Peyton Manning finally met Lane Kiffin. As Clay points out in his dialogue between the two, the meeting appeared to take place in one of Saddam’s palaces, or perhaps in David Bowman’s final room at the end of the universe from 2001.

There has been no picture of Kiffykins and Fulmer together, as the two have “missed each other” and haven’t had time to sit down and stare blankly at each other yet. (Awkward rating: somewhere above “discussing pregnancy with your wife’s real babydaddy in a legal setting, somewhere below “meeting the man who murdered your parents.”)

You realize that Phil Fulmer probably waddled strode confidently into his office this morning, grabbed his cup of coffee and slab of batter-fried venision bagel, and thought happy thoughts. Tough days make tough people, Phil. Tough people get through tough times. He probably checked the wall: yup, trophies still there. Looked in the mirror. Yup, Pumpkinhead Champion still looking back at him.

He reviewed the emails for the day. He perused some notes Chavis left for him, and then probably brought in Dave Clawson to slap him until his cheeks bled talk some third down strategy. Then a few recruiting calls: just a check-in, a little how ya’ doin’ with his cheat sheet in hand to remember who he was talking to and what they liked, being careful not to confuse them and insult the tender but unstable ego of the blue-chipper he was trying to woo to Knoxville.

Then, he looked through his mail and found an envelope. It was postmarked “Starkville,” and contained one thing: an 8 X 10 glossy:

And a note that read “YOU’RE NEXT.–CROOM”

Then the world grew cold, his blood coagulated to icy sludge in his veins, and for the first time Phil Fulmer knew fear, for it was holding him tight in his very arms like an arctic boa constrictor.

To cap off a lackluster hate week, we salvage by threatening each other with the worst tortures we can possibly think of. Enjoy?

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? (more…)

As part of our ongoing ripoff of SWPL called “Stuff ____ and _______ People Like,” the EDSBS Staff presents “Stuff Orange and White People Like,” an analysis of things Tennessee Volunteer fans like. Enjoy.

Pitchforks and torches. A nine-win season is cause for satisfaction elsewhere in D-I, but in the SEC and Knoxville in particular, it’s a blight. Any win total under double digits lights up the AM radio dial with orange faithful ready to gut their coach like a catfish of astonishing proportions. Going 5-6 in 2005 brought, concurrently and consecutively, collective apoplexy and vows of silence—they still can’t talk about it. Bring up The Season Of Which We Do Not Speak to a Tennessee fan and his eyes will glaze over in rage or incomprehension. Either way, Does Not Compute.

Orson’s note: Wonder who those people in Frankenstein who, when confronted with a problem, immediately rush to get a.) an impaling instrument, and b.) fire? For any problem? Tennessee fans, that’s who. They’re threatening Frankenstein because, with some time in the weight room, he could be the next John Henderson, but noooooo, he wants to kidnap maidens and accidentally drown little girls in lakes all day like a bad monster.

John Henderson rocks fat titties all day, by the way, despite playing for a team we despise. “BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW!” comes from his sideline rantings in college, and he also did this, which is now how we wake up every morning.

We do it just like that. Except the wife does it with a padded white glove, and she does it softly, so as not to knock my exfoliating facial mask off. Sometimes she gets a little too into it, and some of the dust lands on our white oxford shirt! It’s a funny time, the mornings in the Swindle house!

HFCS That’s high fructose corn syrup, friends, and it is a fact of natural law that the highest concentration of HFCS swollen people on the planet reside in Tennessee. (more…)

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…)

It’s HATE WEEK!!! Joel from Rocky Top Talk answered our five questions, and we answered his over at RTT. We also appeared on the Corn From a Jar podcast, where we discovered why we left our birthplace: we speak far faster than anyone else in the state.

Courtesy of the Gatorsports FulmerFark thread.

1. Are the rafters squeaking in Knoxville from Phil headed out the door? Would we be stretching if we called this late Imperial period the Butterdammerung?

Being from Tennessee, you should know that the sun nevers sets on dairy products. Or if it does, they are fresh and new each milking morning. Or something.

There is a certain segment of Vol fans that is dissatisfied with coach Fulmer and always will be, but Fulmer has friends in high places with fat wallets. Fulmer’s really in a lose-lose situation: if he has another Season of Which We Do Not Speak ("SOWWDNS"), no amount of support from donors will save him, and if he wins another national championship, he’ll merely buy himself another eight years on the Throne of Perpetual Torridity. It’s the price one pays for a $2M+ salary.

2. How does it always happen that Tennessee and Florida meet each other in games with complimentary weaknesses? (We have no dbs, you have no wideouts, etc.)

