Besides muscle atrophy and indigestion, bowl season also gives the viewer something else: a great opportunity to comparison shop between networks. A few highlights from a long and intense weekend of bowl viewing that's left the pants feeling a bit tight this Tuesday.
1. NFL Network catches Mike Leach losing it. When a major earthquake hit Kashmir in 2005, donations for the quake disappointed many relief agencies, who blamed what they called "disaster fatigue." Enter why we're not talking more about Texas Tech (yarr) and their epochal comeback from being down 38-7 to defeat Minnesota 44-41. We watched most of this from a bar, and am about to dislocate shoulder patting self on back. The scene:
EDSBS Legal Counsel B.J. Strykker: Doesn't look good, man.
Orson: They can come back. They're pirates.
Strykker: Really?
Orson: Yarr. They're pirates.
The dialogue may not be correct--it likely included a few more yarrs, actually. But we did call it, since Texas Tech can run off forty point scoring binges with terrifying ease. Glen Mason, Minnesota head coach and obvious non-samurai, did not slit his belly open after the game and keep his ancestors from disgrace. Minnesota did this for him with stunning speed, firing him after the game. Sadly, this was not caught on camera.
What was? This. And we thought Mike Leach was too cool to care.
2. Clemson player practices the ancient art of ikebana...in his pants.
Kentucky and coach Red Foreman beat the stripes off Clemson, whose head coach must have questioned whether the team wanted to win or just jack off on the sidelines and lose. The answer, thanks to some alert Tivoing (HT: Jason), was clear on the scoreboard and on camera:
Dig deep, team, and find victory.
3. Gary Danielson calls Calvin Johnson "The Toilet" Reeling from the realization at what Georgia Tech could have been had Chan Gailey not started a 42 year old midget auto mechanic from Austell at quarterback for four years, Gary Danielson struggled to come up with a good nickname for Calvin Johnson. Riffing off Johnson's well-publicized work with a clean water/sanitation project in Bolivia, Danielson actually said something like this:
"Well...maybe we should call him 'The Toilet.' I mean, around him, nothing hits the ground, right?"
Gary has never used a bathroom in China. This we can guarantee.
4. Musburger goes apeshit over a punt landing in the endzone for a touchback. In the course of any Musbergame, there will be several of these along the way: a stray bee flies into the booth, a b-list celebrity is shown picking his ear on the sidelines, a three yard run with a hint of potential occurs. Our favorite came in the second quarter of Michigan's effete performance against USC. A USC punt sails toward the endzone, hits at around the eight, and begins what to the viewer is an obvious bounce into the paint for a touchback. Musberger narrates thusly.
And there's a highhhhhh punt bouncing at the eight NO WAIT THAT'S SLOWING DOWN AROUND THE FOUR THE THREE WHOAAAA HOLY SWEET BABY JESUS THAT COULD BEEEEEEE aah that's a touchback through the back of the endzone.
Brent Musberger could call a colonoscopy like it was the 2005 Rose Bowl and still try to get you to hang around for the biopsy. He may not succeed, sure; but he's gonna try.
5. ESPN's replay work in the Outback Bowl. With practice and a year of experience the camera angles are multiplying. Whether by luck or through design, the Outback Bowl crew caught as perfect and defnitive an image of the fumble as one could imagine having: Foster, parallel to the ground and lunging forward, his knee tantalizingly close to the ground with the ball clearly out and tumbling away from him. Mike Patrick cooed on the replay: "Outstanding work, guys." We concur.
Foster's only hope--that he hadn't fumbled--was hopeless, according to superb replay work.
6. A Song Girl's butt roast appeared for 0.3 seconds on live television. Go here and check it out if you like. Some will claim she went commando, which is highly unlikely; it's more likely that she's got a wedge or wearing a thong. Either way it's semi-SFW cheesecake, and it's the funniest thing we've seen since we sent the whole office that email of that monkey doing the thing. You know, the monkey thing we sent you.