Down? Tryin’ to get a spark? Goshdangit, what you need is a canned Garage Band beat with some of [NAME REDACTED]’s finest cuts from his Monday morning interview following another intense, passionate loss to a Big Ten team. Illinois faces Michigan State this Saturday with new starting qb Eddie McGee, who will likely be benched for deposed starter qb Juice Williams in the third quarter because Illinois is dead last in scoring defense and scoring offense in the Big Ten, and that makes you a terrible, terrible football team no matter who is cluelessly slapping the controls of a plane in flat spin.

GET DOWN.


MP3 File

Next time a high profile recruit doesn’t work out, avoid the messy, unnecessary step of admitting you can’t recruit as a coach, and simply fall back on the new hottnezz: “We offered a scholarship to the wrong [INSERT NAME HERE}.” Ryan Miller, a fairly common name, happens to be the name of both Ryan Miller, a talented football player at Andrew Jackson Academy (”Where we teach violent AND crazy,”) and Ryan Miller, a 6′2″, 165 pound track runner and trumpet player at Lexington High School. And the two schools leaning furthest out to recruit this wunderkind who would be broken in half on the first kick return?

Letters began arriving early this summer from the University of South Carolina football office. Then a couple every week from Illinois. One from Tennessee. Others from Charleston Southern, East Carolina and North Carolina State.

Yeah, this explains a lot. See, we offered, and when he showed up, he had lost 125 pounds, 1.5 seconds off his forty time, and had become white. Durndest thing, I know. Even without their 165 pound lynchpin, South Carolina is improving offensively, but reading stuff like this…

Garcia overthrew several receivers, and that was when the ball wasn’t snapped over his head.

…makes us want to send deadly robots back in time to figure out what sapped Steve Spurrier of his J.R. Ewing swagger and turned him into this sad, grass-kicking ghost of a past ass-kicker at Sakerlina. Then, when we found out what did it, we’d take Urban as our coach anyway, but we’d send the robots to kill the cast of Everybody Loves Raymond, because that show deserved to die in a hail of bullets and cyborg flame before it even crawled its tentacled way into existence. Isn’t it funny how they all hate each other DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE.

Cautionary tale of getting in barfights, vol. 382394: You never know when you’ll find yourself in a robot bar fight, and if you don’t think that’s a bad scene, just look:

Cautionary tale of getting in barfights, vol. 382395: You attempt to hit on women in a bar. You believe you’re saying things like, “My, ma’am, what a fine night it is, and how gilded the moonflower appears to be on this luminous, intoxicating evening.” The woman, seeking some kind of shelter from you overpowering masculinity, sends over an envoy who happens to be a backup linebacker for the Illinois Illini football team.

You have instead said nothing like what witnesses have overheard, a garbled phrase closer to “They call me the Sheriff of Pussy County, and you’re under arrest!” than anything you thought you were saying. You could call off things right here, but alcohol has disabled the restrictor plate of logic, and 6′6″, 310 pounds looks the same as a Girl Scout after enough turns of Kam’s Shot Wheel. You take a confident swing at a much larger man. Then, this happens:

Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz says Garrity punched him, fracturing the man’s skull. Rietz says the man is a university student and remained hospitalized Monday.

The only possible advantage to things working out this way? You being unconscious during the malicious hangover afterwards–not a fair trade for massive head injuries, but still a trade. Garrity is suspended until all the cases of the case come out, but his two counts of felony aggravated battery do qualify him for six points in the Fulmer Cup and a bonus point for punching someone so hard their skull broke, bringing the total points awarded to seven points in the Fulmer Cup.

This is what [NAME REDACTED] tweeted at 3:45 a.m. on Saturday, May 16th:

This lapse in twitter protocol could be the result of several things. Since most of you are not accomplished [REDACTED]ologists like ourselves, we’ll give you the rundown of what might be prompting America’s Most Perpetually Improving Coach to tweet incomprehensible, undirected gibberish at 4 in the morning on a weekend.

