By the EDSBS staff.

We care, just like a tiger does: with their claws and teeth first.

Tennessee has a minor, eeny-tiny-bit of a discipline problem, and not the sort that professional paste-eater and push-door puller Mike Freeman suggests should end up in the firing of Phil Fulmer. (Mike: Tyler Durden IS the narrator!) Fire him for being only good to excellent, sure; we’ve seen that in the SEC before. Fire him for blackmailing Trace Adkins with incriminating gay sex photos into performing at his daughter’s birthday party. (Unsee that, dear reader, and you have achieved enlightenment. We just typed it, and will not eat for several days.) Fire him for picking up field mice and bopping them on the head, and then dipping them in panko crumbs, deep frying them, and eating them during film sessions.

Fire him for any of these, but not the juvenile aborted Liverventures™* most Vol players get arrested for these days. The Vols just need a special blend of caring, discipline, and caring discipline outlined below. Because we care. We really do. In that kind of foster kid kind of care, the one where you don’t buy them fresh produce, turn on the heat for them in the winter, or buy them clothes that fit.

Actin’ Straight with EDSBS: Vol-arity Edition.

1: Pat Summitt. This doesn’t even have to take longer than 15 minutes. Simply invite Pat over, have the winningest coach at Tennessee ever come to a Vol team meeting and then allow her to rip each of the Vols’ gridiron types a new, perfectly torn second asshole. Summitt is the kind of thin-lipped, wiry, kerosene-eyed women who drove schoolbuses in my childhood: very, very quiet schoolbuses. There were rumors one kid, once, had spoken, and that only a red mark the birds liked to pick at on the school driveway stood as testament to her wrath. The team would be a lot like that schoolbus for the next year, at least.

2. Hedge mazes outside dorm entrances. Bull your way through fifteen rows of thorny hedge without bleeding to death? Do I smell starting defense?

3. The ChastiT belt. Fierce, made of stainless steel. Adorned with picture of John Chavis on codpiece for extra contraceptive power. (more…)

A crowded singles bar in an urban setting. Bobby sits at a bar in a red tube dress, drinking a cosmo and swirling the straw around in his hand.

Another! Now!

Bobby: BARTENDER! Another Screaming Orgasm over here.

Bartender: You’re really pouring it on.

Bobby: Fuck it, I’m drunk. And put another one on that old guy’s tab over there. He’s not even paying attention.

Mr. Blank, at the opposite end of the bar watching tv: Love ya, babe!

Bobby: Kiss my ass, limpdick. See? He didn’t even hear it. Limpdick!

Mr. Blank: (Blows kiss, winks.)

Bobby: Fuck. (downs shot)

(A stiff, tweedy middle aged man fiddling with his cell phone approaches the bar and the empty seat next to Bobby.)

Bill Martin, Michigan AD: Good evening, madam. Mind if i sit…

Bobby: Go right fucking ahead. ANOTHER! (taps empty shot glass)

Martin: Bartender, a Latour ‘64, if you’ve got it?

Bartender: (Stares, pauses, continues.) We have wine coolers.

Martin: Ooh! That sounds quite refreshing. I’ll try one.

(Turns to Bobby)

The weather has been delightful this year. Perfect for some late fall sailing, don’t you think?

Bobby: Sailing? Who the hell are you, Captain Ron? (more…)

Updates, updates, updates! This is a grand time of year for coach-related rumor mongering and, yes, even the occasional real bit of news.

Clemson Keeps Bowden
Fan 1: How do you know the 2007 season was fucked up?

Fan 2: Appy State over Michigan!

Fan 1: No, jackass.

Fan 2: Stanford over USC?

Fan 1: Bah - no, not that. Dude, there were multiple teams competing with one another for Tommy Bowden’s services.

Charlie Weis Wants You To Judge Him
Next year, that is.

Asked how quickly he can get things righted, Weis responded: “Not fast enough. That’s probably as fair an answer as I can say,” Weis said Monday at a news conference. “I think that the arrow is definitely pointing up. You already know what my goal is every time we play, and every time we play my expectation is to win that game. But we can’t get good enough fast enough as far as I’m concerned.”

