Bill Stewart “jumbo shrimps” himself when discussing the insertion of Jarrett Brown into multiple spots in the offense:

“I’m the biggest conservative in the world, but yet I have enough riverboat gambler in me to go for it,” head coach Bill Stewart said of putting Brown in those different roles.

Stewart is a conservative riverboat gambler. He’s also a true cynic with a heart of gold, a thinker with an impulsive barbarian’s heart, and a man with a woman’s emotional sensibilities, which is why he’s mad at Pat White, but says he’s fine, just fine. He’ll double down, up the ante, and then fold just to be safe. He’ll push that envelope, take it just to the redline, see the checkered flag come out, and then power down just to be safe. He sometimes uses a safety razor to cut the throats of this enemies. He’s a vegetarian who’s not afraid to order a steak once and a while. Don’t box him in with your petty little logic-prisons. He’s drinking decaf with his meth, and there’s nothing you can do to stop him from doing it.

He’s a platypus mated with a swiss army knife crossed with a cyborg peacock, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Still working on an accurate summary of the Vol Navy, but in the meantime, note that YTMND can do anything…like, say, summarize West Virginia’s coaching situation to perfection.

Image via MGoBlog.

Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview of West Virginia at Colorado. If this seems loopier than usual, we blame the lack of oxygen up here. In Atlanta. At 1057 feet.

Ahhh, blackface: do you ever fail to amuse? GO BIFFS!

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. For West Virginia, we will select the number 5380, or the number of feet above sea level that Folsom Field sits at give or take a few feet here or there depending on how the location of your seats and how much Boulder-standard zoink weed you’ve consumed prior to entry.

West Virginia fans are very, very, very concerned about this number:

Every time I write something about Bill Stewart’s reluctance to make a big deal out of the altitude problems playing in Colorado, the e-mailers come out of the woodwork. They relate personal stories of the difficulties they’ve faced adapting to altitude and begging someone - anyone, please - to convey the seriousness of the situation to West Virginia’s coach.

We would pay at least thirty dollars to read one of the more impassioned one of these e-mailers. (more…)

Teams: there are a lot of them. In our effort to bring you the finest “bullshit” coverage of college football, we have begun the best method we could think of to write about teams we know next to nothing about: asking others to write about them for us. Our Visiting Lecturer Series today presents John Radcliff of Mountainlair.

One: what color is your season? In other words, please explain the metaphorical state of your program through the metaphor of color:

Blue might work, but Old Gold is definitely out. My memory of West Virginia football dates back to attending games at Old Mountaineer Field, and I can say that this has been the absolute worst off season ever. Dark Slate Grey seems about right. It’s not quite as dark as coal, but close. Between the back stabbing comments from WVU and Rich Rodriguez going at it in the media, and the mad dash the Mountaineers are making at the Fulmer Cup, it’s hard to think about what an exciting football team this is. There are a lot of Victorian homes around here with the original slate roofs.You can look at them and tell they were something in their day, like the Mountaineers on game day. But right now they are an eye sore that needs to be fixed before irreparable damage is done.

Two: What historical nation and period do you resemble most right now?

Germany during World War II. It’s all about speed and firepower. West Virginia’s offense looks to create a weakness in the defense through formation and exploit it with speed and precision. Like Germany, West Virginia is known for having lethal offensive weapons that strike fear in their enemies. But their ability to stop opponents and hold their ground can be called into question. The run defense is always stout, but there are days that it seems we can’t cover our own shadows. And in a conference with so many capable quarterbacks, that could be a problem.

(more…)

It’s November. You have no excuse to be outside.

Pat White. Thursday night. Louisville’s defense. This could get ugly.

THURSDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
LOUISVILLE at WEST VIRGINIA (7:30 ET • ESPN)
The classic “Time Machine” game: West Virginia is still a frontrunner, and even Louisville is still technically alive in the Big East at 2-2 in the conference, but this barely consequential showdown bears no resemblance to the clash of unbeaten, BCS-bound titans it was last year, or that ESPN no doubt expected again. In lieu of far-reaching national ramifications, prepare thyself, viewer, for pointless hype of Pat White and Steve Slaton directed at certain individual awards, and at least two replays of a certain play that propelled a certain color announcer to said award more than two fucking decades ago, and some pro scout drooling over Brian Brohm moments before he’s intercepted for severely underthrowing an open man.
Watch for: End zone angles of West Virginia’s unearthly blocking, opening mile-wide lanes against overpursuing defenses since 2005. Also: Noel Devine, who will do something completely jaw-dropping in place of Slaton in the second half, because that what Noel Devine does.

