Every week Chris Brown from Smart Football takes your questions here about football and football-related game theory. This week, he explains precisely how Virginia Tech turned Miami 2009 into Miami 2008 for four quarters last weekend. Submit your questions for Chris at twitter.com/edsbs, your source for football chicanery and zombie law links since 2008. Enjoy.

I didn’t get to watch the Miami-Virginia Tech game until after I already knew the outcome — I had been at another game at the same time, and was as surprised as anyone that Virginia Tech could score thirty-one, and even more than Miami managed a meager seven. But I can honestly say that I had more fun watching this game on replay, already knowing the outcome, than anything I’ve watched this year.

That might come as a surprise considering I just did an extensive breakdown of Miami’s (previously) vaunted pass offense, have family members who are diehard Canes fans, and still think Jacory Harris is one of the most entertaining players in the country. But you have to love what Bud Foster and Frank Beamer were able to do with Virginia Tech. (more…)

No, leave the Dragonball-Z and Pokemon posters on the wall behind you in your smack-talking video to Miami fans. They’ll be too distracted by your blazing commentary and the acid burn of your caustic LAUGH OF DEEP KNOWING SARCASM, right?

No? (more…)

I attempt to stay out of other nations affairs as a leader of millions and father to a nation UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE I’M LOOKING AT YOU TRAITOR LEE MYUNG-BAK.

In this case, however, I must make an exception. I must speak out in support of Bobby Bowden, the legendary American football coach at Florida State University, and against the traitorous running dogs attempting to stop his plan to give the people what they deserve and want so much: an indomitable football team crushing all opposition in front of it.

What Florida State fans fail to understand is what all great leaders understand: the path to the mountain of success runs through a thousand rice paddies of failure. Every great leader understands this, and the people should follow obediently, confident that he has his eye on the summit ahead. To see this kind of belligerent rhetoric from within the ranks of your own brothers, though?

It’s safe to say that everything Bowden does is counterproductive to the shot and long-term health of the football program because it is taking away a decision making opportunity from someone who is actually informed enough to make a qualified decision. The one thing Bowden says he wants (FSU to be great again) is simply not possible until he leaves or dies, neither of which would bother most FSU fans I know at this point.

This is a wordplay and mockery to the nation while staging war maneuvers, and treason to the people. (more…)

Okay, huddle up. I want you to listen to me. I hate every single one of you right now.

Pop quiz! Which of the things below were things Paul Johnson actually said about Georgia Tech’s performance this past Thursday against Miami:

1. “We’re not really good at anything right now.”

2. “It was very poor technique. I don’t know what the guy was doing, really.”

3. “It’s not legal for me to choke a player to death with his own intestines. I couldn’t do it, anyway, considering how gutless we are as a team.”

4. “If you can’t go on the snap count — the other team doesn’t have anything to do with that. That’s you.”

5. “For a bunch of engineers, we suck at counting to three.” *

6. “We had too much in. Anytime you can’t do what you’re supposed to be doing, you’ve got too much in.”

7. “I shot every tenth man after practice and donated their bodies to science, but had them rejected by the morgue due to lack of spine.”

8. Of coordinator’s Dave Wommack’s assertion that his defenders will switch to a 4-5-2 alignment for Saturday’s game against North Carolina: “We could play a 4-12-9, but it won’t matter what we play if we don’t get our face on somebody and our eyes where they should be.”

9. Of coordinator’s Dave Wommack’s assertion that he deserved to live another five minutes without being thrown into a giant aquarium filled with rats and bees: “When you assume you make an ass out of ‘you’ and me. You also get thrown into a giant aquarium filled with rats and bees for sassin’, too.”

If you answered “all of the above,” you’d be correct, though Paul Johnson actually only said 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 in a press conference we’ll go ahead and describe as “honest, and profoundly uncomfortable. ” We’re sorry we disappointed Coach Johnson, and we’re sitting five miles away, cannot play football, and had nothing to do with the Miami debacle.

*Reggie Ball Reggie Ball Reggie Ball Reggie Ball Reggie Ball.

Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview Georgia Tech at Miami. The Factor Five Five Factor Preview examines the necessaries and completely arbitraries of the official beginning of your weekend, the Thursday Night special featuring the Boys’ Club (Jesse Palmer imitations! Chris Fowler roaring with unrestrained glee! Everyone looking at Erin Andrews, and then looking away ashamedly! Craig James doing the broadcast with his finger stuck in a Diet Pepsi can, “Cause it got stuck that way, ma!”)

Georgia Tech hopes to avoid the curse of being Factor’d for the second week in a row as the Factor Five favorite, since they actually won in this spot last week and thus broke the curse of being the favored team.

Enjoy.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. For Georgia Tech, that number will be 472, or the number of yards allowed in this matchup last year by the Miami defense to Tech’s offense. Miami’s defense spent most of last year lunging at bright lights, tackling giant invisible rabbits, and laying down on the turf weeping when faced with an option play, and by the fourth quarter had given up hope altogether by allowing Lucas Cox, Tech’s geology-back, to take a leisurely continental drift up the middle for a long touchdown. Miami must not allow anything close this yardage to stay in the game, or else the Angel of Death arrives for them in the fourth quarter running a 5.2 and sending the Tech bench into gusts of laughter at a white fullback outrunning Miami LBs into the endzone. A possession back running loose in a blowout will and should do that to an audience.