I have to agree here: things are looking up. I honestly thought they’d lose to Duke and Stanford.

UCLA Needs To Hire Coach With Swagger
So says a crusty looking old dude at the LA Times, anyway: “Those who lead the teams that get the attention in Los Angeles have a common thread. They are people who conduct their business with a style and a swagger. They either came with name recognition or quickly acquired it here. The style and swagger aren’t always the same, but all have some form of it… So, for at least a couple of weeks, Guerrero has our spotlight. We don’t ask much, just a coach with style, swagger and success.”

If you’re having trouble imagining Pete Carroll reading the LA Times this morning, allow me to assist you…

Les Miles Still In Play At Michigan
Or wait, no, maybe it’s Ferentz. Wasn’t I talking about Brady Hoke this morning? Am I a candidate for this job?

If you’re having trouble imagining Ohio State fans reading Michigan blogs this morning, allow me to assist you…

University of Louisiana-Monroe coach Charlie Weatherbie is celebrating for a few reasons. Sure, he’s got reason to pop the bubbly because his team beat the Alabama Crimson Tide 21-14 on Saturday. But Weatherbie has 4 million other reasons to celebrate–namely, that he’s going to be paid a salary commensurate to his record after beating the 4 million dollar man himself, Nick Saban.

Give the man a monkey. And his 4 million dollars.

“According to the win, I’m undervalued by 97 percent of what I should be paid,” said Weatherbie, who earns a mere $130,000 as the coach of the Warhawks. “I’m looking forward to being paid what I’m truly owed and living out one of my lifelong dreams: buying a monkey, and then training it to smoke and drink beer.”

ULM had no formal statement in response to Weatherbie’s demands, but off-the-record sources were quoted as saying that “there was no fucking way” they could pay Weatherbie’s new salary, citing the fact that “paying almost one-tenth of our total budget to a 5-6 football coach would be completely fucking insane.”

Weatherbie, though, is confident something could be worked out. “Perhaps they could sell some land or something. I don’t know. Have a bake sale. Charlie wants his monkey, and it’s time to give him some bananas for all his hard work. Tell the sob stories to my agent, pencilnecks. Bananas, motherfuckers.”

Weatherbie’s not the only one making cash from the hash of the Crimson Tide’s loss. (more…)

If you didn’t watch the Oklahoma/Texas Tech game Saturday night, you were likely enraged to the point of violence that ABC insisted on putting such piffle on in place of carving the country into three segments and giving we East Coasters what we craved: night-time ACC football, baby.

Actually, you weren’t, both because ACC games are hell to watch and purgatorially boring. Instead, you were treated to the Red Raiders’ upset of Oklahoma played to the accompaniment of the most anarchic crew in broadcasting, the Nessler/Maguire/Griese team of ABC. The anarchy comes mostly from Maguire, who’s game for anything: riding on the camera boom most of the day like The Watcher, chiming in on whatever strikes his fancy at the moment no matter what’s going on, and giddily living each second not paired with Joe Theissmann like it was his last.

Maguire even tried on the Red Raider outfit Saturday night, a getup made to look like a Zorro costume with a few extra swatches of red thrown in there. The original picture is funny enough, but we have yet to see a photo The Cheezburger Factory can’t improve on at least a little.

He is Paul Maguire, and he is here to steal your heart.

Mississippi State owns their country attitude: cowbells in the stands, a buttoned-down gameday decor, and that entire section of the stands reserved for those who’ve lost limbs in gruesome farm injuries. (Not true! That’s actually a section in Kinnick Stadium in Iowa.)

How much do they really own it, though? So much so that the flyover for the Alabama game was done by what appears to be a crop duster or the Baron Von Richtofen himself flying all the way from Hell for the game.

Gadzooks! Was that the dashing Wiley Post? Or the rakish Jimmy Doolittle? Or perhaps Amelia Earhart, who overcomes the crippling handicap of having a vagina every time she bravely enters an aircraft! O, those wily aviators! Someday, might they fly to sun?

The little hysterical WOOO! at the end may be one of the most nuanced crowd noises we’ve ever heard: part shame, part acceptance, and part ironic barbaric yawp. Whatever–they can tie weather balloons to pigs and let the recreational shooting crowd loose on them as long as Mississippi State keeps winning. Bowl-eligible means you can fly whatever you want over the stadium, even if it does sound like a motorized go-cart with wings.

