Don’t borrow, steal: an offseason requires desperate measures, and in a pinch we’ll be happy to do the pinching. We present a running series: Stuff _____ People Like, based on the painfully accurate Stuff White People Like. Today’s episode deals with fans of the Iowa Hawkeyes, mind you, not black people and this guy. Worth noting, especially since there are no black people in Iowa.

Stuff Black and Gold People Like

Fried anything. Holy shit do we like frying things. It’s not that only Iowans fry everything, but Iowans only fry everything. Go to the Iowa State Fair, but do so only at your own risk and with polarized lenses on your sunglasses; direct eye contact with too many fried confections will clog your arteries with Oreo paste.

Not meth. Sorry, Orson, but that’s something that Red and Yellow people enjoy far more than Hawkeye fans, along with other mind-numbing substances like Oxycontin and Rep. Steve King (R-IA). On the other hand…

Hawkeye Vodka. This brand exists, it’s about $11 for a handle, and it’s every bit as gut-wrenching as you can imagine. Only the saddest, most pickled citizens can stomach shots of the Hawkeye, and consuming large portions in mixed drinks leads to complete loss of pants, motor control, and stomach contents, in that order, and in the span of about 15 minutes. It’s a great way to spend a weekend, even if you only remember the world-altering hangover. Actually, it’s unfair to Iowans to restrict us to Hawkeye. Let’s broaden this out a bit:

All alcohol. Go to a Hawkeye tailgate sometime. It’s similar to SEC tailgates in terms of volume (both sound and attendance), but there’s a marked difference: SEC tailgaters cook. They socialize. They have fun. We stand around in 40 degree weather silently forcing Natty Ice down our throats and thinking to ourselves, “there’s more dew than usual.” This is a necessary result of having all our football games start at 11 a.m. Eventually, after 7 hangover-delaying Keystones, some asshole turns on his car and puts in his tailgate CD, which by default has…
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Darren McFadden is slave to no man’s whims, and we love him for that. The dress-wearing, cruisin’ on 22s beast dressed up with backfield mate Felix Jones for Halloween, and in Thighsman fashion did not disappoint. Darren could actually pull a Fred and propel a car with stone wheels to full speed in a matter of seconds, which makes the costume more than appropriate for him.

HT: Greg, but view the rest of the photos over at SportsCrack.

We’re taking our plastic orange pumpkin and going out with them for the night, and not coming back until we fill it with beer and candy corn. (Man, that’s gonna be some kind of fun to crap out.) In the meantime, please remember to moderate your candy and alcohol intake. You might make the scene all day…but tomorrow there’ll be hell to pay.

A definition:

A concussion occurs when the head hits or is hit by an object. A concussion can also occur when the brain is pushed against the skull with a strong force. In such cases, parts of the brain that control mental function may be damaged. The injured person may become disoriented (confused) and may briefly lose consciousness.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about three hundred thousand people experience mild to moderate concussions each year as a result of sports injuries. Most of these people are men between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.

See illustration 1.A below:

For more information, the Library of Congress recommends that you find your local Rey Maualuga. Anger him; this may be done by staring directly at him or at a picture of him, breathing oxygen in his vicinity, or even standing too closely to him in days that end in “y.” Then wait behind as many blockers as you like for desired results. He’ll find you.

(BTW: What in the hell is wrong with UCLA’s protections? Olson was sacked five times in the game against Utah. West coast offense short pass three step drop quick protect whaAAAA?)

A respectable 20 rank in the Coaches’ Poll! A buzz-generating sighting of the Wildcat formation in fall practice, a formation that new offensive coordinator David Lee says he’s even expanded in his playbook! People forgetting the turmoil of the offseason until…until you get the sudden departure of offensive Colin Tucker from the team, a minor hiccup in the depth chart that should slide away from the reader somewhere around the bottom of the page.

Unless Tucker Sr. goes on a Rivals site and either drops a neutron bomb on anything and everything associated with the coaching staff–now that’s got itself some walkin’ legs, now.

