American football playoff scenarios
manufacturing hot takes galore as masses
suffer psychic concussion; New Year's mainstream flows
from holidays consumption to our fat asses
pointed towards Super Bowl's new commercial season -
when we all gather, snacks in hand, to gaze at screen
pretending to care; it's patriotic treason
to deny this corporate holiday machine
selling sport, selling sodas, selling army strong
campaign - F-16 flyover followed up by
F-150 alpha truck folksong 2-mins long
followed by softcore porn beer brain trigger; through eye
of feeble consciousness threaded with suggestions;
fresh-burned brands answer all identity questions.
Showing posts with label foozball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foozball. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 29
Tuesday, August 14
My Football Metaphysics book
FOOTBALL METAPHYSICS FOR ENLIGHTENED DEGENERATES at Amazon
FOOTBALL METAPHYSICS FOR ENLIGHTENED DEGENERATES at Smashwords
Amazon will have the necessary apps to make it work on all your devices of time waste, not just a kindle. There are versions available that work for your kindles and nooks and crannies and Sonybots and tabloids and even your iPads and iPhones (with the Stanza app), but you can even get a pdf at the Smashwords link and look at it on your computer or print to old-fashioned rolling papyrus if you’d like to put a fat binder clip on it and leave it on the peach crate by the toilet. It’s a good 140-pages printed out single-spaced in 10-point font though, so there’s no lack of content. Aside from a long-winded overview of the project where I explain how the NFL has only about ten years at most of actual awesomeness left in it, for each and every team, I cover the following items: an overview of the team, pertinent data regarding last season and this one, most important games, each team’s individual trendsetter and spirit warrior, the coach/QB situation, their team elders, and scrappy Rudy, and assorted other player info, which includes but is not limited to historical information on the team and the city they are located in. Additionally, you’ll get psychic analysis as to the metaphysical force of each team in relation to the NFL’s entire history, as well as the past decade, and I’ve deduced not only each team’s best case scenario, but have a solid finger on what will go down this coming season.
And yet, even if you don’t like football, even if you are a woman who thinks pro football is the dumbest crap that ever existed, you will find immense joy in this offering of mine. This is because of my traditional Rojonekku style of writing, which is designed as a decoy, where beautiful life truths are buried in what looks to be just some dumb football shit. If we revealed the truths about the society around us out and in the open, those who monitor our interactions would stifle the real talk. That’s why I affectionately call it “nonsense gibberish” because it is akin to speaking in tongues that the devils don’t understand, like when I was a little boy in a snake-handling Pentecostal church in rural Rice, Virginia. This Rojonekku style is a lol-heavy sugar-coating on deep spiritual truths, so that we can feel like we are moving in a better direction as a group, without being some super-serious asshole about it. You know what is serious business? Nothing, because business is a joke and money is an abstraction and how can you expect me to take an abstraction seriously when it can’t bite or burn me? Wait, I’m getting sidetracked here…
This Football Metaphysic for Enlightened Degenerates is also my first offering from the Workingman Books collective press chaos factory doohickey/donthickey thing that I have chopped together in the crock pot of various co-conspirators minds, and it is fermenting away as we speak, into something that will give us greater gut intuition to enjoy the world around us, and be healthier on the inside, where are brain funks and chest clenches are. That is the hope. And this is the first offering, and I hope that you will support it, and that you will find it abundant in bringing you joy and spirit inside a dark and crooked world.
Sunday, August 12
Football Metaphysics for Enlightened Degenerates
Friday, August 3
WEEKLY FRYBREAD: football metaphysics on my mind
This week has been a busy one for your homeboy Raven Mack aka Wildbird Johnson aka The Confederate Mack aka Ruben Omega Tercera Acosta aka one thousand aliases. I am diligently whipping myself into psychic frenzies to continue work on the Football Metaphysics for the Enlightened Degenerate e-book, which hopefully should be finalized, formatted, and available for that ass by next Friday. It is fairly insane, and for football fans will be the second greatest text on the NFL ever written since ever, second only to Kenny Stabler’s autobiography. I know that may sound like hyperbole, especially for what is only a preview for a single season of professional football in America, but I’m not lying. If you are not a football fan even, there will be so much great stuff in it that seemingly has nothing to do with football, that you’ll get your money’s worth. I mean, it’s basically metaphysics, which translates from football to making homemade pizza to replacing the alternator on a ’92 Subaru Legacy, if you really think about it.
“Your money’s worth?” you may ask, thinking why would you pay for an e-book when you can read all types of free jibber-jabber on the internet for free? Well, basically fuck you first off. Secondly, nothing on the internet is free because they are trading your data for ads and making money off you. You are the product. And yet also the target audience. Basically, you’re pimped the fuck out online, so I advise you to buy far many more long rambling metaphysical texts to read offline on your personal robot devices. Sure there is the question of what will the poor read, and what will any of us do if the power grid crumbles like it did in India this past week? I don’t know, we can cross those bridges after we’ve burned them.
But make no mistake about it, my Football Metaphysics for the Enlightened Degenerate will be available for you in the near future. Obviously, being it is an NFL preview, there is a short shelf life on it, or so you’d think. I mean there is, but also it’ll be relevant regardless. I’ll probably hype it incessantly for like 10 days, then forget about it, as that is my writing plan at this point, to treat it more like an outsider artist just doing shit and leaving it on the side of the road – The Information Superhighway (remember that?) in this case – for whoever passes along to maybe take interest. I am excited to get to work on my next book as well which will be Raven Mack’s First Book by Raven McMillian. And to start digging into the Confederate Mack collection. And to help teach my 13-year-old daughter typing so we can release her first novel she’s written into a stack of composition books either at the end of this year or beginning of next.
Also performed my first wedding ceremony this week, which went well, I guess. I put such a high expectation on everything that I’m never as good as I hope to be. It’s a double-edge sword, because that relentless drives is pretty good for the creative process when it comes to pushing yourself hard as fuck; but it also can be defeating because you’re never as good as you hoped for, which can easily shift into self-loathing. But whatever.
Basically, not much more to say – no long-winded philosophical meanderings on this or that, as I’m busy at stupid work today and also trying to stay focused on the football stuff in free moments, chipping away in five-minute increments during the day time. But mad shit is cooking. And I actually have already gotten my crap together for the August J.J. Krupert, I just haven’t uploaded the songs to the cyberwebs yet. Does anybody download those songs still? Is anybody here? I guess if I am going to take the outsider artist perspective I shouldn’t ask. I doubt James Harold Jennings was asking people if they were there. But how do you make a blog look like an abandoned schoolbus? Perhaps I should let that percolate in the dark corners of my mind…
“Your money’s worth?” you may ask, thinking why would you pay for an e-book when you can read all types of free jibber-jabber on the internet for free? Well, basically fuck you first off. Secondly, nothing on the internet is free because they are trading your data for ads and making money off you. You are the product. And yet also the target audience. Basically, you’re pimped the fuck out online, so I advise you to buy far many more long rambling metaphysical texts to read offline on your personal robot devices. Sure there is the question of what will the poor read, and what will any of us do if the power grid crumbles like it did in India this past week? I don’t know, we can cross those bridges after we’ve burned them.
But make no mistake about it, my Football Metaphysics for the Enlightened Degenerate will be available for you in the near future. Obviously, being it is an NFL preview, there is a short shelf life on it, or so you’d think. I mean there is, but also it’ll be relevant regardless. I’ll probably hype it incessantly for like 10 days, then forget about it, as that is my writing plan at this point, to treat it more like an outsider artist just doing shit and leaving it on the side of the road – The Information Superhighway (remember that?) in this case – for whoever passes along to maybe take interest. I am excited to get to work on my next book as well which will be Raven Mack’s First Book by Raven McMillian. And to start digging into the Confederate Mack collection. And to help teach my 13-year-old daughter typing so we can release her first novel she’s written into a stack of composition books either at the end of this year or beginning of next.
Also performed my first wedding ceremony this week, which went well, I guess. I put such a high expectation on everything that I’m never as good as I hope to be. It’s a double-edge sword, because that relentless drives is pretty good for the creative process when it comes to pushing yourself hard as fuck; but it also can be defeating because you’re never as good as you hoped for, which can easily shift into self-loathing. But whatever.
Basically, not much more to say – no long-winded philosophical meanderings on this or that, as I’m busy at stupid work today and also trying to stay focused on the football stuff in free moments, chipping away in five-minute increments during the day time. But mad shit is cooking. And I actually have already gotten my crap together for the August J.J. Krupert, I just haven’t uploaded the songs to the cyberwebs yet. Does anybody download those songs still? Is anybody here? I guess if I am going to take the outsider artist perspective I shouldn’t ask. I doubt James Harold Jennings was asking people if they were there. But how do you make a blog look like an abandoned schoolbus? Perhaps I should let that percolate in the dark corners of my mind…
Sunday, September 11
Redskins 1-0 Positives/Negatives Metasciences Week 1 Recap
(kicking off another season of scientifical spiritual soul-jazzabout this Redskins franchise - and an
Armchair Linebacker simulpost)
The Redskins pulled off a victory, and pulled away in the 4th quarter, both of which were not habits of this team in the previous three seasons. They usually found ways to lose, or even if they won kept it way too close and never had that kill instinct. But today, they pulled it off, and didn't let it hang until the last possession either. That was relieving, so much so that I was actually angry at the end of the game because it felt odd and abnormal. But I feel good about this team.
I want to make it clear though, that my "feeling good about this team" means I think they can go .500. Anyone thinking playoffs, even after this win, is jumping the gun, and shifting into standard Offseason Champs Redskins fan mode, just a little later than usual. My feelings are that if this team can go 8-8, that's a successful season, because let's be honest - this is a rebuilding year, and the first legitimate rebuilding process the team has gone through in a decade really. And Snyder's various management regimes have left the Redskins infrastructure more damaged than Afghanistan. But Shanahan's in his second year, and I continue to stick to the thinking that we will judge his successes or failures by his third year. If they go 8-8 this year, we are on pace. If they somehow miraculously make the playoffs, then Shanahan truly is a genius. But he won't be.
However, enough of my jaded cynicism to temper my momentary joy at beating a massively hobbled and still overrated division rival. Let's get into the positive and negative forces on this football team on this anniversary of the terrorists hating the freedom to think either Coke or Pepsi doesn't kill you...
EIGHTH DEGREE POSITIVE: NT CHRIS NEILD - Neild was a 7th-round draft pick out of West Virginia, who had to pass up his preferred #95 roster number because a veteran player already had it. The fact he ended up sporting the old Dave Butz #65 in only solidified what I had thought upon first checking into this dude - he is going to be this team's defensive Chris Cooley - meaning a goofy-assed dude who is impossible not to love. Sure enough, not only did Neild beat out Anthony Bryant for a roster spot (and the number 95, which he wore today), but even as a back-up to highly-touted free agent Barry Cofield, Neild showed and proved today with two sacks and just generally showing himself to be a greatly disruptive influence as a true NT in Jim Haslet's 3-4 defense. And really, this speaks greatly not only of the Neild himself, but of the draft this Redskins front office had this past year, where they actually got a lot of value out of all their draft picks. If you can take a 7th round pick and get you somebody who could potentially be a legitimate starter by the end of his rookie season, well that's something that hasn't really been a habit of Dan Snyder front offices. But if this young defense can really shapeshift into a stunner on a weekly basis as the weeks/months/years progress, I can see this dude being the dirtbag NT heart and soul of that defense, while the Brian Orakpos and Ryan Kerrigans get all the Pro Bowl trips.
SEVENTH DEGREE POSITIVE: TE FRED DAVIS - With Cooley's knee all swolled up, and it seeming more and more like he might end up having another of those dreaded trips to Dr. James Andrews down in Alabama, the Redskins needed Fred Davis to show up the beginning of this season. And show up did he ever. Dude was playing like Kellen Winslow the Elder out there today, and his previous penchant for coughing up footballs wasn't there, as he held tight, even through a couple of minor concussive hits. He looked good, and like he can be that punisher on pass plays that Cooley has always been. (Before anyone gets all wacky again, like they did last offseason, and somehow thinks Cooley is expendable or too old or something, it's usually not a bad idea to have a pair of great TEs, if you can afford them.)