That is odd, isn’t it? I blame Chris Leak. (more…)

Lamarcus Coker, Tennessee Vols starting tailback and alleged savior of the Tennessee run game, will only be running stadium stairs for the immediate future as he has been suspended indefinitely by Phil Fulmer for violating the team substance abuse policy.

Yes, go ahead and play this during the rest of the piece. We’re Florida fans. We know from pot-smoking athletes of astonishing ability. Plus the protagonist is named Smokey, a name Tennessee fans feel great affection for already.

Sadly, as indicated by the Rick James soundtrack above, Coker allegedly did not live up to his name by being caught with his snoot in a furrow of fine Peruvian pep powder, but rather by reportedly being caught generic weed, which at Florida would earn him a tidy suspension for the Cal game at best. Coker’s not helped by being a multiple offender at this point (it’s his second drug-related offense,) or by his being the test case for Tennessee’s new drug policy. The policy gives athletes extra “strike” counts, increasing from three to four, but makes those reinstatements a more arduous process, including mandatory counseling sessions and the like.

So Coker’s likely not shot the Vols’ entire season in the foot with the finest of Cletus’s turkey-killin’ blunderbusses…yet. He is suspended indefinitely, a punishment which Urban Meyer called “harsh.” That suspension could easily be lifted in time for substantial playing time, we think, given the rules in place. The really humorous part: Fulmer initially announced Coker’s absence as the result of a “medical condition,” which plan to break in as soon as possible in our day job.

Boss: So you’re not coming to work.
OS: No, it’s a medical thing.
Boss: What kind of medical thing?
OS: The kind that makes Widespread Panic sound reaaaaaaaaaaal good right now, actually. (COUGH)

In the meantime, like Smokey, Coker ain’t got shit else to do. We suggest he beat up neighborhood ruffian Deebo with a brick to boost his status and help redeem himself in the eyes of the community. And by “Deebo,” we mean “Phil Fulmer.” Trust us–we have no ulterior motives whatsoever.

Damn right I want four Tequizas. Now.

In looking for signs that Phil Fulmer is guaranteed job security for life, we lean on Mark Bradley suggesting that he’s going to be fired in the first week of December. A sportswriter going on the record with that kind of certainty is like having the CIA pronounce a country as “stable” and “bound for prosperity,” meaning that it’s seconds away from bursting into flames and becoming thirty different countries all ending in “–stan.”

Yet for those looking for signs of impending doom, you can either monitor the sales of batter fried porterhouse calzones at Calhoun’s (”Eat the Whole Thing, And We’ll Throw Your Dead Body in the Tennessee River Free Of Charge!”) or just rely on the fact that satire has brought you the Talking Fulmer. If fire[nameredacted].com is any indicator of sites devoted to mocking coaches, Fulmer’s days are numbered like the calories in a package of pork rinds, though nowhere near as numerous.

(HT: Angry ‘Eer from LWS.)

PS. Because we’re doing little more than just sitting on ass today (our own, of course,) we’ll be live-blogging the College Football Live show on ESPN today. You have been warned.

We usually get out the harpoons when the words “Phil Fulmer” appear on our radar–both because we dislike him, and bringing down something that big requires the use of serious tools. But Gene Wojeickdasdfhosqwkui of ESPN.com has to go ahead and highlight the positive side of Solomon Grundy’s soul we didn’t want to believe existed.

Fulmer’s first fundraiser dinner earned the Jason Foundation about $12,000. “I thought we raised the national debt,” Flatt said.

If Flatt asked Fulmer to call a kid who was struggling with depression, the only question was, “What’s the phone number?” And he didn’t hesitate when Flatt asked him to talk with parents who had lost a son or daughter to teenage suicide.

DAMN YOU GENE WOKEJFKDSCWHATTHEFUCKEVER! We don’t want to mention that Fulmer not only has a soul, but works with a foundation that works with teen suicide prevention, and calls them personally, and gives them money. He is pure, dumb evil, Gene Unspellable! How much did it cost you to write that article, huh? Two grand with expenses?

Well now, think of the cost to our veil of willful ignorance, Gene. That was priceless. PRICELESS, DAMN YOU! Now we’ll have to think of some other way to type “Phil Fulmer is very, very fat” every time we mention his name, like “Phil Fulmer is calorically imbalanced, or worse yet, “…is very jolly.” You have raped us with your tale of Fulmer’s generosity and kindness–and not even in that funny “clown being raped” funny way, either.

Fulmer, seen here with Charlie Daniels, raises money for a good cause. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.