If you’re an SEC fan of a certain vintage, you probably have vivid memories of former Kentucky head coach Hal Mumme: looked like Ted Danson’s awkward younger brother, called plays like a desperate bizarro-world Steve Spurrier, and was characterized by the near-constant presence of a jaunty neck towel that had to have been perpetually sodden with the floppiest of flop sweats. His four-year tenure at UK read like the Cliffs Notes version of a Scorsese mafia epic — lifted the Wildcats up out of decades-long obscurity to only their third back-to-back bowl appearances in program history, but painted this veneer of success on a rickety structure of malfeasance and staff infighting, and flamed out in the third act as player payments were exposed and the ‘Cats were pile-driven into 2-9 embarrassment. Mumme is now the head coach at Division III McMurry University, which currently does not have a name or mascot for any of its athletic teams as a result of the NCAA striking down its former nickname, the Indians, on the basis that it could be seen as offensive to Native Americans.

I’ve got my towel, I’ve cut all the checks . . . let’s light this candle.

As Mumme prepares for his first season at McMurry, Lexington Herald-Leader columnist John Clay took it upon himself to track down Mumme’s UK staff and find out where they’d ended up. What he found was less than inspiring: Of Mumme and his 11 original assistants from 1997, only five are employed at D-IA programs in any capacity; four are college head coaches; two are coaching at the high-school level; and two are out of coaching entirely (though one of them has the convenient excuse of being dead since 2006).

The most successful of these gentlemen, obviously, is Mike Leach, currently leading his rowdy band of pirates at Texas Tech to regular bowl appearances; oddly enough, the guys with the next most prestigious jobs on the list were mere graduate assistants under Mumme. Chris Hatcher is the head coach at Georgia Southern (and being mentioned with increasing frequency as a candidate for D-IA jobs), while Sonny Dykes is breathing life into a formerly moribund passing attack as Arizona’s offensive coordinator.

There is, of course, one guy who still rates a grade of “incomplete”: Tony Franklin, running backs coach under Mumme and currently offensive coordinator at MTSU. At the moment, Franklin is known primarily for being the catalyst that started the Tommy Tuberville administration down the road to doom in its last year at Auburn, a dubious distinction indeed; but if he can work the same wonders at MTSU that he did at Troy, who knows, he might have a D-IA coaching gig in him yet, thereby eclipsing both his old bosses something fierce. The spread offense indeed works in mysterious ways.

Football is like life: it has a playbook, and when it breaks down, people get hurt. The first installment of this series appeared here as “Football Analogizing;” it appears here under a slimmer title.

Reads are important on this play, which we’ll call CAREER JET BANDIT X FLY D-BO OVER 2. We’re expecting good protection through a solid zone scheme of a middle class upbringing and lack of obvious physical or mental defect. We’re running four routes on the play. You’ll note the slot receiver is not accounted for in the playbook; this is by design, since you need one career option to forget, and then mourn as your lost ideal once it’s too late to choose it in the progression.

Let’s go through the reads, son.

First read: ASTRONAUT. The quarterback (you) takes the ball in the shotgun and surveys the defense. On this play, your first option is the X receiver, on this play known as ASTRONAUT.

ASTRONAUT is double covered by LACK OF MATH SKILLS AND DISCIPLINE. (Also, you find out you don’t like enclosed places when you go to Mammoth Cave as a nine year old.) It’s important to recognize this early and not force this ball prematurely, as you may end up in the military not flying jets, but instead handing out fresh underwear for hours at a time to new recruits as a logistics man. (more…)

First: Billy Sims is an asshole:

And second:he crashes a first birthday party.

SCENE: A faux-hemian first birthday party in American suburbia.

Wife: Did you get the camera?

Husband: Yes, I have the camera. (huffs)

Wife: Okay, now get the cake. His cake. (more…)

This video is from the Alabama Senate. The question is which one went to Bama and which to Auburn?

Bowling Green’s no Titan of the Fulmer Cup, but they are consistent: whenever they peek their beaky little Falcon heads into the race, its for fightin’.

This time, the Toledo Blade police blotter reporter does their damnedest not to touch our hearts with the bare facts, and fails miserably in the misty-eye-making account of Marques Parks, BGSU footballer,

Bowling Green police said Marques Parks, 21, of McDonald, Pa., walked out of Ziggy Zoomba’s just after midnight Tuesday and saw his girlfriend hugging her ex-boyfriend, Benjamin Bohland, 22. Angered, Mr. Parks allegedly began punching Mr. Bohland in the back of his head until his friends pulled him away.

What better way to show you still care, than by striking someone who merely wants to perhaps grunt out some kabuki mucilage* with your ex-girlfriend’s assistance once, possibly twice on a drunken night while trawling for new flesh in the meantime? And who’s already undoubtedly done everything you could have possibly done with her anyway?

His cell phone was undoubtedly as clogged as a Calcutta sewer with messages from strange females who’d witnessed this and were moved by his passion, ardor, and dedication to the woman he loves.

Too bad no one had nunchuks or pepper spray. That shit works in situations like this.

Two points for garden variety assault in the name of love for the fightin’ Bowling Green Falcons, who would do anything for love, including that.

*Contorted Japanese theatrical face + something sticky, wet, and yet dry all at the same time that comes out of a semi-cylindrical tube. Duh.

Blogtoberfest! We’ll let you transfer wherever you want to go, baby.

Brandon Warren cannot play this Division 1 football you speak of, sir. Beginning the long list of things we’d at least like to mention…Bobby Bowden refuses to grant a release of scholarship to TE Brandon Warren, who initially signed on with the Seminoles before flaking out mid-semester and leaving school to take care of his ailing mother.

Google Image: making the symbolism just a bit too easy.

Seminolians claim Warren’s just homesick and dredging up his mother’s illness to excuse himself from his contractual obligations to FSU, all the while convincing the only recruit he was in charge of showing around the campus to make a firm commitment to the University of Tennessee. (more…)

If and when you decide to really, really end that pesky feud you’ve been having with a teammate, be sure to follow these simple rules.

1. Always bring enough ammo and guns.
2. Use the element of surprise.
3. Make sure you know exactly where you’re going before, during, and after.

Score two out of three for Toledo’s Richard Davis, who showed up to really, totally, and completely end a running dispute with a teammate at 4:30 a.m. last Thursday. He had the element of surprise by showing up early–check. Adequate firepower? Check–Davis not only had a handgun in his car, but had a shotgun he’d leaned against the side of the house for…well, in case he had to really make his point.

Showing up at the right place? Hmm…UNcheck. (HT: DevilGrad.)

The incident started around 4:30am on Thursday. Police say Deputy Vincent Scott was awakened by the sound of his doorbell ringing repeatedly, and the sound of somebody turning the doorknob. Scott armed himself with his service weapon, and went out the back door and confronted Davis.

He kept Davis at gunpoint, and called 911.

Wrong door, sir.

That’s a football player showing up at the wrong door, which just happened to belong to a very sleepy and armed sheriff’s deputy. For stumbling facefirst into divine justice, Davis was arrested and charged with attempted aggravated burglary, a three point offense we’ll give a “divinely dumb” bonus of a point on for a total of 4 points.

Dibs on him for the Wonderlic draft! We called it first!

How did she get to be the girl checking out of rehab and shaving her head, the proverbial 2-10 season of a celebrity?

(more…)

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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