Provincialism: Tennessee State at Samford (6:00 ET, ESPNU), TCU at BYU (9:00 ET, Versus)

TGIF, UNLESS YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN WATCH…

RUTGERS at ARMY (8:00 ET • ESPN2)
Our brave future fighting men have played one much stronger team tough at home each of the last two years  –Iowa State in 2005, Texas A&M last year – but still carries something like a twenty-eight year losing streak against winning teams. I didn’t look that up, but you’ll hear the real number at the first sign of Rutgers distress Friday, and then a few times again until RU lays down the hammer. But make no mistake: sooner or later, the hammer will be laid. Army is sloooooow. Watch for: The play Army safety Caleb Campbell hits Ray Rice so hard his helmet pops off, and Rice is revealed to actually be a fifty-story-tall monster made of flames the Black Knights must work together to slay before they can graduate to victory, aka an extended tour in Afghanistan.

(Yes, I know that was a Marines commercial, but they’re all shooting at the same targets. Anyway, the Army monster as personified by Ray Rice is way bigger).

Provincialism: Fordham at Columbia (7:00 ET, YES), Bowling Green at Eastern Michigan (7:30 ET, ESPNU)

SATURDAY – EARLY AFTERNOON: THERE IS A RACCOON. FLUSH HIM FROM THE WALL IN TIME FOR…

Main Course: Michigan at Wisconsin (Noon ET • ESPN)
P.J. Hill may not play, meaning the Wolverines may have to actually hit a moving target, a tall task to date for this particular version of the Michigan D. Then again, the Badgers ran for all of twelve yards without Hill at Ohio State last week and have allowed an average of 221 yards rushing to the last four non-MAC offenses they’ve faced, three of them in losses. So Mike Hart’s ankle does not necessarily need to be 100 percent. Watch for: Okay, like, this may not be a big deal for Midwesterners and other Northern types, and there’s all like global warming and whatever, right? But for those of us who grew up sweating in the desolate Southland well into the Fall months, even a glimpse of snow on the tube is an exotic, vicarious thrill. Football in a blizzard? We don’t want to be there, we just want to see it. The game’s already an instant classic. OMG hi-def snowstorm! The god who denies us this seasonal pleasure is a cruel numen indeed.

On the Other Channel…
WAKE FOREST at CLEMSON (Noon ET • ESPN2)
Impromptu Geico trivia: which one of these teams still has a chance to catch Boston College in the Atlantic division? Answer: both of them – the Deacons and Tigers are 4-2 apiece, though Wake is eliminated by tie-breaking procedures if B.C. beats Maryland Saturday. If it wins, Clemson can set up a winner-take-all showdown with the Eagles in Death Valley next week. Watch for: Half of Clemson’s team is knocked out of the game after appropriately-named defensive lineman Jock McKissic loses his balance on the way down the hill during the Tigers’ opening ceremony, triggering a chain reaction that claims the entire starting secondary and most members of the receiving corps. C.J. Spiller is spared, however, by alertly leaping over the entire mass of humanity, performing a double salto with a full twist on the first flip and landing on his feet. Spiller then runs for 274 yards and two touchdowns as part of a five-man offense, only to watch Wake steal the win in the closing seconds (if you don’t think Wake would let a five-man offense hang around for 59 minutes, you don’t know Wake. Last second is just how some of us roll).

Bacher: Works things out, but…does he know how to change?

INDIANA at NORTHWESTERN (Noon ET • ESPN Classic)
What, exactly, is classic about this third tier pillowfight, other than its mediocrity? Both teams are collectively 0-5 against opponents with a winning record; Indiana is already technically bowl-eligible at 6-4, and Northwestern is a win away at 5-5. If the Wildcats win and both teams end up 6-6 (they’ll be underdogs next week against Purdue and Illinois, respectively), both could fall short of the conference’s seventh-place spot in the Motor City Bowl. Hopefully good enough for the Motor City Bowl! Classic! Watch for: Northwestern quarterback C.J. Bacher, whose look is best described as “vaguely Asian,” whose greatest achievement is yet to be seen and who is not afraid to admit that his favorite song on his iPod is Boyz II Men’s “Water Runs Dry.”

TEXAS A&M at MISSOURI (12:30 ET • FSN)
The Tigers offer an interesting juxtaposition for A&M: you have the Aggie offense on one hand, and what the Aggie offense is trying to be on the other. Every positive attribute you hear ascribed to Stepehen McGee during the first few minutes of the broadcast, apply it to Chase Daniel, as well, only for real. You won’t have to do that for very long. Watch for: Dennis Franchione slowly removing his headset, handing off his clipboard, putting his hands in his pocket and walking off the field in the middle of the third quarter following a moment of epiphany. What’s the point, you know?

