Perusing Michael Lewis' The Blind Side at the moment, and we're pleasantly surprised at the amount of quality college football content in a book about the evolution of the left tackle position. The best bits focus on coaches and recruiting pitches, which go about like you think they would, especially when you consider that they were all recruiting Michael Oher, who is referred to as "a freak of nature" by nearly everyone who sees him in the book. (Oher is now at Ole Miss.)
To wit:
--Oher's recruited by everyone, but the three finalists are LSU, Ole Miss, and Tennessee.
--Phil Fulmer is pictured running at one point in 100 degree heat. That he did not die while doing this is perhaps the greatest triumph depicted in the book.
50 yards across the parking lot: truly a triumph.
--Fulmer's recruiting pitch seemed to consist of the coach and his staff squatting in Oher's home and ignoring the women until the men feel like talking. His cromag manners and approach earn him scorn from the women in the book, who alternately refer to him as "a hick" and as someone who looks like he was dressed by his mother.
This pleases us way more than it should.
--Nick Saban, though, is on full recruiting terror alert in the book though only in the most gangsta way possible. Saban rolls into the house wearing Armani and looking like he's been dipped in lip gloss ("I think Nick Saban is a very attractive man," beams one of the women.) Before getting down to football, he even comments postively and knowledgeably on the decor of the house. Considering that Michael's adopted mother is an interior designer in Memphis, the comment "I love those window treatments" must have been sweet music to her soul.
The man was obviously a ruthless recruiting ninja.
--Saban, however, immediately torpedoes all ninja cred by leaving for Miami shortly afterward.
--A scary recruiting trip to Baton Rouge didn't help: Oher, when asked about it, responds with "Mama, that's a bad place down there." We see dead hookers.
--The best bits are the the Orgeron's appearances, mostly because Lewis writes his dialogue in Orgeron speak. "You're a big boy" is rendered as "YAW BEE BAW." Which is about right, actually, though our favorite bit of Orgeronspeak is "let them stay," said in response to Oher's question about recruits promised schollys by former coach David Cutcliffe: "LEMSDAY!"
It's officially our new favorite day of the week: Lemsday.
Even if the Orgeron finishes the next two years with a losing record...LEMSDAY! We need the material.
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