Gameday: Columbia, Missouri

Tigers vs. Furman Paladins
Sept. 19, 2009
Missouri AP ranking: none

Mizzou seems intent on scheduling one NCAA Subdivision team every year. They're not alone in doing so--in fact, all the major programs seem to enjoy slumming a little. Now and then one of the heavy underdog squads will beat a bigger program (Appalacian State famously did it to Michigan two years ago). When that happens, it's mascot-bites-wealthy alumni news. Mostly, though, the Subdivision team (they used to be called Division II) plays, almost always on the road, takes their paycheck, and goes back to whatever compass direction is part of their name.

During dinner at the Publican the other night, I asked my Golden Domer friend Dennis what he would tell a student-athlete about to be slaughterd for the express purpose of his school pocketing a cool $425,000. He smiled and said, "Do it for the art department." In that context, it seemed, if not noble, at least less mercenary.

This year's scrimmage was named Furman--unaffiliated, as best as I can tell, with Mark Furman of O.J. Simpson trial fame, although the school is located in South Carolina, so I could be wrong about that. Their team name is the Paladins, defined in the American Heritage College Dictionary as a "paragon of chivalry; a heroic champion; a strong supporter or defender of a cause; and of the 12 peers of French Emperor Charlemagne's court." In other words, they aren't sure exactly what their mascot should look like.

Cousin Jimmy used my tickets, taking his family. He texted me that he was rear-ended while driving from St. Louis to Columbia, and I correctly surmised that he was referring to his car. My concern over the fate of the tiger tail that all traveling fans dangle from their trunk turned out to be unnecessary--it took a licking and kept on wagging. I assume his wife and two children were ok, too.

The Tigers offense stalled a little on their first couple of series, but even mentioning that is akin to complaining about Cindy Crawford's mole. The score was 42-0 at the half. The beer was cold. My hamburger was delicious. And going to a bar to watch the game cost less than staying on my couch and ordering it on pay-per-view.

Still, I had seen enough, and took off at the half. Back home, I toggled my remote between Notre Dame-Michigan State and Nebraska-Va Tech--two games in which the outcome wasn't a foregone conclusion. Later that evening I would join three other friends to watch the Georgia Bulldogs and Arkansas Razorbacks play less defense than the old ABA in a back-and-forth game that wasn't decided until the fourth quarter.

And therein lies the problem with playing the Furman Paladins of the world. You know who's going to win, so there's no real satisfaction to beating them. You end up envying the fans of any team that takes on somebody their own size.

I'd love to see the NCAA come out with a rule that said, "go ahead and schedule whoever you want, but BCS wins against Subdivision teams won't count toward bowl eligibility." Won't hold my breath, though--they may be small, but Division II schools still want that filthy lucre.

Furman art department, enjoy the new paint supplies. And athletes, just remember that you did it for old FU.

Gameday: Columbia, Missouri

Tigers vs. Bowling Green
Sept. 12, 2009

Tiger AP ranking: 25th

Why do the Tigers schedule the MAC conference?

The MAC, or Mid-Atlantic Conference, is by any reasonable measure a major football conference stocked with quality teams, squads that semi-regularly best teams from more prestigious conferences. But when a MAC team shows up on the Tigers' schedule, you will be mocked. Fans of other major programs mock you. Non-fans who didn't go to college mock you. Ryan Seacrest mocks you.

Since the MAC isn't officially a BCS league, whenever a team from the MAC plays a team from the BCS, they're frothing mad. Watching a MAC team play a BCS team is like watching a small but rabid dog take on a larger breed. They have no fear, and, anxious to extract a pound of flesh from the bigger school's mascot, they often do. When Northwestern enjoyed their incredible Rose Bowl season of 1995, they ground Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn State into mincemeat. Who beat them? Miami of Ohio, of the MAC.

MAC teams are like the Clintons. They won't go away, and they ruin everyone else's good time.

Bowling Green has a history of beating Mizzou. They did it in Gary Pinkel's Tiger coaching debut, and then did it again his second season. Urban Meyer, a jagweed of the first order and coach of the national champion Florida Gators, was Bowling Green's coach back then. This year, Bowling Green has a slew of seniors, including their quarterback. I've never heard of any of them, because they're in the MAC, which gets no media love. But I knew they'd be well coached and straining their Falcon feathers for a chance to force Pinkel to make another Stinkel face.

