Stuff That Grinds My Gears: What’s Been Pissing Me Off Lately

Over the past few weeks, there have been two issues that really chapped my ass.  I’ve been trying to just let them go, but then I realized I’m a blogger; it’s my non-paying job to bitch about stuff.  So, here it goes…

1) The Bobby Petrino Situation

The guy is a scumbag, pure and simple. But Arkansas got what they deserved, and the only person I’ve seen say that is the guy over at Klown Times.

Keep in mind that (Arkansas athletic director Kevin) Long is the same AD who hired Petrino away from the Atlanta Falcons DURING THEIR SEASON. If that wasn’t bad enough, Long did so without asking permission to speak to Petrino.

Plus, I find it hard to believe that Long did not know of Petrino’s past transgressions. After all, this is the same Petrino who secretly flirted with Auburn while former coach Tommy Tuberville was still employed there.  And of course there was that Atlanta Falcons “thing.”

Let’s take Klown’s position as a starting point. I’ve always had a sort of “three strikes” rule when it comes to forming opinions, and this latest incident with Petrino was clearly worthy of ringing him up as a complete dick…100%, USDA Prime, Grade A Tube Steak.

Look at the Auburn situation. You know what kind of guy flies into town secretly to discuss ripping a job out from under another coach? The same kind of guy who pretends to be your best friend, then bangs your wife the minute you are out of town on business.  Not to mention, this tells you a lot about how much this guy values loyalty.  He was perfectly fine not only with leaving town unannounced in the middle of the night, he was willing to sneak in the back door at his secret destination. I understand that valuing loyalty in college sports is like cornering the sunscreen market in Alaska in January, but at some point you simply cannot advertise you are willing to stab anybody in the back at anytime; karma can be a real bitch. We’ll come back to that point later.

St-eeee-rike One.

Then, there’s what happened with the Falcons. The way that situation ended in Atlanta could have been a 500-level class in douchebaggery. Not only did Petrino actively seek to bail the minute things got tough mid-way through a failed season, he secretly campaigned for the Arkansas job while then-Hawg head coach Houston Nutt was embroiled in his own scandal, and when Bobby-Boy got the job in Fayetteville, he informed the Falcons of his mid-season departure with a letter.  The Falcons, and their owner Arthur Blank made a huge commitment to Petrino on the assumption he would be the big-time coach to make the transition from college to the NFL.  Fat chance; instead the Falcons realized the hard way they had married their future to a guy who couldn’t wait to skip town the minute a greener pasture presented itself.  Perhaps if Arthur Blank had paid Petrino in 25-year old motorcycle riding suck-sluts…

As much as the douchiness already oozes out of this issue, there’s two things that really pissed me off here. First of all, there’s the people who thought Petrino shouldn’t have been fired. Tell that to Houston Nutt. For those of you who may not recall, Nutt got himself run out of Fayetteville for some extra-marital cannubial bliss.  To make a long story short, Nutt’s relationship with local news anchor Donna Bragg hit the public arena when a fan who was angry with the Nutt filed a Freedom of Information Act requesting Nutt’s email and phone records, at which point he exposed his carnal canoodling with Bragg.

Of course, this led to Nutt’s firing, not for his won-loss record, but for his extra-curricular activity. I will admit I’m a fan of the Nutt, if for no other reason as he makes wonderful blog-fodder. But this is more about the potential headache Arkansas could have faced. If the university had not fired Petrino, the Nutt could have excoriated the Arkansas administration, especially since Petrino upped the ante over what the Nutt did by a) messing with a University employee who b) Petrino got on the payroll nad c) tried to cover up the motorcycle accident, up to and including trying not to call 911 to aid his injured mistress, which led to d) the filing of a false report on the incident to university administration.

Speaking of coaches who have no love for Petrino, do you wonder what Tommy Tuberville thought of all this? Sure, now Tuberville has his own issues to deal with at Texas Tech, but don’t forget that Tuberville hired Petrino at Auburn to run his offense.   In a move of complete foreshadowing,  Petrino stair-stepped that experience into the head coaching job at Louisville, the very same job from which Petrino then tried to secretly steal Tuberville’s gig at Auburn.  Here comes that karma thing again…

St-eeee-rike Two.

As far as strike three goes, we’ve really already alluded to it.  Honestly it isn’t about who Petrino was sticking his wang into; it’s about all the rules and decencies he broke to get into the pants of a woman was half his age.  We all know that story now, and while it is clearly a good reason to punch Petrino out (in more ways than the baseball reference implies), let’s just for fun say Petrino got a piece of it; foul tip and all that…we’re still at strike two.

Then read this.

Hark back to his days at Louisville, where the story of how Petrino of how he handled an incident with a player named D.J. Kamer incident, which while it was hushed up at the time, is nothing short of appaling.  Kamer had a friend pass away, and according to the New York Times, Petrino said that Kamer didn’t “want to play football (at Louisville)” if he attended his childhood friends funeral as a pallbearer. And in what is proving to be a theme with Petrino, that very same report in the New York Times quotes former Atlanta Falcons player Lawyer Milloy said “That’s karma…Just because he knows X’s and O’s doesn’t mean he is a nice person.”

St-eeee-rike Three.  Grab some bench, Bobby…you are out.

As far as blog-fodder is concerned, here’s a classic bit from the Dubsism archives about Bobby Petrino, Houston Nutt, Tommy Tuberville, and the classic Vietnam War story…

2) The Overblown Ozzie Guillen “Controversy”

I really don’t know where to start with this one. I don’t know for whom I have the most invective for in this case. It could be the douchebags in the media who asked the outspoken Guillen a loaded question when they knew both the answer he would give and how they would attempt to explode the statements of a baseball manager into some sort of geo-political catastrophe. It could be the dumb-asses who stood in front of the Marlins’ ball-park acting as if Guillen’s statement about the murderous scumwad  known as Fidel Castro had somehow been responsible for all the misery caused throughout the annals of human history.  Hell, it could also be the people who acted as if this was the worst thing that could ever happen, then completely lost interest as quickly as they became so righteously indignant.

Let’s start from the top.

First of all, it is a sad state of affairs when I have to agree with that pompous bag of anal leakage known as Bill Maher. But his defense of Guillen, while done for reasons ideologically different from my own, is still nonetheless correct.

“If you say something Communists don’t like, they take away your job and send you to a re-education camp until you come out with the one approved opinion,” Maher said sarcastically. “We wouldn’t want that here in America.”

Granted, the blood of tens of thousands of innocent people is on Castro’s hands. If I were in Cuba and made the anti-Castro comments I’m making here, you can bet your beard and cigar my ass would be in a cell in no time. That’s what dictators do.  But in America, the press has the right to ask a loaded, pre-meditated, and/or albeit pointless question, much like Guillen has the right to answer it even if it means sticking both feet in his mouth up to the ankles.

Am I the only person who was reminded of the Marge Schott incident?  For those of you who don’t recall, Schott was sand-bagged by ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio when she made some pro-Hitler comments. For this she was run out of baseball, despite the fact that all she did was answer a question. If you read the transcript of the interview, two things should leap off the screen at you. First, what she said was hardly a ringing endorsement of Hitler, and second, you should find it curious that the exact wording of Paolantonio’s question is missing.

Here’s why that matters…if you are going to ask an out-spoken person like Schott or Guillen such loaded questions, aren’t you doing so EXACTLY to illicit such a quote you as a journalist can use to gin up a tempest on a keyboard? Doesn’t that then mean that the very same journalists who are fanning the flames of indignation are doing so while hiding their matches and gasoline cans?

Then, there’s the people who were so whipped up over all of this? This whole thing dripped with so much hypocrisy; people who don’t even go to Marlins games threatening boycotts unless Guillen was fired, yet they were noticeably absent when Guillen returned from his suspension.  Oh, that’s right, they weren’t going to show up anyway. Not to mention, many of these Cubans who were supposedly so upset by Guillen’s comments are the very same who have done nothing to help those people still stuck under Castro’s thumb. I understand this in no way applies to all Cubans, but there is a sizable portion of that community who have taken a decided “I got mine, you get yours” attitude towards those still in Cuba.  If you want to create change, you have to do more than show up for three hours with a cardboard sign.

Not to mention, there’s nothing quite like the supreme assholery of those who are so quick to label something “unforgivable.”  Guess what, you sign-waving dipshit? It is your very intolerance upon which dictatorships like the abhorrent one of Castro are built; the soul of tyranny is the stamping out of that which is deemed arbitrarily to be “unfavorable.”

Now, for the most important question. Why does anybody give a frog’s fat ass about what Ozzie Guillen thinks? He’s a baseball manager, and that’s all he is. He’s not the President, a Governor, or any sort of politician or government leader. He’s not an ambassador to the United Nations, he’s not even an over-paid entertainer who gets away with saying stupid shit on a daily basis. But like those entertainers, his words carry no weight, so outside of baseball there is no reason to give a damn about anything he says. One of the items in the Bill of Rights is the right to free speech; which is why one thing that isn’t there is the right not to be offended. There’s lots of truly offensive things in the world, and if you get your hackles up over the ramblings of a half-wit baseball manager, you really need to get out of the house more often.

