals, their abuse of a fine coonhound by putting an inherently curious dog in front of 100K and daring it not to go insane with overstimulation. (Watch Smokey sometime: he is seconds away from cracking into an insane rage. We can’t blame them.)

In terms of rivalry, though, things had gone limp in recent years thanks to Urban Meyer’s superior coaching acumen, Erik Ainge’s ability to cough up a game when you most needed him to, and Tennessee’s complete inability to score points when it mattered. It felt hollow, after a while: rivalry requires a certain degree of competence on the part of your opponent, a bare minimum of respect for their inability. It is difficult to respect an opponent who lets you play the part of Dr. Manhattan: you point, they explode, and suddenly you’re the child giddily holding the magnifying glass.

This all assumes you don’t find someone to genuinely loathe on the other team. Ahem.

Like someone who’s already said how much he is going enjoy singing “Rocky Top” all night when they beat Florida in Gainesville, or someone who accused your coach of cheating in public. Don’t look at us: there’s little deep emotional bonding with Urban Meyer, since his relationship with the Florida fanbase is like that of a mob boss with his prize assassin. We pay him to eliminate people in cold cash. He does that. We exchange Christmas cards and formal handshakes. Urban Meyer is not a cuddler with anyone, as far as we know, and only prizes the sweet embrace of victory and cold vengeance.

Ask Mark Richt about that. Mark Richt is the nicest human being on the planet, a man who takes in the stray children of the world, bonds with his players in teary team meetings, and probably always leaves too much money in the Starbucks’ tip jar even though the barista simply turned, poured coffee, and then presented said coffee to you. Mark Richt is a saint walking among us, and Urban Meyer dropped a motherfucking safe on him and Georgia for dancing. Dancing. Dancing is festive, celebratory, nay, even cheeky, and Urban Meyer took that as justification to put UGA on the rack for four quarters and call timeouts at the end to prolong the agony.

Jack Warner once said of the director Raoul Walsh: “To Raoul Walsh burning down a whorehouse is a tender love scene.’ Ditto for Urban Meyer, whose deepest satisfactions as a coach have always come from the moments where he has his opponent Dexter’d up on the operating table bound and terrified. Now he, a lowly assistant who tacked up the coaching ladder from Bowling Green, to Utah, and then to Florida, faces a guy who at 34 is riding a genetic lottery win all the way to the bank and beyond, a guy who called him a cheater in the offseason riding in with an error machine at quarterback coming off a loss to UCLA at home.

We don’t think it’s going to be a blowout, since Tennessee’s defense should be quite good, and Florida hasn’t faced someone with the defensive speed of the Volunteer line. If there’s an opening though, a quivering moment where this game could turn into a complete and utter mass murder, safes are going to get dropped, and in great numbers. Never mind the fans: mind the guy they hired to take you out sitting down on the sidelines, the one with his arms folded who’ll call two extra timeouts just to watch you squirm before the clock strikes and breaks the last bone in your collective bodies. He’s the scary one.

Death…he brings death…

The next time an announcer reminds you that an overmatched opponent needs to “Move the pocket around, get the quarterback on the run, etc,” you can suggest back to him that the defense “Needs to send a screaming hellbeast like Vontaze Burfict in there to make the quarterback flinch at loud noises for the next three months.” Burfict just qualified academically last week to join ASU, but if the clip is any indication he has already chosen a major of criminal justice, and plans to be very hands on about administering it. (HT: Sean.)

You’re on the list, now:

Award-winning country music star Kenny Chesney, known for his high-energy stadium concerts, has written a song exclusively for ESPN’s college football game and studio telecasts during Dick’s Sporting Goods Kickoff Week (Sept. 3-7) and Championship Saturday (Dec. 5) as well as select contests throughout the season and bowl games. ESPN will have the exclusive premiere of the song during its pregame show Thursday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m.

Needs editing. One moment please. [Sound of screaming, fire, steel clanging, tendons ripping.] Okay, here you go.

Shitty, meaningless Award-winning country music star prize dwarf Kenny Chesney, known for his high-energy stadium concerts lackadaisically humping the dead carcass of a long-dead musical genre pandering to humanity’s most fatuous and ignoble traits, has written a song misbegotten flaming abortion of ass-cramping tripe exclusively for ESPN’s college football game and studio telecasts during Dick’s Sporting Goods Overpriced Jockstrap Hut Kickoff Week (Sept. 3-7) and Championship Saturday (Dec. 5) as well as select cursed contests throughout the season and bowl games. ESPN will have the exclusive premiere public excretion of the song during its pregame show Thursday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m. a date that shall live in infamy as the day suck conquered the universe.

What the hell is wrong with this?