–Addressing his own reflection in a snack machine in the mirror, then daring it to fight.

–Saw the FailWhale, and naturally assumed it was taunting him; then, gave it the talkin’-to it deserved.

–Left out “@Solitaire” from the message. Was frustrated at the computer’s refusal to give him any threes, or to even recognize the words “Go Fish” no matter how loud he yelled them.

–Was attempting to address the spirit of Sylvester Croom, who visited him clad in rags and chains and warned him he would be visited later that night by the ghosts of the 387 first-half timeouts he has left unused in his coaching career. (What do you mean Croom’s not dead? He’s in St. Louis, and that’s close enough for us.)

This would all be less funny if you did not read the ensuing tweet, posted today.

(more…)

A mid-sized suburban home in Michigan. An unusually wiry boy plays with ten pound weights and does bored pullups on a small pull-up bar.

Mother: Well, he’s a normal boy in every other way. He just happens to be curiously strong for his age, and– (more…)

Mornin’ everyone. Feelin’ good. Lookin’ good. You know it. I know it. Charger the Golf Cart of Victory knows it.

Just got a text message from a recruit telling me I’m the sexiest coach. Might be gay. I don’t judge. Just likin’ the intensity. Get him in the program. Have him pick out some shades. Maybe class up the coaches’ uniforms a bit. We need some pizazz. Some action. More lightning bolts on the sleeves.

LIGHTNING BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLTS!!!

(Flexes, calls trick play for a turnover on first play of game.)

Likin’ the effort. Players goin’ all out. Like Josh Brent. Gettin’ a DUI. Happens. Got pulled over with suspended license. Why’s it suspended? Too busy hittin’ the weights. Hang cleanin’ hogs at the Ag building. Hang cleanin’ every day. Can’t file the paperwork because he can’t get full extension at all three points pushin’ paper. Likin’ it.

HAAAAAAAAANG CLEEEEEEEAAAAAAAANS!!!

(Holds press conference with hair on fire. Insists hair is not on fire.)

That’s three points in the Fulmer Cup. Competin’. Scorin’. Three is more than two. Take two outta three and you get one. That’s Illini math. Winner’s math. Take one and divide it one. Guess what you got? That’s right. A winner. Every day, dividin’ one by one and getting one. Or eighth in the Big Ten. That’s one if you divide it by eight, which is really just a bunch a ones all stacked together. We get those sorted out and we’ll be good here at Illinoise. Gonna like it. Gonna compete.

COMPEEEEEEEEEEEEETE!!!

(Checks play card, gestures wildly, mismanages clock and allows time to expire on potential game-winning FG attempt.)

Jeff Allen, Illini lineman: The divergent styles of leadership fascinate me, Jon.

Jon Asamoah, Fellow Illini lineman: Me, too. Their endless variations, the ever-changing dynamics of leadership.

Jeff: I know. For instance, take my high school coach. Way more of an autocratic messiah type. Every problem was his to solve, and only solvable through his individually intuited experience, not through the input of others.

Jon: That’s good in the initial phase of a crisis, but after a while didn’t the team feel irrelevant to the experience? That’s one of the limitations to the autocrat/messiah type. His is a solipsism functioning as the core experience of a group, a contradiction that in most group dynamics cannot sustain itself without the deleterious effects of a cult forming around it.

Jeff: That’s exactly why I like these chats of ours, Jon. You listen and think at the same time.

[A gray-haired man bursts into their conversation.]

(more…)

It is a common motif in interviews for [NAME REDACTED] to be just cleaning up after a shower. For some reason, he is forever just entering or exiting a bath of some sort during interviews, leading us to think he wishes that, like a cat, he could just self-clean on the go. Science eventually prevails, though.

GAMEDAY, 2012.

File footage from 2008 Gameday. Lee Corso head-in-jar not pictured.

Graying Chris Fowler: Big matchup coming this Saturday when the Illini go to Camp Randall to face the Badgers. We’ll be right back with Coach [NAME REDACTED].

