Orson: I was going to open by suggesting that I will wrap you in a giant sheet of latex, and then tell Tim Tebow you were an enormous penis in need of circumcision.

Holly: Tebow heard that. And he’s very disappointed. Not as disappointed as he’s gonna be on Saturday, but sad.

Orson: When your opponent lays down in the second quarter of a rivalry game for years at a time, it does disappoint.

Holly: Which is, in turn, not as sad as you will be when I link your 401K to Bobby Bowden’s retirement, and bring back David Cutcliffe to rain down fire and brimstone and perfectly executed indefensible slant passes.

Orson: Funny you should mention that. I just made a killing off selling Lane Kiffin a bridge I do not own. It has a hole in the railing where Johnny Majors drunkenly plunged off it in a Chrysler Cordoba, but he said that was fine, he’d take it as is. Also, if Cutcliffe came back, we’d just hire Richmond’s defensive coordinator. They did a fine job with him last week.

Holly: Speaking of Johnny, he should be turning up on your doorstep at any moment. You’ve been named his sponsor. He’ll be the one rolling up to the door in a barrel.

Orson: I have appointed you as Rex Grossman’s squeegee girl.

Holly: I’ve set the Clemson Tiger to watch you while you sleep. If you sleep. If you ever sleep.

Holly: Actually, no. I’ve assigned Wondy to deliver your unborn two-headed jackal baby. Catch!

Orson: He will drop it. And then do a festive dance. I will put Phil Fulmer in charge of your PTA cake walk, and watch him destroy it from the inside with his gossipy ways.

Holly: You’re forgetting the cake. You’re the one changing his bibs, didn’t you know?

Orson: You’re in charge of Big Orange’s Colonic, though. Randy Sanders will appreciate finally being freed from his imprisonment in Fulmer’s duodenum.

Holly: Ssssh. Don’t attempt to speak. You’ve been dropped into an impassable hedge labyrinth entirely covered in bees. It’s all right, though. That’s the Georgia Tech D-line chained to your left wrist. They’re smart lads. They’ll have a plan.

Orson: So does Lane Kiffin. Has he told you about the part where you lose to Kentucky yet?

Holly: You’re alive! As a reward, you may spoon fat-free Miracle Whip into Ralph Friedgen’s maw while he frantically gameplans for Middle Tennessee State.

Orson: The real football power in the state.

Holly: No, that’s baby Berry. Remember his name. You’ll be screaming it in agony 30 hours from now.

Orson: Eric Berry is a magnificent stallion surrounded by ponies, and tomorrow we eat horse steaks just like Mama Khan used to make them. Shhh. That sound you hear? It’s Mike Hamilton choking himself to death with a Raiders bandana. Or the usual goatfucking, as you would say.

Holly: Mike Hamilton is quite twee, you know. He’ll fit right down your windpipe. Wanna see?

Orson: No, it’s currently occupied by Tim Tebow’s penis, as we Florida fans have to take turns with the man. True love waits, but hurried lust can take the one hole in a pinch without breaking any rules. (Just wish Shanoff would share. Selfish!) By the way, afterwards, you shit diamonds for a week. And they said I didn’t need to keep my pool skimmer!

Holly: THOSE ARE DIAMONIQUES, MOTHERFUCKER JOKE’S ON YOU. I can actually imagine this exchange taking place in the swamp.

Orson: I will name Lane Kiffin your head coach. < —-THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

Holly: See, I thought the point of doing this three years in a row was that we come up with NEW jokes. You can’t even make it ten minutes.

Orson: Much like the Tennessee defensive line

Holly: ….demonstrably untrue, chap.

Orson: Western Kentucky was quite a test. Big Red shouldn’t be asked to play weakside defensive end, though. He’s more of a tackle at heart.

Holly: Perhaps Randy Shannon can jog your memory. He heard what you said about his sainted mother.

Orson: ALL OF RANDY SHANNON’S FRIENDS ARE DEAD.

Holly: That’s Tom O’Brien on the other line. He wants you to prep his fire-baton routine for America’s Got Talent.