What We Learned From This Weekend in Football 11/26/2011 – The Up-To-The-Minute Coaches’ Death Watch Edition

Lots of stuff has happened since we originally started this Coaches’ Death Watch a month ago. Some of it we saw coming, some of it we didn’t, and some of it is simply inexplicable.

There’s the guys who bought it before we ever published the inaugural death watch issue. Granted, we messed up when we listed New Mexico”s Mike Locksley as a certainty to be fired when in fact he had already been fired two weeks before hand.  But what difference does it really make? New Mexico is firmly rooted in the “Who Cares? conference.

Firings We Didn’t See Coming:

1) Joe Paterno, Penn State

Let’s be honest…nobody saw this coming a month ago. We need not get into the details here, we all know them.

2) Ron Zook, Illinois

Captain Coke-Machine Head Butt was 6-0 to start this season, and the Illini are going to a bowl game. Zook was the first coach to take the University of Chief Illiniwek to the Rose Bowl in about a bazillion years.

Trouble is they finished 0-6, going 2-6 in B1G conference play and that’s includes a season-ending 27-7 debacle at Minnesota.

3) Bob Toledo, Tulane

We’ll be honest…we really weren’t paying attention to Tulane football. They are in the same conference as New Mexico.

Firings We Totally Saw Coming (with Breaking News):

1) Houston Nutt, Mississippi

Houston, you have a problem. The million-dollar question: Is their really a difference between getting fired and being asked to resign? Not really, because for a coach, there’s still a contract buy-out involved.

2) BREAKING NEWS #1 – Rick Neuheisel, UCLA

As of right now, CBSSports.com is reporting Slick Rick is as gone as a cool breeze after the Pac-12 Championship.

UCLA was blown out 50-0 by USC on Saturday night to finish the season at 6-6 and 5-4 in the Pac-12, but thanks to some NCAA sanctions currently in place at USC, the Bruins will be playing in the inaugural Pac-12 Championship against Oregon on Friday. Which means that there’s a chance the 6-6 Bruins could end up playing in the Rose Bowl.

Though it doesn’t seem that is going to be enough to save Rick Neuheisel’s job at the school. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Neuheisel will meet with UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero after the game to discuss his future at the school, and the report says the chances Neuheisel will retain his job are “bleak.”

Neuheisel is a dead man.

2) BREAKING NEWS #2 – Paul Wulff, Washington State

Again, it’s CBSSports.com as the bearer of bad news for at least one guy on the Pelouse…

Washington State head coach Paul Wulff is expected to be dismissed according to a local report, possibly as early Sunday or Monday.

The Seattle Times, citing sources close to the situation, report Wulff will be dismissed in a meeting with athletic director Bill Moos “barring a last-minute change of direction.” The Cougars finished their season with a 38-21 loss to Washington in the Apple Cup on Saturday.

If the reports are true, Wulff will finish with a 9-40 record in four years as the head coach in Pullman. His .184 winning percentage is the worst in college football, and the worst in Washington State school history. Moos has been WSU’s athletic director for 18 months, and reportedly has big plans to refresh and revive the football program. With an $80 million stadium remodeling project and new football offices in the plans, it’s not surprising they want to make a change to help encourage donations.

Wulff is a dead man. That end-of-season meeting with the AD is never a good deal.

2) BREAKING NEWS #3 – Dennis Erickson, Arizona State

Dennis Erickson reported to be fired. Not exactly a "Shocker."

CBSSports.com hits the Pac-12 trifecta, this time in Tempe.

Black Sunday in the college coaching ranks continues, with the latest coach on the verge of losing his job reportedly being Arizona State head coach Dennis Erickson. Multiple sources have confirmed to CBSSports.com Arizona State Rapid Reporter Craig Morgan that Erickson will be fired this week with a news conference coming as soon as Monday.

Erickson still has one more year left on his contract, and if he’s fired he’ll receiver half of the $1.5 million he was due in his contract. Though it’s also possible that both sides will work out another agreement.

Arizona State had a disappointing end to its season in 2011, as the Sun Devils began the season with a 5-1 record but limped to the finish line losing 5 of their last 6 games. Losing out on a golden opportunity to play for a Rose Bowl berth in a very winnable Pac-12 South Division.

While we don’t see a meeting with the AD yet, this can’t be a good development.

Guys Who Saved Their Asses

1) Mark Richt, Georgia

Richt’s survival in Athens is a combination of getting the Bulldogs into the SEC Championship combined with having a $7 million buy out. It will be forgiven if when Georgia gets crushed by LSU, but the Bulldogs really could stand to make a good showing in their bowl game.

2) Jeff Tedford, California (probably)

Like I said before, Tedford is like a Bay-Area version of Mark Richt. He’s a nice, well-tanned guy who started out strong, but has a bit of a “what have you done for me lately?” problem.  Since 2006 when Tedford led the Golden Bears to 10 wins and a share of a Pac-10 title, Cal hasn’t repeated that success, even in the light of USC’s troubles. Tedford was the most 50/50 guy on this list, and I think going 4-2 in his last six in Strawberry Canyon gets him off the hook, at least for one more year.

Guys Who Are Still Under The Sword of Damocles

• Turner Gill, Kansas
• Tony Sparano, Miami Dolphins
• Neil Callaway, Alabama-Birmingham
• Mike Riley, Oregon State
• Jack Del Rio, Jacksonville Jaguars
• Steve Fairchild, Colorado State
• Steve Spagnuolo, St. Louis Rams
• Frank Spaziani, Boston College
• Mike Sherman, Texas A&M
• Todd Haley, Kansas City Chiefs
• Luke Fickell, Ohio State (those Urban Meyer rumors just won’t go away)
• Andy Reid, Philadelphia Eagles
• Lezlie Frazier, Minnesota Vikings
• Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis Colts
• Norv Turner, San Diego Chargers

The Unkindest Cut of All

A tweet from Pete Thamel of the New York Times sums it up.

Man, there are some stone cold mofos in this world.

File Dump: The Houston Nutt Edition

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of our File Dump, we here at Dubsism believe that when we have just too many good jokes about somebody that we haven’t gotten around to using, and then their career is over, we just can’t let all that good material go to waste.

According to several reports, Nutt has been informed by Ole Miss this will be his final season in Oxford. I’m not sure this comes as a surprise, given his 10-20 mark in SEC play, including 12 straight losses. It would seem Saturday’s 30-13 loss to Kentucky will be the proverbial final nail in Houston Nutt’s coffin.

First of all, I don’t think Nutt’s career is over; he’s going to get another job somewhere. But his next gig might be in a place where he doesn’t enjoy the visibility that failing in the SEC provides.  To that end, we must never forget that the Nutt is Blog and Photoshop gold. These very pages drip with Houston Nutt jokes; Francis Ford Coppola won Academy Awards on Houston Nutt jokes.

The beauty is that Nutt’s own biography lends itself to this.

Many people forget about Nutt’s service in Vietnam. Below he is shown leading refugees onto the evacuation choppers during the fall of Saigon.

After his stint “in country,” Nutt explored a career in entertainment; it only really had two moments of note. The first came during his guest appearance on the 60′s NBC cult-hit “Star Trek.”

The other came in Nutt’s riveting performance as the Wicked Witch in a Boise, Idaho dinner theater reproduction of the “Wizard of Oz.”

Another fact about Houston Nutt most people don’t remember is that at one time he was an Olympic contender in men’s gymnastics.

It was after Nutt’s Olympic failure that he moved to Spain and became a premier toreador, until an unfortunate goring incident cut his career short.

Even this failure couldn’t quell the spirit of Nutt, the Renaissance man. He left Spain for the elite art world of Italy, yet Nutt’s proclivity for “Beavis and Butthead” level humor led to yet another unceremonious exit, this time from a position as the curator of an art museum.

This sent Nutt back to the world of college football. Despite what has happened in Oxford in the past few days, Nutt has to resurface somewhere for two reasons. First of all, his resume is simply too good to fade away. Even if you don’t want to accept the things’ I’ve just mentioned, just look at his track record in football.

Don’t forget, he is the guy who started Boise State’s move to the big time.  In the land of the Smurf Turf, Nutt inherited a 2-10 team which had just made the jump to Division I-A football and wanted a recruiter to jump start their program. Before Nutt, Boise State was the lowest ranked of all Division I-A schools; Nutt took them to a  5–6 record in 1997 playing at the Division I-A teams with a roster comprised largely of Division I-AA players.

Despite that, Nutt’s team beat rival Idaho and almost pulled off an upset against Wisconsin. Nutt parlayed that success into a job in the best conference in the country, the SEC.  He became the head coach of the University of Arkansas in December 1997.

During his first press conference as coach, Nutt immediately mentioned a national championship as his goal and felt that Arkansas had the program to do it.  Of course, this resonated in the ears of Hawg Nation one. The Razorbacks had suffered through a long period of non-relevance under a succession of head coaches in the previous years.

While he never won that promised crystal football, he did restore the Razorbacks to some success.  Under Nutt, the Razorbacks were one of three SEC schools to play in three New Year’s Day bowls within five years.  In Nutt’s first six seasons, he led the team to a bowl game each year and averaged eight wins per season.  However, by the end, Nutt was being criticized for his ultra-conservative play-calling.