SIXTH DEGREE POSITIVE: OLB RYAN KERRIGAN - Kerrigan seems to be getting this defense quickly, more so than Brian Orakpo did last year in the switch to standing up as an outside LB. Still, Orakpo is a monster, and Kerrigan seems to be more one of those stereotypical gritty players, with some good athleticism to boot. He got pushed around a good bit at the beginning of the game, but settled in, and the tip and INT for TD to start the second half really helped set the tone for that defense to puff out their feathers and feel good. It's as great a first round rookie debut as I can remember in the Snyder years.
FIFTH DEGREE POSITIVE: LB ROCKY MCINTOSH - When the Redskins passed on the retreads available to them and kept Rocky McIntosh, I have to admit I was not too excited. McIntosh never really developed into what he was supposed to be coming out of the U of Miami. But man, he was all over the place today, and actually looked a good bit like his mid-field mentor London Fletcher at times. Maybe a new contract and showing him he was still wanted here gave Rocky some comfort and confidence. Lord knows Sam Huff loves him. This was the best game I can remember McIntosh playing in a while.
FOURTH DEGREE POSITIVE: LB LONDON FLETCHER - Look, even if he doesn't have a highlight reel stop or sack or anything, Fletcher is going to be a positive for this team. There are very few on-field coaches of London Fletcher's caliber. In fact, probably the only other one was Peyton Manning, and he's out with a crookneck. Very fitting that London Fletcher now has the longest active continuous games started streak in the NFL after Peyton clocked out for the first time in a decade. About the best thing you could say for a player to show how much you think of them is to wish they finished out their career on your team; I hope London Fletcher is a fucking coach here the day he hangs up his cleats. I don't want that dude to ever leave.
THIRD DEGREE POSITIVE: WR SANTANA MOSS - I have bad-mouthed Santana and threw him under the bus when he had shady ties to that Canadian HGH doctor, but Santana just keeps proving you wrong. He's always a consistent presence on offense. He's not gonna have a gamebreaker player at his age, and he's going to over-celebrate every fucking meaningless first down he gets, which is annoying, even as a Redskins fan (probably because Art Monk is the high watermark at the position, and Art would never do vainglorious shit like that), but Moss gets his. It can't really be considered his fault the Redskins mostly ran with just him as a competent WR many seasons. This year though, looks to be different, and if Santana can continue to be Santana, it won't be as intolerable if it's part of a larger receiving corps, like it was today.
SECOND DEGREE POSITIVE: WR ANTHONY ARMSTRONG - Double A still shows some of the signs of a guy who played in arena football - dropping passes at times, making mistakes. But the dude is a blazer, and a true deep threat, and hard to not love the dude either, knowing his history as a football player. Every time they went deep to him, it got my adrenaline pumping, and I'm glad he got that TD. Oh man, that one pass that got knocked away at the 10 or so? That would've been immense had he caught that. I think that would've blown this game wide open.
FIRST DEGREE POSITIVE: CB DEANGELO HALL - Hall is never as good as he would have you believe, but I did not see him falling on his face as a Giants WR burned him down the sidelines for a TD, like sometimes can happen with #23. And he gave Manning a nice, painful shot when he got a clear line on him from a CB blitz. All in all, when the weakest part of this potentially wondrous defense is the secondary, and Hall is the leader by default of that secondary, if he can at least look competent and have a presence, then I'm gonna be happy with him.
STAY MEDIUM DEGREE: QB REX GROSSMAN - If you saw the highlight clips and stat lines, it may look like Rex Grossman has resurrected his career this weekend. But as someone who watched every down, let me tell you, there's a lot of the old Rex Grossman left inside the Rex Grossman who started at QB today. Aikman/Buck really pushed the angle of how this system limits Grossman's abilities to make mistakes, and said Grossman even said so himself. But if you have to limit the stupid mistakes your QB makes because he is stupid, well, that's not so good. My man Mavpa Van Cleef put it best when he said Grossman looks like a 15-year-old playing Madden, running backwards for 20 yards then mashing all the buttons at once. No starting NFL QB should lose 18 yards on a sack, like Grossman did today. And he flew some floaters up three or four times that are gonna make better secondaries salivate during film studies. Not to mention some of the high passes he was laying guys up with in the first half that would've gotten them knocked the fuck out, if the Giants had even half a Laron Landry lurking in their defensive backfield. That being said, he won today, so I can't outright hate the dude, though I do feel the whole John Beck/Rex Grossman QB battle was just a long con by the Shanahans to not have to admit they were going to start Grossman from the beginning, because people like me would've been like, "BOOOOOOOO!" about us ending last season with a questionable offensive line and a shitty QB, and not having done a damn thing to address that before this season.
FIRST DEGREE NEGATIVE: K GRAHAM GANO - Gano looked dialed in during the preaseson. First attempt today - just right, showing us that Gano is already in mid-season form. What the fuck man? Are there just no decent placekickers left in this world? Shouldn't there be a second generation of Zendejas kids coming up by now?
SECOND DEGREE NEGATIVE: S REED DOUGHTY - Reed Doughty is one of those guys who ends up coaching high school football and you read about him and they say he had a 9-year NFL career and you think to yourself, "Reed who?" Somehow, he practices well, and tries hard, and is legally deaf, and makes this team every year. And somehow, somebody gets injured (or sucks, if they are Adam Archuleta) and Reed Doughty gets on the field. And then Reed Doughty gets owned, regularly. He is quite simply not an NFL starter, not even due to injury nor illness nor having three other safeties arrested and suspended all at once. He's not an NFL starter. By all accounts, he's a chill dude, and a solid locker room presence, but he is not very good. You could make a highlight package of him having notable moments of suck (the end of the Texans game last year comes immediately to mind, where Andre Johnson and Doughty jump for the same pass, and it looks like Doughty jumped from four feet lower). Today, I was embarrassed for Doughty at times. He was manhandled at the line, and he was spun around or out of position multiple times, giving up long passes. Laron Landry is a dominator on defense, and I want him to be 100% so badly because he will fuck up some motherfuckers, but hell man, I'd be glad with him just standing around out there at half-speed than Reed Doughty playing. The dude is a straight up liability.
THIRD DEGREE NEGATIVE: OWNER DAN SNYDER - Things looked better today, and it seems Shanahan & Son are giving this team some needed direction. But make no mistake about it, Snyder lurks. As Redskins fans, we are like the poor villagers of a fairy tale kingdom, with an evil King who doesn't deserve the crown, who stole it from the previous King, with whom we'd known wonderful successes as a people. And even if our collective fortunes turn, we are still under the rein of this demented syphilitic-brained King of ours, and all it takes is one bright blast of his ridiculous incompetence, and all that had been built over the past couple of years will be unraveled. Seriously, there was a PR story in today's Washington Post about Snyder wanting to hire Shanahan that had tons of fingerprints of Snyder's PR guys all over it that really allows me to tell the full tale of what an evil and manipulative piece of shit owner Dan Snyder is - and the story was meant to be a positive one! Also, on the night before the season starts, Snyder dropped his defamation lawsuit against the Washington City Paper because various news outlets were going to report that Snyder never actually read the piece in question. A fucking first class piece of shit, self-important and delusional, and the most I can hope for is him not having a reason to start running people off and waving his little dick around to show how important he is and how much he only wants to win and what a true Redskin fan he is, not a stupid asshole businessman who has fucked up a once proud franchise with steady illogical meddling from the owner's box.
ACCUMULATED INFLUENCES UPON THIS FRANCHISE 2011, BEST TO WORST: NT Chris Neild (+8), TE Fred Davis (+7), OLB Ryan Kerrigan (+6), LB Rocky McIntosh (+5), LB London Fletcher (+4), WR Santana Moss (+3), WR Anthony Armstrong (+2), CB DeAngelo Hall (+1), QB Rex Grossman (even), K Graham Gano (-1), S Reed Doughty (-2), owner Dan Snyder (-3).
Friday, September 2
S14: Best College Football Teams of Past Decade - Division I
The college football season began its thing last night on the cable televisions, and I had just forced myself to learn a bunch of dumb Excel spreadsheet stuff because I have a sexual fantasy about being a sexually frustrated accountant who lives in a camper by the river, so rather than use this newfound knowledge to make like a monthly budget for my family or calculate how many minutes of guitar solos Jerry Garcia had compared to Bob Weir on Grateful Dead bootlegs from the '70s, I figured I'd just dork out on some college football, similar to the dorky Best and Worst lists during the year, which always seem to generate ghost comments from beyond where some dude who went to like Becker College or something will all of a sudden about nine months after the fact be like, "Yes, Becker is terrible, I was at that one game, I'm glad you know how terrible it is," but I never see the comments because it's buried amidst ancient spambot replies and about 300 posts into the past, which is hard to go back to with my fractured O.C.D. mind.
Anyways, what I did was tabulate up the overall W-L record of every team in the Bowl Championship Football Subdivision (or whatever the fuck they call Division IA now in marketing pretendery), and here will be a list of the top 14 teams with the best record over the past decade, and later today there will be a companion list of the worst 14, because every stupid thing on this earth has a perfect companion; I read that in the Bible, or my grandmother told me that, or something. Maybe it was at the beginning of a Lifetime channel movie I watched once while high, and then Meredith Baxter-Birney got domestic abused and had some sort of cancer and a missing child but it all came together in the end, because she had a perfect companion. Thus I'm big on companions. But here are your 14 bestest teams, if you go purely by the scientific factoid of winning percentage over the past ten seasons...
#1: BOISE STATE BRONCOS (114-16, .877 winning percentage) - Boise State is the perfect example of what is wrong with college football, both to their credit and their detriment. First, it is utter ridiculousness that a team that has had two undefeated seasons in the last five years against Division I competition should have to justify a chance to play for a National title. But the fact college football is run by a bunch of conmen corporate lobbyists and the bowl system means there is not, and probably won't be a playoff system. This means the little schools like Boise State won't get a chance, even if they are undefeated. They jumped to the Mountain West Conference, hoping to join up with fellow small conference powers Utah and TCU, but Utah bolted to the Pac-12, and TCU is sharing space with the Broncos for one year before joining the Big East (for whatever reason). It's still a step up for Boise State though, who has made their reputation in a lackluster conference. Seriously, when you see the list of crappy teams, like half of Boise State's old conference mates make up that list. Not to mention the complete bullshit of having blue turf and blue uniforms and how that's an unfair advantage, plus looks stupid as fuck. They've built their underdog reputation on a bully's philosophy, where the deck is stacked and you play weak ass opponents, so even though they play the "oh poor us, we deserve a chance against the big boys," they are using that same big boy cut every moral corner to achieve victory as the big fish in their little pond.
#2: OHIO STATE BUCKEYES (106-22, .828 winning percentage) - I'm not a big fan of power conferences running shit, but I enjoy SEC football for it's brutality and excitement, and I enjoy a good Pac-10 game for its different style of play. I even enjoy the classic Big 12 match-ups. But I cannot stand the Big Ten. It is slow and plodding and boring, both in uniforms and mentality and everything. Ohio State, for me, personifies that boring, outdated bullshit from yesteryear, that peppers their roster with half-witted gangsta dudes to try and pretend they are as good as the SEC. The thing I don't understand is this whole "trading gear for tattoos" scandal that SI exposed, which seemed to me a very non-scandal. Like I would expect that at every school. I would expect you could find dead bodies and raped women galore around Columbus, if you actually wanted to look around.
#3: TEXAS LONGHORNS (106-23, .822 winning percentage) - I have not felt the ju-ju of doing these blurbs so fuck actual commentary that cares about college football. I like Texas for some simple reasons, despite their famous pedigree (although I root against them whenever they have gay fantasy QBs like Colt McCoy or Chris Simms). They were the home to Ricky Williams, Cedric Benson, and Earl Campbell. Their fans do the sign of the devil, and because of this one time there was a picture of newly elected President George W. Bush doing the devil horns while wearing a ZZ Top hat. I thought that was pretty awesome. I mean, it would've been more awesome if he hadn't have been the fake figurehead to help fuck up this country entirely to prepare it for the end of the American Empire, but hey, ZZ Top is pretty awesome, so that makes up for it all.