Orson: Two ACC mentions in a row clearly mean you’ve adjusted your idea of football greatness to appropriate levels. You’ll love Charlotte. They have a mall!

Holly: I’m going in alphabetical order. You’d think you’d recognize it, English grad. NOW LET US PRAISE THE BIG 12. Dan Hawkins wants to know if he can crash on your futon. You’ve got a futon, right? Just for a couple days, until he gets his head right. Darrell Scott can run to the groc if y’all need anything. He’s getting real good at errands.

Orson: I have decided to improve your quarterback position by having USC’s third string punter transfer to Tennessee. You may remember him as Mitch Mustain. His mother’s coming with him.

Holly: Spurrier called. He said he just wanted to talk, but he keeps mentioning all his free time and how the air in Columbia doesn’t suit his wife. Want him back? I’m sure he could whip those receivers right back out of shape.

Orson: Georgia called. They want to remind you that…oh, that’s right. That’s the last team you reliably spread cheeks on year in and year out. HIGH FIVE.

Holly: UP TOP…ew. But seriously, congrats on what’s sure to be a bang-up title run. Since he won’t have much to do this winter, Bob Stoops is coming aboard as a consultant. He’s been to the big games. He knows.

Orson: I made you a sculpture. It’s a three thousand pound, 15 foot high statue of Ed Orgeron trying to coach a football team. I’m conflicted on the title, though: “Failure,” or “Immense Failure.” Houston Nutt says you were doin’ it wrong.

Holly: Houston Nutt would know from SEC teams doin’ it wrong. He says hello. I think it was hello. There was cackling.

Orson: cracklesnacklecrackleGIGGITAHcrackle. I don’t even know if these are making sense, as I’ve been up since five thanks to my in-laws and their geriatric, floor-pissing dog. BUT ENOUGH ABOUT MONTE KIFFIN. I will slap you and call you Casey Clausen.

Holly: I will cut you and call you RONALD ELIZABETH ZOOK. (It’s probably Elizabeth, right? I wouldn’t know. You would. Because he was your football coach, remember?)

Orson: I do remember. Know how to say Zook in German? Das ist pronounced “Kiffin.”

Holly: Kiffykins is more of a wakeboarding type.

Orson: He’s been riding the wave of being born in the right place quite well, that’s true.

Holly: Nepotism! Does a body good. How IS Steve Jr?

Orson: Not foolishly in charge of a major football program.

Holly: (Seriously, how is he? I have no idea.)

Orson: Remember that Steve Spurrier, Jr. cannot possibly be overshadowed by his father’s shadow now that the OBC has passed away.

Holly: Sidebar: you know what coach’s son I’d swap Kiffykins for? Skip Holtz, for the sole reason that I bet Kiffy would wear a pirate hat to press conferences at ECU as though nothing was amiss. This would be unassailably awesome.

Orson: In two years, your dream can come true…provided Notre Dame doesn’t hire him first.

Holly: It’s ready when you are:

Orson: The only consolation when Kiffykins makes his exit is that UT and Notre Dame will fight for the same highly coveted coach, and we can exult in the common joy of watching an SEC outmaneuver ND for a coach. Again.

Holly: I will cut you.

Orson: I have named Jonathan Crompton your starting quarterback for the year.

Holly: I have named Wondy Pierre-Louis your starting corner.

Orson: (Only one of these is true.)

Holly: I will fucking cut you.

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 header on this video is “One of the worst offensive series ever in college football,” and if you limit the definition of “worst” to “a series where, while not turning the ball over for a change of possession or a score, the offense displays repeated, consistent, and diverse ways of stepping face first in front of the red boxing glove on an expanding arm time and time again,” then yes; we’re talking about what might legitimately be not one, but the worst series of offensive football every played.

Ladies and gentlemen: Nicholls State versus Northwestern State. Northwestern has the ball on the Nicholls State 47, and is down 33-14. Watch from between your fingers if you have to.

1st and 10: incomplete pass. The best drive for Northwestern State all drive, as it is merely an incompletion.

