OMG URBAN MEYER IS TOTALLY CRAZY.
Urban Meyer has a portrait of Woody Hayes in his house. Like, an oil painting, the kind you only see now sitting behind Western bars in California and Nevada and containing the likeness of a raven-haired topless bordello madam. That kind of portrait. Considering this fact, we're lucky Urban didn't cold-cock the hapless Fowler and send them both to the hospital (once for Fowler's injury, once for Urban's cardiac episode.)
Fowler dared to quote Deonte Thompson and put exactly one toe out on the limb of suggesting Deonte Thompson might receive more passes this year now that Tim Tebow is gone. That's it. Then Urban Meyer, hysterically oversensitive during his entire tenure at the helm of Florida's ship of football state, went hysterically overboard and threatened Fowler with implied physical violence, threatened him and the Sentinel with a ban from practice, and acted like a complete asshole with reading comprehension issues.
He'd make a fine internet commenter, in other words. He's also utterly and completely wrong, and needs to apologize in person to Fowler. You'll know he's done it when you see him silent at practice next week, because his tongue will be sore from the stitches needed to reattach it after he bit it off during the apology.
If he's just a B-level dick, he'll do this with Fowler and the rest of the press corps, and Shelley will tell him all these things are necessary during his nightly curry brushing in the Meyer family stables that he has to have (like a high-strung horse, he'll die without it.) If he's an A-level dick, though, this gets no apology ever, and you'll have to be shocked that Urban Meyer don't give a fuck about nothing but this U.
He's wrong, but don't be aghast. Mark Richt caught at a cockfight loaded on MD 20/20 with a 16 year old Filipina trafficking victim would be aghast-worthy. This is Urban Meyer. At his best he's a cyborg. At his worst, he's this close to punching Charlie Bauman on the field in a blind frothing rage. Don't look for a Bryant where there's only a Belichick, because you are not getting one here.
AN ADDITIONAL NOTE. The pieces written today on this will all say this: that he's wrong. They are all correct. One quibble with Dean Barnhart's piece, here.
And on this I feel strongly: For Meyer to personalize this issue is not only unprofessional, it is not in keeping with the standards of behavior that are generally accepted in the Southeastern Conference.
We weren't aware we had any, but we also never read the rulebook, ignore most of the paperwork, and assume others will worry about the petty details while we watch the lights play on the ceiling and think about naked samba dancers and fireworks. AREN'T YOU CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR FOOTBALL PROGRAM AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT YOUR SCHOOL AND CLASS AND PRIDE SPLUTTER SPLUTTER?
No. This is the University of Florida, the flagship university of a state with one foot in the jungle and the other in South America. Hurricanes, carnivores, scandal, public disorder, disease, tax cheats, people literally just standing around waiting to die, shiftless refugees from the rest of the US, Miami club-gropers, and sunburn. Don't tell us it's not all part of a set piece where shame went to die.
THAT IS A REFERENCE TO THE SCROTUM ON ESPN. COM.
"You hurt your what?" Bielema asks. "Man purse," Gilbert says, sending howls through the room. "I've heard it called a lot of things," Bielema says. "Man purse is not one of them."
We prefer the term "European Carry-All," but that's worrying over niggling details. There's also a nice bit about the staff googling "college football arrests" and reading through the results, which makes us hear "CHA-CHING" on the great metaphorical cash register of life.
LSU REPORT COULD TAKE A YEAR. Because the people at the NCAA have so much else to do, like.../looks out window
/has 2 hour lunch at shitty chain restaurant
/fiddles around online for a few hours
/types thirty words on LSU report
/buys plane ticket for two weeks of "investigation" in New Orleans
/makes reservations at K-Paul's
WHERE IS HIS FOCUS TODD MCSHAY SAYS WONDERING WHY HE DOESN'T THROW FOOTBALLS IN HIS SLEEP. Jake Lockeris going to play a little baseball, and we now make the bet that this will be cited as a reason for downgrading him in the 2011 NFL Draft because of a lack of "focus," because half of all draftniks wear velcro shoes to keep from killing themselves in sidewalk falls. STAIRS AND REVOLVING DOORS: THE GREAT FOES OF THE NFL SCOUT.