Recherche du temps Tuscaloo

Having inherited family traits of depressive moping and obsessive compulsiveness, I make every effort to lead an unexamined life – who needs that constant reminder of everything that’s gone wrong?

And yet this morning, a brief flash of memory while shaving answered two mysteries for me.

The first mystery is my preference for SEC football. Conference rivalries are supposed to be all consuming, but I revel in the madness of the top-end of the SEC, as opposed to the near-random variability of the Pac 10 when teams can completely change their complexion from week to week.

The second mystery is why I am such complete putty in the hands of southern belles. I mean, beyond the obvious fact that so many of them are charming and so on, but still… I used to work with a woman from South Carolina who had deliberately taken on a neutral-ish mid-Atlantic mien to avoid being treated as if she were stupid. Since I’m not dead, I was aware that she was an attractive woman – but when she demonstrated her use of her “actual” accent to persuade people to let her off the hook from something, I was ready to leave home. Fortunately the missus arrived home before I finished packing my bags, I regained my senses, and order resumed.

It’s not that either of these phenomena is unusual in the global sense; it’s the “why me” part that remained unclear – or least it did until I was shaving this morning and something reminded me of the source. When I was but a little DC Trojan and we lived in Holland, my parents had friends (he was a career NCO in the Army) who were from Alabama. They presented me with my first college football t-shirt – though to this day I remember experiencing great confusion about what a Crimson Tide was, and why you would need to involve an elephant. And they had a very cute teenaged daughter who used to babysit me and my brother sometimes… and now that I think about it, the adults were plainly laughing at how I was completely smitten with what seemed like a very exotic blonde southern-ness about her.

So it’s all clear now. The Akins set me on a path, but I was redirected by my father getting a job in California, and I didn’t even know it at the time. Still, given the state of my blood pressure and so on, perhaps it’s as well I didn’t end up in SEC country. Between the football rage and the fried food, I’d be dead already. (Better that than life in the ACC, though.)

Bowls bowls bowls… and 16 – 0

Bowl games watched to date:

Holiday Bowl, in portions: Who was that burnt orange team? Rudy Carpenter is given another opportunity to learn the benefits of keeping your yap shut before the game.

Emerald Bowl: All you need to know about Maryland’s first half: if you look conspicuously dirty on the same field as Oregon State, you are playing some filthy football. All you need to know about Maryland’s second half: run-run-pass-punt isn’t being sticking with the gameplan until it works, it’s playing into the hands of a strong defense trying to cover up a QB who looks like Joe Campus but passes and runs like me.

Alamo Bowl: That was a lot of trash-talking from an Aggie safety / corner in the first quarter; oddly I couldn’t see him working his routine as Penn State ran out the clock for the win. The only good thing I can find to say about the Aggie fans is that they don’t sit around blubbing like Oklahoma or Ohio State fans. I have no reason to dislike the Aggies, but oh do I ever.

Also: watched the Giants – Patriots games. That was actually an interesting game. As I was watching the Patriots battering away and not getting very far, all I could think was “they need to hold on long enough for Eli to get back to being Eli.” A botched hand-off and an interception later, plus a couple of “fuck me!” plays was all it needed. The primary example of that: Moss doesn’t catch a long pass, Brady responds to pressure on the next play and hits Moss inside for what, a 45 yard TD reception? Holy crap. But there’s something to be said for the brief emergence of “mad bastard” play in the pro game.

I guess some people have a stick up their ass about the Patriots for cheating, running up the score, or just winning a lot, but that’s pretty damn impressive. Bravo, gentlemen.

Last weekend’s results, just in time for this weekend

(Cross-posted from Conquest Chronicles, a revival of last season’s post weekend review of what USC’s season opposition got up to in their games.)

Nebraska throttled Nevada, 52 – 10. The Huskers rolled up 625 yards of offense, of which 413 were rushing yards… easy to achieve when Marlon Lucky posts 233 yards and 3 touchdowns. Sam Keller was 14 / 5 for 193 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT. Nevada managed 108 yards passing and 77 yards of rushing. The guys at SBN’s Corn Nation liked what they saw. That kind of power running and stout defense is going to make for an interesting game on the 15th.