2nd and 10: Illegal procedure, NW State. Also, an oncoming pass rusher flies sideways into the qb’s knee after the play.

2nd and 15: False start, NW State. General look of confusion as players fuddle around as if someone has abandoned them coachless on the sideline.

2nd and 20: Ball on the 43. A near interception, which would have been a merciful stroke of fate. Instead a holding penalty is called, and the penalty sets them back even further to the 33 yard line.

2nd and 30: Sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot, and sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot and remember that your foot is made not of human flesh, but of high-grade explosives. The quarterback kicks the ball, which is an illegal kicking penalty taken at half the distance to the goal from the end of the run backwards to find the ball. Hold yourself fo the resulting count:

3rd and 61: The second best play all drive, as the qb is pressured, does not step out of bounds and into a waiting tree shredder, and throws the ball out of bounds outside of the tackle box.

4th and 61: Punt. Well, presumably punt. We really don’t know what happens here. Perhaps they actually do get the punt off; perhaps the punter takes the ball, attempts a fake, and is struck by an 18 wheeler speeding out of control off a local highway and over the hapless special teamer. Maybe it’s blocked. Whatever happens, the universe decided to truncate the video here, and with good reason, too. You don’t see the Joker kill anyone in the Dark Knight’s scary videos, either, but they’re still enough to give you screaming nightmares for weeks.

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.)

Reporter: “Any further questions: what do you expect to see from the Sooners in terms of game management and strategy on Saturday?”

Pinkel: “I’m gonna just be frank with you. I expect them to put sixty points worth of ungreased football schlong right into our outflow pipe, frankly. Take that down: I expect them to sodomize us with an excellence unseen since Halston took on three members of the French Men’s Rugby Squad in 1980 in the VIP at Club 54. We’re going to be rammed from the aftside by a battleship that, frankly, will likely split our humble clipper ship in two. We’re Edward Norton in the shower in American History X, and we know what’s coming. It doesn’t mean we like it, but in life, sometimes you’re the plunger, and sometimes you’re the toilet begging for a mercy flush.

So, in return what I expect is a quality reacharound. Not a half-assed flubbing of the old Atari Boystick, no, what I want in return for taking the biggest Barbary Pirate Handshake since Joel Klatt watched his brain fly out of his nose is a quality courtesy butter-churning from the man in return. Let us get some points back in the third and fourth. Make sure Chase has at least one eyeball when the game is over. Take out Demarco Murray when they’re up by thirty. The little things.

If you’re going to flesh-kebab someone, you might as well give the courtesy of rubbing their meat before applying the heat. That’s all I’m saying, and you can quote me on that. We’re not looking for a pastor’s handshake here. I want my team to feel the concerned but firm grip of a closeted plumber on holiday in a Miami bathhouse, dammit. It’s the least they can do after what will probably happen to us on Saturday.

Any other questions? What? Why are you looking at me like that?

[/the sound of flashbulbs, furious scribbling, and phones being dialed.]

Orson: Ready to hate?

Holly: It’s been too long since I was referred to as a “dick mitten.”

Holly: (yes. hateyourface.)

Orson: I will open this with: I will throw you in a closet full of BEES and name Dave Clawson as your offensive coordinator.

Holly: [yourpastorheardyousaythat'd]

Holly: I don’t even need to do anything to you. I will strand you, as is, in the Wisconsin student section. They’ll love your fluffy widdle fauxhawk.

Orson: I’ll die from the fumes first. SO….MUCH..BOOZE….

Holly: Or from the FREE HAM sign I will place about your neck.

Orson: Speaking of Booze: how is Johnny Majors?

Holly: Virile.

Orson: And flammable.

Holly: ….I just died a little. Oh, did I tell you? I got you a walk-on part for Ghost Rider 2. You’re welcome.

Orson: Damn you. That’s the worst thing you could have threatened me with.

Holly: You led with a body blow. It was that, or assigning you to Ben Mauk’s legal defense team, which lord knows has to still be operational.