A clarification: From reader Bulldog, who invites us to eat him.

That was our President, retired Air Force commander Gen. Robert H. “Doc” Foglesong. It is his Mississippi State biplane. He always buzzes over the stadium before the game. So eat me and the rest of the bulldog nation.

Their president buzzes the stadium in his own biplane? Is he a botanist/humanitarian with a penchant for archaeology, arctic exploration, and jujitsu? Does this man have limits, we ask?

We all know people that are bad at their jobs; you may even be one of them. This is why it’s fun to look at and make fun of people who are historically bad at their jobs. These are some of my favorites:

Franz Berliner, Captain, LZ 129 Hindenburg

Flew the world’s largest balloon into the world’s largest needle. Not sure what he was doing, but I don’t think it takes hindsight to see that Franz was not watching where he was going. His poor floating skills singlehandedly brought down the entire Zeppelin Industry. 

Mort Lipshitz, Fire Chief, Chicago 1870-1871

Far be it from me to tell a fireman how to do his job, but jesus, Lipshitz*, you gotta let the whole city burn? I know there are intangibles here, but generally the recipe for doing your job successfully is: see flames, add water. So you were saddled with horses, buggies, and lanterns, but come on, firefighting is no profession for excuses. You really dropped the ball here, brother. To add insult to injury, they’ve named a soccer team after your failure. You are on the Mt. Rushmore of fuck-ups.

Charlie Weis, Head Coach, Notre Dame

Charlie Chalupa’s not just famous for his girth anymore. He’s led the Irish to their worst season in school history. The offensive guru has also led this tactiley talented team to their worst offensive season in school history, which is no easy task. He compiles his failures with blind arrogance and the cocksure attitude of someone who’s wildly successful at their job. He’s being heavily rewarded for his failures too. No matter what he does from here on out in his coaching career, this season, this trainwreck, this audacious failure, will be his legacy. Chew on that, Charles.

M Beanie, Boy Toy Wrangler/Driver, George Michael

This job seems pretty easy -

Step 1: Find a fucktoy for a rich, faded, liquid-hipped pop chanteuse a couple times a week.

Step 2: …

Step 3: Profit!

M was good at it too. He had Michael elbow deep in ass for a year. However, in an embarrassing parallel parking incident, Michael carped one time too many and his driver quit, leaving M holding the keys. When M was promoted to driver, things went to hell in a handbasket. In the past year alone, Mr. Michael’s been arrested three times for drunk driving, twice for soliciting sex in a park (who knew that was illegal?), he’s been to rehab twice, had Hoof & Mouth Disease once, and is now the more pathetic of the two (2) former members of Wham! This is a bad year and elevates Beanie instantly into the Hall of Fame.

Pam Ward, Broadcaster of Iowa football games, ESPN2

Pammy is not pretty. This is no crime, to be sure, but she sought out a career in television so I think this shows a tremendous lack of self-awareness. She also talks for a living and her voice is… unfortunate. Her voice has the deaf tones of a demolitions expert and all the warmth of a well digger’s ass. To complete the hat trick, she talks about football for living and doesn’t know anything about football, at all. She is positively the worst announcer in the history of man.

General Pickett, Confederate General, Battle of Gettysburg

You don’t need to be a military strategist to see why this was the turning point in the Civil War (GO NORTH!!! WOOOO!!!). I’ve been to Gettysburg. I’ve seen the battlefield and I can tell you, it’s no small jaunt. It’s really flat, but it’s a hell of a long way from one side to the other. I made it in cargo shorts and running shoes and I was tired and crabby as shit when I got to the other side. Also, I did it in March, not in July when Pickett made his hike. I can just imagine doing it with a musket and those fucking hideous wool unis! Were they a marching band or an army? Horrible fashion choice on their part, nearly as bad as their walk directly into the line of fire across that field. The Confederacy suffered a casualty rate of over 50%, many of which were Pickett’s men. Pickett’s Charge** was the beginning of the end for the South in the Civil War. Bad move, George.

