Bless you, angels. Pass the champagne.
Things written on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, and composed entirely in the friendly confines of Pete Carroll's Enchanted Gridiron Grotto, a hot-tub-littered pleasure dome located in an undisclosed location. The whole place reeks of bleach, and Leinart's usually asleep naked in the corner.
The entire SEC East is knotted up following Spurrier's (and that's the brand we're dealing with here, Spurrier, who also happens to coach South Carolina) loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores, Florida's defeat of Kentucky (a vice squad versus druglord bulletfest), and Tennessee's latest extremely creative method of losing in crushing fashion leaves the conference as tangled as ball of bras tossed carelessly in the dryer.
Meaning: South Carolina at Tennessee goes from vinegar to pure acid, and a formerly meh World's Largest Coke Orgy becomes a loaded go-fast boat attempting to blow by the Coast Guard at 80 knots with the lights off in the Intracoastal. Every team's got two losses. Who needs a king when it's this much fun watching the peasants slaughtering each other in the streets?
MAO!
Jim Leavitt: MAO! Remember ancient history? As in Thursday night, when South Florida lost? My, that was festive. South Florida became the latest loser in the boathouse during the game of Russian Roulette, College Football edition. Matt Grothe, when faced with the blitz, had nowhere to dump the ball off and no rollouts or screens to protect him, and drowned in a wave of red. Put your money on the table; spin the pistol. MAO!
Pete Carroll challenged the spot on a nine-yard reception on 3rd and 7 by Notre Dame TE Will Yeatman in Saturday's game with 4:38 on the clock and the Trojans ahead by 38-0.
Pat easy voice of moral outrage: Harumph, we say! Poor form, braggadocio rapscallion man! (shakes angry fist!)
Real inner dialogue: Real barbarians eave nothing but sand and tears in their wake. Well done, Pete. If there's time to burn on the clock, there's a reason to strike a match.
Minnesota fired Glen Mason because they thought they could do better. They lost to North Dakota State on Saturday, a team that is moving into D-1AA this year. We compose a haiku to summarize our feelings.
Firing is tricky.
Glen Mason sucks; you still suck.
Next time, try decaf.
Texas Tech is this year's Missouri, losing a proof game against the very team usually dropping three out of their last four on the way to an Independence Bowl bid: Missouri. Graham Harrell went nuts even under Texas Tech standards, throwing 59 times in the game. He's waiting on his weekly shoulder transplant from Mexico as we speak.
Shitbag. Don't fault the players. Fault Auburn coach Hugh Nall, who gave the code red order here on this hi-low on Glenn Dorsey.
Karl Dorrell is becoming the Fidel Castro of Pac-10 coaches, an unkillable dictator whose only definable success to this point comes in just evading any and all assassination attempts tossed his way. A trick play for UCLA and a late pick six thrown by Nate Longshore not only spoil the latest exploding cigar/radioactive hat ploy by fate to get Dorell fired: it puts UCLA at 4-0 in conference and in position to compete seriously for the Pac-10 title. This means we just pulled the card for crushing defeat to a lesser opponent for the Bruins: either Washington State or Arizona, their next two games, will do. Sorry, but the cards do not lie. Prepare for death.
The UCLA of the Big Ten called Michigan, who was losing to lesser competition before it was even cool, poseurs, is also undefeated in conference after stubborn met dumb in the Michigan/Illinois game. The Illini committed several very, very ill-advised penalties and miscues including a roughing the kicker, an interference penalty, and a dropped punt giving Michigan another chance to score. Oh, and Michigan scored on a trick play, proving someone put acid in Lloyd Carr's Metamucil Saturday morning. Debord! In my office now! Get that octopus in a top hat off my wall NOW!
For a Florida fan, it was like being a Frenchman watching the last chopper flying off the roof of the U.S. Embassy. "Well, monsieur, we have zeen zis kind of thing happen before..."
Speaking of, bring the man-sized rubbers if Andre Woodson's coming to your party, because he's man to the nth degree with inches to spare. Woodson took a beating in the game against Florida including a hideous tackle/submission hold by Jermaine Cunningham; pain and suffering ignored, he shot for a 35/50, 415 yard, 5 td game against a defense he read with Weekly Reader ease. Even in defeat, Woodson ended with a spiteful, inspired bang: a final TD at the bell in a 45-37 defeat to Florida.
Hey, Kansas and Ohio State won! Hey, they're just starting to play the first real competition on their schedules! Hey, they're undefeated! Hey, we're suspicious as hell of them and standing way across the room hoping they're not going to to make eye contact! Hey, they're asking us where we're putting them in the poll! At this point, we're looking for the smoke bomb and grappling hook to get out of this conversation! Especially if someone asks us how an OSU/LSU national title game would go! Boy, where's that fucking grappling hook when you need one? Hey-o! (Throws smoke bomb, disappears through skylight like Batman.)
College football should not be argued out on bumper stickers on the back of Range Rovers. Yet that is precisely what the ACC is, because your number one and number two teams are Boston College and Virginia, and the drink of choice is a Geyser Peak 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley Block Collection Walking Tree Vineyard. Hopefully we can see the joint classed down a bit when BC walks into the dive bar that is Blacksburg Thursday night, orders a Charles Krug, and gets blank stares while someone loads a sock with a jar of washers and pennies. Lessee if preppie boy can fight, y'all!