As I settled into the Spread bar for the first time this season, my stomach turned, and from more than the sight of the food. The Dude and Mrs. Dude joined me, leaving their kids with the nanny (or leaving them in the middle of the floor with a pizza. I didn't ask.) The Mizzou faithful turned out in force, roughly 50/50 dude-to-girl split. The Dude tried not to stare, but breasts are his kryptonite. When two women who were squeezed a mite tightly into their black-and-gold attire walked past, Mrs. Dude jumped on the opportunity. With a mean little smile, she extrapolated that all Missouri women should cut down on the nachos. This had the same effect on the Dude that every wife has on every husband when the missus makes a snide remark in a room full of hot women: the Dude bit his lip and stared at the floor. Since Mrs. Dude had insulted my school and I am Mr. Make-it-Worse, whenever a vixen with an impressive rack would walk by the remainder of the game, I'd volunteer, "Look at that one. She's enormous!" At the University of Missouri, we defend our womenfolk.

Bowling Green kicked Missouri in the nuts. It was 10-0 after the first quarter and 13-6 at the half. Blaine Gabbert, the greatest Mizzou quarterback ever after starting one game, shit the bed like a sophomore. My national championship dreams, so bright a week ago, faded like a "Jonathan Edwards: Moral Leadership for America" poster.

The Falcons stretched their lead to 20-6 in the third quarter, and then something strange and wonderful happened: the Tigers didn't panic. They began to use their size advantage to grind out yardage on the ground, a strategy never considered under their previous offensive coordinator when behind. As Derrick Washington and freshman Kendial Lawrence gobbled up first downs, the BG defense began cheating up toward the line of scrimmage to stop them. When they did, Gabbert bured them for touchdown throws of 27 and 33 yards. Up in the booth, new OC David Yost looked as much like Yoda as a guy with an Owen Wilson haircut can.

The Tigers rolled up 109 yards on the ground in the second half on 24 carries. The final score was 27-20, and if the game kept going it would have gotten a lot more lopsided than that.

After the game, so-called friends who didn't attend college mocked the hard-fought, character-building Tiger victory. Mizzou had broken into the top 25 the week before with a win over the inferior Illini, but beating a better Bowling Green team saw the Tigers drop out of the polls. Had Mizzou bested a far worse BCS team as we had the week prior, there would have been no snide Mrs. Dude-like "you beat a fat girl" remarks.

Athletic directors always worry about scheduling teams from major conferences, but the fact is, there are plenty of programs from major conferences that are perennial doormats. Here's a list of safe-bet BCS teams worth scheduling for the non-conference portion of the season:

• Virginia
• Duke
• NC State
• Kentucky
• Mississippi State
• Vanderbilt
• Syracuse
• Stanford
• Washington State
• Indiana
• Minnesota

Each of those schools has something going against it ever becoming a major football power. Some (Duke, Indiana) are basketball schools. Others (Syracuse, Minnesota) sit in cold locales, which hurts recruiting. Still others (Stanford, Vandy) foolishly stress academics.

I can hear Missouri AD Mike Alden now--"But, those teams might beat us!" Yeah, they might. But so can any good MAC school. Eventually one of them will bite the Tigers in the ass fur, and it'll be twice as hard a loss to bounce back from.

Gameday: St. Louis, Missouri

Tigers vs. Fighting Illini
Edward Jones Dome
September 5, 2009

Tiger AP ranking: unranked.

My favorite football players are linebackers. I've thought they were the coolest ever since one of the networks asked some head coaches which position would make the best assassins, and they all said linebackers. Plus, linebackers are funny. If you don't believe me, rent an old NFL film of Dick Butkus talking about how much he enjoys hitting ball carriers so hard that snot flies out. Lawrence Taylor once went to a team meeting still wearing the handcuffs a couple of call girls had slapped on him the night before. Linebackers are funny, and they're good assassins.

Quarterbacks, conversely, suck. The good ones are arrogant pricks. Joe Theisman always sounds like he's jonesing for a mirror. Steve Spurrier has made a career out of insulting opposing teams, throwing his visor, and strutting around like Mussolini. And Dan Marino, well, here. So I've jumped to the (correct) conclusion that you want a miserable jagweed as QB on any team you root for. And with the Tigers breaking in a new, 5-star recruit at the position, the time for that jagweed to show up was now.

