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:

Rushing defense: 103rd (”Please note the bloodspray here, and the defendant’s signature in blood on the wall.”

Passing defense: 100th (”Happy Falker Satherhood!“)

Total defense: 101st overall in the nation. (”I believe Mr. Garner here is engaging in what we call ‘A Bangkok Necktie.’ Unless I’m mistaken and we’re looking at a ‘Polished Flugelhorn,’ an exotic variant of the ‘Rusty Trombone.’ Care to comment, sir, or shall we settle?”)

For West Virginia, that number is -2.33, their turnover margin thus far and the reason they coughed up a game the Mountaineers should have won versus Auburn. They will turn the ball over again tonight, but Colorado’s defense is so inept they may not even be able to take advantage of Jarrod Brown’s generosity, and will instead stare at the football like an exotic flightless bird while WVU linemen scramble to fall on it. Noel Devine could burn through two pairs of cleats tonight, and should since Aaron Opelt ran for 110 yards against the Buffs. If you’re looking for Colorado’s defensive line, they’ll be the ones lying on the ground.

They could give them four turnovers tonight and it would not matter based on what Colorado has displayed thus far as a defense.

Advantage: West Virginia. Don’t be flattered. You get this by Colorado defaulting on life.

West Virginia, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Two: Mascot: Ralphie is a rampaging live animal run across the field with no fewer than five handlers barely keeping her under control at all times. So is Will Muschamp, and you don’t see us giving him free points in the Factor Five. In addition to that ironclad reasoning, Ralphie helped give the world an omen about Colorado football 2009 with this debut in the spring game.

West Virginia’s mascot is traditionally a burly, bearded trapper wearing an oily, perhaps still-bloody buckskin and a raccoon carcass on his head so fresh flies buzz around it. In between firing showers of oxycodone into the crowd, the Mountaineer whoops, hollers, distributes deer salad and ramp smoothies to children, and discharges his musket willy-nilly after WfVU scores. (Being hit by the buckshot is considered a blessing. Or a fatal injury. Depends on the range.)

The wrinkle this year: oh, a lady, you say?

Rebecca Durst is only the second female Mountaineer mascot in the history of the school, and has been received with somewhat lukewarm reviews.

Several students complained that Durst did not wear the traditional coonskin hat at Saturday’s game, and some criticized her push-ups.

I’D SHOW HER MY PUSH-UP—we’re dreadfully sorry. But she is a woman in buckskin pants and holding a gun. There are powers we can’t resist, and the notion of a woman who can make fresh bear jerky and her own bathtub meth while making animal hide look good is too much redneck fantasy to decline. Blame a childhood full of watching Urban Cowboy and Dolly Parton movies, but we like our women just a little on the trashy side.

Advantage: West Virginia.

West Virginia, you’ve been factor’d!

Category Three: Aura. West Virginia will be playing at Milan Puskar Stadium surrounded by a ring of roaring Mountaineer fans following a bye week, and covered by a thick smog of whiskey fumes blotting out the light of the moon above. Colorado will be playing half a continent away from home and without star recruit Darrell Scott, who has been carefully saved for use by the offensive staff at Colorado for sometime in the year 2018. (Shh. Don’t tell them eligibility rules. IT WOULD SPOIL THE FUN.)

West Virginia will makes some of the assy mistakes Bill Stewart’s teams make, but holy hell they’re not the Buffaloes, who at times have resembled tapes of undersized Commonwealth rugby teams playing football with American servicemen for the first time overseas. The amount of butt WVU brings to the table will pale in comparison to the assstravaganza of copious posterior CU puts on the plate. Horrible football team. Horrible, horrible, horrible football team. Flames. Burning. Side of my head. Hate. So. Much…

Advantage: West Virginia.

West Virginia, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Four: Names.

West Virginia: Logan Heastie (”There’s nary a Scotsman as burly in all’ a Glasgow!”), Guesly Dervil (”Ex’ceptin’ ay mighty strong laddie Guesly Dervil!”), Franchot “Boogie” Allen, Jack Crow (”Your brother is a fucking asshole!”–any black person,) Keith Coffindaffer, Ovid “The Transformation” Goulborne, the dastardly industrialist and land baron Selvish Capers, Scooter Berry.

