We WILL be liveblogging this game at 7:30 p.m. Join us then and taste the chaos of an EDSBS liveblog of a middling between an inconsistent but talented team and an inconsistent and untalented team. Adventure has a thousand flavors!

Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview Colorado at West Virginia. The Factor Five Five Factor Preview examines the necessaries and completely arbitraries of the official beginning of your weekend, the Thursday Night special. This week’s special puts the “special” in Thursday Night Special, because Colorado is playing, and as part of their continued sponsorship of slow kids who like to play football, they will lose this game by a substantial margin.

Enjoy.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. Colorado’s defensive numbers, presented as one would show slides of a murder, cakewreck, or explicit slides of cheap hotel infidelity in a divorce trial: (more…)

Bill Stewart, from his Twitter feed, and plated up without further commentary for your viewing enjoyment:

Stewart has a kind of Joe Bidenish charm to him, like you really could get a phone call from him out of the blue on Sunday night. Orson? Hey, Bill here. I just got this “Nash Bridges” collection on DVD, and the wife’s let me off the hook for the evening. Don Johnson is one smooth ol’ ace, ain’t he? You bring the pork rinds. I’ve got some Keystone in the fridge. See you at eight. And don’t lie: you’d be jealous if we told you we had spent Sunday night just hanging out watching Nash Bridges with Bill Stewart, because it would be kind of awesome in an “I played cribbage with George Jones” kind of way.

This picture and Party Dog have nothing to do with the Fulmer Cup. Please move on.

It’s a busy week in the Fulmer Cup. Vamonos!

Blaine Dalton and how to have a misunderstanding involving beer and hydrocodone. For the moment, Blaine Dalton, Mizzou’s freshman qb of high pedigree and hoopla, has scored a conservatively estimated five points for the Tigers for “suspicion of felony possession of a controlled substance, minor in possession of alcohol, possession of false identification and three traffic charges, including a lane violation and failure to provide insurance.”

We’ll back off the tiny traffic charges for the moment and hold fire as Dalton’s charges may likely be the work of overactive campus police imaginations. (more…)

What caused this?

–Kickers talked shit about the Mandrell sisters.

–Wouldn’t buy his granddaughter’s scout cookies

–One of them touched his prize musket, Libertyface.

–Didn’t bring enough moonshine for everyone.

–One of them called him “Coach Rodriguez.”

–All four wore flat-front pants to their meeting (GENTLEMEN WEAR PLEATS.)

–Attempted to beg out of running due to “black lung” when they know that’s no excuse in Morgantown, son.

–Were Twittering during their meeting.

–Didn’t salute photo of Matlock posted next to door.

–Giggled when secretary entered and told Coach Stewart “It’s Johnny Dingle on line one.”

–Suggested way for team to be better at football in 2009 was “to not have us kick as many field goals, and score more touchdowns.”

–Knows that the way to get a team’s attention is to get tough on the guys who used to play soccer. Yes, that’s it.

–Compared Hank Williams unfavorably to Hank Williams III within earshot.

We’re out of the office–er, sofa–for the rest of the afternoon “on assignment.” (At the Clermont Lounge.) In the meantime, we leave you with a very important message from Bill Stewart via Twitter: “P. ”

Bill Stewart. When he says words, they mean sentences. And when he types letters, they mean novels. (HT: The Good Doctor.)

We have plans in 2010. We don’t know what, but the whole year’s off the books with the news that West Virginia will be traveling to Baton Rouge to play the Tigahs. GIRL SCOUT FIGHT.

The luster may have faded off West Virginia a bit: their strength and conditioning coach no longer owns wolves, their coach cites odd bits of West Virginia political wisdom to the bafflement of outsiders, and they may have settled down into an 8-5ish trough under Bill Stewart. Yet the concept of the Mountaineer fanbase trekking to truculent Tiger Stadium at night rivets the imagination. Not only is there a real potential of the selling of brown liquor futures for immense profit possible prior to the event, but it also may be the largest collection of people who can taxiderm anything in one place ever for any reason in the history of the universe. (The list of things they are willing to taxiderm includes people, of course.)

It will be a Pikey wake minus the restraint of passing out due to too much alcohol. It will be badass in eighty different degrees. It will smell like Richard Harris’s handkerchief. It will be necessary in every single way. Can a single musket shot blow up an airboat? How many men with hunting beards does it take to subdue a single tiger? QUIEN ES MAS FEDERALLY SUBSIDIZED? The amount of chaos in this single frame could make the ghost of Hieronymus Bosch throw his hands up and run away from the scene weeping. The Garden of Girthly Delights is on the way, and you’re not ready. (Too bad, says Hell and All That’s Coming With It.)

If we have to die, this would be a noble way to go. (Also: corpse stuffed and mounted on a handsome wall plaque within minutes of our death.)

(The post title references the fact that Rasputin might be there. It’s that kind of event.)

Bill Stewart: “We’ve got enough coal to heat the world. We’ve got enough oil in this state to lubricate the world.”

If you doubt he actually said it:

So, attention bears, twinks, circuit boys, fluffers, power bottoms, greasers, dry-runners, barebackers, dogs-in-the-bath freaks, poofters, and those struggling with Dry Clam Syndrome around the nation: Bill Stewart says West Virginia can not only help you out, but keep you warm in the process. Albeit, you may have black lung when you finish whatever it is you plan to do with that oil, but sickness of the lungs and pneumatic system makes one lusty in a Doc Holliday kind of way.

…is brought to you by WBGV, who opines on the bizarre offensive mutations of the formerly unstoppable Firecouchbone:

Do we not scout? Do we not have a gameplan? Do we not know what the other team is going to do and how to react? Do we not practice during the week and prepare?

West Virginia’s fans are prepared, at least.

Ahh, the undeniable cri de coueur of a fan stuck in post-greatness coaching comedown. The fun for West Virginia fans looking for statistical poo to throw at their coaches is only starting: with Pat White, Dorrell Jalloh, and Jock Sanders, the offense has gone from the 15th in total offense in the nation to 72nd and fallen from 3rd nationally in 2007 to 14th overall in rushing offense.

The big emphasis on the pass Stewart mentioned before the season? Like-a-this?

“I think you’ll see a more diversified Pat White,” Stewart said. “He’s a very good passer. The guy’s got touch. He’s going to be even more exciting for the game of college football.”

The West Virginia passing offense ranked 114th in 2007. The emphasis on the pass has improved them to 106th in the nation, or ahead of only Syracuse in the Big East in that department.