Washington State traveled to Madison and lost 42 – 21 to Wisconsin. Wazoo kept it respectable through the third, when they were down 28 – 21, but the Badgers scored 2 TDs in the 4th to close the game down. The Cougars were fairly close to the Badgers in the running game – 157 to 182 – but got killed in the passing game, 328 to 426. (This is Wisconsin we’re talking about, right?) Wazoo went 6 – 14 on third down conversions to Wisconsin’s 11 – 15. I’m guessing that the Coug’s D was gassed by the 4th quarter. If Turner is healthy and either Hazelton or Ausberry step up, that could be a long game for the Cougs.

LOLqb

From EDSBS I went to DeepSouthSports to see the pictures of Georgia QB Stafford getting his snuggle-bunny on with a fellow player, and an attractive young lady trying to get in the mix.

Much hilarity / outrage has ensued, depending on one’s Dawgness, but I think the real explanation is pretty harmless and I have modified the picture accordingly:

I thought a Bama tailgate had gone wrong…

I saw something about elephants, beer, stampedes, and death, and assumed something had gone horribly wrong during spring practice in Tuscaloosa.

Turns out that in the Indian state of Meghalaya, elephants are stealing villagers’ beer and then trampling them, and in turn the villagers are knocking off the elephants.

So it’s more like game day in Columbus then.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Drunken elephants die in accident

New Arkansas AD?

Frank Broyles is leaving Arkansas, this much we know, and so the Hawgs need a new boss, same as the old boss, in order to help maintain duplicitous relations with players, coaches, and alumni, while fitting into a local political culture that is… primitive and not for the faint of heart.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a solution for you: recently resigned Liberian Minister of Public Works, Willis Knuckles (no relation to Frankie). Mr Knuckles is available for work immediately in the wake of his resignation, something to do with photographs of him getting busy with two young ladies being published in the local rag… Okay, so we may need to put a bromide in his morning coffee, but still, he’s got some qualifications.

First of all, he has an SEC name.

Secondly, as local (to Monrovia) journalist Omari Jackson points out, Knuckles’ experience is actually in sport administration:

it was Knuckles’ administration as the Vice Chairman of the Liberia Football Association, under the late president Samuel Doe that Liberia’s soccer talents came to light. The nation’s legendary soccer stars including super star and world renown George Weah, James Debbah, Kervin Sebwe, Jonathan Sogbie (Boye Charles), Pewou Bestman, and a host of others all came to light because of the consistent and effect administrative supervision of Mr. Knuckles at the LFA.
….
As an administrator, Knuckles was consistent with policies of the LFA administration. He lived by every policy decision of the football association and he introduced youth soccer throughout Liberia. He was careful with the finances of the football  association. During his tenure as the vice chairman, Liberian clubs participated in continental and sub-regional competitions. His effective administrative performance ensured that the association’s finances were judiciously used.

With the best will in the world, a background in African national football association suggests that Mr Knuckle’s talents are rather more dubious than described, given the general corruption of the game (corruption too basic to take the form of promotional deals and the like). Plus, being in charge of anything under Samuel Doe — an era of mass rape, mutilations, and opponent’s testicles being mounted on a jeep for presentation about town — suggests that Mr Knuckles can wield some old school — maybe even old Testament — authority, which ought to go down well in that part of the world.

So, to summarize, Mr Knuckles:

• Has a sports administration background
• Probably has a knack for byzantine financial transactions
• Might not be averse to the torture of minors

All in all, I think it has to be Willis Knuckles for Arkansas, even in Nutt’s nuts will head to a quiet corner of the old body cavity, just in case.

Your 2007 National Champions, the Florida Gators!

Cross-posted from Conquest Chronicles…

Well, we learned one thing above all tonight, CheatyPants McSweatervest plainly runs a clean program after all — because no dirty program gets beaten like that. Like what? Like red-headed step-children, like Notre Dame in any bowl of recent memory, beaten almost as bad as Oklahoma in 2004 2005.

PWN3D! (Charles Krupa, AP)

I don’t like tOSU at all, not least because of the Michigan-based in-laws… I have to give them something back for the last 2 Rose Bowl beatings, it’s only fair.

So when I saw Ginn run back the opening kick-off for a touchdown, and the Pac-10 officials miss a splendid hold, I was not best pleased.