#4: USC TROJANS (105-24, .814 winning percentage) - There is not a more despicable college athletics program than USC football. From the ugly red to the yellow trojan logo to the honorable tradition of not having names on the back of their jersey to the paid players who helped run Pete Carroll back into the NFL before the hammer fell on the post-Reggie Bush era. Whatever happened to Lendale White? That dude was awesome. I always thought he was like Ice Cube from Boyz-n-Tha-Hood, growed up and playing football. Also, it makes me sad all Samoan players - whom I tend to love - either end up playing at USC (if they like pussy) or BYU or Utah (if they like Mormon Jesus). Seems like we should be offering those people more choices in life by now.
#5: OKLAHOMA SOONERS (109-26, .807 winning percentage) - Oklahoma is a pretty depleted place, that I find it hard to believe one of the nation's best programs is there. Really, after the pilfering of the Big 12, which is back down to 10, after being the Big 8 forever, it's really just a case now of Texas & Oklahoma and their sorry little brothers. You feel kind of bad for the two of them, because they probably could just jump to somewhere else and the conference would crumble, but they didn't. And then Texas A&M snuck in the back door to the SEC, which also is funny, because now either Oklahoma or Texas could be that even numbered team to go to the SEC and leave the other one hanging. Or both could go. I really don't care; but Texas A&M vs. Arkansas showdowns seem more like big Southwest Conference games than SEC games. This means I'm old as fuck.
#6: TEXAS CHRISTIAN HORNED FROGS (98-27, .784 winning percentage) - TCU going to the Big East next year is the dumbest of all the geographically challenged team moves, especially considering the Big East is a pretty declining conference when it comes to football anyways, to the point if somebody cherry-picked West Virginia, there'd be pretty much nothing left. Plus, TCU is going to have to travel three of four states for every opponent possible in that conference. UConn/TCU showdowns just don't really do it for me on paper. I wish all the non-BCS conferences jumped into a regulation system like Euro soccer, and like the best 8 teams from all those lower conferences over the past two or three years would form a super little conference each year, and newly successful teams could move up or get dropped if they started sucking. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure how great even that would be, because it would be like BYU, TCU, Boise State, and I'm not really sure anybody else from the non-BCS conferences are that good. So I guess it's a stupid idea.
#7: LSU TIGERS (102-29, .779 winning percentage) - I like LSU. They have pretty uniforms, and I don't mind the fact that half their offense beat up some dude outside of a bar, because it was apparently over a girl, and also because I expect them to be thugged out because they are Lil Boosie's favorite football team. Lil Boosie will probably be the first rapper to end up getting executed for being a gangsta. And yet his voice sounds like a cartoon got hit in the nuts. But that's what happens in Louisiana - you set your own style, your style is not set for you by others. That's why LSU has always had such swagger.
#8: FLORIDA GATORS (98-32, .754 winning percentage) - Did Urban Meyer actually retire? I think he tried to once but then didn't and then maybe he did, but I don't know for sure. I do know that ever since that Ron Zoot dude (or whatever his name was) that every time a major college football team hires a coach that the retarded fan base doesn't like, somebody rushes onto godaddy to register the "firestupidcoach.com" domain and throw up an angry picture and start a message board. I have dabbled in message board culture, and it's a pretty decrepit underpit to America's cyber pop culture, but college football message boards, all about one team, man they are the worst. And there's one for EVERY team, even the worst ones. There are people on a Florida International football message board right now, being all pissed out about something completely inconsequential. Which ultimately that's what the internet's best at - making us emotional about some dumb shit that doesn't really matter.
#9: VIRGINIA TECH HOKIES (99-34, .744 winning percentage) - I always pull for in-state teams, and Tech has been the closest this state has ever gotten to competing for a national football championship at the top level in my lifetime. I was so geeked for that Virginia Tech/Florida State title game where the black Mike Vick was juking motherfuckers constantly. One time, I accidentally met Frank Beamer in a Starbucks. He was on a recruiting trip and right behind me in line and I thought it was him, but the dude was tiny as fuck. Then when he placed his order, I realized it was actually him because he had a big, gaudy ass championship ring of some sort on his finger. So when he came over to put sugar and cream in his coffee like me and like any god-fearing Southern man who knows that chai lattes and crap like that is a stepping stone towards anal sex, I told him that I had friends down in Blacksburg, and they really appreciated how he put the school on people's radar. He said thanks, and then I left thinking about how he exploits the raw athletic talent of wild, underprivileged negroes, and makes millions of dollars a year to do so, and I felt sad for this world, that something like that would be respected.
#10: UTAH UTES (92-32, .742 winning percentage) - Utah, much like Boise State, has thrived in a lesser conference. Now they be all up in the Pac-12, and I ain't gonna lie, I'm excited about Pac-10 football this year. I watched that Oregon/Oregon State game at the end of the year last year, and it was rivalry fury in effect, plus Oregon State had those pimp ass matte black helmets, and I think the Pac-12 did good, although I wouldn't have taken Colorado into my league, even though it matched the big state school philosophical blueprint. The Utes are still flying high from Urban Meyer's earlier building dynasties talents. Urban Meyer is the most brilliant man on earth. If I met him at a Starbucks, I would totally be like, "Hey Urban Meyer, let's make small talk because you are famous."
#11: GEORGIA BULLDOGS (96-34, .738 winning percentage) - Out of all the teams that made this list, Georgia surprised the most. I know they are good, but they've not been on top of the SEC outright at all, but I guess they are consistently near the top. Still though, they've not contended for a National title like other SEC heavyweights on this Bully List of the past decade. They do got some big, scary ass country boys - both black and white - down in Georgia though. I've been in some situations down that way, making trouble along back roads.
#12: AUBURN TIGERS (93-35, .727 winning percentage) - I find Auburn a boring and reprehensible football program. It was sad to see Cam Newton's bought and paid for services help them win the title last year. But I guess people in Alabama ain't got much except for overweight children, a barely functional literacy, and a dark sad future where they max out their credit cards at Wal-Mart Supercenters every year up until they get their Earned Income Credit refund when they tax return come in.
#13: OREGON DUCKS (89-37, .706 winning percentage) - The Ducks have more uniforms than some conferences have in their entire history. It is a running sports meme joke, but really, that doesn't get at the ridiculous stupidity of it all, being it comes from the Nike dude just trying to drum up merchandising anyways, and help tie it to his stupid alma mater. I am cool with where I graduated college, and I'd certainly give them some shine where there any reason for me to have shine of my own to give out to others, but I wouldn't try to force corporate marketing bullshit overload on folks to brainwash them into thinking my old school is the real deal. I might give them acid though and tell them how cool it was, being I sold a lot of acid while I was in college. Tripping acid too, not like concrete etching acid or body disappearing acid like Mexican drug cartels use or anything. In case you were wondering.
#14: WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS (88-38, .698 winning percentage) - West Virginia is a consistently good football program that never really gets the love from the other power conferences, mostly because no one ever clamors for the prestigious West Virginia market, and there ain't no high profile recruiting going in there. But if you were wanting a solid program, they'd be your team. I was always disappointed the ACC didn't take West Virginia in instead of Boston College, because it makes more sense geographically and rivalry-wise, as the yearly West Virginia/Virginia Tech games used to be great. But college football ain't about making sense, it's about making money bro. (Yeah, I could've done "making dollars" but it was too obvious, plus made me think of DJ Quik, so now I just want to wrap this up so I can go listen to some DJ Quik real loud in the other room. So let's end this.)
Anyways, what I did was tabulate up the overall W-L record of every team in the Bowl Championship Football Subdivision (or whatever the fuck they call Division IA now in marketing pretendery), and here will be a list of the top 14 teams with the best record over the past decade, and later today there will be a companion list of the worst 14, because every stupid thing on this earth has a perfect companion; I read that in the Bible, or my grandmother told me that, or something. Maybe it was at the beginning of a Lifetime channel movie I watched once while high, and then Meredith Baxter-Birney got domestic abused and had some sort of cancer and a missing child but it all came together in the end, because she had a perfect companion. Thus I'm big on companions. But here are your 14 bestest teams, if you go purely by the scientific factoid of winning percentage over the past ten seasons...
#1: BOISE STATE BRONCOS (114-16, .877 winning percentage) - Boise State is the perfect example of what is wrong with college football, both to their credit and their detriment. First, it is utter ridiculousness that a team that has had two undefeated seasons in the last five years against Division I competition should have to justify a chance to play for a National title. But the fact college football is run by a bunch of conmen corporate lobbyists and the bowl system means there is not, and probably won't be a playoff system. This means the little schools like Boise State won't get a chance, even if they are undefeated. They jumped to the Mountain West Conference, hoping to join up with fellow small conference powers Utah and TCU, but Utah bolted to the Pac-12, and TCU is sharing space with the Broncos for one year before joining the Big East (for whatever reason). It's still a step up for Boise State though, who has made their reputation in a lackluster conference. Seriously, when you see the list of crappy teams, like half of Boise State's old conference mates make up that list. Not to mention the complete bullshit of having blue turf and blue uniforms and how that's an unfair advantage, plus looks stupid as fuck. They've built their underdog reputation on a bully's philosophy, where the deck is stacked and you play weak ass opponents, so even though they play the "oh poor us, we deserve a chance against the big boys," they are using that same big boy cut every moral corner to achieve victory as the big fish in their little pond.
#2: OHIO STATE BUCKEYES (106-22, .828 winning percentage) - I'm not a big fan of power conferences running shit, but I enjoy SEC football for it's brutality and excitement, and I enjoy a good Pac-10 game for its different style of play. I even enjoy the classic Big 12 match-ups. But I cannot stand the Big Ten. It is slow and plodding and boring, both in uniforms and mentality and everything. Ohio State, for me, personifies that boring, outdated bullshit from yesteryear, that peppers their roster with half-witted gangsta dudes to try and pretend they are as good as the SEC. The thing I don't understand is this whole "trading gear for tattoos" scandal that SI exposed, which seemed to me a very non-scandal. Like I would expect that at every school. I would expect you could find dead bodies and raped women galore around Columbus, if you actually wanted to look around.
#3: TEXAS LONGHORNS (106-23, .822 winning percentage) - I have not felt the ju-ju of doing these blurbs so fuck actual commentary that cares about college football. I like Texas for some simple reasons, despite their famous pedigree (although I root against them whenever they have gay fantasy QBs like Colt McCoy or Chris Simms). They were the home to Ricky Williams, Cedric Benson, and Earl Campbell. Their fans do the sign of the devil, and because of this one time there was a picture of newly elected President George W. Bush doing the devil horns while wearing a ZZ Top hat. I thought that was pretty awesome. I mean, it would've been more awesome if he hadn't have been the fake figurehead to help fuck up this country entirely to prepare it for the end of the American Empire, but hey, ZZ Top is pretty awesome, so that makes up for it all.
#4: USC TROJANS (105-24, .814 winning percentage) - There is not a more despicable college athletics program than USC football. From the ugly red to the yellow trojan logo to the honorable tradition of not having names on the back of their jersey to the paid players who helped run Pete Carroll back into the NFL before the hammer fell on the post-Reggie Bush era. Whatever happened to Lendale White? That dude was awesome. I always thought he was like Ice Cube from Boyz-n-Tha-Hood, growed up and playing football. Also, it makes me sad all Samoan players - whom I tend to love - either end up playing at USC (if they like pussy) or BYU or Utah (if they like Mormon Jesus). Seems like we should be offering those people more choices in life by now.