For Miami, that number is ROOM 222 BAILAMOS CHICAS!!!

Apologies. A dance break was clearly in order. (more…)

Have you longed for the experience of officiating a college football game in front of hundreds or sometimes even thousands of fans? You can! Take the following ten question survey to determine if you have the right stuff to be an ACC official!

1. The ball is kicked on a legal kickoff to the returner. The ball is then fumbled at the 27 yard line, and rolls out of bounds untouched by the kicking team at the 32 yard line. The ball will be placed:

a.) Sorta where it went out.

b.) The spot should be reviewed by video, during which you should have a confab with your fellow officials about that crazy scene at the Holiday Inn Express last night involving Rob Stone, a ficus tree, and half a bottle of lighter fluid.

c.) At the 20 thanks to an incorrectly and randomly assessed clipping call assigned to “Number 68″ on the receiving team. (This does not matter if they’re on the bench: no one ever checks their rosters anyway in the moment. Old ACC refs trick!)

d.) The ball will be rekicked because you were not paying attention of a “substitution infraction.”

2. Player A strikes Player B in the helmet after the whistle is blown. Player B retaliates by pulling a blackjack from his sock and kneecapping Player A. The proper penalty is:

a.) Personal foul on Player A only

b.) Personal foul on Player B only

c.) Personal fouls on Player A and B, with Player B getting an ejection

d.) THIS IS NOT A PIPE. (more…)

YOU AIN’T GANGSTA LESS YOU GOT A CELLO BITCH.

(HT: Nathan.)

Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview of Clemson at Georgia Tech. We reintroduce the most superficial, capricious, and altogether specious preview available in college football, the Factor Five Five Factor Preview, brought to you this year by Turfman’s Products for Men. That’s Turfman’s, fine providers of essential masculine living products such as “Turfman’s Sanitary Rubberized Personal Windsocks For Intimate Moments.” When the winds of passion blow, be sure you’re protected from the elements with the responsible use of “Turfman’s Sanitary Rubberized Personal Windsocks for Intimate Moments.”

Enjoy.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. WILLY KORN. That had to be said before addressing any other issues here, since the invocation of Willy Korn’s name instantly generates magic. And turnovers. Did we mention turnovers, such as the fumble for six in the game against MTSU last week, or the pick he threw two plays later? Those should be mentioned, as should the zero touchdowns Clemson has scored in their last two visits to the Flats. Other numbers worth noting for Clemson: one, as in the number of CJ Spiller’s not listed on the injury chart this week: two, the number of wins Clemson had in Thursday night games in nine attempts under Tommy Bowden, and zero, the number of Tommy Bowden bitch mentalities present on the Clemson sideline this season.

For Tech, the number is three, the number of fumbles against Jacksonville State the Jackets lost thanks to all intensity evaporating for Tech after their first drive against Ryan Perriloux’s Plan B. (more…)

The EDSBS team has several updates. First: Chris Rix sucks forever, but since his tenure overlapped with NAME REDACTED’s reign of error over Florida football, we cannot offer many substantive highlights of him sucking against Florida. It’s the little things like this that make Missouri dropping a safe on our former life curse/coach on Saturday so pleasing. Blaine Gabbert, doing the lord’s work one embarrassingly easy pass at a time. Tebow thanks you, son.

In lieu of this, please accept the Seventh Floor’s touching tribute to Rix, starring the Miami defense, failure, and a disturbing man-baby with deep compassion and a cherubic face.

Second, the Alphabetical returns for installment one of the 2009 season tomorrow morning. That should blow a good morning’s dawdling, so you can thank us in advance for blowing an eighth of your four day work week. You’re welcome.

Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview of South Carolina at North Carolina State We reintroduce the most superficial, capricious, and altogether specious preview available in college football, the Factor Five Five Factor Preview, brought to you this year by Turfman’s Products for Men, fine providers of essential masculine living products such as Turfman’s Leisure Scotch for Men, the only Scotch approved by the FDA for use while biplaning, conceiving children, or simply taking the family truckster for a spin across the block. Now with convenient nipple-cap for easy sippin’.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. For South Carolina, the number is 2.9 yards per carry on the ground, their average for 2008 and indication of a serious vitamin B(adass) deficiency along the line. Also five, as in five starters returning for a defense that, Florida game excepted, was passably excellent last year. The chances of that happening again are minimal, especially now that they sail without Captain Munnerlyn in the secondary.

Also, their starter is hilariously ball-insecure, threw for 6 TDs against 8 INTs last year, barely completed 50% of his passes, and has a floating Matthew McConaughey on his shoulder at all times.

For NC State, the number will be two, as in fingers sophomore Russell Wilson can see when you hold them up in front of his face. (more…)