When the Arkansas days were over in 2007, Nutt moved downriver to Ole Miss. However, in between gigs, Nutt found time to briefly tour with AC/DC.

Once again,  Nutt’s time in Oxford started with a lot of promise, as his Rebels went 9-4 in each of his first two seasons and won consecutive Cotton Bowls.

Trouble was that the Rebs followed those Cotton Bowl wins with a 4-8 record in 2010, including a 1-7 mark in SEC play.  The 2011 Rebel record of 2-7 with the aforementioned  12 consecutive conference losses ended the Nutt regime in Oxford.

Maybe it was better that it ended this way. A prolonged exit may have made have made Nutt flash back to his days as a light-heavyweight contender; the kind who doesn’t know when he’s beat and that it is time to move on to a new fight.

"I WANT PACQUIAO!"

The other reason Nutt must resurface somewhere is purely selfish…the man is a well-spring of material. Like you didn’t already figure that out.  The real beauty is that he doesn’t even require photographic tomfoolery to look 100% batshit crazy. To that end, I offer the following completely unretouched photos.

This begs the question…what’s next for the Nuttiest coach in college football?  He does have a bit of “redneck deputy sheriff in him.”

Of course, the other side of that same coin is the Nutt also has a bit of “Cool Hand Luke” in him.

What if the Nutt went back to his entertainment roots?

But…given the way certain other stories in college football are breaking right now…what if???

 

 

 

 

What We Learned From This Weekend in Football 10/22/2011 – The Inaugural Coaches’ Death Watch Edition

Former 49ers head coach and NFL legend Bill Walsh always said the four most powerful words in leadership were “I believe in you.” The irony is when a coach here’s those words coming from his owner or general manager, he might as well just packing up his office then.  Let’s be honest. We are deep enough into this years college and NFL seasons to see which coaches are getting those dreaded “votes of confidence.” In other words, the front-runners in the race to the unemployment office are emerging.

1) Tony Sparano, Miami Dolphins

Odds of Getting Fired: May Actually Be Fired By The Time This Article Is Posted

If you are reading this, and it is later than 5 p.m. eastern time Monday, and Tony Sparano is still the head coach of the Dolphins, then he might survive for at least another week.  This guy defines the term “living on borrowed time;” Sparano has had the sword of Damocles hanging over his head ever since last year when Dolphins ownership tried to secretly hire Jim Harbaugh. There’s lots of reasons for that.

His judgement is questionable at best.  Sparano continually stood by quarterback Chad Henne, even after he proved beyond a doubt he lacked any semblance of leadership skills and a tendency toward inconsistent play and making impulsive (meaning horrible) decisions.

Then, he he brought in Reggie Bush to be a “feature running back.” Anybody with eyes  (I blame Sparano’s ever-present sunglasses) saw in New Orlaeas that Bush had no ability to a) carry the ball at a “feature” level b) run between the tackles and c) is little more than a “third down” back useful only in a screen-passing or perimeter role. Besides, he’s damaged goods.

There was a lot of talk that this week’s game against the Broncos would be a referendum on Sparano’s reign in Miami. After all, how many times have you seen a situation in which the visiting team’s starting quarterback is the attraction that sells out your stadium? You can’t honor the University of Florida’s 2008 national championship team without showering roses on Tim Tebow, and doing it with Sparano standing on the sideline only adds Heisman to injury.

Let’s be honest…yesterday’s overtime loss; letting Timmy Rah-Rah lead a comeback in the 4th quarter to beat the Dolphins in overtime…well, that simply can’t help.

Can Save His Job By:  Getting Tim Tebow to personally plead for his future and winning 75% of his remaining games. Even then, he will need to invent a 3-in-1 cure-all for cancer, erectile dysfunction, and the Dolphin defense.

2) Rick Neuheisel, UCLA

Odds of Getting Fired: The Same as Dr. Phil Waking Up Bald Tomorrow

Frankly, I think the blow-out loss at Arizona was the final nail in the Neuheisel coffin.  For all his swagger, Neuheisel never engrained that same attitude in his teams in Westwood, which is  really why he was brought into Bruin Land on the first place.

Neuheisel is 18-26 in three and a half seasons with the Bruins, he is in the fourth year of a five-year contract, and he just got the afrementioned “vote of confidence.”

Bruins athletic director Dan Guerrero told ESPNLosAngeles.com late Thursday night that replacing Neuheisel after Thursday’s loss “isn’t even a remote possibility,” his strongest statement to date on Neuheisel’s immediate future.

“Rick is my coach,” Guerrero said after watching the lopsided loss. “I don’t know who is talking about him being relieved early, but it’s certainly not me. He’s a great Bruin. I want to see him succeed.

“We’ll evaluate at the end of the year like we always evaluate and make determinations (of) what we’re going to do at that point. But right now, all this talk about him staying or him going, that does nothing for our team that is trying to regroup and go out there every week and play hard and try to win football games.”

Neuheisel is a dead man.

Can Save His Job By:  Having incriminating photos of Dan Guerrero.

3) Jack Del Rio, Jacksonville Jaguars

Odds of Getting Fired: Right Now, Moammar Qaddafi Has A Better Chance of Keeping His Job, and He’s Dead

Actually, it would be a more relevant use of space to discuss the proper spelling of “Qaddafi.” Lord knows I wouldn’t want to inadvertently disrespect a murderous, terrorist-supporting dickweed. I’d like to make sure it was intentional. However, that isn’t the point here.

In eight years, Del Rio has one playoff win.  His own players don’t believe in him anymore,  and his handling of the David Garrard situation is reason enough to show him the door.

Realistically, the Jags are 1-5, are currently on a five-game skid and have a realistic chance to enter their bye week at 1-7.

4) Houston Nutt, Mississippi

Odds of Getting Fired: It’s Not That They Don’t Want To…

The following quote is from Ole Miss Athletic Director Pete Boone back on September 19th after the Rebels’ 30-7 drubbing at the hands of Vanderbilt.

The fullness of the Ole Miss football experience that you deserve and have generously invested in, has not lived up to expectations recently. Coach Nutt and I met today and discussed the current state of Ole Miss football. Both of us are extremely disappointed in our performance this year. We agreed that to be successful, this disappointment must be met head on with solutions for improvement. We discussed several areas that needed improvement and I support Coach Nutt in his effort to correct those areas.

As I have said, Saturday’s performance and our running two-season SEC record are unacceptable. Our commitment to compete at a championship level is as strong as ever and we will succeed! We need your continued support of the team as Saturday is another SEC weekend and we need you here!

Considering since then, the Rebels have only managed a win against Fresno State and are 0-4 in SEC play, they would love to put Nutt on the next train out of town.  However, Ole Miss doesn’t have $6 million to buy out Nutt’s contract, so expect Boone to keep blowing this kind of smoke for a while.

Can Save His Job By:  Keeping the Boosters From Ponying Up To Get Rid Of Him

5) Steve Spagnuolo, St. Louis Rams

Odds of Getting Fired: As soon as they find somebody who wants the job…

Spagnuolo might be a victim of expectations set too high. The Rams won one game in Spagnuolo’s first year and seven games in his second year. Everybody thought with a combination of Stephen Jackson and Sam Bradford  this might be the “breakout” year. Well, the Rams are 0-6  and are staring down a date with New Orleans.

Can Save His Job By:  Getting his offense to score more than 9 points per game

6) Mark Richt, Georgia

Odds of Getting Fired: Decrease exponentially if he beats a ranked team

Georgia has a real problem. Its fan base expects the bulldogs to be in contention for the SEC East every year, and every year those dreams dissolve either after the South Carolina or Florida game.

But it might be the Boise State loss that really sealed Richt’s fate.  The way the Bulldogs fell behind by three touchdowns after a 28-point Boise State romp that chewed up nearly half the game; that made Georgia look so over-matched you could tell the Bulldog alum had seen enough of the Richt show. Georgia just comes up short too often against the big-name competition, was simpluy isn’t going to keep the faithful in Athens happy.

Can Save His Job By:  Starts by beating Florida, but his $7 million buy out helps

7) Jeff Tedford, California

Odds of Getting Fired: The most 50/50 guy on this list

Tedford is like a Bay-Area version of Mark Richt. He’s a nice, well-tanned guy who started out strong, but has a bit of a “what have you done for me lately?” problem.  Since 2006 when Tedford led the Golden Bears to 10 wins and a share of a Pac-10 title, Cal hasn’t repeated that success, even in the light of USC’s troubles.

Guys we didn’t list because their firing is more of certainty than Moammar Qaddafi’s:

• Mike Riley, Oregon State
• Mike Locksley, New Mexico State
• Paul Wulff, Washington State

Guys who can coach their way on to the list:

• Norv Turner, San Diego Chargers
• Todd Haley, Kansas City Chiefs
• Danny Hope, Purdue
• Gary Kubiak, Houston Texans
• Steve Fairchild, Colorado State
• Andy Reid, Philadelphia Eagles
• Lezlie Frazier, Minnesota Vikings
• Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis Colts

Signs We Are Near The End Of Civilization: Houston Nutt III – College Art Film Hunk

If there is one thing that is true about Dubsism, it is that we have a fascination with all things Nutt.  Now, thanks to the good people at Friends of the Program we have yet another example of how the call of the thespian runs in the Nutt bloodline.