#5: OKLAHOMA SOONERS (109-26, .807 winning percentage) - Oklahoma is a pretty depleted place, that I find it hard to believe one of the nation's best programs is there. Really, after the pilfering of the Big 12, which is back down to 10, after being the Big 8 forever, it's really just a case now of Texas & Oklahoma and their sorry little brothers. You feel kind of bad for the two of them, because they probably could just jump to somewhere else and the conference would crumble, but they didn't. And then Texas A&M snuck in the back door to the SEC, which also is funny, because now either Oklahoma or Texas could be that even numbered team to go to the SEC and leave the other one hanging. Or both could go. I really don't care; but Texas A&M vs. Arkansas showdowns seem more like big Southwest Conference games than SEC games. This means I'm old as fuck.
#6: TEXAS CHRISTIAN HORNED FROGS (98-27, .784 winning percentage) - TCU going to the Big East next year is the dumbest of all the geographically challenged team moves, especially considering the Big East is a pretty declining conference when it comes to football anyways, to the point if somebody cherry-picked West Virginia, there'd be pretty much nothing left. Plus, TCU is going to have to travel three of four states for every opponent possible in that conference. UConn/TCU showdowns just don't really do it for me on paper. I wish all the non-BCS conferences jumped into a regulation system like Euro soccer, and like the best 8 teams from all those lower conferences over the past two or three years would form a super little conference each year, and newly successful teams could move up or get dropped if they started sucking. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure how great even that would be, because it would be like BYU, TCU, Boise State, and I'm not really sure anybody else from the non-BCS conferences are that good. So I guess it's a stupid idea.
#7: LSU TIGERS (102-29, .779 winning percentage) - I like LSU. They have pretty uniforms, and I don't mind the fact that half their offense beat up some dude outside of a bar, because it was apparently over a girl, and also because I expect them to be thugged out because they are Lil Boosie's favorite football team. Lil Boosie will probably be the first rapper to end up getting executed for being a gangsta. And yet his voice sounds like a cartoon got hit in the nuts. But that's what happens in Louisiana - you set your own style, your style is not set for you by others. That's why LSU has always had such swagger.
#8: FLORIDA GATORS (98-32, .754 winning percentage) - Did Urban Meyer actually retire? I think he tried to once but then didn't and then maybe he did, but I don't know for sure. I do know that ever since that Ron Zoot dude (or whatever his name was) that every time a major college football team hires a coach that the retarded fan base doesn't like, somebody rushes onto godaddy to register the "firestupidcoach.com" domain and throw up an angry picture and start a message board. I have dabbled in message board culture, and it's a pretty decrepit underpit to America's cyber pop culture, but college football message boards, all about one team, man they are the worst. And there's one for EVERY team, even the worst ones. There are people on a Florida International football message board right now, being all pissed out about something completely inconsequential. Which ultimately that's what the internet's best at - making us emotional about some dumb shit that doesn't really matter.
#9: VIRGINIA TECH HOKIES (99-34, .744 winning percentage) - I always pull for in-state teams, and Tech has been the closest this state has ever gotten to competing for a national football championship at the top level in my lifetime. I was so geeked for that Virginia Tech/Florida State title game where the black Mike Vick was juking motherfuckers constantly. One time, I accidentally met Frank Beamer in a Starbucks. He was on a recruiting trip and right behind me in line and I thought it was him, but the dude was tiny as fuck. Then when he placed his order, I realized it was actually him because he had a big, gaudy ass championship ring of some sort on his finger. So when he came over to put sugar and cream in his coffee like me and like any god-fearing Southern man who knows that chai lattes and crap like that is a stepping stone towards anal sex, I told him that I had friends down in Blacksburg, and they really appreciated how he put the school on people's radar. He said thanks, and then I left thinking about how he exploits the raw athletic talent of wild, underprivileged negroes, and makes millions of dollars a year to do so, and I felt sad for this world, that something like that would be respected.
#10: UTAH UTES (92-32, .742 winning percentage) - Utah, much like Boise State, has thrived in a lesser conference. Now they be all up in the Pac-12, and I ain't gonna lie, I'm excited about Pac-10 football this year. I watched that Oregon/Oregon State game at the end of the year last year, and it was rivalry fury in effect, plus Oregon State had those pimp ass matte black helmets, and I think the Pac-12 did good, although I wouldn't have taken Colorado into my league, even though it matched the big state school philosophical blueprint. The Utes are still flying high from Urban Meyer's earlier building dynasties talents. Urban Meyer is the most brilliant man on earth. If I met him at a Starbucks, I would totally be like, "Hey Urban Meyer, let's make small talk because you are famous."
#11: GEORGIA BULLDOGS (96-34, .738 winning percentage) - Out of all the teams that made this list, Georgia surprised the most. I know they are good, but they've not been on top of the SEC outright at all, but I guess they are consistently near the top. Still though, they've not contended for a National title like other SEC heavyweights on this Bully List of the past decade. They do got some big, scary ass country boys - both black and white - down in Georgia though. I've been in some situations down that way, making trouble along back roads.
#12: AUBURN TIGERS (93-35, .727 winning percentage) - I find Auburn a boring and reprehensible football program. It was sad to see Cam Newton's bought and paid for services help them win the title last year. But I guess people in Alabama ain't got much except for overweight children, a barely functional literacy, and a dark sad future where they max out their credit cards at Wal-Mart Supercenters every year up until they get their Earned Income Credit refund when they tax return come in.
#13: OREGON DUCKS (89-37, .706 winning percentage) - The Ducks have more uniforms than some conferences have in their entire history. It is a running sports meme joke, but really, that doesn't get at the ridiculous stupidity of it all, being it comes from the Nike dude just trying to drum up merchandising anyways, and help tie it to his stupid alma mater. I am cool with where I graduated college, and I'd certainly give them some shine where there any reason for me to have shine of my own to give out to others, but I wouldn't try to force corporate marketing bullshit overload on folks to brainwash them into thinking my old school is the real deal. I might give them acid though and tell them how cool it was, being I sold a lot of acid while I was in college. Tripping acid too, not like concrete etching acid or body disappearing acid like Mexican drug cartels use or anything. In case you were wondering.
#14: WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS (88-38, .698 winning percentage) - West Virginia is a consistently good football program that never really gets the love from the other power conferences, mostly because no one ever clamors for the prestigious West Virginia market, and there ain't no high profile recruiting going in there. But if you were wanting a solid program, they'd be your team. I was always disappointed the ACC didn't take West Virginia in instead of Boston College, because it makes more sense geographically and rivalry-wise, as the yearly West Virginia/Virginia Tech games used to be great. But college football ain't about making sense, it's about making money bro. (Yeah, I could've done "making dollars" but it was too obvious, plus made me think of DJ Quik, so now I just want to wrap this up so I can go listen to some DJ Quik real loud in the other room. So let's end this.)
Tuesday, February 22
MNZ: Washingtonian September 2010
A bonus pick-up from the free magazine library bin, this is the Washington area's introductory piece on Donovan McNabb, him smiling happily on the cover, holding a football, asking "Can this man save the Redskins?" Well, that didn't turn out so well. Funny thing about finding this was I got it around the same time Dan Snyder was suing the Washington City Paper (one of those weekly alternative rags) for a piece from last November detailing a long list of infractions Snyder has committed on humanity. Basically, the gist of the story is Dan Snyder is a scummy fucker, albeit a billionaire who can do whatever he wants, and owns the Redskins, and most likely will run them completely into the ground. None of this seems unlikely to me, and what shocked me about the Washington City Paper piece was, before I read it, I didn't think I could hate Dan Snyder more. Somehow by the end, I did. Of course, no one (including me) didn't really know about the article until Dan Snyder made a big point during the Super Bowl week of suing them over the article, claiming some really nonsensical things (like anti-semitism) and basically threatening to just tie them up financially with lawsuits to bankrupt them... not exactly endearing threats from a guy struggling to maintain a positive image as owner of one of the most valuable sports franchises on earth.
But the Washingtonian article really gets at more of what Snyder is about - media manipulation. The article on McNabb is really nothing more than a fluff piece, positioning McNabb as the first real QB the Redskins have ever had in maybe decades, and how things were going to finally be better. This is a common theme I've seen as a Redskins fan. Last year it was Donovan McNabb and Mike Shanahan. The year before that it was Albert Haynesworth. The year before that it was a changing of the guard with Jim Zorn and Vinny Cerratto being officially called what he already had been - the player personnel guy. Every year there is some shifting of the same raggedy coconut shells around in fast handed orders to make it appear like, "Yeah, we're gonna win." And the local media backs this up.
I mean, sometimes it's obvious, as Snyder owns most of the sports talk in the D.C. area. But it really seems to me he has plants inside the local papers as well. The Post pretends to be against Snyder, but they really haven't lit his ass up like you would expect, outside of the occasional columnist. Snyder creates these new auras, over and over, and pretends things are better, and people keep on spending money. It's very disheartening to me, because the only sports team I am emotionally attached to beyond logic is the Redskins. So even with no actual input on what happens, my Sundays in the fall can be ruined and depressed, and usually are, eventually. But he manipulates things back into something every spring or summer.
This year will be no different. The Skins have the 10th pick in the NFL draft, and though they need a lot of stuff, including QB, they will ignore all their basic needs or a flashy young QB prospect in a year of over-valued QB prospects, who will then be thrown into the mix too early because Donovan McNabb will be run off and Rex Grossman is Rex Grossman (meaning inherently shitty), so the rookie - even if he could be good - will be quickly turned to damaged goods by too many sacks and blitz-happy NFC East defenses having field days with him. While it would make sense to draft a NT or another OL to go with last year's pick of Trent Williams, and try to actually build a football team, they'll get a QB. The media hype will pick up around the draft in April as well, about how this QB or that QB is the next big thing, a definite Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco type with the potential to be Joe Theismann, or even an in-the-raw Joe Montana. We'll get another smiling September magazine cover face who will be the new face of the Redskins, and things will be promised all over again, how it's finally gonna be different, and a new era has finally dawned.
And then by next February, that smiling face will be tossed onto the scrap heap of our memories as well, it'll be the same ol' shit, and Dan Snyder will still be making a ton of money off of merchandising, licensing, parking fees, everything. Fuck you Dan Snyder. Fuck you.
Saturday, February 12
MNZ: Sports Illustrated January 31, 2011
Sports Illustrated is one of those vanity magazine subscriptions that offer up more purty color pictures than actual worthwhile content a lot of times, but they have to try and hold down their reputation as a place where actual quality pieces get published, so they bust out a good one now and then. This issue of SI was just such an issue, talking about Aliquippa, Pennsylvania – a shithole rundown mill town just northwest of Pittsburgh that has produced a good number of great football players over the decades (Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett, Ty Law, Sean Gilbert, Darrelle Revis). Ever since a trip a few years back where me and Boogie Brown ended up in Weirton, West Virginia, I’m intrigued by these rust belt mill towns that are all fucked-up now. Like, the ‘80s have culturally sensitized us to rundown inner-cities, but all these whole industrial towns are turning into wastelands too. In southside Virginia where the textile factories split in the last decade, there’s wastelands there. In fact, the guy in the hospital bed next to me right now is from one such place – Martinsville – and the preacher who was preaching at his bedside talked to me about used to being a weed smoker, and now is a preacher, but also a survivalist. I was halfway expecting them to bust out a rattlesnake. But that’s how it works in those types of places – hard times, hard struggles, but people who can get it together enough to get past the obstacle course have an internal drive that you don’t often find.
Aliquippa itself was interesting because of the racial tensions, and sure, the article played the whole corny “football unified us as one” storyline, which whether it’s true or not, is still corny. But people coming from hopelessly fucked situations, finding success, and yet still being drawn back to that completely warped sense of home, that’s something I enjoy reading about. I feel like it’s somewhat a characteristic of the American success story to move away from the shithole you come from, distance yourself from it philosophically and geographically, to get on the other side of the fence and abandon your roots. This has helped add to the problems of shitholes, and ensured that shitholes remain even more of a shithole. How do we make shitholes no longer shitholes? Same way we have a bunch of shit ass kids become football champions – work hard as hell, set up good discipline, and smash everyone else in the face. Thing is, most of us want to be on the other side of the fence, not in a bad place, and our the financial cultural ways of our predatory credit system has allowed a lot of us to pretend we got it good in suburban enclaves as opposed to trapped in the obvious decay of semi-urban communities like Aliquippa, where there’s at least a good rundown part of town to show and prove that, yeah, shit ain’t like it once was, because there used to be things for sale in all those empty windows. But we tend to remove and shelter ourselves now, so we don’t know if we have it bad or our neighbors do or what. We just keep poking along, making minimum payments, hoping it all picks back up. It won’t though. A lot more of us are doomed than we realize.
