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Tag Archives: Alabama

If Paul Rhoads is one thing, he’s proud. He’s in a perpetual state of pride. He is your dad whenever you make honor roll or change your own oil. The Iowa State Cyclones put up a damn good effort in running their own small business; it’s not their fault that big corpo is pulling the strings and has all that lobbying money to monopolize the market. Rhoads is still proud, dammit.

In the game of life, you win some, and you lose some. And sometimes you are screwed over by the officials at the one-yard line. You lose some because you are not Texas, but hey, I’m just making excuses. These are hard truths learned by all. Especially by a Cyclones team that, no matter if it’s their first 1-3 start since 2007, you should be proud of. Why? Because Mack Brown is on thin ice, regardless.

So, what else did we learn in a weekend full of near whiffs, alternate uniforms and late night football?

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You’ve been furloughed Ha Ha. Sorry – *you’ve been furloughed, Ha Ha.

It’s shutdown week and at TwH we are all about keeping you informed about how this fiscal crisis will affect your Saturday afternoon:

  • Army, Navy, and Air Force games are were at the risk of not occurring 
  • If you’re a member of our nation’s armed forces overseas, you may not be able to see a game
  • You will not be able to visit any national parks or monuments so you might as well be a shut-in for one weekend, you outdoorsy, patriotic weirdo
  • You will not be able to see Ha Ha Clinton-Dix play because he has been furloughed by the University of Alabama
  • The Department of Defense has been forced to cancel their experiment in Boulder against the Oregon Ducks where the real Colorado Buffaloes were replaced by Buffalo androids to see if they could stop the Oregon offense
  • Lil’ Red will not be in attendance at the Illinois – Nebraska game because of the halt in agricultural subsidies to pay for two Cornhuskers within Memorial Stadium
  • “THE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN MY OTHER SIGN” at College Gameday (YOU CAN DO BETTER, NORTHWESTERN)

Now that I’ve given you a small run-down on the reach of the federal government into your college football Saturdays, let’s get down to business (that’s non-profit business with little to no federal contracts, government. Please don’t shut down Saturday).

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If getting fired after being pulled off the team bus from LAX to campus isn’t the most Hollywood thing ever, please give me another example. This felt like a seedy termination. A scene, not unlike the one in Dog Day Afternoon, where the main character fails, and the repercussions involve a swift execution. Lane Kiffin didn’t even step foot on the USC’s campus before Haden uttered the words that put Kiffin out of job and Ed Orgeron in control of a faltering program. Now, the hunt begins anew for the Trojans, who have slowly started to slide into irrelevancy as the Pac-12 has started to gain notoriety as the second-best conference in America. Gone are the days of USC and everybody else. USC can’t compete with Arizona State, or even downtrodden Washington State. The whole country says “adieu” to Kiffykins, the man responsible for Tennessee fever dreams and the underdevelopment of all-around awesome Marqise Lee.

While your favorite team’s coach may not have been fired as soon as he exited the plane, his days as head man may be numbered. Look at UConn. Now Earl Campbell’s taking shots at Mack Brown? The coaching carousel may be fired up sooner than expected.

Aside from learning that, yes, the world of college football is on fiiiiiireeeeee, what else did we take away from this marvelous weekend?

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You might have had a recording from two years ago of you cussing leak on the Internet, Bo Pelini, but that tape is not nearly as offensive as the slate of games scheduled on Saturday. I mean, come on. Georgia – North Texas? Idaho State – Washington? Hell, College Gameday kicks off from North Dakota State! Yeah, we’re in for a rough one. Don’t believe me? Let’s run down the highlighted games for each time slot:

12:00 P.M. 

Florida A&M at No. 4 Ohio State

3:30 (THE EXCEPTION…MAYBE) 

Tennessee at No. 19 Florida

7:00

No. 23 Arizona State at No. 5 Stanford

8:00 

No. 15 Michigan at Connecticut

If you have a project that a Home Depot commercial has convinced you that you have to get done, go ahead and do it. Start moving, America! Because this week fucking sucks.

