Deep within the bowels of a Ryan's Steakhouse, the precise location of which is known only to a select few, a sinister cabal gathers to plot doom and destruction. The group is led by a shadowy figure known only as "Mr. Big." With the unsuspecting restaurant customers enjoying their hot fruit and whipped topping above them, he calls the meeting to order.
MR. BIG: Gentlemen! Gentlemen, please, if I may. As you all know, the foundations of college football are crumbling all around us. Storied programs, revered coaches, time-honored traditions - they are all in peril! The media would have people believe the sport is itself inherently corrupt. Let them feed the pitiful masses this lie. The true credit lies with us, brothers - Saboteurs United for Bedlam, Extortion, Lawlessness, and Terror!
(the group lets out a savage whoop)
MR. BIG: Yes, whoop indeed! Now, let us start with old business. You will recall that we previously allocated ten million dollars to Florida Atlantic - notably not present tonight - for Mr. Schnellenberger's robotics program. Unfortunately, it would appear that the SCHNELL-E he designed...
...to serve as his doppelganger is certainly not the "killing machine" he promised us. As Commander of S.Un.B.E.L.T., I have terminated the SCHNELL-E program and dispatched our prospective member, South Alabama, to the Indian subcontinent in search of Howard and what I would estimate to be $9,998,457.
Ahem. NEW BUSINESS! Middle Tennessee, your report!
NEGASUS: FROM THE FIERY PITS OF MURFREESBORO I BRING YOU TIDINGS MOST EVIL AND DISTURBING, COMMANDER. THE BLUE RAIDERS OFFER YOU THE HEADS OF ACC MEMBER MARYLAND, CIRCA TWO THOUSAND EIGHT AND TWO THOUSAND NINE ANNO DIABOLI.
MR. BIG: Negasus, I have told you, S.Un.B.E.L.T. cannot succeed by resting on past embarrassments of "more legitimate" programs. Did you not suffer defeat last year at the hands of Minnesota, a team so awful it caused residents to utter "Well, at least pitchers and catchers report soon!" Did you not just allow Purdue a last-second victory via field goal?
NEGASUS: MY LIEGE THE MAKERS OF BOIL WERE THE MOST BEWITCHING DEMONS THESE EYES HAVE SEEN SINCE THE DAYS OF PLAGUE. THEY MOVED AS PHANTOMS, DEVOID OF EXISTEN -
MR. BIG: Enough of these excuses, Negasus! What plans have you for the approaching match with Tennessee?
NEGASUS: WE WILL CRUSH THE HEARTS OF EVERY VOLUNTEER BY EXTENDING AN INVITATION TO CHARLES WOODSON TO WALK THE SIDELINES AS OUR GUEST.
MR. BIG: Excellent. Goldpanther, what update can you offer on Operation Jetski Dump?
GOLDPANTHER: As you know, Mr. Big, we at Florida International invested significant time and funds with a special operative who promised he could destroy the University of Miami from within. We feared we had closed the mathematics department for no reason when that operative was placed in federal custody, but now it seems we are seeing some returns.
MR. BIG: And how would you qualify these initial returns, Goldpanther?
(Goldpanther puts a photograph on the main projector.)
GOLDPANTHER: Au79spicious, Mr. Big. Most au79spicious.
MR. BIG: Goldpanther, you are a shining example of everything S.Un.B.E.L.T. stands for. Turning now to les frères Prudhomme - Monroe, Lafayette?
MONROE: Monsieur le Grande, as you know I attempted to run our Lyles scheme - which is working so well in Eugene - on our local SEC cocodrie, Les Miles. He has proven to be more...slippery than we expected.
MR. BIG: Meaning?
MONROE: Meaning somehow he convinced me to give him $50,000 to invest in the Forex market. He promised me triple my money in a month. That was six months ago, and yet I - I still trust him.
MR. BIG: Lafayette, for your brother's sake, I trust you have something more promising to offer...
LAFAYETTE: Merci beaucoup, boss, I do. I must confess, I always lacked Monroe's subtlety, so one night I just strolled down to Shady's and who do I spy but Jordan Jefferson himself. Well, I know how JJ loves a good bet, even if that boy couldn't crap out with a pot of coffee and an hour to spare. So I says to him, "JJ, you see that sleepin' Marine over there? I'm gonna hold a football right next to his ear, and I'll bet you FIVE DOLLARS you can't kick that ball more than fifteen yards." JJ let loose, and next thing you know, he's off to the hoosegow.
MR. BIG: Splendid, Lafayette! And I presume LSU has suffered on the field as a result?
LAFAYETTE: Well, um, it's, uh, early in the season still, and uh...
MR. BIG: I see. (exhales loudly). NORTH TEXAS! Please tell me YOU have accomplished something since we last met.
FORMER CHILD ACTOR PATRICK RENNA: Um, I'm not sure why I'm here in the first place.
