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.

Bye Week Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Monday

The week after the Iowa State game, the Tigers received the Big XII North championship trophy at their practice facility, Devine Pavilion. Actually, they received it in the mail, and then Athletic Director Mike Alden rode into practice, rearing his trusty white steed on its hind legs, and made the presentation. The Big XII conference office in Dallas had shipped it in an old Amazon.com box packed with kettle corn collected from the aisles at the Cotton Bowl.

The Big XII North division trophy was mailed because Mizzou won it a week before the season ended. But it’s apparently against league policy to let the trophy (estimated value one gajillion dollars) go traipsing around the country on a hunch. They wait until it’s official. So the only question was when the Tigers would receive their booty (the trophy kind, not the coed variety). If the trophy was presented before the final game, it could motivate the opposing team. The Jayhawks hate the Tigers already, and seeing shiny objects sets off their primitive, Geico caveman brains. If the trophy was presented after the final game and the Tigers lost it, everyone involved would feel sort of sheepish. And if the trophy was presented after Mizzou trounced Kansas, then the team might be tempted to say, “Hey, trophy presenter dude—How about epoxying a little auxiliary trophy to this one?”

So the Big XII pretty much had to mail it.

Without much resistance on my part, I got talked into attending the Northwestern-Illinois game on Bye Week Saturday. After driving 750 miles the Saturday before, the nine-mile trek to Evanston in David R’s Saab felt the definition of a piece of cake. Plus, his car smelled like the scrumptious Popeye’s fried chicken we drove with for about seven of those miles. I dedicated years of student loan payments to Northwestern graduate school, so they’re my Big Ten team, and the chance to watch the Illini losing twice in one year represented a plum opportunity. David R.’s Georgia Bulldogs had the week off, too, so we could both enjoy the Wildcats without the colon gurgles. The ’Cats obliged by TCB’ing, clamping down a tenacious D on Juice Williams and the University of Blue, Orange, and Dull. A pleasant day, thanks in no small part to Toastie Toes™ foot warming appliqués.

Northwestern finished the season at 9-3, and appeared headed for something like the Alamo Bowl. Not necessarily the Alamo Bowl per se, but a mid-level bowl run by upstanding individuals in matching blazers. Which led me to a few bye week observations.

(BYE WEEK #2) OBSERVATION #1: The BCS system should be blown up real good.

BCS stands for “Bowl Championship Series,” but “Butt Chafing System” may fit better. Its sole purpose for existence is to pit the #1 team in the country against the #2 team in the country in a national championship game, a task it completes competently every five years or so, and then only by accident. That’s because, without any sort of playoff, college teams' fortunes are largely determined by the votes of coaches and sportswriters, as well as waiters, hobos and skateboarders. The rankings kinda sorta reflect the various teams’ records, except that the conferences don’t play each other, so they kinda sorta don’t, either. On their best day, college football polls represent a collective, educated shrug.

Compounding matters, some of the conferences (the SEC and the Big XII) stage a league championship game, while other major conferences (the Big Ten and the Pac-10) have none. Voters, many engorged with decision-imparing refined sugar products, historically penalize teams from “no championship game” conferences and reward teams from “championship game” conferences—unless a team loses their championship game, in which case they’re penalized even more than a team that didn’t make the championship game at all.

Confused? Here’s an example that’s as clear as a fogged-up helmet visor. Entering the final weekend of the regular season, Texas, Texas Tech and Oklahoma were all tied for the lead in the Big XII South Division. Texas had beaten Oklahoma by 10, Texas Tech edged Texas with one second remaining, and Oklahoma slipped past Texas Tech by 437 points (more on that later). If the teams remain deadlocked, none of the normal tie-breakers would apply. The only way to break the split would be the BCS rankings, meaning that the coaches of those teams had to lobby for votes like their bonuses depended on it. Which, of course, they did.

How stupid is the BCS system? The evening before the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama appeared on Monday Night Football and declared that college football needed a playoff system. This was a candidate for the highest office in the land, with a sizeable lead in the polls, and at time when he dared not court any controversy. And yet he decided less than 24 hours before Americans would cast their ballots that it was completely safe to come out against the BCS.