Colorado: Maxwell Tuioti-Mariner and a few assorted exotic African names. Ironically, Colorado can’t even defend this angle of the comparison, either.

Advantage: West Virginia.

West Virginia, You’ve been factor’d!

Grudges? Scores to settle? Sheer cussedness? West Virginia lost this game last year in Boulder in the infamous HOW DO I MAKE TIMEOUT GAME. This face happened.

So, yeah. Bill Stewart probably wants to win this game pretty badly. So does Dan Hawkins, no doubt, but Bill Stewart’s not the one who clocks his linemen with sundials at high schools and relies on the I-Ching to determine his scholarship offers.

West Virginia, you’ve been factor’d!

EDSBS FACTOR FIVE FIVE FACTOR PREVIEW SUM: 5-0, West Virginia You’ve Been Factor’d! This should mean to bet the other way given the dismal track record of the Factor Five Five Factor Preview to predict anything at all in any way whatsoever, but Colorado is a terrible, terrible prairie mudpie of a football team.

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.

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. From the Columbia Daily Tribune via Bully for Old Mizzou:

“They looked in my car and found an unopened beer in the glove compartment,” Dalton said. “It was warm. I don’t know how long it had been in there. It wasn’t cold and it wasn’t open, and I wasn’t drunk or anything like that.”

“They’re mine,” Wilson said late Saturday night. “I don’t remember the exact date I went to MU to see Blaine, but I had on some shorts with no pockets and I threw the pills in his glove compartment.

Real friends always leave extra pills for you. Alibi or not, Mizzou gets the five for the moment.

Ohio State will now use their mandatory three points for the season. Ohio State maintains a constant low-level presence in the cup. We hesitate to call them a steady performer, but they usually show up for somewhere around three or four points, and usually for something completely innocuous like smoking weed in a dorm room or perhaps the random barfight or two, or perhaps a random DUI by a walk-on running back.
Two points for the Buckeyes are awarded, since it is a normal, run-of-the-mill DUI with a drunk but not spectacular BAC reported.

Aggie DUI Double Dazzles Defenders! Defense attorneys, we mean. Offensive linemen Matt Allen and wide receiver Terrence McCoy each picked up a DUI, which we’ll bundle as a package deal and award five points for in total (two points for each charge, and one bonus for accumulating them like twinsies.)

The “Mobile Vegetable Supply” sign made the police suspicious. We mentioned last week that Marshall had been quiet thus far, thus prompting concerned citizens and Marshall football players to do something about all that lack of trouble by getting arrested for felony drug charges.

According to Cabell County Sheriff Tom McComas, his deputies were patrolling for underage drinking when they spotted a car double parked. Bembry and Marshall were in the car. When they rolled down the window to speak with deputies, McComas says there was a strong smell of marijuana. Deputies then searched the car and found four individually wrapped bags of the drug.

The Thundering Herd stomps up seven points in all–three for each felony charge, and a bonus for doing this immediately after we said how nice and quiet things were in Huntington this Fulmer Cup season. Both are suspended from the team, absences putting a substantial dent in the team’s depth chart: Darius Marshall was a 1,000 yard rusher and the team’s leader in yardage on the ground last year, and DeQuan Bembry was the leader in tackles for loss. Marshall now sits at ten points total after three points from Bembry’s prior arrest in March, and puts the Herd in a very bad spot, indeed.

He’s a good boy. But Cameron Wade neglected to appear in court, and earns FSU one point in the Fulmer Cup.

Note: There are a number of other scores in the SAS Processing Station, but we think we may have scored them and assessed points already. We’ll check on it, but in the meantime we’ll let them stay under the heat lamps a bit longer.

–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.

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

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.)

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.

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.

Gold Frontz for headlights, but you only see the license plate. 17 carries, 207 yards, 12.2 yards a carry, and one TD. Against Auburn last night, Noel Devine was no gossamer escape artist of a scatback last night; instead he pinged around like a pinball through Auburn’s defense, who had no answer when they were fit and fighting in the early going, and certainly had no answer when they crumpled late in a 34-17 defeat to the Mountaineers in Morgantown.

The grill, it seems, is magnetically attracted to endzones at potentially dangerous speeds.

