The hilarity of watching Robert Marve somehow miss a 6′7″ defensive end and throw the ball directly to him would be excuse enough, but Miami gave up 472 yards rushing to Georgia Tech, and that struck us as extremely funny, and because we had Miami guests in, they thought it was the opposite of this, and thus needed beer…and that explains a somewhat glorious and late start this morning.

In apology, we give you the following image from the game: a Miami fan in a wheelchair with a dyed green beard and orange hair who, after we asked to take a picture, said “Hey, you want this? You like it?”

YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!! An entire evening for Miami in an instant. Index along in a moment.

Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview of Miami at Georgia Tech A game where a Georgia Tech team beset by injury faces a young and talented Miami team rounding into form at just the right team. Tech would stand no chance in this game save for two factors:

a.) This is the ACC.
b.) The low tonight will be 31 degrees, and Miami dudes don’t like that shit.

The cold is just making us meaner, asshole.

Oh, and the five factors, which really decide who’s going to win this game, after all.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. 28.4 points a game, a shocking average for Miami, who we assumed scored points on the Tuberville scale of safeties, coupons, and 54 yard field goals at the gun to end games. For all the bitching about Robert Marve and Patrick Nix’s playcalling, they are third in the ACC in scoring. Whether that’s a triumph of talent over design is a question for the post-season (YES YES THEY COULD BE SCORING NINETYBILLION POINTS WITH SOMEONE ELSE)–what?

The Nebulous State of Dubious Statistical Validity for Tech: 40, or the number of missed assignments for the Tech offense according to the coaching staff. In a system as simple as the Nerdbone, precision counts twice as much as in other systems, and Tech probably won’t be that disjointed against the Hurricanes.

Advantage: Miami, because Tech takes soooo long to score.

Miami, You’ve been factor’d!

Category Two: Mascot: We went to the Duke/Tech game a few weeks ago. (more…)

This here be yr thread for congregatin’ and bloviatin’, HokieCane-steezy.  A scant preview:

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity.

VT:  6-3, 3-2 conference.  MIA: 6-3, 3-2 conference. Advantage: Eh?

Category Two: Mascot.

Advantage: Miami.  It’s a fucking hurricane.

Like a doll’s eyes.

Miami, you’ve been factor’d!

Category Three: Aura.

No Metallica entrance here, not that the Hokies deserve such awesomesauce this year. Advantage: Miami.

Miami, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Four: Names.

VT:  Jahre Cheeseman, Alonzo Tweedy,  Germond Oatneal.  Very Upstairs/Downstairs of you, sirs.  Miami: Cannon Smith (yes, of course he’s a quarterback),     Harland Gunn, which sounds like a Raymond Chandler character if Raymond Chandler wrote about O-linemen.  Advantage: VT, but it’s close.

Virginia Tech, You’ve been factor’d!

Grudges? Scores to settle? Sheer cussedness?

Miami’s lost two in a row and four of the last five.

Miami, you’ve been factor’d!

EDSBS FACTOR FIVE FIVE FACTOR PREVIEW SUM: 2-2, which we’re calling for Miami owing to VT currently fielding a potted plant at quarterback. Please place your bets for the Hokies accordingly.  Bonsoir, boys.

Tensions eased between the United States and the People’s Republic of China this morning after a misunderstood wire story involving a Florida State football player and members of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity nearly caused an international incident between the world’s two remaining superpowers.

The chain of events was set in motion with the assault of Florida State wide receiver Taiwan Easterling at the Florida State Student Union in Tallahassee, Florida on Tuesday. Easterling, allegedly harassed for several days by members of the fraternity, fought back with the assistance of numerous teammates in a large brawl. The exact scope of involvement for the members of the football team is unclear at this point.

What is clear is that a mistranslation of the article caused immense havoc over the next 18 hours. Before the smoke cleared, the PRC had launched over 75 missiles into the Eastern Taiwanese seaboard, the United States Pacific Fleet had been put on full war footing, and the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity house lay in smoking rubble by an American commando team.

The Foreign Minister of Taiwan: “We regret the error, and any harm it may have caused.”

