An enchanted meadow. In Missouri.

Oh, Knights of Auldwyn! You shall ne’er triumph against our merry troupe, assembled from only the most enchanted wooded glens and dales? Forsooth, relent in thine advance or taste our magick, the strongest in all creation and Boone County!

Knaves of Auldwyn, more like it! The Tigers Templar hath a boot steak for your dinner, for this be our land you hath traipsed upon! (more…)

Did you bet a substantial sum of money that not only would Iowa be the next Fulmer Cup contributor, but also that it would be the head coach’s son who contributed? If so, you may be doing this right now.

Daddy Fat Stacks you would be if you wagered correctly.

It’s not just that it’s the coach’s son and two other football players who incurred the rather gentle charge of public intox, a misdemeanor charge handed out like pizza coupons on most college campuses. (We never got one, but that’s the advantage of being uncoordinated and mumbling all the time–no one notices when you fall down and start slurring your speech.) It’s the manner in which they got the charges.

According to University of Iowa Department of Public Safety Associate Director Bill Searls and criminal complaints, Zachary Merlin Derby, 19, and Tyler Allen Christensen, 19, both of Hillcrest Residence Hall, approached an off-duty UI police officer and attempted to pick a fight with him.

It’s akin to attempting sexual assault on a woman with a vagina dentata, and with figuratively similar results. (more…)

YOU WANT ME CATCH BALL?

Army’s tried a few of the tried and true measures to compete as a military academy: the option, hiring a retread pro coach with some name recognition, and using some ah those biologically engineered killbot mutants left over from Project Universal Soldier. Actually, they’re just getting to that last one, or attempting to make create-a-player a reality by putting 6′10″, 286 pound Ali Villanueva, former offensive lineman, at wideout this spring.

Villanueva has never played wide receiver at any level, but runs a 4.8, making him at least as fast as any of Mississippi State’s starting wide receivers last season. Coach Rich Ellerson is all but admitting that this is a longshot, but that it would be “fun” watching him block DBs and safeties. Ellerson wins you over for attempting one thing, at least: putting players at position by the “really fat goalie” theory of play, which you may as well do because you’re at Army, perpetually at a disadvantage, and may as well get some highlight reel time when VIllanueva falls on a DB and smashes him like a ripe banana beneath a bike tire sometime in November.

Between VIllanueva and Terrance Cody, we’re moving ever-so-much closer to our lifelong dream of fielding our 2003 Middle Tennessee State University National Title team from NCAA. now for the 5′0″, 280 pound running back who ran a 3.2 and jumped lineman like they were flabby hurdles.

This is actually Pete Carroll’s Twitter status as of right now. It only further cements our love and admiration for him, and merits posting after the bell because we say it does.

The only visual remix of OMC’s “How Bizarre” you’ll ever need follows after the jump.
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We abhor end of the year lists mostly because they come straight from the stat sheet and the standings, not from the complex, muddled story of what actually occurred in the season. They also excise a good amount of the context to a moment, as well. Was any player in any single game as dominant in a moment as Brian Orakpo was against Oklahoma? Even with the stat line–two sacks, four tackles for a loss and a forced fumble–you cheat what he did to Oklahoma in terms of changing protections and flustering Sam Bradford into making–gasp!–two or three mistakes in a game.

Or, to concatenate that bit of praise and turn this into Connections with James Burke for football: did any single performance which led to a singular defeat that then led to the even bigger upset of undefeated Texas? Without Orakpo disintegrating the Oklahoma line and Colt McCoy being devilishly accurate, there is no undefeated Texas rolling into this game, where Michael Crabtree spontaneously generated the one moment this year that had us springing to our feet.

Musberger’s bellowing call–so enthused he fucks up the pronunciation a bit, blurting out something that sounds like “CROBB-TRAAAAAAYYY”–is all you need. We don’t even hear Herbstreit after that; the delirium of the moment still lingers and obliterates all commentary. There is a moment in each season you remember with a clarity bordering on the surreal , as if a South American writer had gotten a hold of the script and written floating women and feathered angels speaking odd tongues into the background. There’s more than a little Marquez in Crabtree’s catch, and not just in its mythical content; the tragic side kept Texas from the national title game, and put Bob Stoops’ toes in the surf of Biscayne Bay.

Tennessee is slogging through a miserable, sad bog of a season, and yes oh my isn’t that a shame. For those of us who take joy in watching the denizens of Helm’s Deep on the Tennessee River weep, there is but one regret, and that is watching bastard-killing, kerosene-swilling, heart-thrilling Eric Berry labor away with more wattage by himself than the entire offensive eleven combined.

Berry inspires men and weakens women’s wills. He pleases the eyes of children and the noses of dogs. He is awesome, and you should tip your hat as he passes, even if it means stealing someone’s hat to do it–even if it is a policeman’s hat. He’ll understand what you’re doing once you explain it to him. Trust us.

We rarely pre-empt the Curious Index. Today, there is a reason. Read on, because Holly found something majestic.

Raise ya glasses, shake ya asses, Vol Nation: For unto us is given this day that greatest of football blogosphere treasures—a Catlab masterpiece of our very own. It’s like staring into the sun, but it’ll get you drunk. Behold:

Have you ever seen anything ring so true? I’m about 85% sure the guy holding the pennant is my cousin Maxie. Had this wondrous creation hatched just a scant few days earlier, we would’ve been hard-pressed not to scrap the Tennessee list entirely—because this is, perfectly encapsulated, what Orange And White People Like.

He’s a beast from the Big East. And when his kicker isn’t missing potentially crucial field goals, he’s bouncing to five dollar beats and pimping Matt Grothe’s website in song.

MP3 File

The song is rapped and produced by none other than USF’s kicker Delbert Alvarado, the same one who missed three field goals against Auburn. Alvarado made the song for mattgrothe.com, mentioned a demure seventeen times or so in the song (check the website!), and according to Grothe “It’s a dang good song.”

The word dang just isn’t used enough as a modifier, dang it. As for the song, we must deliver some due credit to Alvarado, whose ten-cent street beats are pure Third Coast car-trunk-entrepreneur material–the song’s not terrible, though being an ode to Matt Grothe it does get a bit repetitive. We’ll know if it’s done the job if you hear Scott Van Pelt or Neil Everett drop a “G to the R-O-T-H-E” reference on Sportscenter.

Massive HT: Holly for working the transistors and vacuum tube to make this happen.

Thanks for comin’, everybody. I’m Les Miles and I’m the head coach here at LSU. Please leave your taffy over in the Les Miles taffy bowl. I see most of you remembered to bring it, which means you all get scratch ‘n sniff stickers to put in your books. The really generous ones get the banana flavored ones. I have skunk stickers for the rest of you.

YAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY TAFFY!!!!

I’m here today to introduce our special uniforms for the game against Tulane University. They really are special uniforms. And by this, I mean that they’re magical. Our players will go faster, tackle harder, and make bigger plays. And this all happens because we’ll be wearing our white magic pants.

Magicpants!

Revealliarrmus!

Clap! CLAP, ALL OF YOU!!!

(Reporter clap awkwardly, sporadically. Miles claps and jumps up and down.)

YAYYYYYYYYYY!!! Taffy break! (Unwraps taffy slowly, chews, moans.) Oh, butterscotch, old friend. You never bring the blues with you, do you.

(Continues.)

My players complain sometimes. WAAAAAA!!! we don’t want to watch The Return of the King again, or WAAAAAAA!!! we don’t want to wear white pants because it makes us look fat. Whatever, chuckles! (more…)