Of course, some of us have always learned how to get by. Like the survivalist preacher for the dude next to me in the hospital room was saying, a country boy will survive. Except it ain’t just country boys. You grow up in the wasteland, you learn how to survive. So really the same thing that ended up making Aliquippa football a powerhouse in western Pennsylvania high school athletics will end up either making or breaking America on the world stage again. When times get worse, as they will, will this be a breeding ground for ass kickers who come up hungry to conquer the world anew, or will we just end up a slowly dying nation of overweight weaklings not understanding why we don’t have all the same nice shit our parents had.
Sunday, December 19
Weekly Recap
Look at this, a weekly recap. But what to recap? Ain't been doing shit, though it's probably more than most humans do, but it ain't shit to me. Not enough release of the words which are like a tea kettle steaming inside my fucking brain all day long, wandering through the workaday, thankful yet hateful if that makes any sense.
But hey, the Redskins have not disbanded, though they've become even more embarrassing than ever before (which is really amazing when you think about it). I'm sure this spring they will sign like one dude and draft one dude and those two dudes will magically make them the best team ever yet again. Anyways, Armchair Linebacker is the greatest NFL football blog there is inside the cyberlordz, and I am still covering the Redskins. This past week that meant a recap of the shitty Buccaneers game and talking about roster changes in the wake of McNabbgate 2. Also, if you missed my weekly NFL rankings things from here or heavy.com or wherever the fuck they were at one point, they are now there, including this past week's round-up of the playoff bound.
Also, even though I have not yet put it in the sidebar of links (which I really need to update anyways), there is a hip hop blog I am now part of as well, called Good News & Bad Dope. Though I had brief nonsensical write-ups about a CunningLynguists remix and a The Streets song, the real thing there that I think is a good internet thing is the Xpert whiteboYZ Video Countdown #002. Hopefully I will fuck around and do one of those every Friday. Or not. Really it's hard to say with me.
Also there are still Rojonekku t-shirts available. Check the sidebar. T-shirts come with a zine that will only go to t-shirt buyers, not be internetted (not by me at least) as well as a mix CD. They make a great new year's gift to yourself after the Xmas 10% tithe of your wages for useless bullshit. All proceeds go to a fund to buy my rojonekku students kindles to read secretly downloadable guides to destroying the world from within. Every dollar helps this world end quicker. Won't you help?
Finally, I am starting a group haiku/renga thing through the electronic mails, so if you are interested in something along those lines, please be emailing me to the email along the sidebar over there on the right side. If I forget to talk to you before then, have a great holiday.
But hey, the Redskins have not disbanded, though they've become even more embarrassing than ever before (which is really amazing when you think about it). I'm sure this spring they will sign like one dude and draft one dude and those two dudes will magically make them the best team ever yet again. Anyways, Armchair Linebacker is the greatest NFL football blog there is inside the cyberlordz, and I am still covering the Redskins. This past week that meant a recap of the shitty Buccaneers game and talking about roster changes in the wake of McNabbgate 2. Also, if you missed my weekly NFL rankings things from here or heavy.com or wherever the fuck they were at one point, they are now there, including this past week's round-up of the playoff bound.
Also, even though I have not yet put it in the sidebar of links (which I really need to update anyways), there is a hip hop blog I am now part of as well, called Good News & Bad Dope. Though I had brief nonsensical write-ups about a CunningLynguists remix and a The Streets song, the real thing there that I think is a good internet thing is the Xpert whiteboYZ Video Countdown #002. Hopefully I will fuck around and do one of those every Friday. Or not. Really it's hard to say with me.
Also there are still Rojonekku t-shirts available. Check the sidebar. T-shirts come with a zine that will only go to t-shirt buyers, not be internetted (not by me at least) as well as a mix CD. They make a great new year's gift to yourself after the Xmas 10% tithe of your wages for useless bullshit. All proceeds go to a fund to buy my rojonekku students kindles to read secretly downloadable guides to destroying the world from within. Every dollar helps this world end quicker. Won't you help?
Finally, I am starting a group haiku/renga thing through the electronic mails, so if you are interested in something along those lines, please be emailing me to the email along the sidebar over there on the right side. If I forget to talk to you before then, have a great holiday.
Thursday, December 2
S14: Worst College Football Teams
All the loser teams are done for the year, so there will be no reason to revisit this list again. Therefore these are your official 14 shittiest college football teams, all divisions and classes, of the year 2010 of our fake lord…
#1: LIVINGSTONE BLUE BEARS (0-11, 40.545 avg. margin of defeat, #1 last time) – Closed out on a high note, losing at Johnson C. Smith, 26 to 13, their closest game of the year. Outscored on the year 494 to 48.
#2: VALPARAISO CRUSADERS (0-11, 37.636 avg. margin of defeat, #4 last time) – Closed out the year with some solid road losses at Campbell (56 to 14) and Morehead State (37 to 15). Outscored on the year 514 to 100.
#3: EDWARD WATERS TIGERS (0-8, 36.375 avg. margin of defeat, #2 last time) – They did play their closest game of the year after the last Shit List, losing at North Carolina Central 20 to 7. They closed out with a road loss to Lambuth, outscored on the year by a total of 382 to 91.
#4: ANNA MARIA CATS (0-10, 35.900 avg. margin of defeat, #9 last time) – In a conference with such traditional lightweights as Husson, Becker, and Gallaudet, the Anna Maria Cats hulked up and went 0 for the year, closing out with a road loss to Mount Ida, 69 to 18. They were outplayed 536 to 177 on the year, but they had a story about their dumbasses in Sports Illustrated.
#5: JUNIATA EAGLES (0-10, 35.700 avg. margin of defeat, #11 last time) – They did break double digits for the third time this season in their next-to-last game against Dickinson, 41 to 14, but closed out with a solid home loss to Washington & Lee, 45 to 3, to finish 0 for the year. They were outscored 414 to 57 on the year, and they sucked.
#6: DORDT DEFENDERS (0-10, 35.100 avg. margin of defeat, #8 last time) – Oddly enough they closed the year out hosting one of the top teams on the Bully List, Sioux Falls, and only lost 49 to 0, which has to be considered good for them. On the year, they were outscored 385 to 34, and only got double digits one time – in a 36 to 10 loss at Doane.
#7: BETHEL THRESHERS (0-10, 34.900 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – Bethel ended up being one of the NAIA’s worst teams, closing out their season with a 47 to 0 road loss to McPherson, and a 62 to 14 road loss to Sterling. Congratulations Threshers, you’ve somehow made an awesome sounding team soft as fuck. Year-end total? 494 to 145, the other guys.
#8: LOCK HAVEN BALD EAGLES (0-11, 33.091 avg. margin of defeat, #5 last time) – Beat out Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference rival Cheyney in their yearly quest to be the worst team in Division II football. They did score double digits their last four games, even breaking 30 for the first tie this year in a 63 to 31 loss at Indiana of Pennsylvania in their next to last game, so there is that to build on for next year I guess. Outscored 501 to 137 on the year.
#9: EARLHAM QUAKERS (0-10, 31.000 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – “The Earlham Quakers” is one of those things that is so perfectly NCAA Division III that nothing I could write to mock it would be as good as what you probably already thought. Outscored on the year 422 to 112.
#10: TRINITY BIBLE LIONS (0-7, 31.000 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – The Trinity Bible Lions are completely unaffiliated with any college league or class or conference even, and hodgepodged together a schedule that they went 0-7 with, being outscored 303 to 86 on the season. Congratulations Bible Lions of Ellendale, North Dakota, who are upholding the infamy of their 2005 team that lost to Rockford 105 to 0 very well. They also were the first team in a doubleheader scheduled by Northwestern College in 2005, meaning Northwestern was like, “Fuck it, we’ll play this team to warm up for the second team,” with no thought of losing. That’s pretty bad.
#11: WESTERN CONNECTICUT STATE COLONIALS (0-10, 30.800 avg. margin of defeat, #12 last time) – The Colonials did close out the year with one of their better performances, only losing at SUNY-Morrisville by a 48 to 25 score. Finished the year being outclocked 420 to 112. 420 bros, never forget.
#12: PACE SETTERS (0-9, 30.444 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – You know, normally I would like to try and say something regarding the team specifically, but this is Pace’s first time on the Shit List and I absolutely amazed that they would call themselves the Pace Setters. That’s like the stupidest fucking thing ever. And when you hear that, my immediate reaction was, “Oh, well it’s probably some little Division III school in the mideast.” But no, it’s a Division II team, at a level of NCAA participation that you’d expect them to know better. Anyways, they were beaten on the year by 418 to 144.
#13: MACMURRAY HIGHLANDERS (0-10, 30.200 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – The Highlanders bounced in and out of the Shit List this year, finishing the year with losses to places that sound made up like St. Scholastica and Westminster of Missouri. End of year scoreboard is 462 made up sounding assortment of teams, 160 MacMurray.
#14: OLIVET NAZARENE TIGERS (0-11, 30.182 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – Finished on a down enough note to sneak into the final Shit List. Outscored on the year 511 to 179. Their NAIA Mid-States Football Association had a second 0-11 team – Quincy – who bounced around on this list as well this year.
Gone from this list from last time: #3 Culver-Stockton Wildcats (defeated Graceland on the road, 38 to 33, on Halloween weekend; I had to look up Graceland University because I wasn’t sure that was a real thing, but apparently it is), #6 Texas College Steers (the team that at one point seemed a lock to finish this year as the worst team in college football pulled off a 27 to 13 win, on the road even, at the Southwestern Assemblies of God Faith Healers, the last Saturday of the season), #7 Pacific Boxer (never won, finishing 0-9, but their last game at Menlo they only lost 44 to 42, which apparently was enough for my calculator), #10 Olivet Fighting Comets (also never won, finishing 0-10, but only lost by 14 and 7 their last two games), #13 Savannah State Tigers (beat North Carolina Central 28 to 21, and then lost their last game of the year to finish 1-10), and #14 Quincy Hawks (did not win either, finishing 0-11, but only lost to a Waldorf school their final game, 21 to 17).
#1: LIVINGSTONE BLUE BEARS (0-11, 40.545 avg. margin of defeat, #1 last time) – Closed out on a high note, losing at Johnson C. Smith, 26 to 13, their closest game of the year. Outscored on the year 494 to 48.
#2: VALPARAISO CRUSADERS (0-11, 37.636 avg. margin of defeat, #4 last time) – Closed out the year with some solid road losses at Campbell (56 to 14) and Morehead State (37 to 15). Outscored on the year 514 to 100.
#3: EDWARD WATERS TIGERS (0-8, 36.375 avg. margin of defeat, #2 last time) – They did play their closest game of the year after the last Shit List, losing at North Carolina Central 20 to 7. They closed out with a road loss to Lambuth, outscored on the year by a total of 382 to 91.
#4: ANNA MARIA CATS (0-10, 35.900 avg. margin of defeat, #9 last time) – In a conference with such traditional lightweights as Husson, Becker, and Gallaudet, the Anna Maria Cats hulked up and went 0 for the year, closing out with a road loss to Mount Ida, 69 to 18. They were outplayed 536 to 177 on the year, but they had a story about their dumbasses in Sports Illustrated.
#5: JUNIATA EAGLES (0-10, 35.700 avg. margin of defeat, #11 last time) – They did break double digits for the third time this season in their next-to-last game against Dickinson, 41 to 14, but closed out with a solid home loss to Washington & Lee, 45 to 3, to finish 0 for the year. They were outscored 414 to 57 on the year, and they sucked.