Lucious Picard, Dialect Coach, Kevin Costner for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Costner was doing what all American actors do when they’re surrounded by “yes” men, he decided to take a role with an accent. The studio fearlessly cast the paunchy 40-ish rock hound as the young Brit Robin of Locksley. All they needed was someone to help the would-be archer to sound authentically British so they went with wunderkind Lucious Picard from the Royal Albert Hall of Drama. This did not go well. Costner’s accent came and went like a Yorkshire breeze; when it was good it was bad and when it was bad it was awesome. Sadly, unintentional comedy is not what they were going for and Picard spends these days replying to Madonna’s fan mail using “British sounding words”.  

* Mort would be higher on this list (or lower?) but he made the best bratwurst chili in the history of man. This cannot be discounted.

** Pickett’s Charge inspired the Lost Cause, which was one of Beck’s best singles from his “mopey period”.

The quarterbacking carousel at Notre Dame continues on apace, as Jimmy Clausen is slated to start in Saturday’s Air Force game. Near the end of the AP article, this telling passage (emphasis added):

Weis said at the time he named Sharpley the starter for the USC game that he was doing so because Sharpley was steadily improving and because Clausen, who had been sacked 23 times, was banged up. He said Tuesday that Clausen was getting healthier. Sharpley was 34-of-60 passing for 257 yards with one interception and two touchdown passes in his two starts. He was sacked nine times.

I suppose if you can’t fashion even the merest facsimile of an O-line, this stratagem makes perfect sense. There are two-quarterback schemes founded on the basis of wildly differing styles of play. There are two-quarterback schemes founded on getting a young player integrated into an offense. And then there’s Charlie Weis, sniffing his two prospects like past-dated cartons of milk and selecting whichever smells like it’ll do the least damage to his vitals. The system works!

Observe:

September 1: Demetrius Jones starts against Georgia Tech, fumbles twice, is promptly benched (after what, a quarter?), and still finishes as ND’s leading rusher for the day.
September 15: Clausen starts, completes 11 of 17 for 74 yards and an interception, is sacked eight times by the Wolverines. Sharpley enters in fourth quarter and ends a potential scoring drive with an INT of his own.
September 22: 86 passing yards amassed between Clausen and Sharpley, and four more sacks at the hands of Michigan State, bringing the season total to 27.
September 29: Clausen throws his first career TD (against Purdue, but it still counts) and promptly injures his hip.
October 13: Clausen benched after two INTS en route to Notre Dame being smacked in the mouth by “little brother” Boston College.
October 20: Sharpley gets the start, is sacked five times by USC. The school record for single-season sacks, 38, is supassed with a third of a season to go. And Charlie Weis intones: “So let me just say people better enjoy it now, have their fun now.”
November 3: Careful what you wish for, Charles. Navy snaps a 43-game losing streak that Weis dismissed as inconsequential. Sharpley, in his turn at the chopping block, is brought down with 45 seconds to play.

Three games remain. The writing’s on the wall, and it doesn’t take much foresight to extrapolate the rest of the season:

November 10: Clausen botches the first two quarters badly, repeatedly throwing into double coverage, is pulled at the half. Sharpley is sacked three times on the first possession of the third quarter and spends the rest of the game swatting at imaginary fireflies in the huddle.
November 17: In the final home game of the season, Clausen manages a third-quarter touchdown pass against the vaunted Duke secondary. Lighting up a peach-flavored victory cigarillo on the sidelines, he accidentally sets fire to a small portion of the field and is suspended for the season’s final game.
November 24: Sharpley gets the start against Stanford. And little Jimmy Clausen, heard muttering on the sidelines about “being released into his natural habitat”, vanishes into his native California night in the aftermath of the game, leaving no trace save for a hastily written, largely illegible note stuck to the team bus windshield signed, “Butterflies Are Free.”

Lou Holtz is a hard man. He tore a Tennessee fan a new asshole when his hat was stolen in Knoxville once. He frequently got into the facemasks of linemen three times his size. And once, when cornered in a bar in Bolivia, he killed Che Guevara with half a beer bottle and a two shoelaces knotted together. Do. Not. Fuck with Lou Holtz.