Orson: I will let your team win a national championship, but not with your heralded white quarterback, but instead with a mobile black qb who took money from boosters.

Holly: So will I! (Chris Leak was getting help from SOMEBODY.)

Orson: Revlon.

Holly: Maybe he’s born with it. I will tell Will Muschamp you’re hurt.

Orson: I will give you a house next to Neyland Stadium, but it will be on “Casey Clausen Court,” not “Peyton Manning Way.”

Holly: vikbhwGHIV;.vikbhnvj:?BF ;

Orson: That one buuuuuuuurns.

Holly: I, in return, will subject you to a variation of waterboarding known as Jimmy Clausen Hair Runoff Torture.

Orson: NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Holly: After which you will be required to pull out Charlie’s post-op stitches. Without gloves or a mask.

Orson: I will cover you in batter and signs reading “Free Ammo!” and throw you at a horde of LSU fans.

Holly: I will inform Randy Shannon that you failed to separate your recyclables. His sad, disappointed eyes will drive you to seppuku.

Orson: (Like anyone in Miami recycles.) I will stab you to death with the planet Mars.

Holly: I’m telling Mike the Tiger you sassed him.

Holly: Also, Rey heard you’re full of candy.

Orson: I will give out your cellphone number as Erin Andrews’. The sharks will never cease their circling.

Holly: I’m giving yours out as Greg Robinson’s. A different sort of shark.

Orson: I will inform several Alabama message boards that you keyed Nick Saban’s solid gold Cocksman 300 Sedan. You KNOW that one’s gonna suck.

Holly: I will show you the true meaning of the verb form of Kragthorpe.

Orson: I’m pretty sure that involves my anus, and not in a good way.

Holly: Know what you need? A guest appearance on Dr. Lou: Acupunture Edition. (builtbythehomedepot)

Orson: I will make you go menswear shopping with Chris Fowler on clearance sale day.

Holly: I have three words. Fire ant ball.

Orson: I will force you to work as a gravy swabber on Charlie Weis’ new 18 foot long land-yacht, the Frying Crutchman.

Holly: You’ll be laughing when I strap you to a mechanical bull, sidesaddle in front of Brent Musberger, who’s 97 sheets to the wind and singing bluegrass.

Orson: You will wake up in a bathroom. Your leg will be chained to a radiator. A saw will be on the floor. A loop of the Randy Sanders 2005 offense will be running on the television. Make the decision you must make.

Holly: Good, because I’m sending you to a Baptist picnic with storebought banana pudding. And while you’re gone I”m hiding Big Red under your bed and Little Red in your closet. It’s no use running.

Orson: I will tie you to a post and allow Mike Patrick to read his journals aloud to you. No man has made it past page 16 without becoming incurably insane.

Holly: Giant Trev Alberts is just outside the door. He heard what you said about his pores. And he’s most displeased.

Orson: I’ll shoot you with a gun that fires other guns.

Holly: I’ll shoot you with a bear-gun (that’s a gun that shoots live bears)

Orson: I’ll do that, but instead of bears, it will fire bullets. Wait…

Orson: I will turn you into a man just to cockpunch you.

Holly: I will do the same OOOOHHHHHH BUUUUURN In summation: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES. Oh, and I’ll cut you. Again.

Handler Two: Man, she’s flipping me out right now.

Ralphie: Trample. Kill. Ram. Trample. Gore. Crush crush trample. Fear. Two legs everywhere. Trample them all. Desperate hunger for grass. Kill.

Handler Three: We’ve got to go in two.

Handler One: Look at her eyes. It’s just one pit of black surrounded by white fear. God, that’s unnerving.

Ralphie V: Hunger. All that grass. Must crush, then eat. Sun. Buffalo in heaven. Demand blood. Ram. Stomp. Run. Kick. Destroy two legs.

Hander Two: Where’s Trey? He’s supposed to be here. We can’t do this with just three handlers.

Handler Three: We ready to go?

Trey, Handler Four: Hey, guys, when are we—AAAIIIIGGGHHHHH

Handler one, hanging on for dear life: OH GOD HER EYES HAAAAIIIIIILLLLLP!

