COUNTDOWN 2009: 16
No quote besides this: thanks for four great years, 16.
August 18, 2025
GREAT MOMENTS IN COACHING SHILLING: BEAR BRYANT SAYS CALL YOUR MAMA.
We’ve been looking for this ad for the better part of five years. It’s been a Holy Grail of sorts, the source of countless internet searches, a few frantic calls to extremely confused corporate offices, and a largely ineffective sifting through of the internet. For the most part, we’d forgotten about it completely after giving up toward the end of last season to look for something easier to find like the West Virginia Mothman or Rick Reilly’s hymen.
This is another installment in life’s multi-part lesson about how to get what you’re looking for, and the answer is the same as ever: stop looking. Someone posted it to Youtube in April. The legend around the ad is that Bryant was supposed to say “Call your mama,” but then ad-libbed the last line, and thus sending South Central Bell’s stock through the roof and countless men running crying to the phones in a rush to obey the commands of the Man-Pope of Alabama.
At long last: The South Central Bell Ad where Bear Bryant demands that you call your mama.
The man could sell bacon in Mecca and bicycles to quadraplegics.
NEW POLL QUESTION: THE NEXT TEAM-THEMED PRODUCT
New poll is up over to the right. Just missing the cut:
-Schnelly Suspenders, Which Will Keep Your Pants Up, Until They Don’t.
-South Carolina Gamecock CockGames: Festive puzzles for your Garnet and Black Penis (which you should really have someone look at)
-Fresno State Champagne. Because Pat Hill Will Play Anyone, Including Your Girl.
-Texas Longhorns BCS Two-Step Tap Shoes. For the shuffling, jiving Mack Brown in all of us.
-University of Minnesota Smoked Fish Dip. This one is in there because smoked fish is just good, and Minnesota has a lot of them.
Vote in the sidebar. There’s a few tech issues at the moment, but we’ll straighten them out in a second.
BUT DOES IT HAVE ELECTROLYTES?
Erk Russell is going to crawl his ass out from the grave and kick the frilly panties off of whomever thought this up. Seriously: start. Running. Now. If he’s inbound from Columbus where he’s buried, you have a day or two before he gets to Athens and starts beating your asses into fine pulps.
PS. We have Gatorade, and it has what plants crave. WIN.
THE PRESEASON TOP 25 SECURITY RANKINGS: #22 NEBRASKA
We rate the top 25 estimates by national security. Today: The team with the simple, red rising sun logo of college football, the big red N of Nebraska.
22. Nebraska.
Companion Country: Japan, 1980s. Oh, when it was good it was spectacular: a machine bent on crushing, decisive victory unified by a complete unselfishness, an indestructible organism with a simple but indefensible system for domination squatting on a brave island, staying afloat and apart from the rest of the world on a sea of sweat equity.
For a time, 90s Nebraska looked to have discovered the Philosopher’s Stone of college football. A “walk-on” system served as secondary pump of prime talent into the program; a high school football culture fed option-ready players directly into the conduits of Lincoln; the country’s most advanced weight training program swelled linemen into unblockable wraiths capable of wrecking entire blocking schemes singlehandedly. They went undefeated for over two seasons, terrorized the national football landscape, and appeared to be headed for complete national takeover forever and ever amen, with Frank Solich taking over the program that would be eating sushi off of your naked daughters with polite but smug looks on their faces. (more…)
USC SUFFERS MOST PUMPED AND EXCITED KNEE INJURY EVER
USC decides to seize opportunity to work in a few young guys, taste a little adversity, and come out better people for the experience by allowing starting center Kristofer O’Dowd to get injured with a dislocated patella, thus spawning a learning and growth experience for the entire team, all of which will be resolved with a moving and very specifically worded motivational song.
O’Dowd will return to score a crucial touchdown on a tackle-eligible play, no doubt, and ride off on the shoulders of his teammates as he points to his father in the stands, who will finally be able to express the stifled love he felt for his son all these years as result of the episode. And cue your jealousy vomit: in the meantime, the Trojans will just have to muddle through with senior Alex Parsons, who made USC’s team despite starting the last ten games of the season at right guard in 2008, and overcame the crippling curse of being a Super Prep All-American to make the team. Somehow they’ll survive the opener against San Jose State. Somehow.
CURIOUS INDEX, 8/18/09
“As recently as a week ago, his teammates were saying he was trying to shake off the rust.” The “In Floppy We Trust” era at Syracuse begins as Greg Paulus is named starter at..um..10 p.m. at night. We live on Doug Marrone’s schedule, not the other way around, and you’ll have to deal with that because you’re an adult and all. Paulus beat out Ryan Nassib, who Doc Saturday points out will have three years to play after the Paulus experiment, and could yield the benefits of Syracuse maxing out their “Times Quarterback Maimed” quota in their game against Penn State. Dicky V’s erect and making his co-workers uneasy, babeee!!! (And yes, there is a PR element to this, of picking the more glamourous of two options and the hometown boy simultaneously, but egads, is that really a sane reason when determining a roster decision? Marrone’s making something happen, people! So does Ebola, but you don’t see anyone getting all complimentary about Filoviridae viruses, do you?) Remember, all part of the plan. Tennessee’s quarterbacks cannot distinguish themselves from the other, but if the coaches really are having a problem with this, let’s help: the one fumbling snaps and displaying horrific decision-making skills has a name that rhymes with “Mompton.” Remember that whatever happens, it is all part of the plan, and for the best, and because this being the best possible world of all worlds, Coach Pangloss’s plans always work no matter what happens. (Losing to Florida will make Tennessee better!) Don’t fart, you’ll ruin it. We disagree on that point, certainly; a gentleman knows that the delight of releasing one’s bladder escalates to a new, elysian peak when the effluent golden bliss of making one’s water is accompanied by a complementary flexing and melodious trumpeting of the bowels. Does Niagara falls awe without the thunder of the cascading waters? No, certainly not, and thus our dissent. Still, many of the training methods depicted in this video certainly hold some form of water (pun verily intended.) (HT: Ethan.) Yes, um, Julio Loves You Back, We’re Sure. Via Rumors and Rants’ list of ten players they can’t wait to see, the soon-to-be-wildly-popular shirt that would have gotten you killed fifty years ago in Alabama. (Or anywhere else in the South, for that matter.) A new Christian football show? HELL YEAH!!! Mike Gottfried, long exiled to the hinterlands of ESPN’s football coverage after the dissolution of the WWL’s best announcing team with Ron Franklin, has a new Christian-themed college football show. We look forward to being interviewed on it never. Fun note: Gottfried says a family is a team, just like a basketball or football team, meaning your family, if like most, is probably the Minnesota 2008 of teams: with a largely winning record, yes, but pummeled into disorganized submission by serious challenges. |
||
