"FIVE AND NINETEEN! FIVE AND NINETEEN...DOES NOT ACCURATELY REFLECT HIS COACHING ABILITY." Via reader Henry, a superbly overdubbed historical remix of the infamous Auburn airport heckler. He sounds a little bit like Will Ferrell at the bottom of the hole in Austin Powers, and there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
Even in the glory of their BCS Title, the New York Times will not sleep in their tireless efforts to defame the Auburn football program. (Good on them for finding the one picture of Cam Newton sans helmet where he is not flashing a massive shit-eating grin. That smile scores and inspires children to be kind to stray animals! Love, Craig James.) We have our summary of the game coming up, and if we feel like the Auburn national title victory feels like the fakest shit ever, it's not only due to their team: having a championship game a month after the end of the regular season only really starts to feel like a constructed exercise when you go to it and see just what a contrivance it really can be, especially when played in a pro stadium located in the hinterlands of Tatooine. The admittedly pigheaded personal animosity towards the team comes a distant second to the inherent weirdness at play here.
(They can finally open whatever's in here, for what it's worth. Our guess: a bumper crop of Pat Dye golf slacks recently recovered from the bottom of ponds across Southeastern Alabama.)
RE: THE WEIRDNESS. Ty and Dan's mock Rinaldi piece is as good a summary of how strange the process of the BCS Title Game can be, and a pretty good savaging of Rinaldi's free verse. Remember that three people are allowed to write in free verse: Walt Whitman, Milton, and "Not You."
CAN'T BELIEVE NO ONE GOT TO THE HOKE RIDGE BOYS AND PHOTOSHOPPED A HUGE SCARY BEARD ON HIM. The nice thing about Michigan fans when they're miserable is that they write really well about being miserable, and that makes for some fine reading. The comment thread yesterday had us giggling in meetings when you just began randomly rhyming things with "Hoke," something that makes just as much sense as hiring Brady Hoke to coach the Michigan football team. Freek has the early setup, and if Wolverine really did look like that then Zingerman's would be full of dead bodies and one very empty meat case.
If there is one paragraph written on Hoke's hire that probably juices the despair glands of Michigan fans with a special ferocity, it has to be this one:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When David Brandon, Michigan’s athletic director, introduced his new football coach Wednesday afternoon, one of the first qualifications he cited was that Brady Hoke could sing "The Victors."
M. Night Shymalan is directing the Michigan program, and the trees are attempting to kill football. Kill the trees and solve the problem! (Brian Cook buys five thousand chainsaws.)
Rocky Long will replace Hoke at San Diego State. ATTENTION CITIZENS OF EARTH THE AZTECS HAVE A COACH YOU MAY RESUME NORMAL ACTIVITIES NOW.
IF YOU WONDER WHY LES MILES DID NOT GET THE MICHIGAN JOB: His score on the chronography section of this test probably doomed him from the start.
IN OTHER SHOCKING NEWS: Todd Graham goes to Pittsburgh, and now that he has been vetted by a man with the keen eye for can't-miss coaching talent like Steve Pederson, only championships and glory can follow. (Bug the executive bathrooms and monitor all conversations within. You will thank us later.)
MR. CHOW IS A TRAINED ASSASSIN AVAILABLE FOR YOUR SERVICES. The oddity of Norm Chow ending up at Utah begins now, or at least soonishly. Chow was an assistant forever at BYU, and may soon expect disappointed young men in short sleeve shirts, ties, and nametags earnestly knocking on his door and asking when's coming back to Provo.