"Houston Nutt III, giving Matthew McConaughey a run for his shirtless money." Thanks, FOTP.

When you are trying to put asses in seats at the Oxford Film Festival, you need star power…and when that star power is shirtless, showing a little lower man cleavage, and bleeding, well that’s all the better.  Luckily for first time film maker Billy Chase Goforth, embarking on making the best 70′s style southern drive thru movie about bumbling bail enforcement agents you’ll see all year, the spawn of Houston Nutt was there to fit the billing.  The Nutt family has a long tradition of acting excellence, so the casting, I’m sure, was a no brainer.

The call of the big screen in the Nutt clan shouldn’t come as a surprise; who could forget Houston Nutt as MacMurphy in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” or his chilling performance role as Colonel Kurtz in the all-SEC remake of Apocalypse Now?

Ten Famous Deaths By Radiation Poisoning and Their Equivalent Sports Firings

Over on Listverse, there has been another great-yet-odd list compiled. While the subject doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I found it comparable to a somehow-sports-related screed, it is really hard to resist a list of people who were killed by radiation. Just think, the same power that heats up your lunch in 90 seconds can also reduce you to a pile of symptoms like severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rapid hair loss, infections, edema, high fever, and coma and/or death.

Of course, terrible sports coaches and managers are another force that can turn you into a retching pile of guts. So, it only seems natural to compare 10 great deaths by radiation sickness with 10 notorious sackings of sports leaders.

#10) Cecil Kelley

On December 30, 1958 an accident occurred in the Los Alamos plutonium-processing facility. Cecil Kelley, an experienced chemical operator was working with a large mixing tank. The solution in tank was supposed to be “lean”, typically less than 0.1 grams of plutonium per liter. However, the concentration on that day was actually 200 times higher. When Kelley switched on the stirrer, the liquid in the tank formed a vortex and the plutonium containing layer went critical releasing a huge burst of neutrons and gamma radiation in a pulse that lasted a mere 200 microseconds.

Kelley, who had been standing on a foot ladder peering into the tank through a viewing window, fell or was knocked to the floor. Two other operators on duty saw a bright flash and heard a dull thud. Quickly, they rushed to help and found Kelley incoherent and saying only, “I’m burning up! I’m burning up!”. He was rushed to the hospital, semiconscious, retching, vomiting, and hyperventilating. At the hospital, Kelly’s bodily excretions were sufficiently radioactive to give a positive reading on a detector.

Two hours after the accident, Kelley’s condition improved as he regained coherence. However, it was soon clear that Kelley would not survive long. Tests showed his bone marrow was destroyed, and the pain in his abdomen became difficult to control despite medication. Kelley died 35 hours after the accident.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Bum Phillips Being Fired by the Houston Oilers

All Bum Phillips did was usher in the “Luv Ya Blue” era for the Oilers; you know, that fleeting glimpse of time when pro football in Houston didn’t suck. But much like Kelly, Phillips’ demise wasn’t his own fault. Phillips got the gate in Houston because he was unable to do something nobody in the 70′s could; beat the Pittsburgh Steelers.

#9) Harry K. Daghnian, Jr.

Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. was an Armenian-American physicist with the Manhattan Project. On August 21, 1945 he was conducting an experiment attempting to build a neutron reflector by manually stacking a series of tungsten carbide bricks around a plutonium core. As he was moving the final block over the assembly, neutron counters alerted Daghlian to the fact that the addition of this brick would render the system supercritical. As he withdrew his hand, he accidentally dropped the brick onto the center of the assembly. The addition of this last brick caused the reaction to go immediately supercritical.

Daghnian panicked immediately after dropping the brick and attempted to knock off the brick without success. He was forced to partially disassemble the tungsten carbide pile to halt the reaction causing him to receive a lethal dose of neutron radiation. He died 25 days later. Daghlian was violating safety regulations by working on the assembly late at night and alone in the laboratory.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Dennis Green Being Fired By the Minnesota Vikings

Nothing defines the Dennis Green era in Minnesota quite like pure, uncut incompetence. Green clearly Sadly, Green’s death took longer than 25 days; Denny lingered for ten years, a decade that saw the Vikings win absolutely nothing despite having monstrously talented teams. But as we know now, nothing destroys talent quite like stupidity.

#8 ) Louis Slotin

Louis Slotin was a Canadian physicist and chemist who took part in the Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bombs. He participated in criticality testing of plutonium cores, often referred to as “tickling the dragon’s tail.”

On May 21, 1946 Slotin and seven other colleagues performed an experiment that involved the creation of one of the first steps of a fission reaction by placing two half-spheres of beryllium around a plutonium core. Slotin was stabilizing the upper beryllium sphere with his left hand using the blade of a screwdriver to maintain the separation between the two half-spheres in violation of experimental protocol. At 3:20pm the screwdriver slipped causing the upper beryllium sphere to fall creating a prompt critical reaction and a burst of radiation. Scientists in the room observed a blue glow around the spheres and felt a heat wave.

Slotin instinctively jerked his left hand upward, lifting the upper beryllium hemisphere and dropping it to the floor, ending the reaction. However, Slotin had already been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation, equivalent to the amount that he would have received had he been 1500m away from an atomic bomb detonation. He was rushed to the hospital immediately, but the damage was irreversible and he died nine days later on May 30, 1946. The core he dropped was the very same core dropped by Daghnian the year before – causing it to be named the Demon Core.

Slotin’s story is integrated in the movie, “Fat Man and Little Boy” starring Paul Newman and John Cusack.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Anybody who hired, then fired Gene Mauch after 1964.

Nobody seems to learn the lesson; safety regulations exist for a reason. Somebody somewhere somewhat smarter than you already knew that you shouldn’t stand on the top rung of the ladder, nor should you grab the overhead wire.  That’s why there is usually a sign or a label; some sort of warning that what you are about to do is a bad idea.

Gene Mauch should have come with just such a label. Clearly, the other signs were not visible enough…the collapse of the 1964 Phillies, the malaise that was the Montreal Expos in the early 70′s, and the Angels’ playoff choke-jobs in the 80′s…Mauch kept a level of respect in baseball that he kept getting hired even after just having been fired for complete ineptitude.

#7)  Eben McBurney Byers

Eben McBurney Byers was a wealthy American socialite, athlete, and industrialist. In 1927 while returning via chartered train from the annual Harvard-Yale football game, Byers fell from his berth and injured his arm. He complained of persistent pain and a doctor suggested that he take Radithor, a patent medicine containing high concentrations of radium. Byers drank nearly 1400 bottles over three years. By 1930, when Byers stopped taking the remedy, he had accumulated significant amounts of radium in his bones resulting in the loss of most of his jaw. Byers’ brain was also abscessed and holes were forming in his skull. He died from radium poisoning on March 31, 1932. He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a lead-lined coffin.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Kevin McHale Being Fired by the The Minnesota Timberwolves.

Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor seems to have been drinking the Radithor for years. While Kevin “McFail” was busy taking that franchise from the conference finals all the way to the bottom of the lottery, Taylor just sat idly by, obviously letting something eat through his brain. It might as well be radium. Not only that, but when you get mistaken for the handicapped kid from “Glee,” you should just give it up.

#6) Hiroshi Couchi

Japan’s worst nuclear radiation accident took place at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, on September 30, 1999. The direct cause of the criticality accident was workers putting uranyl nitrate solution containing about 16.6 kg of uranium, exceeding the critical mass, into a precipitation tank. The tank was not designed to dissolve this type of solution and was not configured to prevent eventual criticality.

Three workers were exposed to lethal radiation doses. One of these workers, Hiroshi Couchi, was transferred to the University of Tokyo Hospital and three days after the accident he could talk and only his right hand was a little swollen with redness. However, his condition gradually weakened as the radioactivity broke down the chromosomes in his cells.

The doctors were at a loss as to what to do. There were few precedents and proven medical treatments for victims of radiation poisoning. A local television crew followed the story for 83 days until Hiroshi died. Their observations are chronicled in the book, “A Slow Death: 83 Days of Radiation Sickness.”

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Jimy Williams Being Fired by the Toronto Blue Jays.

Tony Kornheiser explained this with his coining of one of the great baseball nicknames of all time. In the 80′s, Jimy Williams found himself with a dilemma. It seemed the Toronto outfield wasn’t large enough for all-star George Bell and a rookie nobody had ever heard of. Williams was instrumental in Bell’s departure for Chicago, and his eventual firing should tell you how well that worked. This is how Jimy “I’ve got to make room for Sil Campusano” Williams essentially killed himself.

#5) Marie Curie

Marie Sklodowska Curie was a physicist and chemist and a pioneer in the field of radioactivity. In fact, it was Curie that coined the term radioactivity, though Henri Becquerel discovered the phenomenon years earlier. Curies research into the properties of two different uranium ores, pitchblende and chalcolite. led to the discovery of radium and polonium, other radioactive elements. Curie’s husband, Pierre, was so intrigued by her research that he decided to suspend his own research to join her.