However, two amazing things came to pass — and bizarrely, Chris Leak was one of them:

You can apologize later, if your mouth’s free… (Ross Franklin, AP)

The other site to behold was Florida’s defense absolutely running amok on tOSU — Troy Smith started out a bit flat and got flattened. There was one play — I think it was 2nd & 15 at about 10 minutes in the 4th quarter — where Smith was just levelled by Florida player Ray MacDonald because no Buckeye had taken the time to block someone running straight at their QB on the fucking blind side! Frau DC Trojan, no fan of the Buckeyes, had wandered into the living room and was appalled for young Mr. Smith, which underlines the overall suckitude of the tOSU O-line.

At this point, even I was starting to feel sorry for Smith because the combination of O-line ineptitude and the Heisman curse was proving to be too much, and he’d already been spitting turf a few times…

I’m in your backfield, sacking yoor doodz!1!! (Stephen Dunn, Getty Images)

Any way that you slice it, Florida had it all over the Buckeyes, in coaching and execution. Frankly, I don’t know that it would have made much difference if Ginn hadn’t been injured; I suspect Reggie Nelson would have got to him eventually.

My remaining thoughts on the game:

• Troy Smith didn’t resort to putting towels on his head, he remained engaged with his team-mates, and he was quick to congratulate Leak. A classy response to a bad situation.
• However, it took an embarassingly long time before the tOSU defense learned that trying to intimidate the Gators by dirty play wasn’t going to work. Like, 2 short field possessions and 2 touchdowns long. Plainly the obviously clever Anthony Gonzalez doesn’t have a brainiac equivalent on the defensive side of the ball. But it might not just be native wit, mind you, this is the same team culture which showed up in 2003 when they couldn’t have been more obviously trying to cripple Braylon Edwards…
• Can we all agree now that zone defenses don’t really work well for the Big 10 in bowl games?
• Not content with nearly blowing Ian Johnson’s proposal post-Fiesta Bowl, Chris Myer’s attempted to ambush Reggie F Nelson with a post-game question about his mother, who died December 21, 2006 of breast cancer. Can we all agree that a big FUCK YOU is in order here? That’s not cool, Myers, people are animals too, so have a goddamn heart.

You Guys Look Good without Hawkins, but Oregon State Will Eat You Alive…

Above lies an actual quote. An actual quote by an actual asshole. An actual asshole who writes before you.

I was at Boise State’s season opener against Sacramento State and honestly found it quite enjoyable. The Smurf Turf lacked the lustre it seems to have when televised, but it was beautiful nonetheless. One most certainly can’t fault the Boise Autumn. The town itself, at least the area around Broadway and Park Center is electric. The Chili’s directly across from the stadium closes their parking lot to traffic and opens a beer tent with cheap tacos and cheap beer. It is pure and classic America in the Treasure Valley.

Their fans all very nice and surprisingly welcoming to a guy walking around their stadium with a University of Oregon shirt on.

Anyway, long story extended…

Got to talking to a guy and his wife sitting next to me. He used to play on the team, married his college sweetheart, had kids and still lives in town. They got a sitter and decided to have a nice dinner and catch the season opener. Classic Americana. We talked jobs, respective homes, and made the connection that people who have spent long periods of time in mid-sized Northwest towns seem to be able to make. Obviously though, we talked football. For every Pac-10 bias I posited, he countered with a WAC equivalent. Through out it all, he was very gracious. A trait tested in full when yours truly mentioned the quote that titles this ramble. He looked at me and then at the sun setting on the Treasure Valley, smiled and said, “Guess you could be right. You guys in the Pac 10 play some good football.”

Damn straight – I thought.

Ayway, Boise State bullied Oregon State and would more than likely have done worse to Oregon if given the chance. I couldn’t have been happier to see them come out victorious in the Fiesta Bowl. That it was against Oklahoma, a team that can be a point down against Oregon with a minute left, positioned snugly on our 27 yard line, still not be clutch enough to score and spend the rest of the season talking about how it was the officiating that lost the game…made it a little sweeter personally.

But that’s just a Pac 10 bias which shouldn’t take away from the extreme gonadcraft that was on display. Pure clutch.

Remember there is no “Z” in Boise. But there are two “S’s” in Jackass and two “S’s” in Stoops.

Scarlet Knights! Scarlet Knights! Scarlet Knights!

I only caught the second half, but damn that was an exciting game. Great play, great coaching, great heart from the Rutgers players, great support from a crowd that sounded like twice the 44,000 in attendance – that’s really what college football should be like, ideally, a program on the way up playing out of their heads to win against a more accomplished conference rival.

Great stuff.