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Semantics are everything, but we have to clarify this: Al Groh sucks, but he is not categorically “the worst” coach in the country right now. He’s close: the mumbling, the anti-charisma that surrounds him…remember scenes in films where evil men trod the soil, and flowers wilt all around them? Al Groh has a similar effect, but with the color palette: everything he walks past turns a uniform shade of beige. (The radios all turn to the Clear Channel BEST STATION TO LISTEN TO AT WORK, too.)

Al Groh: forever rockin’ to 98.5, but not the worst.

At least Groh produces NFL draft picks, one of the bits of evidence Stewart Mandel cites in his list of the five worst coaches this year to prove how bad Groh is. (Braves and Birds, file and save for the next installment of “Duel of the Jews“. You’re welcome.) He also plays a wicked synthtar on Guitar Hero, and has produced a whole line of instructional booklets.

There’s two examples far worse than Groh or even local mayonnaise sensation Chan Gailey, he of the 7-5 regular season mathematical equilibrium.

1. Sylvester Croom. No one wants to put him on this list because of the huge, huge challenges Croom faces as the head coach of a program located in a town lovingly referred to as “Starkganistan.” They do exist, but Croom’s made a slew of mistakes as head coach, most notably attempting to run his version of the modified West Coast offense (a complex, often too complex system for college) with personnel who can’t possibly execute it. In three years, he’s failed to find talent to match, either.

Croom: sadly, not very good.

Logically the only other person who could be worse than Croom. Of three victories last year, two preceded the losing coach’s firing or “departure”: Mike Shula at Alabama, and Watson Brown’s departure at UAB. Croom’s only other conference win not over Ole Miss or Kentucky…

2. …would be the one that got America’s other worst coach fired.

As pointed out elsewhere, Washington’s got a testicle-busting schedule on their hands. (Holy mixed anatomical metaphors!–ed.) Ty Willingham and company have decided what a good day to die is, and that is on Saturday. To wit:

Syracuse: Um, the Washington of the Big East? Even pitching here, but played in the Carrier Dome, which Syracuse actually inflates with pure helium during games. Unaccustomed to the pure, toxic form of the gas, Washington dies a squeaky little death in this game. (Don’t believe it? You come up with a better explanation of why good teams go bad in the unassuming Syracuse game environment.)

Ty Willingham and the Huskies: this year, they dine in hell.

Boise St: Beat a better Pac-10 team this past season in Oregon State, which looked like ashen heaps of shame for the Beavers until the Statue of Liberty Game. Now they’re the favorite here, which means they’ll have difficulty dealing with the pressure, stumble, and still win this game running.

Ohio State: Loss. Will not get ugly after the second quarter. Because it will be 20something to three then, and Tressel and the Sweatervest Mafia will call off the dogs. Fortunately, as this will be Tennessee/Florida week, no one will watch this game anyway, so it will be a quiet death.
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Pete Carroll really will schedule anyone. We fully wanted to begin this post by saying that USC does schedule aggressively out of conference, then undercut the whole thing with a “you only play the Arkansases of the world” bit of snark + gag or two=bloggalicious content w00t!” Unfortunately memory got in the way, as USC has played Nebraska, Auburn, Virginia Tech and pretty much anyone else they could stack on their plate over the span of the Pete Carroll era.

The trend continues. Bill’s got a piece over at the Fanhouse about USC’s ongoing peeps into the ACC. Ever on the mack for more recruiting lebensraum and national profile, Carroll’s got USC already playing UVA in 2008, and plans to double up his Atlantic Coast Conferenceness with a proposed date with Boston College in 2011, a year in which Carroll plans to all but rubber-stamp his express ticket to hell by potentially beating both prominent Catholic college football schools in a single season.

Go ahead and start selling the “Highway to Hell: Trojans 2011″ t-shirts. They’ll pay for your retirement home in Oriental Mindoro in no time flat.

Given ample time, we think the laws of physics and parallel universes imply that you could find a video of yourself being concussed by a bloodthirsty safety.

In fact, according to a Scientific American article we skimmed on the toilet one day, there has to be a parallel universe where you’re being killed on a Youtube clip. In fact, there’s one where you’re this Texas Tech wide receiver getting his sternum shattered by a TCU d-back. And that parallel universe utterly sucks for you.

Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst, architect of one of the Big Ten’s most powerful and righteous offenses, will remain with the Badgers after a brief flirtation with the Dallas Cowboys.

Badgers head coach Bret Bielema said one of the following quotes regarding Chryst’s anticipated and much-welcomed return. Pick the right quote, and win an EDSBS prize!*

“We love him. Unconditionally. We think the guy walks on water.”

“He does the work of…well, not two people. It’s more like he’s three guys wrapped up in one for us.”

“If he left, we were going to blame the usual suspects. By that, I mean the Jews, of course.”

“”I’m very pleased Paul will be staying with our program,” Badgers coach Bret Bielema said in a statement. “It’s a testament to all he has done here that an organization like the Cowboys would be interested in him.”

“Chryst working for the Cowboys? Did you see what God did to Tony Romo? No way he’s working for them.”

Wisconsin: Chryst returning. Repent, heathens.

*The official EDSBS Esteem and Respect Prize. Cash value? Zero or less.

And now, after a generously late starting time, the continuing saga of…

Don Frank, a.k.a. Frank Broyles, Arkansas’ retired semi-legendary coach and longtime AD, will be retiring after the calendar year 2007. Events on the rancho happened very quickly: the retirement came after a meeting of the board of trustees in executive session, which is Robert’s Rules-speak for “the time when we close doors, say whatever the hell we feel like, and actually start getting things done.”

Broyles has been the biggest patron–lo siento, El Patron Mas Grande!–for Boss Hawg, a.k.a. Houston Nutt. Nutt made it back to the SEC Championship Game this year after winning ten games during the regular season and pounding the daylights out of Auburn at home, one of those games you’ve likely forgotten about that really, really changed the way people saw a Tigersplainsmenwareagle team pegged by many to be a national title contender. (You no stop off-tackle, you no win national title.)

The debacle began with the defeat in the SEC title game and Mustaingate, the lass pictured above who was the blue chip in Nutt’s bonnet in 2006 recruiting. After hiring Mustain’s high school coach to revolutionize the Arkansas offense, Nutt slowly reeled in Gus Malzahn, benching Mustain and marginalizing the spread attack until the Arkansas offense looked a lot like the run run punt attack Nutt has trademarked at Fayetteville. Nutt then loses Malzahn, may have lost Mustain, aggravated a parent revolt with his retrograde offensive moves, and went on a local talk radio show to slam a columnist who he believed wrote inaccurate things about him…which were, of course, mostly true.

What happens next? If this follows the telenovela, we will have:

–Boss Hawg, impassioned with desperate love, impregnating the buxom maid.

–Don Frank, clinging to the rancho, making a desperate bid to get back the ranch by searching for Trotsky’s lost gold in the hills with the treacherous vagabond Jackie Sherrill.

–Gus Malzahn, trapped in Tulsa, woos Mustain with roses and mementoes of their formerly glorious love.

–Arkansas boosters mass at the gates of the rancho, torches in hand.

All this story needs is Bee Man.

The next offensive coordinator at Arkansas? The whole thing makes him queasy.

Not quite through raging about the clock rules. If we’re very concerned about maximizing profit and coordinating with television partners, then we should be more than serious about it.

Our proposals:

1. The CSI First Down Line for SEC broadcasts: rather than simply show the line and the crew stretching the first down marker toward the spot, let’s have a full, CSI-style zoom in on the grass, the flecks of dirt, the ball looming huge like a zeppelin from the ant’s eye perspective. Complete the scene with jumpy edits and the disgusting sound of tiny bug jaws chewing up their prey. Finish each microzoom with the Roger Daltrey YEAAAAAAYYYYYY from CSI: Miami

We’d even work in David Caruso, if allusions to anything alcoholic were allowed on college broadcasts.

2. For Fox Broadcasts: combine the success of When Animals Attack with sideline reporting, forcing microphone-toting newbies to prove their mettle by broadcasting live while being attacked by an animal chosen by viewer votes. “To see Leslie fight a surly warthog, text *34 on your Cingular Wireless phone.” Remember: Fox hates you.