The Curies undertook the arduous task of separating radium out of pitchblende ore. From a ton of pitchblende, one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride was separated. Unfortunately, the Curies were unaware of the deleterious health effects of repeated unprotected radiation exposure. Pierre Curie died in 1906 after being hit and run over by a horse drawn carriage, however Marie lived for another 28 years continuing her research and eventually winning two Nobel prizes. She often carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the pretty blue-green light that the substances gave off in the dark.

Marie Curie died on July 4, 1934 due to aplastic anemia contracted from exposure to radiation. She is interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside her husband Pierre. Her laboratory is preserved at the Musee Curie. Due to their levels of radioactivity, her papers from the 1890’s are considered too dangerous to handle. Even her cookbook is highly radioactive. They are kept in lead-lined boxes, and those who wish to consult them must wear protective clothing.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Houston Nutt Being Run Out of the University of Arkansas.

Radiation exposure would explain Nutt's obvious insanity.

There’s a link between being a genius innovator and succumbing to your own success. There’s also something to be said for getting caught banging the local news anchorette. But much like the Curies and their relentless search for radium, Nutt never seems to be satisfied with whatever job he currently holds. The aforementioned wandering eye at Arkansas contributed to an early departure. The same was true at Murray State and Boise State where Nutt always seemed to be interviewing for the next job instead of focusing on the current one.

#4) Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB officer who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom . In November of 2006 he suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later and post-mortem tests showed he had been given a lethal dose of Polonium-210 via a cup of tea. On his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of being behind his death.

Subsequent investigations by British authorities into the circumstances of Litvinenko’s death led to serious diplomatic difficulties between the British and Russian governments. Unofficially, British authorities asserted that “we are 100% sure who administered the poison, where and how”. However they did not disclose their evidence in the interest of a future trial. The main suspect in the case, a former officer of the Russian Federal Protective Service (FSO) Andrei Lugovoy, remains in Russia. As a member of the Duma, he now enjoys immunity from prosecution.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Tubby Smith Being Fired by the University of Kentucky.

Tubby Smith clearly fell out of favor with the politburo in Lexington. But what can you say about the Soviet-style delusion of the University of Kentucky. How do you exile into the gulag a guy who won you a national championship, who wins nearly eighty percent of his games, and is universally respected?

#3)  Soviet Submarine K-19

K-19 was one of the first two Soviet submarines equipped with nuclear ballistic missiles. Several people had died during its construction earning it the nickname “Hiroshima” among naval sailors and officers. On July 4, 1961 under the command of Captain Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, K-19 developed a major leak in her reactor coolant system causing the reactor temperature to rise to a very dangerous 800 deg. Celsius. Due to poor design and failure to have a backup cooling system installed, Captain Zateyev had no choice but to order a team of seven engineering officers in crew to undertake a repair despite the lethal rates of radiation exposure.

The repair crew was successful in stopping the leak however all seven were dead within a week. The incident contaminated the entire boat and within a few years twenty more crew members were dead attributed to the incident at sea.

The Soviet Navy made extensive repairs to boat and it later returned to service. It did, however, continue to experience horrible accidents including an at-sea collision in 1969 and a fire in 1972 killing 28 sailors. It was finally decommissioned in 1991.

The movie “K-19: The Widowmaker” starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson is loosely based on the nuclear accident on the K-19.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Manny Acta Being Fired by the Washington Nationals.

Blaming a manager for the woeful performance of the Washington Nationals is like shooting out all your light bulbs to make the sun go down. How do you expect anybody to manage anything with no pitching and an opening day lineup consisting of Daniel Cabrera, Elijah Dukes, Adam Dunn, Jesus Flores, Cristian Guzman, Anderson Hernandez, Nick Johnson, Lastings Milledge, and Ryan Zimmerman? Sure, Jim Riggleman wriggled more wins out of this roster, but this team still hasn’t cracked the 70-win mark, unless they win three of their last five in 2010.

#2) Chernobyl

On April 26, 1986 a nuclear accident occurred on the Number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. Workers at the plant were planning a test to determine how long turbines would spin and supply power to the main circulating pumps following a loss of main electrical power. Due to another regional power station going offline, the test was delayed and as a result, the test was conducted over the night shift where the workers had not been trained on the test procedure. Several subsequent errors, including a decision to disable automatic shutdown mechanisms, led to an unstable reactor configuration with nearly all of the control rods removed.

The reactor SCRAMed (rapid insertion of all control rods) but a flaw in the design of the control rods actually caused the reaction rate in the lower half of the core to increase. At this point, a massive power spike occurred and the core overheated. The precise subsequent course of events was not registered by instruments; it is known only as a result of a mathematical simulation. What is known is that there was a large steam buildup in the core that eventually exploded releasing tons of radioactive steam and fission products into the air. Radiation levels in the vicinity of the reactor core after the explosion were 30,000 times the lethal limit.

One person was killed immediately and his body was never found. Another died that same day as a result of injuries received during the explosion. Acute radiation sickness was originally diagnosed in 237 people on-site and involved with the clean-up and it was later confirmed in 134 cases. Of these 28 people died within weeks of the accident, six of whom were firefighters tasked with attending the fires on the roof of the turbine building. Nineteen more subsequently died between 1987 and 2004. Nobody off-site suffered from acute radiation effects, although a large proportion of childhood thyroid cancers diagnosed since the accident is likely to be due to intake of radioactive iodine fallout. Subsequent studies in the Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus estimate over 1 million people were affected by radiation from Chernobyl, however the extent of its effects may never be truly known.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Any coach who was fired by the Detroit Lions during the Matt Millen years.

Can you think of a bigger sports meltdown than the Lions?  Millen was President and CEO of the Detroit Lions from 2000 until 2008, an era that saw the worst eight-year record in the history of the modern NFL (31-97). The coashes under Millen (Gary Moeller, Marty Mornhinweg, Steve Mariucci, Dick Jauron, and Rod Marinelli) might as well have been the firefighters at Chernobyl.

#1) Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan at the end of World War II have been the only time in history such weapons have been used on people. The justification for the bombings has been hotly debated since, but no doubt the memory of their destruction has been a large reason why they have been not used since.

On August 6, 1945 the uranium bomb, “Little Boy”, was dropped on Hiroshima killing 70,000-80,000 people immediately. Three days later, the plutonium bomb, “Fat Man”, was dropped on Nagasaki killing an estimated 40,000-75,000 instantly. Those that survived the initial blasts were then subject to severe radiation and thermal burns, radiation sickness and related diseases all aggravated by the lack of medical resources. It is estimated that another 200,000 people had died by 1950 as a result of health effects of the bombings.

Surviving victims of the bombings are known as hibakusha, a Japanese word that literally translates to “explosion-affected people.” As of March 31, 2009 235,569 hibakusha were recognized by the Japanese government. The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation.

Equivalent Manager/Coach Firing: Lou Holtz Running Out on the New York Jets.

If there was anybody that needed to be bombed in order to save lives, it was Lou Holtz’ NFL career. Every NFL general manager should be forced to print that picture and place it in a prominent space as a constant reminder of the danger of hiring college coaches. Every once in a while you get lucky with a Jimmy Johnson, but odds are you get another Pete Carroll, Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, Bobby Petrino, Barry Switzer, Dennis Erickson, Butch Davis, or Lou Holtz; who mere months after signing a five-year contract quit with three games left in the season, leaving the Jets to finishe 3-13.

Trash-Talking the Top 25

Because we are into the greatest 12 weekends of the year, it is also time to remind some people of just who they are. In other words, we are taking the pre-season Dubsism Top 25 and reminding them that they suck. Let’s be honest, a big part of college football is trash-talking. This is exactly why I intend to go through the Top 25 and say awful things about every team and state involved.

1) Alabama

It has to pretty obvious when even Auburn fans get it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…Bear Bryant is dead, and it is high time you assholes quit running around in those houndstooth hats.  I understand he’s your legendary figure and all that crap, but there’s a reason why Tom Berenger made him sound like Forrest Gump in that shitty ESPN movie. Before some Alabamian opens his misshapen head to tell me that movie was set at Texas A&M, I would point out they couldn’t set the movie at Alabama because to fill any actor with enough whiskey to properly portray “the Bear” would have bankrupted ESPN.

Yeah, until they start a football league in Argentina.

As for your current asshole-in-charge, Nick Saban is little more than a spray-tanned Nazi whore. This is why you bunch of slack-jawed mouthbreathers ultimately end up in the Klan. Even though you won last year, this just means SabaNazi is just one goose-step closer to bolting for whatever job will pay him next.

2) Florida

The Doctrine of Papal Infallibility doesn't cover exploding cranial arteries.

Speaking of dead, Tim Tebow might as well be. He’s gone Gator Geeks, and he ain’t coming back. Besides, the best thing you can say about Gainesville is it happens to be the cultural capital of Lower Alabamida, meaning it’s port-a-cans have the best disinfectant cakes. Oh, and I am officially adding Urban Meyer to my “Finally has that brain-splattering stroke we’ve all been waiting for” list.  Any bets on whose first, Pope Urban I or Houston “Sometimes you feel like a” Nutt?