#6: DORDT DEFENDERS (0-10, 35.100 avg. margin of defeat, #8 last time) – Oddly enough they closed the year out hosting one of the top teams on the Bully List, Sioux Falls, and only lost 49 to 0, which has to be considered good for them. On the year, they were outscored 385 to 34, and only got double digits one time – in a 36 to 10 loss at Doane.
#7: BETHEL THRESHERS (0-10, 34.900 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – Bethel ended up being one of the NAIA’s worst teams, closing out their season with a 47 to 0 road loss to McPherson, and a 62 to 14 road loss to Sterling. Congratulations Threshers, you’ve somehow made an awesome sounding team soft as fuck. Year-end total? 494 to 145, the other guys.
#8: LOCK HAVEN BALD EAGLES (0-11, 33.091 avg. margin of defeat, #5 last time) – Beat out Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference rival Cheyney in their yearly quest to be the worst team in Division II football. They did score double digits their last four games, even breaking 30 for the first tie this year in a 63 to 31 loss at Indiana of Pennsylvania in their next to last game, so there is that to build on for next year I guess. Outscored 501 to 137 on the year.
#9: EARLHAM QUAKERS (0-10, 31.000 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – “The Earlham Quakers” is one of those things that is so perfectly NCAA Division III that nothing I could write to mock it would be as good as what you probably already thought. Outscored on the year 422 to 112.
#10: TRINITY BIBLE LIONS (0-7, 31.000 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – The Trinity Bible Lions are completely unaffiliated with any college league or class or conference even, and hodgepodged together a schedule that they went 0-7 with, being outscored 303 to 86 on the season. Congratulations Bible Lions of Ellendale, North Dakota, who are upholding the infamy of their 2005 team that lost to Rockford 105 to 0 very well. They also were the first team in a doubleheader scheduled by Northwestern College in 2005, meaning Northwestern was like, “Fuck it, we’ll play this team to warm up for the second team,” with no thought of losing. That’s pretty bad.
#11: WESTERN CONNECTICUT STATE COLONIALS (0-10, 30.800 avg. margin of defeat, #12 last time) – The Colonials did close out the year with one of their better performances, only losing at SUNY-Morrisville by a 48 to 25 score. Finished the year being outclocked 420 to 112. 420 bros, never forget.
#12: PACE SETTERS (0-9, 30.444 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – You know, normally I would like to try and say something regarding the team specifically, but this is Pace’s first time on the Shit List and I absolutely amazed that they would call themselves the Pace Setters. That’s like the stupidest fucking thing ever. And when you hear that, my immediate reaction was, “Oh, well it’s probably some little Division III school in the mideast.” But no, it’s a Division II team, at a level of NCAA participation that you’d expect them to know better. Anyways, they were beaten on the year by 418 to 144.
#13: MACMURRAY HIGHLANDERS (0-10, 30.200 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – The Highlanders bounced in and out of the Shit List this year, finishing the year with losses to places that sound made up like St. Scholastica and Westminster of Missouri. End of year scoreboard is 462 made up sounding assortment of teams, 160 MacMurray.
#14: OLIVET NAZARENE TIGERS (0-11, 30.182 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last time) – Finished on a down enough note to sneak into the final Shit List. Outscored on the year 511 to 179. Their NAIA Mid-States Football Association had a second 0-11 team – Quincy – who bounced around on this list as well this year.
Gone from this list from last time: #3 Culver-Stockton Wildcats (defeated Graceland on the road, 38 to 33, on Halloween weekend; I had to look up Graceland University because I wasn’t sure that was a real thing, but apparently it is), #6 Texas College Steers (the team that at one point seemed a lock to finish this year as the worst team in college football pulled off a 27 to 13 win, on the road even, at the Southwestern Assemblies of God Faith Healers, the last Saturday of the season), #7 Pacific Boxer (never won, finishing 0-9, but their last game at Menlo they only lost 44 to 42, which apparently was enough for my calculator), #10 Olivet Fighting Comets (also never won, finishing 0-10, but only lost by 14 and 7 their last two games), #13 Savannah State Tigers (beat North Carolina Central 28 to 21, and then lost their last game of the year to finish 1-10), and #14 Quincy Hawks (did not win either, finishing 0-11, but only lost to a Waldorf school their final game, 21 to 17).
S14: Best College Football Teams
I hadn’t done one of these in a long ass time, mostly because there’s only so much time you can waste on dumb shit like this for free. But with lower division playoffs in full process of elimination swing, and the retarded BCS settings about to be settled after this last weekend, I figured I’d throw up one more of the Bully List. I’ll probably try to do one final one as well after the BCS championship game, but let’s look at things as they stand now the beginning of December, 2010, America, Earth…
#1: OREGON DUCKS (11-0, 38.182 avg. margin of victory, #2 last time) – The Ducks are set to head into the BCS title game sometime next March if they can avoid slipping up against Oregon State this weekend in what they call the Civil War. Other than a 15 to 13 nailbiter at Cal, Oregon has not even been close most weeks.
#2: SIOUX FALLS COUGARS (12-0, 35.250 avg. margin of victory, #3 last time) – They haven’t been winning by 45 anymore, but even after two weeks of the NAIA playoffs, the Sioux Falls Cougars have not really been played closely in a game, giving them a good shot at winning their 3rd NAIA championship in five years. The NAIA semifinals are this weekend, with the top 4 ranked teams in that league the only ones standing. Sioux Falls will host Mid-America Nazarene, who just missed making this list for the first time.
#3: MINNESOTA-DULUTH BULLDOGS (12-0, 35.182 avg. margin of victory, #6 last time) – The Bulldogs, who went into the Division II playoffs as the #1 ranked team in the country at that level, barely cranked out a win last weekend hosting St. Cloud State, 20 to 17. This weekend, in the round of 8, they host #9 ranked Augustana of South Dakota.
#4: ST. XAVIER COUGARS (13-0, 34.692 avg. margin of victory, #4 last time) – St. Xavier is one of the other Final 4 of the NAIA powerhouses, and in the first round of those playoffs two weeks ago, hosting Cumberlands, they crushed 66 to 19. That’s in the playoffs. Last week, they only won 40 to 2 over St. Francis, and this week, they travel up to frigid Montana to play Carroll, who is also undefeated, and lower down on this list.
#5: MOUNT UNION RAIDERS (12-0, 33.667 avg. margin of victory, #11 last time) – The difference between Mount Union as a perennial D3 powerhouse and other teams in the playoffs is that they continue to stomp once the regular season is done. First round, they hosted St. Lawrence and whomped them 49 to 0. Second round, also hosting, they beat Delaware Valley, 31 to 3. This week, they host Alfred, who weren’t even ranked Top 25 in D3 going into the playoffs, but have won road upsets over SUNY-Maritime and Cortland State to get to the Division III quarterfinals. The championship game is actually played like two hours from where I live, yet I have never gone. Probably won’t this year either. This week they play #4 D3 team Mary Hardin-Baylor.
#6: WESLEY WOLVERINES (11-0, 32.364 avg. margin of victory, #10 last time) – Wesley was #3 ranked going into the D3 playoffs, and has crushed as well thus far, beating Muhlenberg 53 to 14 in the first round (much to John Prine’s dismay), and Montclair State 44 to 7.
#7: WISCONSIN-WHITEWATER WARHAWKS (12-0, 32.167 avg. margin of victory, #1 last time) – The Warhawks, #1 ranked D3 team, fell a few notches since the last time I did this. First round of the D3 playoffs, they beat Franklin 52 to 21, and last week hosted the Trine Thunder (who have for most of the year been on this Bully List as well) and won 45 to 31. This week, they host another consistent Bully List team in the North Central Cardinals of somewhere in Illinois.
#8: TEXAS CHRISTIAN HORNED FROGS (12-0, 31.917 avg. margin of victory, #12 last time) – TCU wrapped up their regular season by ass-raping New Mexico, 66 to 17, in New Mexico last weekend. Now they wait to see what bowl they’ll go to. Very anti-climactic is this BCS, like every team makes themselves a sales pitch and a group of executives go behind closed doors and then come back and tell all the sales pitchers who got the account and who didn’t. I am hoping Auburn loses to South Carolina this weekend, because I’d like to see TCU get a shot, although I’m sure even if Auburn loses, the BCS will screw TCU out of it and send them off to like the Sugar Bowl to play Virginia Tech or something.
#9: NORTH CENTRAL CARDINALS (12-0, 31.583 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – #6 ranked D3 team, who hosted and beat St. Norbert, 57 to 7, then the same to Ohio Northern, but only 28 to 9. Now they travel up to Wisconsin to take on the mighty mighty warhawks.
#10: MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR CRUSADERS (12-0, 30.833 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – This list is pretty much just Division III teams. The Crusaders are the #4 ranked team in D3, yet have to play the #3 ranked team this weekend in the quarterfinals. Thus far in the playoffs, Mary Hardin-Baylor, both games at home, beat Christopher Newport 59 to 7, and then Thomas More 69 to 7. In fact, the Crusaders did not make this list this year, having played a number of closer games the first half of the season. But their last three regular season games they outscored their opponents by a combined 202 to 18 margin. That’s three games. In fact, since barely winning at East Texas Baptist in the middle of October, 32 to 28, they have not won by less than 42 points.
#11: ST. THOMAS TOMMIES (12-0, 29.167 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – #5 ranked D3 team, who last week in the second round of the playoffs needed double overtime to beat #12 Linfield by a 24 to 17 margin. This week they play Bethel of Minnesota, in the round of Division III 8.
#12: SOUTH ALABAMA JAGUARS (10-0, 28.300 avg. margin of victory, #5 last time) – South Alabama wrapped up their season undefeated, a perfect 10-0, after home wins against Henderson State and Arkansas-Monticello. Season done, so as all these other playoff-eligible teams on this list eventually pick each other off, the Jaguars will probably finish top five or so on the final list, simply by being undefeated.
#13: CARROLL FIGHTING SAINTS (12-0, 26.250 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – Carroll is the #2 team in NAIA football, and their home is Helena, Montana, which will be rocking this Saturday afternoon – okay, maybe not – when St. Xavier comes to town, probably by bus.
#14: WILLIAMS EPHS (8-0, 23.250 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – The Ephs are the undefeated champions of the New England Small College Athletic Conference, which is an NCAA Division III conference, but considers itself the Little Ivies, and has a shortened season and no post-season eligibility. The NESCAC is also the only conference in all of college football where the member teams play nobody from outside the conference, ever. The NESCAC has allowed other sports champions to play in NCAA championship tournaments though, and they have done well in the whiter sports, but there is absolutely no way to know how Williams would compare to other D3 schools.
Gone from this list from last time: #7 Trine Thunder (lost at Wisconsin-Whitewater 45 to 31 last weekend), #8 Boise State Broncos (lost at Nevada last weekend, 34 to 31, haha fuckers), #9 Utah Utes (actually lost to both Texas Christian and Notre Dame since the last time I done did this), #13 McPherson Bulldogs (lost to McKendree in the first round of the NAIA playoffs), and #14 Wittenberg Tigers (lost to Ohio Northern in the first round of the Division III playoffs).
#1: OREGON DUCKS (11-0, 38.182 avg. margin of victory, #2 last time) – The Ducks are set to head into the BCS title game sometime next March if they can avoid slipping up against Oregon State this weekend in what they call the Civil War. Other than a 15 to 13 nailbiter at Cal, Oregon has not even been close most weeks.
#2: SIOUX FALLS COUGARS (12-0, 35.250 avg. margin of victory, #3 last time) – They haven’t been winning by 45 anymore, but even after two weeks of the NAIA playoffs, the Sioux Falls Cougars have not really been played closely in a game, giving them a good shot at winning their 3rd NAIA championship in five years. The NAIA semifinals are this weekend, with the top 4 ranked teams in that league the only ones standing. Sioux Falls will host Mid-America Nazarene, who just missed making this list for the first time.
#3: MINNESOTA-DULUTH BULLDOGS (12-0, 35.182 avg. margin of victory, #6 last time) – The Bulldogs, who went into the Division II playoffs as the #1 ranked team in the country at that level, barely cranked out a win last weekend hosting St. Cloud State, 20 to 17. This weekend, in the round of 8, they host #9 ranked Augustana of South Dakota.