MR. BIG: To represent the University of North Texas, an essential cog in the S.Un.B.E.L.T. Doomsday Machine!
PATRICK RENNA: No, I get that. I just don't know why you all hired me. I didn't even go to UNT.
MR. BIG: Well, you appeared in "The Big Green," and North Texas is the Mean Green, so I'm sure you see the connection.
PATRICK RENNA: It seems sort of tenuous, that's all. Most people just think of me as the catcher from The Sandlot.
MR. BIG: Tenuous?!?!? The Big Green was number FOUR at the box office opening weekend! It made over seventeen million dollars and co-starred Steve Guttenberg! It is widely thought to be the fifth best soccer movie, between Ladybugs and Air Bud: World Pup!
PATRICK RENNA: Look, whatever, I just need the paycheck. Anyways, I met up with Mack Brown at the East Plano Carrabba's like you told me.
MR. BIG: Did you ply him with liquor and deliver to him the key tof his own destruction?
PATRICK RENNA: Yeah, dude was nice and plastered. He kept ordering Redheaded Sluts and winking at me. And at one point I'm pretty sure he tried to undo the bra I didn't have on. I forgot to bring a pen, so I had to show him the plan using one of those crayons they let kids use on the paper menu.
MR. BIG: Fantastic! That doddering hillbilly will be so smothered by his own hubris he won't even notice the conference disintegrating beneath his very feet! Well done, Big Green. Well done indeed. Let's hear from Troy, now. Coach Blakeney?
SIR LAWRENCE THE UNDYING: For centuries I have served as steward to the Trojan Army. Immortality has forced me to watch every friend, every lover, every enemy who ever crossed my path die while I was left behind. In 2001, I prayed the jump to the FBS would grant me freedom.
SIR LAWRENCE: Yet I carried on, some perverse Ancient Mariner of Southern Alabama. RELEASE ME, YE GODS!
MR. BIG: Shhh. Easy, Larry. Easy. Arkansas State, why don't you take over for Troy?
WOLVERFREEZE: Yessir, Mr. Big. Um, first off, I'd like to say "hiya" to everyone, as the new guy here taking over for Coach Roberts. My name is Hugh Freeze but, if it's not too much trouble, I'd just as soon that y'all called me Wolverfreeze.
MR. BIG: Wolverfreeze? Why the hell did you pick that name when the Mr. Freeze angle would have been so much more natural?
WOLVERFREEZE: (silent)
MR. BIG: It didn't even occur to you, did it? Is that headpiece part of a child's costume?
WOLVERFREEZE: Look, they were all in one bin at Party City and my wife said we had to get going and I just PANICKED! GEEZ! Um, anyways, you've probably heard how I helped bring Bobby Petrino in to Arkansas, which, you know, we figured he was gonna leave those boys high and dry in two, three years tops. It, well, hasn't worked out that way. I keep sending him fake job announcements hoping he'll bite, but he says the Chicago Cardinals haven't been an NFL team for 50 years, so I'm thinking maybe we just gotta wait for this 'conomy to turn and the-
MR. BIG: ENOUGH! How do you all expect to dismantle college football with these half-baked schemes and sophomorics? These conferences - these Big Easts, these Pac-12s - they look at us as subordinates, surviving only off of the scraps of money which come dribbling out the sides of their gaping maws! We formed S.Un.B.E.L.T. to destroy them! Not to censure them, not to degrade them - to ERASE THEM FROM HISTORY ITSELF.
PATRICK RENNA: Um, why is that the goal, anyways? College football is making tons of money, and we just got that sweet tie-in to the GoDaddy.com Bow -
(Mr. Big presses a button which liquefies Renna.)
MR. BIG: Excellent question from the late Mr. Renna. Let me remind you all why I put every ounce of my lifeblood towards this goal.
In 1979, Herbie Husker and Otto the Orange were both attending the National Sports Collectors Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Herbie and Otto spent one drunken night together, and, thanks to Otto possessing both male and female sex organs, I was conceived. Otto knew she wasn't fit to be a mother, as she couldn't even afford air conditioning in her home, so I was sent to live with Herbie.
Herbie took me in but made it clear that I would never be kin to him. Many was the night he would come home late from a Nebraska victory, drunk with power and grain alcohol, and call me "the only monster that sleeps on top of the bed."
When I turned 14, I went away to summer camp, but Herbie never picked me up from the bus stop on my way back home. I walked seven miles home, only to spy my "Lil" replacement at the dining room table, playing with my favorite toys.
Ever since that day, I knew that I - that WE - would never be accepted by those fortunate enough by the sheer random chance of birth to be Automatic Qualifiers. I swore that Herbie, and all those like him, would one day be brought down to our level. Nebraska may have narrowly escaped the destruction of the Big 12, but they have only delayed their fate.
Chaos is the only answer. Chaos makes equals of us all, gentlemen.
(Mr. Big steps out of the shadow which has previously concealed him.)
MR. BIG: Even the monsters.
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