3) Ohio State

I should leave this section blank, because I was really raised to believe that if you can’t say anything nice, then you shouldn’t say anything at all. But if I were to do that, then this whole article would be blank. What else can you say about Ohio, a state where the rivers catch fire and sodomizing a relative is considered a proper form of greeting? Seriously, Ohio is the reason why “To Catch A Predator” exists; 7 Saturdays a year 100,000 Buckeyes cram themselves into Ohio Stadium, which is the anus of the Big Ten. The best thing I can say about Ohio is somehow it manages to let those hillbilly dipshits from the SEC have self-esteem.

4)  Texas

Austin is just proof that even a state full of generally good people and places can fuck up. If Texas tried to build a version of San Francisco, Austin would be it. Austin gets all wrapped up in its indie movies, indie music, and generally a lot of other indie bullshit nobody cares about.  Of course, they also downplay their indie homicidal maniacs who like to climb bell towers or shoot up  shitty cafeterias.

To call Texas a bunch of pussies would be to insult pussies everywhere. In fact, it would be more accurate to call them old, worn out pussies considering how long they’ve been handling the “Big 12.”

5) Penn State

There is a rule out that says you can’t say anything bad about Joe Paterno, because he is the dean of college football. He is 643 years old, which is why he doesn’t seem to have the sense of urgency needed to beat a bunch of nipple-gummers like Iowa or Ohio State. The last time he had a sense of urgency was when he ran off the field to take a dump a few years ago. It matters little as he will win more Big Tweleveten titles, even if it means we see a robotic JoePa patrolling the sidelines of State College.

6)  LSU

Any man dressed as a bunny is likely willing to bleaux you.

LSUcks. I mean, they’ve won two titles in the last decade, but neither should count. The first was just Nick SabaNazi splitting the love with Petey Cheaty TrojanFace and the second was beating arguably the most over-rated (and by “over-rated” I also mean “shitty,” and by that I mean “Ohio State”) teams ever allowed in a BCS Title game. Not to mention Les Miles is a complete closet case.

7) Utah

I feel the same way about Utah’s football team as I do toward just about any team from Utah…(yawn). Utah is the most boring state in America, and that’s saying something in a collection that includes South Dakota. Honestly, I would love to see a Utah team win a title, because I would love to see what the celebratory riot in Salt Lake City might look like.

8 )  Iowa

Many people don’t know that “Iowa” is actually an acronym which used to mean “Individuals Out Watering Animals.” Now, thanks to the Hawkeyes, it now means “Imbeciles Overstretching White Asses.” Not only do their players rape innocent people, the whole team collectively rapes spectators on a weekly basis. Seriously, watching an Iowa game is like being that kid who gets sent to “Camp Second Chance” only to find out “juvenile rehabilitation” only means being on the receiving end of a surprise, unlubricated buggering behind the boat house. Plus, Iowa was the setting of “Field of Dreams,” and as a baseball fan I felt like Kevin Costner used that movie to give my eye sockets a two-and-a-half hour-long skull rape.

9)  Oregon

What does it say about Oregon that quarterback-turned-thief Jeremiah Masoli left Oregon to hang out with a certifiable kook like Houston Nutt. It is likely not just because he is merely looking to see the field again, but he may be afraid of getting seizures from Oregon’s atrocious uniforms. Besides, I’m really tired of listening to you Oregon cry-babies…Let’s face it, you are perennially the Jan Brady to somebody else’s Pac-10 Marcia. Lately, that’s been USC, but who really doesn’t matter. Oregon is a mid-level “power conference” program, which means it has to win it’s conference or beat a big-name opponent in order go to a “big” bowl game. The Ducks generally do neither, so fuck them.

10) Boise State

Remember “The People vs. Larry Flynt?” Never mind Woody Harrelson is a dipshit who deserves to be fed to flesh-eating cockroaches; the point is that it is sad that in order to defend a point we hold dear as Americans, such as a constitutional right, often times we have to defend a complete feces-matted clump of ass hair. Much as porn merchant Flynt was that clump, so is Boise State in their Quixotic tilt against the evil BCS. Let’s be honest here, it was the kook Houston Nutt who put this team and it’s goofy blue turf on the college football map, and now after a decade-long campaign to be “America’s Sweethearts” they think they’ve achieved it. Well, I have news for you Boise State…nobody east of Pocatello or west of Nampa gives a rat’s ass about you or your stupid blue turf.

11) Mississippi

Really, I should just write a generic bit for all the SEC teams who aren’t Florida and Alabama because they all really do the same thing. They become bowl-eligible, and then somehow lose to some dipshit Big Tweleveten team like Iowa in the “We Both Fucked Our Sisters, But Your Accents Are Weirder” Bowl. What makes Mississippi different is the kook Houston Nutt. I have to admit – I just can’t get over the Nutt. Whether his team goes 4-8 or has them nationally ranked;  whether he is playing the role of Baptist minister or getting run out of town for banging the local news anchorette, the Right Reverend Houston Dale Nutt and the teams he leads are the embodiment of pure entertainment.

I love the Nutt, just because he’s like a jack-in-the-box two notes before it pops. And with Ole Miss looking suspiciously like a top ten team at this point (I really just wrote that…I know, I can’t believe it either), perhaps it happens during the LSU game which could make or break them. Maybe it happens early if the team disappoints. Either way, people of Oxford, be warned. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the man is 100% batshit crazy. Remember those great seasons back in Fayetteville under the Nutt? Those should tell you there are a panoply of mind-boggling possibilities. Let’s face it. If you love Nutt-ball, you love a team that can’t pull off a three-yard run, but will hit a 65-yard bomb. You love a team that will break your heart with the stupidest penalties (raise your hand if you remember the defensive back coming onto the field a few years ago with no fucking pants!), but they find ways to win. You love a team that can dismantle Florida at Vaught-Hemingway, but can’t seem to get over the hump that is LSU.

Given all that, the sky is the limit. Could it be Nutt running on the field naked? Could it be Nutt finally having the brain-splattering stroke he always looks like he is about to have? Or could it be the Rebels shocking us all by winning the SEC West? Your guess is as good as mine; that’s the beauty.

12) Auburn

See #11 with the following changes:

• Replace the word “Iowa” with “Michigan State.”
• Replace the word “Sisters” with “Mommas.”
• Replace the paragraphs about Houston Nutt with the following sentences. “Gene Chizik is an over-hyped bag of guts, which is perfect for a school full of frauds, closet racists, and over-inflated egos. Honestly, all that separates Auburn from being a southern-fried Notre Dame is the dark and barbarous Catholic Church.”

13) USC

From Merriam-Websters:

scha·den·freu·de

• noun, often capitalized \ˈshä-dən-ˌfrȯi-də\
• Definition of SCHADENFREUDE: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others
• Origin of SCHADENFREUDE: German, from Schaden “damage” + Freude “joy”
• First Known Use: 1895

To see the source of this picture, look up "Smarmy Fuckwad" in your dictionary.

I’m going to enjoy this so much…I can’t even begin to describe how fun it is going to be watching these pompous shitbags hurtle over the NCAA cliff. This may be a “deja vu” moment of the Paul Hackett era, when the Trojans couldn’t beat TCU in the Sun Bowl.  God, that was a sweet time that was.  Plus, is there a better guy to be driving the Trojan bus off the cliff than that smug pseudo-fruit Lane Kiffin. The only thing better than watching that bus full of vapid, self-absorbed, gonorrhea-dripping buttloafs plunging into the ravine of mediocrity they so richly deserve is to hear Kiffin’s beard “wife” got caught pulling a train the the Trojan locker room.

14) Georgia

There’s a reason why they call it “UGAy.” Seriously, it doesn’t take much to figure out all those good, ol’ boys at Sanford Stadium secretly bat for the other team. After all, it was a dead give away when we noticed they love to wind down after their annual “Queer Beating” by doing the world’s biggest “elephant walk.” At least they aren’t playing “soggy biscuit” anymore…I think.  Not to mention “Deliverance” was set in Georgia. I wonder if Georgia football makes Ned Beatty clinch up just a  little.

15)  TCU

Every year, TCU plays archrival SMU in a game known as the Battle for the Iron Skillet. All this really is to see Christian Texas asshole school this year gets to lay claim to cookware. Big fucking deal. TCU should really play BYU every year so we can see which Christian asshole school won’t be a BCS buster.

16) Georgia Tech

I may have to rethink this whole Georgia/homosexual thing. Plug the words “Georgia homosexual” into your search engine and what is the first hit you get? Something that links you to Georgia Tech’s financial aid department? Following the link gets you some really confusing stuff.

The Georgia Institute of Technology, one of the largest producers of Hispanic engineers in the world, offers students the opportunity to apply for The Goizueta Foundation Scholarship. Georgia Tech has established a comprehensive package to support students through a permanent scholarship endowment using a $2 million dollar gift from The Goizueta Foundation.

I really need somebody who is more enlightened than I am to explain the connection, if any, between Hispanic engineers and homosexuality. While you’re at, O Enlightened One, explain to me the connection, if any, between Georgia Tech and a football team that can win anything meaningful.

17) Nebraska

What’s the difference between Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska? A year from now, Nebraska will be in a real football conference. Honestly, I would like the Big Tweleveten to defer Nebraska’s admittance until they specifically define what a “Cornhusker” really is. I’ve been told it is just a guy who beats off in a cornfield a lot, and I just don’t think that is appropriate. Not to mention it totally changes my view of “popcorn.”