Ralphie: OPEN SPACE RUN KILL.

Handler Four: My insides feels leaky and warm…I can’t feel…my…hands…

Handler One: I CAN’T HOLD ON JESUS CHRIST WHY THE HELL DO WE HAVE A BUFFALO THEY DON’T LIKE LEASHES!!!!

Dan Hawkins: Well done, boys! That’s a division one football mascot!

Ralphie: Sun. Grass. Trampled. Yes. Suddenly tired. Hungry. Stop.

Handler One: MY SHOULDER! OH GOD MY SHOULDER!

Hawkins: Can we get her to skydive onto the field? And then trample someone? That would be EPIC.

(HT: Rashaan Salaam)

“I think Reveille VIII should be an American collie because it’s tradition, and isn’t that what A&M’s all about?” freshman general studies major Emily Hudson said.

“Reveille should be a mutt. [Collies] are really spastic and hard to train. And mutts, since they have a mixture of all different genes, they tend to be a lot smarter,” junior marketing major Kelley Baxter said.

Yeah, that’s right. Listen to the person who’s actually declared a major, Texas A&M, and back up because we ’bout to drop some policy:

EDSBS Policy: Texas A&M, you should get a mutt. First, it sets an exemplary standard for your community and for the rest of the world as a whole if you adopt a stray dog–just like the first Reveille–and take it back to campus to become the new, freshly dewormed mascot of your school. It would be timely, too, since stray dogs are the third-greatest threat to Americans in their homes, topped only by our natural enemy the sun and, of course, Kimbo Slice.

All they want is love, your garbage, and a soft place to lay down. Oh, and occasionally a child stolen from the neighbors’ yard to play with, but isn’t that what the road trip to Austin every other year is for? Exactly. Our bluetooth devices are communicating smoothly and processing nicely here.

Slow down your heart rate, man. He’s getting angry!

Second, do not just get any mutt that comes along. No, Aggies, you must select a hoodtastic mix of some of nature’s gnarliest dog breeds all force-humped into a single physical vessel through a genetic lineage so convoluted Mormon polygamists would weep at its complexities. Chow, pit bull, Rottweilers, Cane Corsos, Doberman Pinschers, Anatolian Shephereds, German Pit Chows, Dogo de Argentinas, Brazilian Mastiffs, the rare but powerful Scythian Rape Terrier…all of them need to be present in one form or another here. The final product should look something like Cerebrus, the three headed dog guarding the gates of hell, but only after the bad ass middle head decided it was tired of all the other heads’ yapping and ate them in a 35 second display of horrifying, impressive ferocity.

Take care to raise it with humans and socialize it early and often. And never, ever, leave it with fewer than three people at once, and try to keep it away from flashing lights and loud yells. For football games, sedate with 200 mg Seconal, or whatever amount will get it to a manageable level of fury. It all sounds like trouble, but if you want the Hound of the Baskervilles as envisioned by a Russian bioweapons lab, then you pay the price, amigos.

Oh, and if the Brazos Animal Shelter doesn’t have one of those lying around, you might consider contacting a Russian bioweapons lab. Those people do great work. For an example, just look at Terrence Cody. He cost Saban a pretty pony (no typo–Saban has to feed him one each day), but 900 pound defensive tackles don’t grow all by themselves.

I look so tough: the chin jutted forward, the helmet down. I don’t even know why we wear helmets: there’s the boom, the whoosh out of the cannons, and then the meaningless impact, chaos, and disintegration that is my life.

That may look like bravado. But it’s only looks. You see bravery. I see a hollow man rocketing toward the only destiny he’s ever known or ever will know: falling, gravity, and ultimately my demise in a mist of droplets of what used to be my soul.

I’d kill myself if I wasn’t into being efficient. Life does the job for me anyway every day, one stinking cannon shot at a time. Doing it myself would be a waste of energy.