3. The FedEx Express Twofer: Making a two point conversion takes five minutes off the clock in the second half. Extra time will be filled in with bonus coverage of ABC’s new sitcom Unattractive Man With Inexplicably Hot Wife Makes Mistake And Has To Cover It Up in 22 Minutes.

4. Allstate can sponsor the Dennis Haysbert “Are You In Good Hands Varsity For A Day” contest, where a lucky fan (only after signing a mountain of waivers) is allowed to play for a series for a team at the position of their choice during the second quarter. They cannot opt out, and by purchasing a ticket have in fact already consented to the possibility that they will find themselves playing fullback in front of 80,000 people for five minutes. They must wear a blue all-contact Allstate jersey the whole time.

We really want this to happen in all sports just to illustrate just how hard they really are, especially during the Olympics. Ski-jumping. Pommel horse. Boxing. The possibilities are endless, especially in the vault. See evidence below.

5. The Trojan Magnum Deep Penetration Replay. Speaks for itself, really. Big pass play or huge sack (heh) gets the Trojan Magnum Deep Penetration Replay, accompanied with hotkey “oooooh” from a ladies’ voice.

6. The Brent Musburger Cold One Alert. Each time a player makes a particularly vicious and cold-hearted hit or tackle, the sound of a popping top plays, accompanied with Brent Musburger saluting the screen and saying “HE JUST POPPED A COLD ONE, DIDN’T HE JACKAARRROOOOO? REMEMBER, THAT’S ANOTHER BRENT MUSBURGER COLD ONE, BROUGHT TO YOU BY ANDY LAURINITIS!!!” Note: does not specifically mention beer, or even correctly identify Musburger’s current broadcast partner, which is exactly what will happen on the screen anyway. Paid for by the combined breweries of America, and they might as well, since we’re pretty certain Brent does his own in-house version of this anyway.

Brent: having a cold one alert whether you like it or not.

Warning: This is not a love song.Caustic language ahead. But you knew that already.

Mark Schlabach turns in a piece on [NAME REDACTED], the coach who spent three years in the offices of the Florida athletic department and now does the same at the University of Illinois. During that time, [NAME REDACTED] spent his time performing what he defined as the seven core competencies of a head coach:

Headbutting Coke machines. You can’t just get angry–you have to emote to show your passion to 18 year olds and other young adults watching you. (The one thing 18 year olds are short on is passion. We know, we know, but this is written in the high ironic from [NAME REDACTED]’s point of view. Roll with it.)

Therefore, you demonstrate your commitment and passion by headbutting machinery. Mind the ones with glass fronts, though the bleeding may add to the image. Watching film does not show passion, by the way. Avoid.

Talking on the phone in the shower. [NAME REDACTED] actually did have a phone in the shower so he could call recruits while washing all that blood off from headbutting innocent Coke machines. It also allowed him to hold conversations without bursting into flame from all the passion and excitement he emits. (Florida fans, in unison: pity, really.)

Writing stuff down on a notepad. What was he writing down? This, actually:

Saying the same five things over and over again. [NAME REDACTED] forever claimed how “excited” he was, and how the mental lapses and inability of his team to close games was “correctable.” In year one, this was pablum. In year two, it crept into delusion. In year three, it crossed the line into what philosopher Harry Frankfurt would correctly identify as bullshit. The difference between that and standard clipboard-holding lies?

Both in lying and in telling the truth people are guided by their beliefs concerning the way things are. These guide them as they endeavor either to describe the world correctly or to describe it deceitfully. For this reason, telling lies does not tend to unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. …The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Paying no attention became a theme for [NAME REDACTED], whether it involved the truth, the ineffectiveness of the soft zone late in the game, or the rogue waves of incompetence paralyzing Florida late in the game. And yet…it was all correctable. Which was technically correct, but only in the most lawyerly way possible, since the correction required involved his removal, a prescription eventually administered by those who held the purse strings.

Anyway, Mark Schlabach’s got this piece on [NAME REDACTED] that backs up Orson’s Sad But Reliable Rules for Humanity yet again.
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We’d stop doing this, but we just can’t. The hangover’s just too sweet to relinquish.