18) Connecticut

It says a lot about Connecticut that it is now home to television bottom-feeders like Maury, Jerry Springer, and ESPN. You really wonder how the same UConn that has been a basketball powerhouse for decades will handle the spotlight in this new, brutish game with the oddly-shaped ball.

UConn, when it comes to a BCS Championship...you are NOT the father.

19) Pittsburgh

Ben Roethlisberger didn’t play for the Iowa Hawkeyes, did he? Oh wait, those charges were dropped, so I really can’t use the “rape” jokes. What do you mean that was the Steelers? You mean we aren’t talking about the Steelers? what do you mean “University of Pittsburgh?” That’s ridiculous, Pittsburgh isn’t even a state; shit, it’s hardly a city.

20) Tennessee

See #11 with the following changes:

• Replace the word “Iowa” with “Purdue.”
• Replace the word “Sisters” with “Cousins.”
• Replace the paragraphs about Houston Nutt with the following:  “It is easy to see why Tennessee supporters have a bad case of “red-headed step-child syndrome.” The Volunteers have spent the last decade in the SEC getting a constant view of the tail-lights of Florida, Georgia, and LSU. Conversely, it is not so easy to get Vol fans to understand why; name the last time the Vols won without a quarterback named “Manning.”

21) West Virginia

I can’t decide which I love more, the mentality that celebrates victory with wanton couch burning, or a college tradition that gets so completely out of hand legislation is needed. Besides, I’m pretty sure some asshole in Morgantown stole my actual driver’s license from college to do this:

22) Brigham Young

When I was a kid, BYU was still hate-worthy, but at least they had Jim McMahon, so they were at least somewhat cool. But then they screwed  him over, which was just step number one in their progression toward complete sanctimonious assholery. First of all, you just have to love their propaganda posters; in an odd way they remind one of what Soviet propaganda would look like if they still existed and hired a top buck PR firm. But, the trip to Asshole City was complete when they made the decision to become independent. This makes them a Rocky Mountain version of Notre Dame; which of course means they can get on their knees and suck it.

23)  Michigan State

You almost want to feel sorry for Michigan State…almost. The only people who go to Michigan State are the ones who couldn’t get into Michigan. That’ s gotta hurt all by itself; it’s like going to Costco because you couldn’t even get a membership at Sam’s Club. Worse yet, imagine having to deal with that kind of rejection in East Lansing. Even people in Flint think East Lansing sucks. Michigan State fans think somehow the success of their basketball team means anything to football fans. Their chants at football games are generally some unintelligent ramblings about the other teams love for male genitalia. Of course, the hoards of douchebag frat boys  that inhabit East Lansing have nothing but time to be so creative as the average MSU female tends to prefer female genitalia. This is why it is metaphysical certitude one of them will start carving up hookers and dumping them under Spartan Stadium.

24) Oklahoma

If the world of college football were a bunch of children, Oklahoma would be the one you tell its OK to take candy from strangers. There really is nothing quite like the bullshit OU fans will put you through as they are reminding you what a storied program the Sooners are. Of course, they generally have to do this after Oklahoma’s most recent choke-job against (insert lousy Big 12 doormat here). Of course, while they are regaling you with history, they forget about the 1980′s, when the Sooners imported every lowlife thug they could find.

25) Virginia Tech

It used to be that Virginia Tech was the poster child for over-rated, waste-of-time East Coast football. Then Virginia Tech and Miami joined the ACC supposedly forming a superconference. That idea got so fucked up I’m surprised Barack Obama wasn’t involved in it. But since they are on the East Coast this team for some damn reason is always a “dark horse” national title contender. Tech is good for 10 painfully boring wins and an equally boring bowl victory. Honestly, watching a Virginia Tech game is like watching ice melt, except not as exciting.

Oxford-alypse Now

Spring games…just another reminder that we are mired in the doldrums of the college football off-season. Sure, it has been another off-season with its usual carousel of coaches, but none with the drama of what happened in the Southeastern Conference in 2007; the year that my favorite completely insane sideline leader finally fell victim. 

That December marked the time Houston Nutt went down the river from Arkansas to Mississippi. But it was more than just a leader going to the other side of the river;  the ripple effect could be felt throughout the conference. The angst of the Arkansas athletic department led by former director and Hawg legend Frank Broyles combined with the need of the other coaches in the league to reign in the Rebellion Nutt had established in Oxford led to the remake of a classic Coppola film. After all, even the river wanted Nutt dead.

The scene: Fayettte-nam, 2008

ACT I – The Mission

Bobby Petrino is in his room, both slowly regaining conciousness and descending into madness, somewhere in Southeast Asia the Southeastern Conference.

Fayetteville…Shit; I’m still only in Fayetteville…Every time I think I’m gonna wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I’d wake up and there’d be nothing. I hardly said a word to my wife, until I said “yes” to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into college football. 

I’m here a week now…Waiting for a mission…Getting softer; every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter. 

Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another.

I was going to the worst place in the world, only I didn’t know it yet. Weeks away, and hundreds of miles down a river that snakes it’s way through the SEC and straight into Colonel Nutt. It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Houston D. Nutt’s memory; no more than my being in Fayetteville was an accident. There is really no way to tell his story without telling mine; so if his story is a confession, then I guess so is mine.

“Play the tape for Captain Petrino.”

“I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor; throwing a forward pass. That’s my dream; it’s my nightmare, crawling, slithering along the edge of the razor and surviving, throwing forward passes. But we must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig, cow after cow, village after village, army after army. And they call me an improper recruiter. What do you call it when the improper recruiter is recruited?

Broyles: “With extreme prejudice…”

“Houston Nutt was one of the finest coaches this country ever produced. He was brilliant; he was outstanding. He was a good man, a good humanitarian man. Then he joined the Razorbacks; his ideas, his methods became unsound. Now, he’s crossed into Mississippi with this Rebel army of his that worship him as a god, and run every play, no matter how ridiculous. Well, you see, Petrino… in this game, things get confused out there; power, ideals, the old morality, and practical football necessity. Out there with these kids it must be a temptation to be God. Because there’s a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, between running and passing. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have. Colonel Nutt has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane. Your mission is to proceed down the river in a Navy patrol boat. Pick up Colonel Nutt’s path at Oxford, follow it and learn what you can along the way. When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel’s command.”

Terminate?… the Colonel?

“He’s out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still on the field getting recruits. Terminate…with extreme prejudice. You understand, Captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist.”

ACT II – On the River 

How many people had I already killed? There were those six that I knew about for sure; close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time it was a Razorback, and a coach. That wasn’t supposed to make any difference to me, but it did. Shit, charging a man with improper recruiting in the SEC is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. I took the mission; what the hell else was I going to do? But I really didn’t know wha I’d do when I found him. 

The crew of the patrol boat were mostly just kids; rock ‘n’ rollers with one foot in their graves. The machinist, the one they called Miles was from Baton Rouge. He was wrapped too tight for ‘Nam; probably wrapped too tight for Baton Rouge.

FUCKING TIGER!!!

Richt on the forward .50s was a surfer from the beaches. To look at him, you wouldn’t believe he ever called a play in his life.

 

Then there was Saban…“Mr. Clean” was from some NFL shithole, and I think the  speed and the money of the SEC really put the zap on his head. And the Chief…It might have been my mission, but it sure as shit was the Chief’s boat.

Then there were the Gators; our escorts to the mouth of the river. They’d cashed in  their tailbacks for choppers and gone tear-assing around the SEC looking for the shit. And their C.O., Colonel Meyer…He was one of those guys that had that weird light around him. You just knew he wasn’t going to get so much as a scratch here.

“I love the smell of Tebow in the morning…”

If that’s how Meyer ran an offense, being completely dependent on one superstar,  I really wondered what they had against Nutt. It wasn’t just insanity and improper recruiting; there was enough of that to go around for everyone. 

Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right; unless you were going all the way. Nutt got off the boat. He split from the whole fuckin’ program. How does that happen? What did he see on that first tour? 40 fucking years old; if he joined the Razorbacks, there was no way he would ever get above Colonel. Nutt knew what he was giving up. 

The more I read and began to understand, the more I admired him. His family and friends couldn’t understand it, and they couldn’t talk him out of it. He had to apply three times, and he put up with a ton of shit, but when he threatened to resign, they gave it to him. He could have gone for General, but he went for himself instead. 

October 2007; on special assignment in Ar Kan Sau province, Nutt staged “Operation Wildcat”and paraded a major success. He received no official clearance; he just thought it up and did it. What balls! They were going to nail his ass to the floorboards for that one, but when the press got a hold of it, they let him start calling the plays again. 

Man, the bullshit piled up so fast in ‘Nam, you needed wings to stay above it. No wonder Nutt put a weed up Broyle’s ass. This whole offense was being run by a bunch of four-star clowns who were going to end up giving the whole circus away. 

Late autumn, 2006. Nutt’s teams started coming under frequent ambush; the camp started falling apart. November, Nutt orders the assassination of four leaders of the “Springdale Parents Revolt.” Enemy activity in that recruiting sector dropped off to nothing. Guess he must have hit the right four people.