Just play that, show some people hollering, a few shots of people getting knocked the fuck out, and then Fowler/Lieutenant Beautifulpants/Corso. There! There’s your new intro, not this crapulent piece of faux-cornpone pablum the marketing people pulled from America’s Milquetoast Mecca, Nashville, the home of country music that can go fuck itself in the ear with a wolverine.

She thinks your tractor’s sexy? Bullshit. You drive a fucking Honda Odyssey to work, Sonic, Bass Pro Shops, and that’s about it. God, please: if you exist, send 1988 Steve Earle forward in time to us. We will give him a flamethrower and a suitcase filled with blacktar heroin to burn country music to the ground and make people start writing honest songs about running from the cops, drinking yourself blind, and resigning yourself to your own doomed bastardhood before a premature and giddy death.

To Sam the Eagle, the commenter who will say, “Now, now, pish-posh, this is really all too much–” That dash is you being obliterated by our army of pitbulls. Do you have any idea how many times we are going to listen to this bullshit this fall, and the next, and the next? If Kenny Chesney loved college football at this point, he would go get arrested for a crime of moral turpitude and force DisneySPN to hang back with the old standard, “We’re Coming To Your Citaaaayyyyyyy,” known in our household as “The Song That Makes Daddy Fart Pure Flames Of Rage.” That’s how far you’ve beaten us down, Bristol: we’re rooting for the return of Big and Rich, who have spent years perpetually promising to come to your city without either fulfilling the promise and allowing us to ax a little ax-dang in their chest-tang, or put a little cyanide-tink in their drink-ink.

Tad: Coach Kiffin, thanks for coming to your performance review.

Kiffin: No problem

Tad: So you’re in charge around here, is that fair to say?

Kiffin: Absolutely. I’m the coach.

Tad: Okay, so take us through a day in the life of the coach.

Kiffin: Well the first thing I do is…

Wake my dad up (LIKE A COACH)

Play action bootleg (LIKE A COACH)

On every down (LIKE A COACH)

Remember birthdays (LIKE A COACH)

Eat some paste (LIKE A COACH)

My own whiteboard (LIKE A COACH)

Piss off Meyer (LIKE A COACH)

Nepotism (LIKE A COACH)

Feed the dog (LIKE A COACH)

Get my hand bit (LIKE A COACH)

Apply Bactine (LIKE A COACH)

Call Pahokee (LIKE A COACH)

Get rejected (LIKE A COACH)

Cry deeply (LIKE A COACH)

Hand’s infected (LIKE A COACH)

Recruit players (LIKE A COACH)

Take our shirts off (LIKE A COACH)

Dance suggestively (LIKE A COACH)

Harrassment lawsuit (LIKE A COACH)

Ask Coach O (LIKE A COACH)

For some dough (LIKE A COACH)

Get rejected (LIKE A COACH)

Shit on Coach O’s desk (LIKE A COACH)

Find my dad (LIKE A COACH)

BREAK

(Oh god did he wander off again and fall in the river… shiiiiiiiiit…)

Watch some Magnum! (LIKE A COACH)

With my dad (LIKE A COACH)

Wake him up (LIKE A COACH)

Puke on Coach O’s desk (LIKE A COACH)

Jump out the window (LIKE A COACH)

First-floor office (LIKE A COACH)

Lack of foresight (LIKE A COACH)

Awkward meetings (LIKE A COACH)

With the boosters (LIKE A COACH)

I don’t hunt or fish (LIKE A COACH)

Perk up the CV (LIKE A BOSS)

Cash some Raiderbucks (LIKE A COACH)

Name my son Knox (LIKE A COACH)

Make him hate me (LIKE A COACH)

Turn into a jet (LIKE A COACH)

Bomb the Gators (LIKE A CORCH)

Last three years at best (LIKE A COACH)

Go back to USC (LIKE A COACH)

Tad: Uh huh. So that’s an average day for you then?

Kiffin: No doubt

Tad: You turn into a jet and bomb Gainesville?

Kiffin: Hell yeah.

Tad: And I think at one point there you said something about naming your son Knox?

Kiffin: Nope.

Tad: Actually I’m pretty sure you did.

Kiffin: Nah, that ain’t me.

Tad: Okay, well this has been eye opening for me

Kiffin: Oh, just wait until the season starts. I’m the coach.

Tad: Yeah, no I got that. You said it about four hundred times.

Kiffin: Dad said that would help. I’m the coach.

Tad: Yeah, yeah I got it.

Kiffin: I’m the coach.

Tad: No I heard you. That’s the funniest part about this whole bit, actually.

LIKE A COACH.

Play me off for 6-8 weeks, Keyboard Cat.

No permanent or lasting damage, as the piece of angry, disunited bones in my back aren’t load bearing. They do hurt like I swallowed a plugged-in soldering gun, which is why I’m waking up in a few hours to dust off some more delicious, nutritious Percocet.