Your tears…they bring us joy. We drink them from your Heisman-winning skull.

The Subcommandante will be along in a bit. First, foozball news.

Never outsource your dastardly plots. Never! There FSU was, all tied to the railroad tracks, down 27-23 and getting run over by UCLA, a team that couldn’t run its way through soggy drywall all year. If it was us in charge of this dastardly plot, we would have twiddled our inky black mustache, secured the Seminoles to the track tightly with only the newest, bleached-white rope, and then backed away and let the 4:23 inbound from Portland do the work.

Alas: not all help is created equal. UCLA just sat there, locked at 27-23 for five minutes or so, and when the inevitable rush came flying back for FSU, they collapsed. Yes, they did get off the rails with the assistance of a positively negligent no-call on a pass-interference play where Greg Carr tossed a db to the ground and caught the patented Jeff Bowden Jump Ball for a touchdown. (Jeff Bowden’s reaction shot nearly made us throw up our cough medicine.)

But UCLA let Polly Trueheart off the tracks, and even loosened a few coils of the rope just to make things fair. Nestor and the rest of Bruins Nation weren’t even surprised, right? 4th and nothing on FSU’s goal line, and Dorrell opts for the field goal despite running at will on FSU’s defense to that point. That’s how you end up losing 44-27 to a team Wake Forest blanked at home.

Never, ever send someone else to do your dirty work. Nevah!

Always, always tie the maiden to the tracks yourself. You never know how other people will do it.

Subcommandante Wayne will be along in a bit. There’s some actual news going on, and let’s not let Wayne near that, shall we?

In an era where some professors cower and even abet the scullduggery associated with many D-1 football programs’ academics, one professor has stood up and said NAY to grade-fixing. That brave soul refused to give yet another break to a shiftless student, stood up for the standards that made that university great, and simply said: the line must be drawn hyah!

(And actually, we’re pretty sure they said exactly that and in that voice, since this is Georgia Tech, and that’s exactly what Picard said versus the Borg when he flipped out at Alfre Woodard, except he said “Reggie Ball” wherever he’s talking about the Borg. Oh, and he probably didn’t accuse Ball of decimating whole worlds, either, though Tech fans rightfullycould.)

That brave professor may also be acting entirely of spite and self-interest as a football fan, too: their actions in effect ended Ball’s career one game shy of its likely dismal coda in the Gator Bowl. Ball has been declared academically ineligible along with cornerback Kenny Scott, and has played his last game as a Yellow Jacket. (Pause for cheers, tears of relief, peals of bells ringing through the humid air of Atlanta, sound of one undergrad whooping as he achieves level 60 in WoW.) Taylor Bennett, a backup with little experience outside of mop-up duty against Duke, will start for the Jackets in the bowl. He cannot be worse, and this is mathematical fact you cannot contest or challenge without looking foolish.

Calvin Johnson had no comment at the time, but his hands did issue this statement through a representative:

We’d like to say that we’re relieved that our long, personal nightmare has come to a conclusion. Working with Reggie may have made us look brilliant, but we’re tired of trying to make foie gras out of pig snout, five rusty bolts, and a pile of pencil shavings. We’re pro, but we’re not David Blaine, for chrissakes.

#21’s hands

Though university officials could not comment directly on the ineligibility issue, inside sources have leaked allegations that Ball’s ineligibility stems from his age. Rather than the declared 22 he claims to be, some suspect Ball’s age to be much lower than previously thought, with one source claiming to have a copy of a birth certificate showing Ball as having a birthdate of August 13, 1990.

This would make Ball an extremely mature-looking 16 year old, something Tech fans have long suspected. When asked about this, coach Chan Gailey had no comment.

Ball, meanwhile, plans to continue his studies at Stone Mountain High School in May, and is excited about the prospect of playing college ball for a big team. “I think I can catch on with a HBCU or maybe even a MAC team,” said Ball from his dorm at Georgia Tech on Wednesday. “I’m going back down to the developmental leagues for a bit, but it’s gonna be good for me. The opportunities are limitless from here.”

Ball: optimistic.