Broyles tried one last time to bring him back into the fold, and if he’d pulled over, it all would’ve been forgotten. But he kept going; he kept wanting it his way. Then, they called me in. They lost him; he was gone. Now even rumors and random intelligence – mostly from captured Rebels; the Rebels knew his name by now, and they were scared of him – said Nutt and his men were playing “single-wing” all the way into Mississippi.

The Chief didn’t even need camo…Charlie feared his voice.

“My orders say I’m not supposed to know where I’m taking this boat, so I don’t. But one look at you, and I know it’s gonna be hot, where ever it is.”

We’re going down river about 75 klicks past the Oxford bridge.

“That’s Mississippi, Captain.”

That’s classified. We’re not supposed to be in Mississippi, but that’s where I’m going. You just get me close to my destination, and I’ll cut you and the crew loose. My mission is to make it down the river into Mississippi. There’s a Rebel colonel there who’s gone insane. I’m supposed to terminate the colonel’s command.

Charlie didn’t get much USO…

ACT III – Oxford 

He was close, he was real close. I couldn’t see him yet, but I could feel him. As if the boat were being sucked upriver and the water was flowing back into the jungle. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn’t going to be the play they called back in Fayetteville. Part of me was afraid of what I would find, and what I would do when I got there. I knew the risks, or imagined I knew. But the thing I felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him.

“Just hit your siren, man. And, watch out; I mean, those monkeys bite, man. I’m a Plainsman, an American civilian. I’m a photojournalist. I’ve been covering the SEC since ’64. I’ve been in ‘Nam, Mississippi, ‘Bama…Shit, in a few years I could end up stuck in some damn place like Texas Tech.”

Who are all these people?

“Yeah, well, they think you’ve come to take him away.”

Take who away?

“Him! Colonel Nutt! These are all his recruits, man, as far as you can see. Hell, man, out here, we are all his recruits.”

Could we, uh, talk to Colonel Nutt?

“Hey, man, you don’t talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet-coach in the classic sense. I mean, sometimes he’ll, uh, well, you’ll say hello to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you, and he won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say ‘Do you know that ‘ing’ is in both words in ‘single wing?’”

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you. I mean, I’m no, I can’t – I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s, he’s a great man. I’m just a pair of ears scuttling across the SEC. I mean, look at me. I’m not going to be the one who sets him straight. It’s you.”

I wondered if the generals back in Fayetteville could see what I saw, would they still want me to kill him? Probably more than ever. Even the river wanted him dead. He broke from them; then he broke from himself.

“I’ve seen horrors… horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me an improper recruiter. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that…But you have no right to judge me.”

“It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror…Horror has a face…and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with the Razorbacks; seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into Springdale to recruit some kids; one of ‘em a big-throwin’ quarterback they had up there. We left after we had given out a bunch of those Hawg rubber-bandy type bracelets.”

“This old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every braceleted arm. There they were in a pile; a pile of arms. And I remember…I…I…I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my tusks out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized…like I was shot…like I was shot with a pass…a forward pass right through my forehead. And I thought…my God, the genius of that, the genius. The will to do that; perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.”

“Then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters. They were coaches, old-school, ground-game ball-control coaches. These men who coached with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love…but they had the strength…the strength…to do that.”

“If I had ten coaches like that, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have coaches who are moral, and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to run a warmed-over single-wing offense without feeling…without passion…I mean, without passing…Because it’s passing that defeats us.”

And after all that, there is only one choice to play Bobby Petrino in the movie…Winnie the Pooh.

College Football Week 4 – The FAAACK! Edition

1) Hotty Toddy Gosh Almigh…FAAACK!!!

When Houston Nutt’s Ole Miss Rebels travel to Columbia for a showdown with the South Carolina ‘Cocks of the “Ol’ Ball Coach,” and you put it on national television, entertainment should abound. First of all, there’s at least three good Beavis and Butthead-types jokes in the prior sentence alone. Then there’s always the side-bets…How many visors will Steve Spurrier fire into the turf? Will Nutt finally have the brain-splattering stroke he always looks just on the verge of having?  Anytime the Nutt gets exposure, you never know just what could happen.

Even back in Arkansas, Nutt knew how to describe the 'Cocks.

As for the game itself, one could be in for a ridiculous multi-overtime affair with each team scoring north of 60 points. Or just as likely, one could be treated to a cro-magnon yet exquisitely brutal old-school SEC mud-and-blood defense-fest. The only way it could suck is getting neither.

Nutt’s Rebels must have decided that a #4 ranking was a bit much, as they really offered a gripping demonstration as to why they believe so. Granted, winning on the road in the SEC is never easy (unless you are in Knoxville), but when you have the offensive guruistry of the Nutt armed with a big-time quarterback in Jevon Snead and a Percy Harvin-type playmaker in Dexter McCluster, you must put more on the board than two field goals in the first thirty minutes.

Sometimes you win like a Nutt and sometimes you don’t, but to win you always gotta score touchdowns on the road.

 

2) Who Wants to be Jan Brady?

Whose turn is it to cry "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia?!"

If you are my age, you remember the “See and Say.” It taught you what noises various animal made. What Oregon showed us on Saturday is that a Duck can make a Bear say “FAAACK!” Cal made this utterance collectively while having their traditional title-hopes-ending loss a week early, as they really looked like a team concentrating on losing to Southern Cal this week.

Of course, this just delays Southern Cals’ triumphant return; the clubbing they put on the closest rival for the title. Now, we all wait until the end of October for Oregon to take it’s turn as one of the Pac-10 troika that rotates playing Jan Brady to Southern Cal’s Marcia.

 

3) A World Simultaneous “FAAACK!” Record

All the way from Lexington you could hear it. A full-throated, this-is-the-end-of-days type roar erupting from the freaked-out face of every Florida Gator fan at the precise moment Tim Tebow hit the turf at Commonwealth Stadium. It looked bad in live action, but thanks to instant replay, you got the Zapruder-like imagery needed to determine exactly how close Tebow came to being killed. First, you were amazed that his head didn’t actually come off. Then you were convinced he was going to be paralyzed. As happy as you were to see him walk off the field, you still couldn’t believe it was happening.

 

4) The FAAACK-ing FAAACK-Eyes!

So, now it’s official. Iowa now gets “the red circle of seething hatred” on my Penn State football schedule; the very same usually permanently reserved for Ohio State and Michigan.  The Hawkeyes will remain that third circle every fall until the Nittany Lions actually beat this team.

 

Not even a Tarantino-style “going medieval on their asses” will suffice. This calls for the ultimate; a Sam Peckinpah-esque slo-mo orgy of death.

Houston Nutt Bi-Polar Update: Rome Gets the Rubber Glove Treatment

No, the Right Reverend Houston Dale Nutt is not fisting Jim Rome…yet. Rather, these are just the themes from the latest examples of the completely bi-polar nature of the Nutt, and by extension, any institution affiliated with the Rt. Rev.

Coach Nutt, your world frightens and confuses me.

Houston Nutt is just a head-scratching, what-the-hell-happened-there type enigma. I can’t decide whether the man is geniunely bat-shit crazy, or just a cunning master of deception. In the last 24 hours, the following pieces appeared on the interwebz, each painting a picture as different as Grant Wood vs. Salvador Dali on acid after a month-long tequila bender. 

1) The Germ-o-phobe:

In an effort to ward off the aggressive and debilitating advances of Outbreak Monkey (the H1N1 virus), Ole Miss is considering having its football team wear surgical gloves during its stroll down the Walk of Champions before Saturday’s game against SE Louisiana, CBS College Sports Radio reports.  Typically the team walks through the Grove, glad handing the fanbase on its way to the stadium, but the fear of disease, namely the flu, which has swept through the team in recent days, may prompt the move to a more sterile interaction.

Didn’t Howard Hughes go through something like this? Sure, it starts with the gloves; but the next thing you know, you are cloistered away insane-monk style on the top floor of your Vegas hotel with your feet stuffed in Kleenex boxes and saving your own urine.

2) Full-On Caligula:

Ole Miss, in just a year and a half of sustained football excellence, have bypassed the stable, prosperous stage of football glory and skipped ahead to the decadent, endstages of Caligula-esque imperium. They don’t want the steady, stable period where fans behave semi-normally, coaches don’t hand out hundreds for good play, and orgies don’t break out with shocking regularity. They prefer to skip right to the part where they enjoy the Senators’ wives, thank you very much. Proof of this: the hiring of dwarves, a sure harbinger you’ve entered the decadent phase of a civilization’s lifespan.

“I am looking to hire a professional Dwarf Actor for frat house party entertainment at the University of Mississippi in Oxford Mississippi.”

Now that’s the I-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-germs-I’m-sticking-it-into-that side of Vegas that should stay there. For those times when a Buick full of tanked-up quasi-skanky sorority girls just isn’t enough, there’s only one answer: “professional” midgets.  

Frankly, I’m not sure just how one’s professional status is determined for such a thing, let alone exactly at which skill did they reach the professional ranks. It matters little; the diametrically-opposed nature of one hand with a rubber glove with the other ostensibly on some very-low-to-the-floor naughty bits is the heart of the duality of the Nutt.

Either way, until further notice whenever at Ole Miss, you should be wearing rubber on something.