Provincialism: A rare treat for SEC fans and unfortunate transplants to said territory, who get – count ‘em – not one but TWO! exciting Lincoln Financial options at 12:30: Alabama at Mississippi State and Arkansas at Tennessee. Double the graininess! Double the Yellawood ads! Double the Daves! (You know they’re going to find three more guys named ‘Dave’ for the extra duty right?) Everyone else can pick those games up live via the generous feed on Yahoo! Sports.

Elsewhere: Penn State at Temple (Noon ET, ESPNU), Michigan State at Purude (Noon ET, Big Ten Network), Minnesota at Iowa (Noon ET, Big Ten Network), North Carolina at North Carolina State (Noon ET, Lincoln Financial), South Florida at Syracuse (Noon ET, Metro Atlantic Sports Network/ERTV), Amherst at Williams (Noon ET, Northeast Sports Network), New Hampshire at Massachusetts (Noon ET, SNY…for two other states’ flagship schools?), Villanova at Towson State (Noon ET, CSNA), Kansas State at Nebraska (12:30, Versus), Lafayette at Holy Cross (1:00 ET, CSTV), Yale at Princeton (1:00 ET, YES)

LATE AFTERNOON: KEEP AN EYE ON THE COWS, MA

Main Course: AUBURN at GEORGIA (3:30 ET • CBS)
You may not realize it, but this is the oldest rivalry in the South, forging valiantly into a second century of tradition that would equally horrify both sides of the game’s segregationist founders. It’s one thing to let muscular negroes run the same ball as the white players, but foot-ball without the ceremonial mid-drive heifer rape? The Colonel won’t stand for it! Watch For: Knowshon Moreno, conquistador of homely co-eds campus-wide and the rest of the SEC’s worst nightmare for the next three-plus years.

On the Other Channel…
Your Mouse-Eared ESPN on ABC Overlords Bestow Upon an Unworthy and Grateful Public…
ILLINOIS at OHIO STATE / FLORIDA STATE at VIRGINIA TECH / TEXAS TECH at TEXAS / ARIZONA STATE at UCLA (3:30 ET • ABC/ESPN)

Look at this map and tell me: how did they decide on those precise boundaries in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for who would get Ohio State-Illinois and who would get UCLA-Arizona State? “Remember, boys, Southeast Idaho, they love ‘em some Big Ten. They can’t get enough. But Montana? They better get the game in L.A. or there’ll be hell to pay, believe you me. And whatever you, do, don’t even think about trying to put on Ohio State in that one little diamond-shaped sliver in Western Wyoming. We all remember the Laramie Riots of ‘92. Yep, live and learn, boys. Live and learn.”
Watch For: The comical contrast of Jim Tressel’s icy resolve and Coach [Redacted]’s goofy pep, ending in a long closeup of one of them fighting back tears as the clock winds down on an afternoon of unambiguous punishment in the fourth quarter. I won’t tell you which one.

AIR FORCE at NOTRE DAME (2:30 ET • NBC)
The Irish are a slight (+2.5) underdog at home, to a physically overmatched service academy that runs the triple option, which makes complete sense to anyone who saw last week’s game. And Jimmy Clausen is back in the saddle for the game that could officially make these Irish the losingest team in school history? What kind of lottery did the rest of the country win? Watch For: Schadenfreude doesn’t die. It multiplies.

Provincialism: Colorado State at New Mexico (1:00 MT, Mtn.), Boise State at Utah State (1:00 MT, KJZZ/KTVB), Connecticut at Cincinnati (3:30 ET, ESPNU), Wyoming at Utah (1:30 MT, CSTV), Furman at Georgia Southern (3:30 ET, SportsSouth), Kent State at Northern Illinois (3:00 CT, Cox Sports-Chicago), New Mexico State at San Jose State (1:00 PT, Comcast/Aggie Vision), East Carolina at Marshall (4:30 ET, MASN, WITN)

HERE COMES THE NIGHT

Main course: Your Mouse-Eared ESPN on ABC Overlords Bestow Upon an Unworthy and Grateful Public…
BOSTON COLLEGE at MARYLAND / KANSAS at OKLAHOMA STATE / USC at CALIFORNIA (8:00 ET • ABC/ESPN)
Oh, read it and weep, folks:

It’s the Kansas-Oklahoma State game you’ve always dreamed of, consumer. No, no – thank us later. Watch For: Visually seeing the final molecules of air go out of Cal’s dream season. Jeff Tedford will try sustaining its last vestiges by holding his breath and puffing out his cheeks, until Pete Carroll claps his hands on either side of Tedford’s face to force out the rest.