Image from Mountaineer Sports, who we hope is proudly nursing a hangover this morning.

– MIXED MESSAGES: The scoreboard at Milan Puskar Stadium exhorted West Virginia fans to “MAKE NOISE” when Auburn was on offense. But when the Mountaineers had the ball, the photo of a grandmotherly woman appeared to shush the crowd. “Quiet please, Mountaineers on offense,” the scoreboard read.

Old women, the grand fearsome shushers of the world. In our mind, she does this with a squirrel-huntin’ rifle in one hand.

We never picked him for a Jane Wyman fan. There’s a bit of interesting chum in the shallow waters of the Bret Bielema review here, but this does jut out just a bit:

What’s on TV:SportsCenter, Friends, Falcon Crest, Leave It to Beaver, Grey’s Anatomy.

Falcon Crest? It’s one thing to pick an obscure television show as a retro fave, but a bland and largely forgotten show? Bret Bielema, your subtle ironic hipsterism does not go unnoticed here. Also, Bielema is funny, because he says he actually listens to Buckcherry, which we all know no one actually does.

Blow your candles out…with your last breath. It is sad to see even the very young embracing suicide.

YEAHHHH VERILY GIGGITY And so the son returneth to the father, bearing with him bushels of shame and giggity.

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.

Image via MGoBlog.

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. Altitude is and isn’t a factor for teams in Colorado: Florida State trounced Colorado in year one coming from the frosty alpine valleys of Tallahassee, and most teams build in as much extra time as they can in order to acclimate. According to Bill Stewart, who attended the Air Force Academy, it won’t be an issue.

“I just don’t think that’s a big problem. I think it’s kind of comical,” Stewart said Tuesday.

Meaning it will probably be a problem, and West Virginia’s players will, like stranded Indian mountaineers on Everest, begin clawing their clothes off and hallucinating sometime in the third quarter.

The Nebulous State of Dubious Statistical Validity for Colorado: 12. As in carries for Noel Devine against East Carolina. The stated goal for the season for West Virginia was to get Devine the ball 20-25 times a game to take the running onus off Pat White, and Colorado will see much, much more of him and his Frogger sidestep than ECU did.

Advantage: West Virginia, because their may not be anyone on Colorado’s defense besides George Hypolite who can handle Devine in the open field, even if Bill Stewart decides handing him the ball from the fullback spot is the best way to utilize him or something else of such exemplary brilliance.

West Virginia, You’ve been factor’d!

Category Two: Mascot: There’s an unshakable math. It’d be fun to say “Ralphie stomp man in oily buckskin tuxedo.” That man, though, has a gun, and the last matchup between savage, uncouth men from Appalachians streaking westward with muskets worked like this:

PLUS

EQUALS

Advantage: West Virginia.

West Virginia, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Three: Aura. No contest: Colorado is aura, man. It’s the twilight zone where fifth downs happen and where the Holy Roman Empire stage of the Nebraska empire meets its final, definitive beheading–the Chris Brown game, the 62-36 2001 defeat of the Huskers. West Virginia is coming in with a head coach quickly losing his (delicately phrasing) “emotional” fanbase; Colorado has a motivational speaker of a head man who spends his offseasons climbing Macchu Picchu and writing phrases like this:

As we climbed up and around the breathtaking mountains I thought about the seven physical wonders of the world. Upon further introspection, I thought about the unseen, intangible wonders of the world that allow the physical wonders to exist.

What can we do with that? Nothing. It’s sarcasm and irony proof. You could make fun of Dan Hawkins for three years straight, strapping him to a wall in a mineshaft and just hurling years of textbook mockery while denying all but the most essential nutrients and vitamins. Then, when you were finished, he’d look at you and say, “Help me help make you the person you could be.” Then, you’d break down crying and let him go, and probably go off to read The Secret together.

Advantage: Colorado

Colorado, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Four: Names. West Virginia drops an airstrike on this category and runs for the hills. And you will recognize their magnitude:

Selvish Capers
John Holmes
Franchot “Boogie” Allen
Brantwon Bowser
Ovid Goulbourne
Corey Nutter
Guesly Dervil

Not even the Spartan majesty of “George Hypolite” can put the Buffaloes into feeble contention with WVU in this category. Their roster is the San Luis Potosi of astounding names; we shall mine its tailings for years.

