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.