Thanks to all the well-wishers on Twitter and Facebook. (Our phone doesn’t work, as the iPhone battery died last night, too.) It’s pill and sleep time, and we’ll see what “we” feel like tomorrow.

Sentinel: Not sure if you’ve publicly commented about the Lane Kiffin controversy – does that maybe seem a little silly or humorous now in hindsight:
Meyer: “I didn’t find it humorous.”

Sentinel: For the fans, though, that certainly adds a little spice to the rivalry
Meyer: “I’m not going to comment on it any more than I just did. I guess you could say that.”

He’s going to pull a Comedian on the Vols in September. Slow-motion glass-exploding and everything. [/nerdgasmoverWatchmenconcluded.] You…you will buuuuuuuurn...

Oh, it’s on, you adorable, bewhiskered motherfucker:

“I’m gonna turn Florida in right here in front of you,” Kiffin told the crowd at the Knoxville Convention Center. “As Nu’Keese was in the meeting, his phone kept ringing. One of the coaches says, ‘who’s that?’ And he said, Urban Meyer.”

“I love the fact that Urban had to cheat and still didn’t get him,” Kiffin said.

(Watch the video here.)

Oh, Kiffykins. To the pain was the baseline, but it’s torture time now. To earn further future blowouts in painful fashion, Kiffin and co. skunked LSU on Janzen Jackson, a Louisiana corner who was booed by the home crowd when he announced he would be going to Tennessee. If Lane Kiffin dies today crushed by a one-ton block of taffy dropped from Barkevious Mingo’s Indestructible Imperial Dirigible, don’t even try to act surprised.

(HT: C’lay.)

Woman: Hello?

Man’s voice on bad, third-world connection: Hey, honey. It’s Jim.

Woman: Jim…just tell me you’ll be home soon.

Man’s voice: Oh, sure sweetie. But you know I have to do this every year, and I have to do it alone.

Woman: I know…I just worry.

Man’s voice: Don’t worry about me, sweetie. Say hello to the poodles for me.

Woman: I love you, Jim.

Man’s voice: Oh, pooky, I love you too. See you in ten days.

[he hangs up. The wind howls indifferently outside.]

SCENE: The high plains on the Bamiyan Plateau, Afghanistan. Desolation. An encampment of tents surrounds a single well on the blighted landscape. SHEIKH MASOOD reads from the Chinese menu in his hand.

MASOOD: There’s no way they will deliver us our food out here.

Enter Masood’s second-in-command, AHMAD PASHTO.

PASHTO: But they promised delivery, no matter our location?

MASOOD: We shall wait another three days, and then cancel our credit cards.

A loud uproar goes up behind them. They turn to see the dogfighting pit, surrounded by Afghan men in half-turbans and baggy pants. Each bristles with weaponry and facial hair. Dust rises from an unseen fracas in the middle of the ring. The noise of man and dog fighting can be heard clearly even from a distance.

MASOOD: Has the Scarlet one joined us again?

PASHTO: Yes. For the eleventh year running, he has joined us, Sheikh Masood.

MASOOD: He brought his customary entry fee?

PASHTO: Yes, his passport. He said he has no need for it where he travels.

MASOOD: Was he in his customary state?

PASHTO: Yes, Sheikh Massod. Ragged. Covered in dust and blood. Arrived on horseback at 2 in the morning last night and lay in his tent all night screaming for women and opium. He went into the ring at 8 this morning, and has not emerged since.

MASOOD: He has demanded nothing…unusual?

PASHTO: No. He has only asked for more dogs to fight to feed that which never sleeps within him.

MASOOD: Allah help that man. I see angels in that man’s demoning, I do.

PASHTO: Yes, Sheikh Masood. I do, as well.

MASOOD: He brought only his dog and African this time?

PASHTO: Yes…this…”Steve-ah,” I believe.

MASOOD: And?

PASHTO: Together, the Scarlet One and his dog have killed all they have fought. I have made much money from their fighting today.

MASOOD: As have I, Allah be praised. Come, let us watch their rage.

PASHTO: Yes, Sheikh Masood.

They approach the ring. In it, a man and dog are fighting a man and dog.

JIM TRESSEL: YEAH!!! KICK HIS FUCKING ASS MAUAJI!!! RIP HIS FUCKING THROAT OUT!!! KIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLL!!!

MASOOD: He lives only for blood and mayhem and the singing it puts in the blood. To see this…it chills the blood. Allah never saw a more pure killing machine, Pashto.

PASHTO: No, Sheikh Masood. Allah help us if we do, though.

MASOOD: Indeed.

To be continued…

65-21 and Bob Stoops is riding his invisible roller coaster all the way to Bedlam. Oklahoma could have made the scorers use colors to denote what they were doing, if they had really dropped the hammer. We think a final of “Periwinkle-three to 21″ would have been fascinating.