Advantage: West Virginia

West Virginia, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Grudges? Scores to settle? Sheer cussedness? Hey, West Virginia had a bye week after losing to East Carolina. No, there’s no motivation there whatsoever. Could this be an odder game, though? A hippie-ish bourgeois Western school with a rebuilding no-huddle team (and watch, they will bust out the no-huddle tonight that the Buffs allegedly installed over the offseason in grand fashion) and a slightly relaxed fanbase against a fanatically followed spread run team from a rural Eastern state coming into the early shades of a decline whose degree is yet to be determined? Look for weird, and by weird, we suppose we mean Colorado-weird.

Advantage: Colorado.

EDSBS FACTOR FIVE FIVE FACTOR PREVIEW SUM: 3-2, West Virginia, You’ve Been Factor’d! Hey, it worked for Louisville last night. Reason is highly, highly overrated in the Thursday night games.

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.

Three: You have important players. Discuss a few of them hastily.

I won’t talk about Pat White, Noel Devine, or the offensive line because I think those are known quantities. I think the line backing corps is going to be one of the best we’ve had at West Virginia. There’s depth and talent. Seniors Reed Williams and Morty Ivy had 109 and 89 tackles respectively. They aren’t overly big, but they make up for it with speed and a nose for the ball.

Quinton Andrews at safety can be devastating in run support. He saw starting time as a true freshman, but his numbers dipped in 2007 from Ryan Munday transferring in and a stockpile of talent at the position. His claim to fame is laying a crushing stand him up and knock him back tackle on Owen Schmitt in fall camp his freshman year. Also look for junior college transfer Tevita Finua to make a splash at defensive end.

On offense, you really need to watch Wes Lyons. Not for his routes, but at 6′8″ he can be an exceptional blocker turning small gains into huge ones. Tito Gonzalez could be the beneficiary of a more wide open offense this year. Jock Sanders could also, but with Slaton gone, he will spend time at the running back position at least early. If Terrance Kerns gets himself in school he could be the big back West Virginia needs to counter Devine.

Four: Name two games we might actually want to watch featuring your team.

If West Virginia is undefeated, October 23rd against Auburn on a Thursday night is going to be huge. The Morgantown police just want you to know that they were against the idea of this game being played at night. M’kay? The tailgates will probably start for this game about Monday of that week. Mountaineer fans desperately want to beat an SEC team! Also, September 18th at Colorado will be the earliest road test West Virginia has had in a while. The clash of mountain folk could be interesting. Debates on the quality of moonshine will surely rage on well after the game is over. I had some Colorado shine a couple months ago and came away very impressed. And drunk.

Five: Save us all some time and mention the game we�re better off NOT watching.

Starting out the season against 1-AA Villanova will be a great day to get that last minute school shopping done. I see no reason to watch this game unless you are a Mountaineer fan. Also, I say the Marshall game on September 27th because the networks have given up on Marshall. The game won’t be broadcast. Way to go Governor Manchin! You got a game on our schedule that no one wants to watch. I guess it isn’t going to be as big a rivalry as Auburn-Alabama. It’s a shame Joe. You were so close. No, really!

Six: Describe your team with a Jimmy Buffett song. No, we�re serious�do it.

I thought “Fool Button” fit the mood. There’s been a lot of stupid going around in Morgantown this off season. I think they mistook it for the easy button.

It was a fool palace
Double knit on parade
They pushed the fool button
As the skinny boy played and played
Push it, push it, push it.

Seven: We�re master wagerers. Give us a bet to place for up to ten dollars about your team.

I might seem down on West Virginia, but it’s just all the things happening away from the field. I still feel like West Virginia will win the Big East, Pat White will be in the Heisman race until the end, and Noel Devine will make defenders look drunk. So much so, that I don’t think they are worth betting on. However, we’ll all be watching Michigan this year. And I’ll put up $10 that says announcers will say, “I bet Rich wishes he was back at West Virginia” at least once every game this year.

If you’d like to read more about West Fuckin’ Virginia football, the Library of Congress recommends Mountainlair. If you’d like to contribute your own Visiting Lecturer post, please contact us at harumphharumph of the gmail email variety address.

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)