CHECKING IN ON THE COACHES OF THE PAC-12

Let’s go around the room, shall we?

Kyle Whittingham is thinking about his deadlift. It really has changed over the years, hasn’t it? Used to be sumo, then went to straight, like real straight, like Franco Columbu in all those photos from when he was a European powerlifting champion, and not just Arnold Schwarzenegger’s training buddy. Used to eschew shaving in favor of just pulling the hairs out himself with his fingers. Weird fella, that Franco. Well anyway, the key is Romanian Deadlifts as an assistance exercise, because man, even at his age that sucker’s really taken off. THE KING OF LIFTS, BUDDY! They call ‘em traps because once the ladies touch them, their hands can’t go anywhere else.

Mike McIntyre is really hoping you don’t know his full name is George Michael McIntyre, and that you don’t photoshop his head on that shot of George Michael Bluth walking slowly with his head down past the Snoopy Doghouse in that scene from Arrested Development’s fourth episode of the second season, “Good Grief.” Because that would be a very, very good summary of his time at Colorado so far.

That’s Chris Petersen hiding in the back, trying to stay out of sight for two reasons. The first is so the media won’t overhype Washington. A football team needs water, sunlight, and disrespect to grow. This is why Texas has struggled so much recently - they’re too respected and don’t know how to deal with all the compliments they get! The second reason? He’s trying to pilfer David Shaw’s wallet.

David Shaw is unperturbed, because he knows Petersen’s only walking away with his dummy wallet. That wallet is stuffed with phased-out European money and half-opened mustard packets. Enjoy those sticky lira, Chris. It’s what you get for not inventing your own cryptocurrency, which David Shaw did during last year’s Oregon State game because he was bored.

Sonny Dykes smiles to mask his crippling self-doubt. Should he have worn a tie? Shaw wore a tie, and he gets talked about for NFL jobs all the time. What if he starts going by his first name, Daniel? Daniel Dykes? Is that more authoritative? But then shouldn’t he just change his name completely? He could be Rock G. Chesterton. Carve out a whole new life for himself. “There goes Rock Chesterton,” the people in town would say, “a great mayor and an even better astronaut surgeon.”

Todd Graham’s locked in on Sonny’s carotid. The thirst beckons, a macabre lullaby that cannot be ignored. Soon it will overtake him, and he will have no choice but to leave another town lest his terrible secret be revealed.

It’s hard to say this in any other way but wherever Mike Leach is, there he goes. He is staring at a football thinking of the historical saga behind the vulcanization of rubber, and its role in the creation of vicious colonial slave economies throughout South America and Africa. He has his eyes fixed on the image of a stevedore, eyeing the mouth of a paddlewheel steamboat with its prow pulled up on the muddy red shores of Amazonia, with long bamboo poles leaning against it as bridges. The men go up and down all day and the forest grows small and somewhere in Brussels or Lisbon a man makes a mark in a ledger and smiles. The stevedore imagines himself as a decimal point in a stranger’s happy abstractions. It brings him no joy. Mike Leach sees this from a century and change’s distance.

Gary Andersen silently contemplates the carpet, and a girl he used to know named Marie. Not many of those around, period, but—there certainly weren’t many like Marie, even among Maries.

Rich Rod’s thinking about a nice butt.

Mark Helfrich hopes you compliment his beard. He didn’t grow it, but instead had it transferred from a junior college coach’s beard. It’s just easier and more efficient that way.

Hey, it’s Michael Chiklis!