Director:…aaaaand out.

Head of Lee Corso in Jar: CHANGE THE LIQUID IN HERE! I CAN SMELL MY OWN FACE!

Kirk Herbstreit: Hey, can we get LC some fresh head punch here? (more…)

Hey you! You have a lot of hair! I’m likin’ it! Ol’ Bucket A Hair! That’s what I’m callin’ ya!

All that hair. I’m likin’ it. Makes you look like an alien. Or an alien that plays football but with a lotta hair comin’ all down your back. Bucket ‘A Hair. YEAAAAHHHH!!!

[Drives Bentley Golf Cart into brick wall while texting recruit.]

Thinkin’ you all need nicknames. Thinkin’ it makes recruiting better. Thinkin’ gets kids excited. Gotta have excitement. Gotta have passion. Gotta have rugby punts. Gotta have a shower. Ol’ Coach showers seven times a day with a waterproof phone to call recruits. Gotta stay fresh and clean. Keep the Zook Hook primed and ready for duty.

WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!! [performs 38 250 pound hangcleans in a row in shower, drops weight and cracks entire tile floor into spidery shards.]

You!

I’m callin’ you Blackbeard, ’cause you’re black. Gotta beard, too. Blackbeard. Maybe you like piratin’. Booty. We’re all likin’ the booty. Especially me. LustyLatinas.com. Subscription. Wife found it. Not. Happy.

REGRETTING NOT USING THE COMPANY CARRRRRD!!!!

[Fails to score from the 5, misses a 4th and 1, loses to Minnesota.]

Gotta make time to get time. We’re big on that here at Illinoize. Players do homework while they lift weights, brush their teeth while waterskiing, and do Kegels when they’re in class. [NAME REDACTED]’s doing ‘em right now. Feels great.

Gotta multitask. Gotta do squats and study at the same time. Watch this.

BLOCK!! What’s the biggest challenge in theorizing political science?

Eric Block, Illini OL and Poli Sci Major: (grunting 600 pound squat) Grr…the…inabilty to…predict or model…outcomes of multivariate…AAHAIIIIIGGHGHH…situations….

[drops weight, collapses holding back in ominous way, twitches.]

[REDACTED]: Wrong! HA! Don’t even know if he is. Walk it off, Block! Likin’ the effort.

Wantin’ the fans to wave towels. Wantin’ ‘em to get excited. Wantin’ ‘em to multi-task. People get excited about things. ‘Scuse me.

[Tackles copy machine, rips it in half and drinks ink cartridge.]

WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNN!!!!!!!

See? Excited. People get excited ’bout a lotta things. Football. Family. Arson. Lotsa things. What’s better than football? Glad I asked. Football…and towels. And football towels.

[REDACTED'S] got it goin’ on. The [REDACTED ZONE]’s like a big spirit helicopter. First it lifts you. Then the whole stadium takes off. We’re floatin’. Recruits love it. Big floatin’ stadium. Unless the fans stop spinnin’ the towels. Then we fall. Maybe die.

LIIIIIIIIIIIIFT!!!! [push jerks a 350 pound mahogany desk over his head twelve times, spilling post-its and energy drink cans in wild maelstrom from it in the process.]

Gotta take some chances in life, though. Gotta go for two at one point in the game where it makes no sense to go for two. Gotta rugby punt. Gotta shake things up. Gotta keep the opposition on their toes. Gotta beat Ohio State and lose to Northwestern. Gotta have a gas fight with total strangers at a gas station and dare someone to light a match once in a while.

(Yup. The gas fight. So many flames. So much screaming. Didn’t even see it coming. Five dead in Joliet. Likin’ it. So did the recruits. “Nico Bellic, man!” Whoever that is.)

COMPEEEEEEEEEEETE!!!! [passes out from lack of food or water, as he has forgotten to ingest either for three days straight.]

(HT: RL)

PS. No idea what this is about. Illegal licensure. Wrong name. Not gettin’ it.