#4: ST. XAVIER COUGARS (13-0, 34.692 avg. margin of victory, #4 last time) – St. Xavier is one of the other Final 4 of the NAIA powerhouses, and in the first round of those playoffs two weeks ago, hosting Cumberlands, they crushed 66 to 19. That’s in the playoffs. Last week, they only won 40 to 2 over St. Francis, and this week, they travel up to frigid Montana to play Carroll, who is also undefeated, and lower down on this list.
#5: MOUNT UNION RAIDERS (12-0, 33.667 avg. margin of victory, #11 last time) – The difference between Mount Union as a perennial D3 powerhouse and other teams in the playoffs is that they continue to stomp once the regular season is done. First round, they hosted St. Lawrence and whomped them 49 to 0. Second round, also hosting, they beat Delaware Valley, 31 to 3. This week, they host Alfred, who weren’t even ranked Top 25 in D3 going into the playoffs, but have won road upsets over SUNY-Maritime and Cortland State to get to the Division III quarterfinals. The championship game is actually played like two hours from where I live, yet I have never gone. Probably won’t this year either. This week they play #4 D3 team Mary Hardin-Baylor.
#6: WESLEY WOLVERINES (11-0, 32.364 avg. margin of victory, #10 last time) – Wesley was #3 ranked going into the D3 playoffs, and has crushed as well thus far, beating Muhlenberg 53 to 14 in the first round (much to John Prine’s dismay), and Montclair State 44 to 7.
#7: WISCONSIN-WHITEWATER WARHAWKS (12-0, 32.167 avg. margin of victory, #1 last time) – The Warhawks, #1 ranked D3 team, fell a few notches since the last time I did this. First round of the D3 playoffs, they beat Franklin 52 to 21, and last week hosted the Trine Thunder (who have for most of the year been on this Bully List as well) and won 45 to 31. This week, they host another consistent Bully List team in the North Central Cardinals of somewhere in Illinois.
#8: TEXAS CHRISTIAN HORNED FROGS (12-0, 31.917 avg. margin of victory, #12 last time) – TCU wrapped up their regular season by ass-raping New Mexico, 66 to 17, in New Mexico last weekend. Now they wait to see what bowl they’ll go to. Very anti-climactic is this BCS, like every team makes themselves a sales pitch and a group of executives go behind closed doors and then come back and tell all the sales pitchers who got the account and who didn’t. I am hoping Auburn loses to South Carolina this weekend, because I’d like to see TCU get a shot, although I’m sure even if Auburn loses, the BCS will screw TCU out of it and send them off to like the Sugar Bowl to play Virginia Tech or something.
#9: NORTH CENTRAL CARDINALS (12-0, 31.583 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – #6 ranked D3 team, who hosted and beat St. Norbert, 57 to 7, then the same to Ohio Northern, but only 28 to 9. Now they travel up to Wisconsin to take on the mighty mighty warhawks.
#10: MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR CRUSADERS (12-0, 30.833 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – This list is pretty much just Division III teams. The Crusaders are the #4 ranked team in D3, yet have to play the #3 ranked team this weekend in the quarterfinals. Thus far in the playoffs, Mary Hardin-Baylor, both games at home, beat Christopher Newport 59 to 7, and then Thomas More 69 to 7. In fact, the Crusaders did not make this list this year, having played a number of closer games the first half of the season. But their last three regular season games they outscored their opponents by a combined 202 to 18 margin. That’s three games. In fact, since barely winning at East Texas Baptist in the middle of October, 32 to 28, they have not won by less than 42 points.
#11: ST. THOMAS TOMMIES (12-0, 29.167 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – #5 ranked D3 team, who last week in the second round of the playoffs needed double overtime to beat #12 Linfield by a 24 to 17 margin. This week they play Bethel of Minnesota, in the round of Division III 8.
#12: SOUTH ALABAMA JAGUARS (10-0, 28.300 avg. margin of victory, #5 last time) – South Alabama wrapped up their season undefeated, a perfect 10-0, after home wins against Henderson State and Arkansas-Monticello. Season done, so as all these other playoff-eligible teams on this list eventually pick each other off, the Jaguars will probably finish top five or so on the final list, simply by being undefeated.
#13: CARROLL FIGHTING SAINTS (12-0, 26.250 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – Carroll is the #2 team in NAIA football, and their home is Helena, Montana, which will be rocking this Saturday afternoon – okay, maybe not – when St. Xavier comes to town, probably by bus.
#14: WILLIAMS EPHS (8-0, 23.250 avg. margin of victory, unranked last time) – The Ephs are the undefeated champions of the New England Small College Athletic Conference, which is an NCAA Division III conference, but considers itself the Little Ivies, and has a shortened season and no post-season eligibility. The NESCAC is also the only conference in all of college football where the member teams play nobody from outside the conference, ever. The NESCAC has allowed other sports champions to play in NCAA championship tournaments though, and they have done well in the whiter sports, but there is absolutely no way to know how Williams would compare to other D3 schools.
Gone from this list from last time: #7 Trine Thunder (lost at Wisconsin-Whitewater 45 to 31 last weekend), #8 Boise State Broncos (lost at Nevada last weekend, 34 to 31, haha fuckers), #9 Utah Utes (actually lost to both Texas Christian and Notre Dame since the last time I done did this), #13 McPherson Bulldogs (lost to McKendree in the first round of the NAIA playoffs), and #14 Wittenberg Tigers (lost to Ohio Northern in the first round of the Division III playoffs).
Friday, November 5
Weekly Recap
The great nonsense this week is that now there are Rojonekku t-shirts available - in the below design which is Fall '10...
I am going to run a super-limited edition set of t-shirts every season of every year, mostly because I don't have any t-shirts I like to wear so this will stock my goddamned closet up. In case the pic is too tiny, front has ROJONEKKU SS VA WORD FIGHTING ARTS and the back has a line of mine from the song "True Loungers" by Prolo - "true loungers find comfort in the hardscrabble ground". You can click the ENABLE ROJONEKKU button over there on the right to get one, cost is $20 if you get it from me real life in everyday person effect, $25 through American mail, and $30 I guess internationally, although all I'm sure on that front is Australia, and I might not even be sure on that. Specify size because like I said, quantities are mad limited. You will also receive a few other assorted goodies, including a mini-zine THAT WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF INTERNET DAY with your order.
So yeah. There is also the Amphetazine site that I am on, although I never posted my own post until last night. But the dude who runs it digs through my assorted meanderings through multiple websites and zines and guardrails and whatever else and he puts up notable shit. Here is the Amphetazine output for this past week:
something about taking the kids to the science museum, which I have no recollection of writing but is the greatest thing I've read all week
talking about why Hank Williams III is better than the rest of the punk ass country music made nowadays
an old thing about Jimmy Valiant done for Clawhold zine back in the day (what up Rocco if you're still out there!)
And then there is the Armchair Linebacker NFL football blog, which even though nobody knows about it, is one of the greatest motherfucker internetted pro football places ever. Seriously. Mad love to my man Neil as well as Harpo, LPOY, Mike Dikk, and anybody else who has made that place into what it is now. This past week, not only did I do my usual Redskins shit, but I moved my weekly NFL thing from here to there because I'd like this place to not be so much the place as a launching point, so hopefully I start launching more thing. I am big on carrots in front of my eyes lately. Anyways, my ACLB contributions this past week went a little something like this:
post Redskins/Lions game metascience positives/negatives recap
laying out all the players - major and minor - in the Redskins QB drama
week 9 NFL recap/preview/NFLuminati Index
So that's it for this week. As always, I ask that you share my nonsense with others, upon the Facecrooks or Twitters or whatever the fuck you use to pretend you are in touch with real life people. If you are with me now, I will be with you then. I am loyal to a fault, so exploit that as my explosive trajectory is still low on the cultural horizon. And together we will Scud missile the world, or at least some tiny little corner of it.
I am going to run a super-limited edition set of t-shirts every season of every year, mostly because I don't have any t-shirts I like to wear so this will stock my goddamned closet up. In case the pic is too tiny, front has ROJONEKKU SS VA WORD FIGHTING ARTS and the back has a line of mine from the song "True Loungers" by Prolo - "true loungers find comfort in the hardscrabble ground". You can click the ENABLE ROJONEKKU button over there on the right to get one, cost is $20 if you get it from me real life in everyday person effect, $25 through American mail, and $30 I guess internationally, although all I'm sure on that front is Australia, and I might not even be sure on that. Specify size because like I said, quantities are mad limited. You will also receive a few other assorted goodies, including a mini-zine THAT WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF INTERNET DAY with your order.
So yeah. There is also the Amphetazine site that I am on, although I never posted my own post until last night. But the dude who runs it digs through my assorted meanderings through multiple websites and zines and guardrails and whatever else and he puts up notable shit. Here is the Amphetazine output for this past week:
something about taking the kids to the science museum, which I have no recollection of writing but is the greatest thing I've read all week
talking about why Hank Williams III is better than the rest of the punk ass country music made nowadays
an old thing about Jimmy Valiant done for Clawhold zine back in the day (what up Rocco if you're still out there!)
And then there is the Armchair Linebacker NFL football blog, which even though nobody knows about it, is one of the greatest motherfucker internetted pro football places ever. Seriously. Mad love to my man Neil as well as Harpo, LPOY, Mike Dikk, and anybody else who has made that place into what it is now. This past week, not only did I do my usual Redskins shit, but I moved my weekly NFL thing from here to there because I'd like this place to not be so much the place as a launching point, so hopefully I start launching more thing. I am big on carrots in front of my eyes lately. Anyways, my ACLB contributions this past week went a little something like this:
post Redskins/Lions game metascience positives/negatives recap
laying out all the players - major and minor - in the Redskins QB drama
week 9 NFL recap/preview/NFLuminati Index
So that's it for this week. As always, I ask that you share my nonsense with others, upon the Facecrooks or Twitters or whatever the fuck you use to pretend you are in touch with real life people. If you are with me now, I will be with you then. I am loyal to a fault, so exploit that as my explosive trajectory is still low on the cultural horizon. And together we will Scud missile the world, or at least some tiny little corner of it.
Friday, October 29
S14: Worst College Football Teams
These are the worst teams in college football, as of this week, and I have nothing good to say about any of them. But I will make a half-hearted effort nonetheless, because this is what I do with my life.
#1: LIVINGSTONE BLUE BEARS (0-9, 44.444 avg. margin of defeat, #2 last week) – Lost at Fayetteville State, 59 to 6. You can get legal whores in trailers outside of Fayetteville. That’s the military influence on rural North Carolina. Seriously. It’s pretty goddamned cool. And even if it’s illegal, fuck it, it goes on. Things are only for-real illegal if you can’t get away with it.
#2: EDWARD WATERS TIGERS (0-6, 43.500 avg. margin of defeat, #1 last week) – They were at North Greenville and they lost 42 to 0. The bright side is 42 points is the least amount of points they’ve given up all year long. You go, historically black Edward Waters. I am going historically black for Halloween, with blackface and lambchop sideburns and an old suit with a solid gold chain watch that I’ll carry around and when I get near people, I’ll look at, rub my Frederick Douglass wig backwards and yell out, “Hot damn! It’s time fors another beer!”
#3: CULVER-STOCKTON WILDCATS (0-8, 39.875 avg. margin of defeat, #4 last week) – They lost to Benedictine of Kansas last weekend, and I am really bummed I have not finished this yet because I’d like to go masturbate. Culver-Stockton was named after Marthellus Culver and Richard “Dick” Stockton the 1st, who together were International Tandem Grappling champions from Nebraska for 11 years straight in the 1930s. They formed the college to teach cornfed bumpkins how wearing singlets and clutching at other dudes would help you grow up to be a solid man.