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Why are we in Berkeley and the stands are full of Ohio State fans? Can someone explain why Nick Saban is running an up-tempo offense? Why is there a fox running around a football field? Did Joel Stave just put the ball on the ground? Why are these Airheads making me cry? IT’S LIKE THE FLAVOR IS RUNNING THROUGH MY BODY. SWEET MAGNIFICENT MYSTERY WHITE FLAVOR, I HAVE CRACKED YOUR CODE. (YOU TOOK TOO MUCH, DUDE. YOU’RE TRIPPIN’ BALLZZZZZ)

Yes, you were on LSD from Thursday until Sunday morning. No, everything is fine. You didn’t burn anyone’s couch, and you certainly didn’t come close to losing to Akron. But I don’t think your perception of the world is going to be right for awhile. It might be crippled going forward, but that’s what happens when you visit Lubbock and then proceed to stand out in the Arizona desert. Don’t worry – you’re still sane, and you can still call out bad officiating. You just had a bad trip with Jesse Palmer – it’s going to be alright.

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Please come back, Art Briles. The (mental) state of Texas needs you!

James invited me to give a few thoughts on each of the games. I am not nearly the college football addict he is, though few are. My responses will be in italics. – Rory Masterson

Thanks for joining me, Rory! And thank you reader for allowing me to pick a slate of Top 25 games that I am only qualified for by way of too much time on my hands on Saturday. If you haven’t heard, Texas A&M and Alabama is on tap this week (EDIT: as well as some talk of impermissible benefits, y’all). But there are other items of interest in Texas too. Items like Longhorn football. I don’t even know if there is enough ESPN money that can save Mack Brown if things fall apart. Mack Brown schadenfreude not floating your boat? Well then, there’s Texas Tech and TCU. Ah, Kliff Kingsbury – the cure for the common Texas archetype. Not satisfied with that? Then, there’s Bay – wait, they have a bye week? Please play again, Baylor. That would be super (yes, please)! Enough Texas talk. It’s starting to smell like brisket in here – LET’S GET IT!

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Welp, here we are, gang. The second week of college football. The second AP poll of the year has been released and some have dropped (Ohio State, Georgia) while others have seen their stock rise faster than Anacott Steel (Washington, Oklahoma State). This week, College Gameday will be focused on Ann Arbor, Michigan which makes the nonsensical, unimportant historic, traditional rivalry one of the focal points in a week that features other rivalry games such as Florida-Miami and Georgia-South Carolina. It’s also a week of firsts for the Stanford Cardinal who got to sit in their dorms in Palo Alto and watch their eyes melt at the sight of a Lane Kiffin offense on their parents’ hand-me-down 52-inch, LED TV. I am excited because I am going to be at home base in Charlotte and not off on Ocracoke Island trying to watch the game while people waft their savory crab cakes in my face. My excitement will probably crash once I realize that the remaining games consist of match-ups against Tennessee Tech, UTSA, UAB, and Sam Houston State. Oh, brother. In the name of all things holy (REESUS), LET’S GET IT.

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With college football only a stones throw away (31 days to be exact!), power rankings and preseason polls are popping up all over the place. This is just lighter fluid to fuel the slow burning embers that are a result of summer sport fatigue. People go bat shit crazy about these polls and rankings as if they actually mean something. This crazy is only a primer for the reactions we can expect when foot meets ball (bear [Bryant] with me – oh, fuck these puns). These reactions serve as great supplements to good games, and sometimes they are talked about more than the match up itself. So I submit to you, deranged college football fanatics, the power rankings of some of the best reactions of the 2012 season.

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July 16th kicked off SEC Media Days, a three day spectacle brimming with press conferences, Mike Slive’s “State of the League” address, player interviews and Chick-fil-a swag. This is the time when grievances are aired out by Steve Spurrier while Nick Saban fights off the frenzied Alabama media contingent who follow him like the White House press corps follows President Obama. It’s a production that’s taken on a tremendous amount of publicity due to the Southeastern Conference’s status as “king of the mountain top” for seven years straight. There will be other media days for other athletic confederacies, but this one is the premiere event that signifies the beginning of college football and the end to every fan’s rationality and sanity for the next 176 days.  Read More