I arrived in St. Louis the night before the big game and took Mom to dinner at Lo Russo's restaurant, a favorite of my old man's. When the owner, Rich Lo Russo, turned up at my Dad's wake with a platter of mortadella, salami, and assorted cheeses, it was a sound business move if there ever was one. Mom dug into her Amaretto Sour with the sort of devil-may-care gusto I hoped to see on the field the next day. She told me about her new exercise class. I'm proud of her for staying active, but when she mentioned the stripper pole I pantomined the "cut her off" finger-across-throat motion to the bartender.

Afterward, we made the short trek to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, a St. Louis landmark on what was once Route 66. Mom ordered the hot fudge, fitness gods be damned. I had the Terramizzou, which tastes nothing like the dessert it's punned after, but with chocolate, caramel, pistachios and the aorta-challenging creamy goodness of real custard, only a quarterback would complain. I couldn't risk any other menu option the night before the season opener.

The next day I made it downtown to the same bar I'd kicked off the 2008 season, the Dubliner. Dave "News" Hughes was there, but Tim "Buddy" May did not make the trip, claiming new job responsibilities. Actually, several friends had bowed out for sundry lame excuses (work, vacations, children), forcing me to sell two of my seats on stubhub.com. After a round, "News" decided we should move outside to his brother-in-law's tailgate.

You never want to spend a lot of time locating a tailgate. There's nothing more depressing than navigating the labyrinth of a parking lot looking for somewhere you should have been a half hour ago. News couldn't get his brother-in-law on the phone. Then, he couldn't get a cell phone signal. In my mind, having just left the cozy confines of an Irish bar, he wasn't doing nearly enough. I wanted to see a compass, a beer divining rod, and the Verizon mobile team. After either ten minutes or an hour and 20 minutes--only embarrassing and defrocked Chief Illiniwek can tell time by the sun--I shrugged and told News I'd meet him inside.

My niece stopped by my seats before kickoff and filled me in on the new Tiger QB, Blaine Gabbert. Her sources told her that he might be a bit of a prima donna. There were whispers that Gabbert's father had no reservations about "advising" the coaching staff on how best to handle the 6'5", 240 lb. blue chipper. This information gave me hope. Maybe he would be just the insufferable bastard we needed. We had lost six players to the NFL, after all; some pompous ass needed to step up and say, "everybody look at me."

The Tigers made the game look as smooth and easy as custard squeezing out of an extruder. In his first start, allegedly first-rate dick Gabbert threw for three TD's and ran for another. The defensive configuration was something called "The Scorpion" that dropped as many as seven players into coverage, practically begging Juice Williams to throw. He did--underthrowing, overthrowing, and behind-the-receiver throwing. The new walk-on Mizzou kicker, who nobody could remember the name of, booted field goals of 32, 44 and 41 yards. The Illini never seemed to be in the contest. I don't want to sound giddy about our program, but basically nothing went wrong and it looks like the Tigers are going to the National Championship, which they'll win.

How much must the Illini and their fans hate the Edward Jones Dome? Rhetorical question. They've never beaten the Tigers there, not in five tries since 2002. Juice Williams has started four games against Mizzou and lost every single one. Ron Zook, the head coach, looked like he was getting his brains drilled out by one of those Phantasm balls. The Vagini, as some sophomoric fans more callous than I refer to them, must now play OSU, Penn State and Sparty--all within a month. Ron Zook will be the first name on those "Coaches on the Hot Seat" lists that come out in October.

Sean Weatherspoon, a linebacker in the classic mode of funny assassin linebackers, had sent out a Twitter "tweet" a month earlier, proclaiming his anxiousness to "squeeze the pulp out of the Juice." The last thing coaches want is to supply bulletin board material for the other team, so Sean got mildly but publicly reprimanded. But as I finished off a victory $9 domed stadium beer, I looked up to the video board to catch Spoon at the end of a play, one hammy fist on top of the other, squeezing clockwise and counter-clockwise, like he was wringing out a towel. I'm not sure what the juicers look like in Spoon's house, but I would have gone with the upper hand facing down, making more of an "opening a jar of Jif" motion.

A nit in an otherwise perfect performance. And our rat bastard, son-of-a-bitch QB looks like the real deal.