It’s only when you think that’s the problem. Look at me. I’m hurtling along through space, propelled by forces I don’t fully understand, just close enough to see that others are being put through the same hell I rocket through every day. Wake. Eat. In the Tubes you go, the stinking, beer-reeky tubes that vomit you outward like so many spermatozoa spinning through a barren womb.

The worst part is watching the other guys go through it. You know it ain’t fair for you to go through with it, but them? Why does someone else have to go, too? This could have been a one-man show, and then you’d only have to put up with your own suffering. Others didn’t have to be involved, dragged into this shit sandwich and forced to be accomplices to this. Look at Simpson, Johnson, and McElroy up there. They’re dying, and I have to watch. Who’s the victim here?

I die a little each time they go into the drums. It’s hell.

It’s kind of beautiful, though. We all roll out each morning not knowing why, drinking our coffee and wondering when, if, and how it will end. We put on the suit. We put on the pads. We drop the visor, stand in the tubes, hit the drums and slide down the harpstrings. We look at each other with the need and dread of those caught in a situation we’ll never understand and that we cannot escape.

But you know, every now and then, way up in the stratosphere, you get to kick the edge of it all, and see that maybe there’s hope beyond this veil. Up there, there’s light, and the glimmer of something beyond. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like…hope. Meaning. Up there, something tells me that we couldn’t just be meaningless particles evaporating in a cold, uncaring brew of a universe. We just can’t. I know this for a fact. How?

I just feel it, man. Despite all the shit, I know I can’t be doing this for no reason, only to be consumed. I just feel it. That’s all I can say.

Gotta go. They’re playing my number. And if I’m lucky, I’ll kick the cymbal today.

From Mr2Cents, as usual.

Welcome. We’re the rest of college football. Jim Tressel, we play this game now. You sit here. South Florida, sit over there. Three. No less, no more. Spin the barrels. Welcome to hell. You’re number one? Nice. Spin the barrels anyway.

The preseason top ten? They were at this table, too. MAO! (Slap!) 16 losses between all of them. The consensus number one, USC? Lost to unranked Stanford. Spin the gun. Now! MAO! (Slap!) Favored by forty one points and they lost, sucker. You thought you stood a chance? LSU sat at this table, too, ’till they lost to Kentucky in three overtimes, stung by the first team that could pass effectively against six man blitzes. MAO! (Slap!)

Spin the barrels. MAO! Congrats. Number one gets to sit at the table. Quite a prize, no?

Louisville played the part of the Yugo: they started smoking early and often, losing to unranked teams until they spun wrong and ended up in the river. West Virginia couldn’t handle South Florida. I said put your money on the table, Tressel! What? You don’t understand Vietnamese? MAO! (Slap!) Texas lost to an unranked. Florida lost to an unranked. Cal was in the chair for three seconds before they pulled the trigger and lost to to an unranked team.

You spin the barrels, sometimes you hear a click, and we all laugh and drink a little more mao tai and laugh like maniacs. Sometimes you hear boom, and we’re laughing and grabbing the mop while you go talk to your ancestors and play your silly Yankee baseball in the sky forever. Either way, it’s a hell of game for us. We just watch and point while you die.

MAO! (Slap!) Oklahoma was here, too, laughing all the way before they lost to an unranked team. Virginia Tech ran into a werewolf with a chainsaw for a dick and had to reboot on offense. You sure you want to be here? Because you know what happens when you play this game, right? One gun. One bullet. Spin.

Could be Michigan State. Could be Wisconsin. You don’t know. Shoot! MAO! No one gets out of this shack alive. You get cocky, you look around, and all of sudden some unranked team is beating you with a bamboo cane. Ask anyone who was in this chair before. You play, you pay. Christ, we had Illinois in the top 25 for a hot minute there before they lost to–yup–unranked Iowa.

Now pick up the gun. MAO! Fun, eh? South Florida, your turn. This time, we do four bullets and Rutgers on Thursday.

MAO!

In this game, no one wins.

MP3 File

OS: Torture, motherfucker. Go

Holly: I will fasten you to the front of a train leaving Chicago at 55 mph at noon heading towards another train leaving Boston at 75 mph at 3 PM.