#4: VALPARAISO CRUSADERS (0-8, 37.750 avg. margin of defeat, #6 last week) – Only lost to San Diego, 30 to 10, last weekend, but still moved up two spots on the Shit List. A trip to San Diego was probably pretty nice for some religious school types from Indiana, which I think is where Valpo is from. Might be elsewhere. The whole midwest is like a rampant wasteland of flatness to me. I do not understand why everyone there just doesn’t dedicate themselves to demolition derbies on Friday nights and wrestling for Ian Rotten on Saturday nights.
#5: LOCK HAVEN BALD EAGLES (0-8, 37.500 avg. margin of defeat, #8 last week) – A 56 to 14 loss at Slippery Rock charged them back up the Shit List two spots. For as long as I’ve been doing these stupid things over like three years, Lock Haven has been terrible. Also, I have been sweating an awful lot lately. I am not sure why that is, but I think it’s my body finally working out some of the corporate copperhead poisons from not drinking beer so much.
#6: TEXAS COLLEGE STEERS (0-7, 37.000 avg. margin of defeat, #3 last week) – Oh man, after only losing by 9 at Oklahoma Panhandle State two weekends ago, Texas College hosted Southern Nazarene last week, and barely lost, 52 to 49. Understand in their previous six games, they had scored 50 points total, so they basically doubled how good they’ve been this year. Mad mad props to you Texas College Steers. I’m pulling for you. Raven Mack is your boy.
#7: PACIFIC BOXERS (0-6, 36.500 avg. margin of defeat, #5 last week) – They lost, 24 to 12, to Whitworth last weekend, but moved themselves down a couple notches. Most importantly is this sentence from their website though: “The clip of the amazing touchdown from Trevor Okamoto to Jordan Fukumoto is selected by D3Football.com as their Play of the Week for week eight of the NCAA Division III season.” I was gonna look it up inside the youtubes, but again, I really want to masturbate.
#8: DORDT DEFENDERS (0-8, 35.625 avg. margin of defeat, #9 last week) – Dordt lost at Midland Lutheran, 42 to 0, last weekend. Defender was cool but if I was gonna get all Ricky Schroeder on Silver Spoons and have a real live video game machine in my house, I’d get Moon Patrol. Or Spyhunter. Or fuck it, old school NBA Jams. I always played Detlef Schrempf and Sean Whatshisname that had 19 kids by 23 women.
#9: ANNA MARIA CATS (0-8, 35.125 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last week) – Holy fuck, they had gotten off this list for a couple of weeks. But last week in hosting Norwich, they dropped a tough one, 81 to 7. They also got spotlighted in one of those stupid and pretentious back page Sports Illustrated articles like two weeks back, so maybe it was the SI curse leaking into the back cover from the front. Still though, giving up 81 points is terrible, regardless of the situation or black magic involved.
#10: OLIVET FIGHTING COMETS (0-7, 34.429 avg. margin of defeat, #7 last week) – They lost against Albion, 42 to 24. Do you know why 2x4s are called that and not 4x2s? I don’t either. I was gonna make something up but then the stupid new kitten my children brought back from a yard sale was climbing into the boxes of apples on the living room floor that we still need to can before Halloween, so I had to go get my hand wet to flick water on the kitten.
#11: JUNIATA EAGLES (0-7, 34.286 avg. margin of defeat, #12 last week) – They lost vs. Moravian, 42 to 0, last weekend. Moravian vs. Juniata sounds more like some second-tier Scottish soccer rivalry to me. I read that Among the Thugs book and it made me really sad we are so commercialized here in America when it comes to major sports. Also made me want to start a 12-team soccer league where thuggery and drunkenness and chaos was encouraged, picking the absolute dregs of America to take part, like Philly and Boston and Oakland and Detroit and places where people are crazy and hopeless but still love sports.
#12: WESTERN CONNECTICUT STATE COLONIALS (0-7, 31.714 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last week) – They played Montclair State last weekend and lost, 31 to 3. Most of my experiences in Connecticut have been sketchy, so I have very little love for that state. I know a bunch of rich white asses be living in parts of it, but mostly I seem to end up at truck stops with crazy Dominicans trying to fight me by the claw machine outside the bathroom, or in hotels where the desk clerk is a hot ass Puerto Rican girl that makes me want to have sex with a hot ass Puerto Rican girl except I know that Puerto Ricans are the worst of all western hemisphere brown people.
#13: SAVANNAH STATE TIGERS (0-8, 31.500 avg. margin of defeat, #13 last week) – Savannah State lost at Alabama State, 24 to 0, giving them two straight scoreless weeks. Looks like they have this weekend off, so good for them. Then they come to Virginia, my disgusting home state, to play Old Dominion’s upstart football team. I don’t have anything more to say than that really, but I needed to type another line so that the football helmet images didn’t get jumbled together.
#14: QUINCY HAWKS (0-8, 31.375 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last week) – They lost at St. Ambrose, 44 to 7, last weekend, and that was a loss that was 44 to 7. The main thing for me about this is I’m pretty much done writing this thing that no one will read, so now I have to figure out what I want to masturbate about. Finally.
Gone from the list from last week: #10 New Mexico Lobos (30 to 20 loss to San Diego State, so they mathematically barely missed the Shit List cut), #11 MacMurray Highlanders (a game against Crown of Minnetonka ended in a 44 to 28 loss, so MacMurray still has time to return to this list), #14 Kentucky Christian Knights (a double OT loss against Lindsey Wilson, 40 to 37, so sad but not quite Shit List worthy).
#1: LIVINGSTONE BLUE BEARS (0-9, 44.444 avg. margin of defeat, #2 last week) – Lost at Fayetteville State, 59 to 6. You can get legal whores in trailers outside of Fayetteville. That’s the military influence on rural North Carolina. Seriously. It’s pretty goddamned cool. And even if it’s illegal, fuck it, it goes on. Things are only for-real illegal if you can’t get away with it.
#2: EDWARD WATERS TIGERS (0-6, 43.500 avg. margin of defeat, #1 last week) – They were at North Greenville and they lost 42 to 0. The bright side is 42 points is the least amount of points they’ve given up all year long. You go, historically black Edward Waters. I am going historically black for Halloween, with blackface and lambchop sideburns and an old suit with a solid gold chain watch that I’ll carry around and when I get near people, I’ll look at, rub my Frederick Douglass wig backwards and yell out, “Hot damn! It’s time fors another beer!”
#3: CULVER-STOCKTON WILDCATS (0-8, 39.875 avg. margin of defeat, #4 last week) – They lost to Benedictine of Kansas last weekend, and I am really bummed I have not finished this yet because I’d like to go masturbate. Culver-Stockton was named after Marthellus Culver and Richard “Dick” Stockton the 1st, who together were International Tandem Grappling champions from Nebraska for 11 years straight in the 1930s. They formed the college to teach cornfed bumpkins how wearing singlets and clutching at other dudes would help you grow up to be a solid man.
#4: VALPARAISO CRUSADERS (0-8, 37.750 avg. margin of defeat, #6 last week) – Only lost to San Diego, 30 to 10, last weekend, but still moved up two spots on the Shit List. A trip to San Diego was probably pretty nice for some religious school types from Indiana, which I think is where Valpo is from. Might be elsewhere. The whole midwest is like a rampant wasteland of flatness to me. I do not understand why everyone there just doesn’t dedicate themselves to demolition derbies on Friday nights and wrestling for Ian Rotten on Saturday nights.
#5: LOCK HAVEN BALD EAGLES (0-8, 37.500 avg. margin of defeat, #8 last week) – A 56 to 14 loss at Slippery Rock charged them back up the Shit List two spots. For as long as I’ve been doing these stupid things over like three years, Lock Haven has been terrible. Also, I have been sweating an awful lot lately. I am not sure why that is, but I think it’s my body finally working out some of the corporate copperhead poisons from not drinking beer so much.
#6: TEXAS COLLEGE STEERS (0-7, 37.000 avg. margin of defeat, #3 last week) – Oh man, after only losing by 9 at Oklahoma Panhandle State two weekends ago, Texas College hosted Southern Nazarene last week, and barely lost, 52 to 49. Understand in their previous six games, they had scored 50 points total, so they basically doubled how good they’ve been this year. Mad mad props to you Texas College Steers. I’m pulling for you. Raven Mack is your boy.
#7: PACIFIC BOXERS (0-6, 36.500 avg. margin of defeat, #5 last week) – They lost, 24 to 12, to Whitworth last weekend, but moved themselves down a couple notches. Most importantly is this sentence from their website though: “The clip of the amazing touchdown from Trevor Okamoto to Jordan Fukumoto is selected by D3Football.com as their Play of the Week for week eight of the NCAA Division III season.” I was gonna look it up inside the youtubes, but again, I really want to masturbate.
#8: DORDT DEFENDERS (0-8, 35.625 avg. margin of defeat, #9 last week) – Dordt lost at Midland Lutheran, 42 to 0, last weekend. Defender was cool but if I was gonna get all Ricky Schroeder on Silver Spoons and have a real live video game machine in my house, I’d get Moon Patrol. Or Spyhunter. Or fuck it, old school NBA Jams. I always played Detlef Schrempf and Sean Whatshisname that had 19 kids by 23 women.
#9: ANNA MARIA CATS (0-8, 35.125 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last week) – Holy fuck, they had gotten off this list for a couple of weeks. But last week in hosting Norwich, they dropped a tough one, 81 to 7. They also got spotlighted in one of those stupid and pretentious back page Sports Illustrated articles like two weeks back, so maybe it was the SI curse leaking into the back cover from the front. Still though, giving up 81 points is terrible, regardless of the situation or black magic involved.
#10: OLIVET FIGHTING COMETS (0-7, 34.429 avg. margin of defeat, #7 last week) – They lost against Albion, 42 to 24. Do you know why 2x4s are called that and not 4x2s? I don’t either. I was gonna make something up but then the stupid new kitten my children brought back from a yard sale was climbing into the boxes of apples on the living room floor that we still need to can before Halloween, so I had to go get my hand wet to flick water on the kitten.
#11: JUNIATA EAGLES (0-7, 34.286 avg. margin of defeat, #12 last week) – They lost vs. Moravian, 42 to 0, last weekend. Moravian vs. Juniata sounds more like some second-tier Scottish soccer rivalry to me. I read that Among the Thugs book and it made me really sad we are so commercialized here in America when it comes to major sports. Also made me want to start a 12-team soccer league where thuggery and drunkenness and chaos was encouraged, picking the absolute dregs of America to take part, like Philly and Boston and Oakland and Detroit and places where people are crazy and hopeless but still love sports.
#12: WESTERN CONNECTICUT STATE COLONIALS (0-7, 31.714 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last week) – They played Montclair State last weekend and lost, 31 to 3. Most of my experiences in Connecticut have been sketchy, so I have very little love for that state. I know a bunch of rich white asses be living in parts of it, but mostly I seem to end up at truck stops with crazy Dominicans trying to fight me by the claw machine outside the bathroom, or in hotels where the desk clerk is a hot ass Puerto Rican girl that makes me want to have sex with a hot ass Puerto Rican girl except I know that Puerto Ricans are the worst of all western hemisphere brown people.
#13: SAVANNAH STATE TIGERS (0-8, 31.500 avg. margin of defeat, #13 last week) – Savannah State lost at Alabama State, 24 to 0, giving them two straight scoreless weeks. Looks like they have this weekend off, so good for them. Then they come to Virginia, my disgusting home state, to play Old Dominion’s upstart football team. I don’t have anything more to say than that really, but I needed to type another line so that the football helmet images didn’t get jumbled together.
#14: QUINCY HAWKS (0-8, 31.375 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last week) – They lost at St. Ambrose, 44 to 7, last weekend, and that was a loss that was 44 to 7. The main thing for me about this is I’m pretty much done writing this thing that no one will read, so now I have to figure out what I want to masturbate about. Finally.
Gone from the list from last week: #10 New Mexico Lobos (30 to 20 loss to San Diego State, so they mathematically barely missed the Shit List cut), #11 MacMurray Highlanders (a game against Crown of Minnetonka ended in a 44 to 28 loss, so MacMurray still has time to return to this list), #14 Kentucky Christian Knights (a double OT loss against Lindsey Wilson, 40 to 37, so sad but not quite Shit List worthy).
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