On the Other Channel…
FLORIDA at SOUTH CAROLINA (7:45 ET • ESPN)
The Gamecocks have strategically timed their annual offensive revival to coincide with a defensive collapse of potentially staggering proportions, just in time for Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Gators brittle young secondary and your staggering windfall on the ‘over.’ Watch For: The tragic destruction of the “Cockaboose Railroad” when the lead cockaboose strikes an absentminded Tebow crossing the tracks prior to the game.

Can nothing stop Tebow’s trail of rail destruction?!

VIRGINIA at MIAMI (7:15 ET • ESPN2)
What’s worse: that the Cavs are in first place in the ACC Coastal with the nation’s 104th-ranked offense, or that Miami still has a chance to catch them with a win? Welcome to the new ACC, baby. Watch For: There is no acceptable reason to watch any game in the ACC, especially one featuring one offense quarterbacked by Kirby “1 of 14” Freeman and another coached by Al Groh. Holly helpfully suggested the following themes:

Sundresses versus hot pants.
Juleps versus 40s.
Maypoles vs. Luther Campbell.
Popped collars versus popped caps.

I don’t think they wear sundresses in Virginia, but whatever a ‘Maypole’ is, with apologies to Luther, I’m there.

FRESNO STATE at HAWAII (11:00 ET • ESPN2)
It’s a midnight tradition: Random West Coast game! Random West Coast game! Watch For: If you can’t drunkenly watch Colt Brennan hang 450 yards on a team you will not be able to identify in the morning before passing out, you are not American.

Provincialism: Stanford at Washington State (3:30 PT, Fox Spors Northwest/Bay Area/Pacific), Baylor at Oklahoma (5:30 CT, FSN), Central Florida at UAB (6:30 CT, CSTV), Washington at Oregon State (7:15 PT, FSN), San Diego State at UNLV (9:00 MT, CSTV)

Hannibal Montegna has your snap viewing guide for tonight prepped and cut like the finest of fugu. Nibble and enjoy its venomous tang. (Slutty celebrity double-entendre joke pending!)

THURSDAY NIGHT HORS D’OEUVRE

It’s Thursday. Slaton smells blood.

Main Course: WEST VIRGINIA at MARYLAND (7:30 • ESPN2)
This game last year opened my eyes to the Mountaineers: unconvinced by their “fluky” win in the Sugar Bowl, I cynically expected a reversion to the West Virginia mean (maybe 9-3) last year, up to the moment I came home and flipped on what I expected to be a competitive game at the end of the first quarter, but what was instead a 28-0 rout. I’ve spent the succeeding year in contrite awe. Watch For: After a slow start last week, Slaton and White to gouge your eyes out with their game from the opening gun. In four Thursday night games the last two years, against Pittsburgh, Maryland, Louisville and Pittsburgh again, that pair alone has averaged an incredible 404 yards per game from scrimmage, not including any other rushers or any of White’s completions to any receiver except Slaton. Byrd Stadium is still grass, so, I dunno, grow it Serengeti long? Good luck.

On the Other Channel:
TCU at AIR FORCE (8:00 • CSTV)
Quick, dangerous turnaround for the Frogs, coming off a disappointment as the upstart in its own “Game of the Year” directly into the role of favorite in the 2-0 Falcons’ own defining game. Watch For: Air Force to keep it close with the sweet old school option game it supposedly scrapped, then brought back to run for 330 on Utah last week, until the Frogs’ oh-so-speedy “Afro-Americans” leave our country’s dim-footed, melanin-challenged servicemen spinning like a very uptight, over-educated top.

Tonight’s matchup between Maryland and West Virginia is compelling because it is Thursday, there is football on, and you have nothing else to do but sit and twitch and think about BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD. Yet there remain many other powerful reasons to watch the game, too:

–Vrrrooooomm. Pat White and Steve Slaton continue their work as the best sales team imaginable for the spreadbone West Virginia offense (both averaging over 100+ yards a game,) and ran giddily through Maryland’s slow-twitch defense last year. Maryland has played Villanova and Florida International, who seem fearsome enough to make the L.A. Times pronounce their defense as improved. We outran a toddler last night for a chicken finger someone dropped at a restaurant–sign us up for the Olympic 200×200, counselor.

–Ralph Friedgen’s improbable survival as the last remaining member of the Troll race.

–The sound of Ron Franklin, the voice of college football. Oh, wait…

–Numerous mentions of how Friedgen revoked Slaton’s scholarship offer, and how it motivates a man who already can run a 4.3 through almost any defense in the land to do exactly what he does against everyone else, anyway.