Try and resist its call, Vol fan.

OS: I will hand you a packet of silica gel that does not say “DO NOT EAT.” You will then eat it because these are irresistable to people.

Holly: I will send you quail hunting with Anthony Morelli. And employ you as Michael Henig’s Lovely Assistant during his twilight career as a traveling magician.

OS: I will give you a tapeworm and transfer your job to a town without buffet-style family eateries.

Holly: AAAAAHHH I WAS JUST TYPING THIS: “All I have so far is “I will chain you to the door of a crowded Golden Corral, stick my head in the door, and yell “SOMEBODY’S KEYIN’ A TRUCK!”

OS: I will spray you with Aramis, give you a Widespread Panic haircut, and throw you in a pit filled with emo boys with straight razors.

OS: I will leave you in a bar where they only serve European cordials.

OS: I will set you up on a blind date with Andy Dick.

OS: I will make you the cue card holder on James Brooks live. (auburn joke! he can’t read!)

Holly: I will make you a Louisville cheerleader (do they do pushups for points?)

OS: Yes they do. But the joke’s on you! My pecs could use the work.

OS:: I will buy you season tickets to Syracuse football.

Holly: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO you MANIAC

OS: I will die and leave you a large sum of money and an island in the Carribbean…and make it contingent on you attending Syracuse football games for the next decade. All of them.

Holly: [sputter]

OS: You will not get that money

OS: Although an argument could be made that that’s not football.

Holly: True.

Oh, we hate, hate, hate you.

OS: I will force you to watch all of Peyton Manning’s victories against Florida. Oh, wait….

Holly: ;dfslgjkas;dlfghadsf;jhgadsoiuygasropuygawernbv;odauzfhb;dzoiohbfh

OS: Then I’ll have to force you to watch his national championship appearances. Wait, um…

Holly: I will force you to clean Danny Wuereufeffel’s Super Bowl Rings.

OS: SNAP!

Holly: All of them.

OS: noudiuhnt

Holly: ohidiuhd

OS: I will make you wash the frosting off Phil Fulmer’s steering wheel. This will take years.

OS: I will force you to play spin the bottle with Jay Mohr.

OS: I will force you to read Jay Mohr.

Holly: UNCALLED FOR.

OS: I will make you BE Jay Mohr.

Holly: Read implies that he writes.

OS: I have no mercy.

Holly: I will chain you to Clay Travis’ next flying apparatus.

OS: I will chain you to clay travis

Holly: …I will chain you to his Titans cheerleader lady?

OS: I could eat her

Holly: Mind the fankicks.

OS: I will have Big Daddy Drew send you pictures of his fire belly dressed up like a whistling man wearing a top hat.

Holly: I will dress you as a fruit stand and cast you in a big-budget action flick. Fruit stands never last, man.

OS: 100 cocktails. We mean, WE HATE YOU AND ALL YOU STAND FOR.

OS: I will name you as Wake Forest’s starting qb in game one of a season.

Holly: That’s just a separated shoulder. Take more to kill me.

Holly: Alternately: I will cast you in a one-episode arc as a love interest of Captain Kirk.

OS: OH, in that instance…I will name you the head coach at Syracuse.

Holly: Awww, don’t bring up Syracuse again. That’s just mean.

Holly: I WILL STUFF YOU INSIDE A MORGANTOWN SOFA.

Holly: ON A SATURDAY NIGHT.

Orson: I will make you a non-stationary flammable object in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday

Holly: It’s unfathomable that we didn’t think of either of those first.

OS: I will turn you into the Tulane football program

Holly: I need a field-rushing happy school to turn you into a goalpost at.

OS: I will turn you into a 24 pack and leave you in Dennis Erickson’s front seat

Holly: I will sell your furniture to one Ellis T. Jones, and send you to collect.

OS: I will tell Mark Mangino you’re made of marzipan

OS: I will tell Mike Tirico that you’re really into him.

Holly: I will dye your skin and hire you to coach football at Notre Dame (too much?)