Shortly after 5:30 p.m. EDT, Taiwanese jets scrambled from bases around the island, according to military insiders. (more…)

If it’s November, it means that ACC fans not named “Seminoles” are already fully deserting football for basketball. This is no ugly stereotype of the average mid-Atlantic sports consumer, but fact: North Carolina has sold 1,100 of a 4,000 ticket block reserved for Tarheel fans for this weekend’s Maryland game, a game that sadly interferes with the tip-off for North Carolina basketball.

From the inimitable LOLJocks.

Butch Davis has repeated time and time again how he’s not interested in the Tennessee job, and may very well actually mean what he says and not take it, but he has to at least wonder what it would be like to coach at a school where fans show up in droves, or actually show up with consistency. (Admission: having coached at Miami, it is a feeling he should be familiar with at the college level.)

This is Warrick Dunn in college. We never really believed he was as little as he looked.

We saw Warrick Dunn at Eats in Midtown Atlanta once. Eats is the kind of place that serves four things, charges somewhere between five and eight dollars for all of it, and serves their beverages in old red Pizza Hut tumblers. Glamorous, it is not.

It took a second to recognize him, but not from the face: same aquiline nose, big eyes, close-cropped hair and neatly trimmed goatee. He has an unmistakable face that we’re unafraid to say is nigh-man-pretty. It was his physique that didn’t jibe. An NFL player should have been bigger than he was, if not in height–he came up to my eyebrows, and I’m 5′11″–but in weight, with some sort of Barry Sanders bulge to his legs and shoulders, at least.

Yet, waiting in line at Eats, the dude looked no bigger than a UPS guy, a pocket-sized person in a baggy sweater and jeans. The idea that he blocked the John Randles of the world and took direct shots from NFL linebackers without dying still stuns the mind.

Warrick Dunn actually visited the man who confessed to killing his mother in prison. Here’s an excerpt.

As I looked at this man who I never met, I bared my soul to him. I told him how in the years after my mom’s death I had been hesitant about being in a committed relationship, how I’ve been afraid to lose people. I’ve been in counseling for many years over this very concept of having a true committed relationship because I don’t want to lose somebody I love twice in my life. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I could suffer that pain again.

When you’re made of steel, size is irrelevant. Read the rest here. It’s dusty in here.

We’re not sure if the Froghorn comes on the road with TCU, but it should, because it is an trailer with a huge airhorn anthropomorphized with the face of a giant horned frog, and if that ain’t awesome the word just don’t exist, son.

We are sure that we’ll be liveblogging the TCU/Utah game tonight, and that it will be awesome. See you at 8 hyah. In the meantime, maybe you could watch some film, or read a book, since they’re really, really similar according to Les Miles.

Wisconsin @ #21 Michigan State

ORSON, QUASI-RATIONAL: It would be intellectual dishonesty to say that these are anything but two perfectly average teams playing perfectly average football: numbers do not lie in either case. Wisconsin in particular has little to say about suddenly changing a game in either direction; they don’t pick off passes, they don’t change games with special teams, and they can be dick-deficient in the passing game. Michigan State is at home, and therefore will likely win in a game reminding you of everything bad about Big Ten Football (to wit: ACC football, but colder.)
HOLLY, IRRATIONAL: My streak of picking coaches for their perfectly trapezoid-shaped heads ends with you, Bieleieleielma. Spartans.

(more…)

Antone Smith is a good running back, but he’s even better at evaluating the returns on investment. In this case, the investment is pain, and the payoff is money.


Get money, get paid. Antone Smith is an economist.

The quote from the Orlando Sentinel:

And that includes taking a shot if that means it will enable him to be more effective. Smith said he’s not opposed to getting stuck with the needle.

“I don’t mind taking no shot,” he said. “As long as I get out there and make my money – that’s what it’s all about. That’s all I’m about right now, this is my senior year, I don’t got no other go arounds …”

This is funny because it is Florida State, and in college the word “money” is thrown around with the same caution as the word “AIDS” is used at a blood bank. A visit from the SID and the media relations staff is sure to follow, but whatever, NCAA regulations: need we review the lessons for success in life? Get the Italian tile, keep you refrigerator stocked, get money, get paid, and you’ll have vagina panties droppin’ like crazy.

(HT: Richard.)