–Jordan Steffy’s preteen girl name. He should play in a midriff shirt and squeal when he completes passes with an unfortunate moniker like that. We think we went to school with a Jordan Steffy, who was of course hounded from school as “Jordan Stiffy.” Or she was abducted by gypsies. We can’t remember; they all get mixed up in our memory, they do…

–Rich Rodriguez’s anger. The camera manages to always catch one good shot of Rodriguez acting like he just realized he’s got a dirty diaper or something.

You could also listen in on the outstanding Football Outsiders’ podcast with special guest us covering the week’s games and picking them against the spread. We bet on Dan Hawkins upsetting Florida State after he rides Ralphie into the stadium while shooting apples off cheerleaders’ heads with the skill of a Zen archer–even more so if Hawkins misses and shoots a cheerleader in the head with one, which he did intentionally just to prove how serious he is.

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Under 48 hours until the Hate Bowl. Even orange shoes can’t help Tennessee where they’re going.

Whatever it takes, ‘Canes.

Lieutenant Winslow on the Randy Shannon “butt buddies” quote:

If thats what it takes to win football games, thats what it fucking takes.

LW also points us to Randy Shannon audio of the quote. It’s around the 18 minute mark.

Notre Dame is not NOT rebuilding. Charlie Weis said “may God strike me dead if I use that word,” and then immediately died. HA! No, he didn’t die. That would have been on the news. But he did say that, just like ESPN did everything they could to shoehorn a Notre Dame storyline into College Football Live yesterday, leading off the announcement that Jimmy Clausen was good to start throwing in camp. Even in a year when, as the South Bend Tribune put it, Ty Willingham’s final recruiting class “is slowly working its way through the system, like a kidney stone,” ESPN is still stroking it at the window with the binoculars for Notre Dame.

I also plan on sleeping with Gisele Bundchen and disproving superstring theory this year, too. Jim Moore of the Seattle P.I. gets Louis Rankin to talk some extremely tossed salad when asked what the Huskies’ expectations are this year:

I rephrased the question. “How about realistically speaking?”

“Realistically, 13-0,” Reece said. “We’re not looking to lose. That’s realistically speaking.”

The Huskies play what is undeniably the toughest schedule in Division One Football this season, including bouts with Ohio State, Hawaii, Boise State, a transcontinental trip to Syracuse, and their regularly scheduled proctology exams in the Pac-10. Rankin also plans on punching a hole through the Olympia Cascade Mountains just to give the people on the other side some fresh air.

Boise State is reloading in grand fashion at running back, according to The Idaho Statesman.

Owen Schmitt, EDSBS man crush and superhuman fullback for the West Virginia Mountaineers, has a new coiffure for the season: a mohawk.

Schmitt’s iron skull: now with even less padding.

The logjam in the backfield for West Virginia–Slaton, White, incoming freshman Noel Devine, and the sprinting cinderblock that is Schmitt–has Rich Rodriguez considering running the ‘bone.

“I don’t know how many people sent me letters about going to the wishbone,” Rodriguez said Saturday, shortly after his team’s season-opening practice at Mountaineer Field. “So I said, ‘The hell with it, I’m gonna do it.’”

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE my god PLEASE let this happen. For the children, Rod.

SMQ has a hilarious and not entirely factual roundup of the first day of practice around the country, including the news that Mark Mangino will be down to a fightin’ 385 by the time he sweats off a few of those fried tapir nuggets.

Urban Meyer sees both Major Wright and Deonte Thompson on the field when the Gators open against Western Kentucky next month. Wright is the skull-fracturing safety brought in to replace Reggie “Motherfuckin’” Nelson at safety, meaning that Meyer is likely not pleased at what he’s seen out of frequently torched senior Kyle Jackson at safety.

The appearance of Thompson would mean Meyer has finally found a way to work in six receivers in a single formation, most likely with the help of mathematics graduate students at the University of Florida.

And finally, Clay Travis has a dream, and it involves the third rail of college football discussion, conference comparisons.

People are already posting their teaser clips of NCAA 2008. This one features the tres cool new replay feature, where you may save highlights that you can revisit on the flatscreens hanging in your virtual locker room.

Oh, and Noel Devine? We don’t know his speed rating, but judging from this it’s somewhere between 93 and “HOLY SMOKING HELL.”

That thing on the horizon–it’s the clarion call of hope, friend.

The other thing on the horizon? It’s West Virginia quarterback Pat White, and you’re never catching him. Don’t even try.