OS: No, no. I will knock you out, tie you up, cover you in nickels, and throw you into the stands at a South Carolina game.

Holly: I will knock you out, tie you up, strap a baby in a onesie reading THEY’RE RAISING ME GAY to your chest, and leave you in Neyland.

OS: I will cover you in foodstamps and throw you into a Florida State Alumni meeting.

Holly: I can’t get to one about a Bear Bryant hat. But I’ll keep pondering.

Holly: Ah! I will put you in a houndstooth hat and assless chaps with a t-shirt that says “Bears for Bear.”

OS: I will pay Ed Orgeron to beat you to death with a seventy pound catfish.

Holly: I will tell Jared Lorenzen you’re filled with strawberry parfait. And hand him a very small spoon.

PARFAIT GIMMEH!

Holly: I will send Ed Orgeron the EDSBS url and your home address.

OS: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Holly: WOOOOOOO

OS: Doesn’t matter. All he needs is my scent. The rest is endgame.

OS: I will tell Kenny Irons you have a midget in your suitcase.

Holly: I will tell Marques Slocum you’re a spider?

OS: I will change your name legally to Notre Dame, ensuring you die a horrific death in a BCS bowl.

Holly: No–I’ll tell Marques Slocum you’ll feed his pets over the weekend.

OS: NOOOOOO

Holly: Being fucked to death by a lion would be a pretty badass death.

OS: For a few seconds, at least.

OS: I will tell Glenn Dorsey that you said he sucks. It won’t like it when it hears that.

Holly: I’ll tell Luther Campbell you’ve been fixing Miami games.

OS: I will throw you off a freighter in the North Sea and only let one man throw a life preserver to you: Michael Henig.

Holly: we’ve moved from transmogrification to tattling. Christ, will he even hit water?

OS: No. Point.

Holly: Or will he just throw it straight to a shark?

OS: He will throw it and knock over the chum bucket.

Holly: Correct,

OS: Which goes in the water.

OS: Summoning the sharks

Holly: I will change Pete Carroll’s radio presets from smooth jazz to nu-metal and blame you.He will kill you with kindness.

OS: He’s pretty jacked about that nu-metal station

Holly: But he’ll feel bad about it.

OS: I will lock you in a room with Bob Davie and ask him to explain the zone blitz to you.

Holly: I will coerce you into taking the under in the Florida/Troy game, steal your wallet and dump you at the bookie’s.

OS: I will tattoo Lee Corso naked on the inside of your eyelids

Holly: UNCALLED FOR. I will introduce Rex Grossman to your lovely mother.

OS: Well, she is single

Holly: ….who will somehow do such a job on her that you’ll never have been born.[snaps] Retro-time-space-continuum-uterine-obliteration, lawya. Look it up.

OS: He fucked you out of existence, don’t you understand? (Pan to shot of Orson and siblings. He fades in the photo, slowly. He looks at his hands, and can see through it.)

OS: I will put your fading life in the hands of the best cardiac surgeon/Ph.D in Central Florida, Dr. George O’Leary.

Holly: I’ll put your cat’s in the hands of Bill Frist.

OS: I’ll make your life dependent on having an orgasm with a Vanderbilt man.

Holly: I’ll make yours dependent on fucking Sterger. In daylight.

OS: Death. Sweet death.

Holly: I will cut you.

OS: I will kick you in the dick mitten.

Holly: Seriously, I’ll fucking cut you.

Orson Swindle is proprietor and editor of EDSBS.com. Holly may be read at Ladies…and at Snarkastic.com. They really do fucking hate each other this week, and are busy reloading and polishing knives as we speak.

The Tennessee guy appears to be the second coming of Buford Pusser. We were going to be all sportsmanlike and gentlemanly and congratulate the unfortunate recipient of the blow on getting up in a non-wobbly fashion. However, as appeared to start the fight on the night his team gave up fifty and failed to execute the individual revenge in front of gathered hundreds, we revoke the offer.

Next time, we recommend brown pants, brawlin’ Bulldog fan.