Last week, to my immense excitement, the new Chuck Klosterman book arrived that I had pre-ordered from Amazon months ago (memo to the FTC: I paid for this book, I was not given a free book for this endorsement. Unfortunately). As I sit on a plane from San Francisco back to a Denver that has been swallowed by a couple feet of snow, the book couldn’t be timelier for a couple reasons.
The first is that, once the book arrived I was almost hesitant to begin reading. Like a kid staring at his presents on Christmas morning (a snowy Christmas morning – get it?), I was afraid to start because as I knew as soon as I started I would be that much closer to the end.
The second reason is that one of the chapters is a discussion of time travel, and as I am currently on a plane traveling from a perfect early fall California day and landing a short two hours later in the dead of winter, I am a firm believer in time travel at the moment. I guess the real question is whether there will be another Dave waiting for me and whether I will like him or think him a pompous ass, like most of you probably do.
Anyway, as I haven’t quite finished Chuck’s chapter on football so I will keep this week’s THH short, so I can get back to it. Also, due to a minor scheduling error on my part, we are sticking to only the college kids. Don’t ask, just know that I am a moron.
NOTE: If you are wondering why we are so late this week, read on and you may be able to determine where the fault lies.
Turner: Hello Readers… this week’s THH comes to you on Sat. morning as I’ve just come off completely wiping out SuperDave’s financial dreams on a Full House last night at the Shadow’s home poker game. While the first game ended in disaster for ol’ Turner (Thanks to the Shadow’s Flush from no where), the 2nd game was complete dominance. The highlight was taking down the Shadow’s brother-in-law with a 4 of a kind (God Bless 7’s). We are now prepared for Vegas. Hello tournament poker, Turner’s game is on. Speaking of on, how about those Sooners!! Ok – no one cares but at least they didn’t dip below .500. This week we get the Big XII North leading KSU Wildcats (yes I just wrote that even though they lost to Louisiana Monroe) but to get to play Bill Snyder on Halloween is somewhat appropriate since they brought him back from the dead to coach. Big game is needed b/c likely with an OU win, that puts them in Primetime next week in Lincoln, NE where I will be making my first visit to Memorial Stadium to watch that ‘football’ team that I’ve hated for so many years (i.e.Tommy Frazier, Eric Crouch, Johnny Rodgers, etc……)
So the next 2 weeks shall be exciting with live blogs coming from Boise, ID, Lincoln, NE, and yes, the semi-annual trip to Las Vegas coming. We will be putting Bill Simmons to shame.
Shadow: As I write this week’s THH, the Yankees have just tied up the World Series at one game apiece. So far the Series has been all about dominating pitching (everyone outside of the Yankee middle relievers). Iowa finally has a pretty straightforward “game they should win” this weekend against Indiana, but the Broncos face a test in those Ravens. The Avs are off to their best start in a long time, and the Nuggets are 1-0. One of two things is occurring here: 1) The world is ending…..and soon! 2) The Shadow is being set up to lay a lot of money on the line in Vegas in two weeks and watch it go bye-bye. Either way…something has to give eventually.
College
UAB @ UTEP
SD: For college games this week I am going with teams with similar themes in their school names. This game, beside looking very much like an eye chart or a text message from a 14 year old girl pairs two schools named for a state AND a city. Most likely this was forced upon them by their uppity cousins currently ranked in the top 5 (can’t you imagine some Longhorn:”Oh no, I go to the THE Univeristy of Texas), but it is still pretty unique. I think I am going with UTEP on this one. Mostly because I like how they have embraced their unnaturally extended nickname and actually turned it into a word. U-tep, not U-T-E-P. Yes, Utep sounds a little like a long lost tribe of Indians from Mexico, but it is much better than U-A-B. Which is just D-U-M-B.
Turner: This one is the battle of ex coaches that ‘tried’ to lead real teams…. We have that great Mike Price experiment at Alabama that ended in strippers, a sex club and a $20M lawsuit. Then we have Watson Brown (no longer a Blazer) who tried to lead the Oklahoma offense for a few years before someone had the great idea that he should actually lead the program. While he did turn around UAB, he was part of the darkest history of OU football and was able to lead the offense about as well as Chris Weinke and the FSU Seminoles in the 2000 National championship game. Have to give Mike Price the lead on this one for story line, utilizing the ‘benefits’ of a head coaching position and enjoying life…. Oh, yes, he didn’t take down the greatest football program in history. Poor Watson has another issue facing him, his brother…. That was enough for the hatred. Go Miners!!
Shadow: I just can’t stand those Old El Paso commercials where some actors pretending it is the old west and mocking someone who likes Salsa made in New York City. New York City? Lame commercials. I now hate anything connected to El Paso, including UTEP. Go Blazers.
Middle Tennessee State @ Florida Atlantic
SD: I love the vaguely directional names of each of these schools. Not content with a simple ‘north’ or ‘south’ MTSU and FAU have gone the extra mile and picked a directional identifier that only sort of tells you where it is. I have to go with FAU on this one. Sure, Atlantic doesn’t exactly narrow down the school’s location in a state with a long Atlantic coast line but it is major improvement over the ridiculously vague ‘middle’. Isn’t that pretty much anywhere not right on the border? And given its’ location in the USA, couldn’t ALL of Tennessee be described as ‘middle’. Sorry, Blue Raiders that is just lazy.
As a side-note. Don’t worry there won’t be any more gratuitous plugs for Klosterman’s book next week. Though I should warn you that Bill Simmons’ Book of Basketball arrives this week (fully paid for FTC!), so you can probably expect a lot of David Thompson and Wes Unseld references soon.
Turner: Is it possible that SD knew what he was doing? He threw the Howard Schnellenberger Era into this THH. Another failed OU experiment AND a Miami head coach. I don’t need to write anymore on this one…. GO MTSU
Shadow: The Sun Belt. Middle Tennessee is somewhat in the middle of Tennessee and Florida Atlantic is actually in Florida and on the Atlantic ocean. So, at lease they have that going for them. FAU was originally started in Boca Raton. Mouth of the Mouse? Here is a fact you may not know about Boca Raton. It is known as the Spam capitol of the world due the amount of spam email that is generated from there. I hate Spam (all varieties really). Go MTSU!