His name itself means “hard wood.” Listen to Lou set off the gigglebox in Rece Davis with a single sentence. (Massive HT: Adam from the fine blog Here Come The Pretzels.)

Awful Announcing has another outstanding Holtzism from last night, but we think Holtz turned the corner from periodically annoying teleprechaummentator to broadcasting genius when they started letting him do whatever the hell he wanted to…and after a lifetime of coaching and showing up on time and scheduling, Lou’s finally matured into full-blown kookdom. As commenter Oops Pow Surprise puts it:

How did Lou Holtz go from “should not be on television” to “should be on every single channel of television simultaneously” this quickly? After the last three weeks of insanity, I want to put him on top of a St. Bernard and give him his own 5-hour talk show on Animal Planet.

We’d buy the dog ourselves, OPS. Especially for a man who says this on the air:

“That’s like comparing Joan Collins to Linda Evans.”- Lou Holtz
“Now for a more modern reference, like Eva Longoria to Teri Hatcher.”- Rece Davis
“I don’t know who that is.”- Lou Holtz

Lou Holtz, we crave our next inspirational speech. You can work magic even without ripping a newspaper in half and making it whole again.

The Curious Index will be along in a minute. However, rent’s due, and someone’s check most definitely did not bounce. Holly, valiant Vol fan and sports bloggette from Ladies… and Snarkastic made a bet with us: if Florida won their matchup against Tennessee, then she would have to write a certain phrase on her boobs for our perusal and the rest of the universe’s, as well. If Florida lost to Tennessee, we would have had to sing Rocky Top and record it for posterity’s sake.

(This may sound lopsided. However, we hate Rocky Top like nothing else. Seriously. We might rather voluntarily dive into an Olympic pool filled with sulfuric acid than sing the song.)

This happened on Saturday, among other events:

RHINO RHINO RHINO!!!

…meaning Holly had to pay up. And being the honorable, courageous fan she is, she paid up. Given that Tennessee has given up over 40 points to two opponents already this season, she’ll need all the courage she can muster. And a shirt, evidently

Click the jump to see the fine artwork of victory drawn onto her rack. Salut! to Holly.

(more…)

That someone out there watching the Va. Tech game, in the midst of all that solemnity and ceremony, that genuine sorrow mixed with the exultation of a community coming together, could still see one tiny gesture, isolate it on video, and combine it with a cheap sound effect…well, we salute you, American Awesomeman. We’ve laughed all morning at this like the giggly schoolgirl we really are underneath all this raw, unadorned, and well-padded sexiness.

I’ve known señor Swindle since around 1992. I like the guy. Really, I do. But sometimes he needs a little tweaking now and again. On that score, we bring you Orson’s least favorite cheesecake option of all time to celebrate the end of the offseason when we desperately need the weekly distractions. Without further ado, EDSBS’s Friday Cheesecake is the distinctly non-latin, silicon-filled, college football lovin’, Bobby Bowden worshiping Jen Sterger.

(more…)

Lloyd Carr asks Chad Henne into his office. Henne sits down.

Carr: Henne. You need to jerk it up a little. (HT: Larry Brown Sports.)

Henne: Um, sir?

Carr: Jerk it up.

Henne: I…I don’t do that sir. And isn’t that a bit personal. I mean, I’ll do anything for Michigan football, but I can’t see how that’ll win…(Blushes.)

Carr: Jesus, I’m not talking about badgering the witness.

Henne: Oh, heh. Sorry.

Carr: Burping the worm.

Henne: Yes.

Carr: Squeezing the toothpaste.

Henne: Sir, I get it?

Carr: See, that’s what I mean. Always with the sirs, the pleases, the ma’ams.

Henne: Well, sure , sir. It’s–

Carr: It makes you a total pussy, Henne. And total pussies cannot play quarterback in the Big Ten, Chad.

Henne: Jeff George played for Illinois, sir.

Carr: ILLINOIS IS NOT IN THE BIG TEN, HENNE!!!

Henne:…

Carr: Anyway, you’ve got to drop the civil shit and really get a cocktail fork into some nutsacks out there. That’s the only way you get ‘em to perform for you, Henne. (more…)