Was there a silver lining in this massive goat fuck? There was, as sure as bowl reps are old white guys. If the three teams in the South remained tied, little ol’ Mizzou would blow the BCS system to smithereens if they won the Big XII Championship. If that happens, the money-grubbing bowl weebles in matching blazers would be jumping out of their sky boxes at Arrowhead Stadium, and I would be there to laugh and celebrate and not catch them.

(BYE WEEK #2) OBSERVATION #2: Pimpin’—and coachin’—ain’t easy.

A few weeks after Ron Prince got pink-slipped at Kansas State, legendary control-freak Bill Snyder unretired at age 69 to pull a headset over his three remaining hairs. Snyder, who’s about as much fun as a dose of shingles, talked dourly about "family" at his levity-free press conference. “The important thing is to smooth the waters and draw the K-State family back into a true family,” he lectured. He mentioned that his own family suffers when he gets involved with football. Judging from his demeanor, my guess would be that they suffer when the miserable bastard’s home, too. Given his micro-managing megalomania, maybe when Bill says “family,” he means the Godfather type. In any event, we’ll all tune in next year to watch Bill Snyder lose in front of both the K-State Bill Snyder family and the immediate Bill Snyder Family at the (named-by-Bill-Snyder) Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

Like the occasionally razor-thin baseball free-agent class, there weren’t many high-profile coaches available as the 2008 season wound down. Not that that stopped schools from tar and feathering the coaches currently in their employ. At Notre Dame, home of Touchdown Jesus and Extra Point Moses, fans prayed for their head coach to feel hell’s eternal flames licking at his pompous scrotum. Charlie Weis came to South Bend from the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots and pontificated (that’s what coaches do at Notre Dame) that his presence would provide the team with a pronounced “tactical advantage.” So blustery was he that after he’d won a handful of games the board of curators extended his contract to ten years. Now, he’s got seven years left and his team is competing with so little heart that their own fans pelted them with snowballs. The once-powerful Irish were faced with the prospect of buying out Weis’ remaining contract and trying to find a coach where no obvious candidate existed, as opportunisitic Chicago sportswriters began casting lots for the coach's sweat suit.

Amidst all the sideline tumult, I received a text from Cousin Jimmy: “Pinkel resigned????” All it took to calm him down was a hyphen. Pinkel re-signed. The University of Missouri Tigers tore up Gary Pinkel’s contract and wrote him a new one worth $2.3 million a year—virtually guaranteeing that Pinkel, who at 56 still rode a Harley and looked like he could, indeed, mess with Sasquatch—would finish his career at Mizzou. With twelve wins last season and nine so far in the 2008 campaign, the contract served as recognition of his turnaround of the Tiger program. For years, Missouri had been football enigma—a major conference school with no in-state rival and two large cities to recruit from that couldn’t get out of its own way. Under Pinkel, the program recalibrated its gimbals and fee-fi-fo-fumed into national relevancy.

Soon after the contract extension, a Pinkel naysayer blasted the decision on tigerboard.com. He got shouted down by a 24-1 posting margin. Tiger fans seemed to prefer keeping their current coach happy rather than risk foraging through the omniturf for a new one.

The whims of sport being what they are, chances are that Pinkel will coach an underachieving or losing team in the next seven years. But the Missouri board of curators recognized that, more than just winning at a higher percentage, Pinkel has elevated the program’s stature. There had been low-level rumblings about Pinkel filling a vacancy at the University of Washington, and Mizzou moved quickly to lock him up at the going rate for coveted head coaches. Any historian of Missouri Sports can attest that stability (Don Faurot, Dan Devine, Gary Pinkel) beats the pants off of turmoil (Woody Weidenhoffer, Bob Stull, and the drama poster-child, former head basketball Coach Quinn Snyder).

(BYE WEEK #2) OBSERVATION #3: The Oklahoma Sooners are the Antichrist.

When David R. dropped me off after the Northwestern game, our plan was to reconvene in a half-hour to watch the game of the weekend, Texas Tech at Oklahoma. But by the time my dog had slurped up the last delicious bits of offal from her bowl, the Sooners were well into putting on one of those show-offy smackdown performances that makes the BCS pollsters spray eggs. I would rather watch a Merchant and Ivory film marathon than surly OU head coach “Big Game Bob” Stoops preen on the sidelines like Napolean while his team disembowels an opponent (I'm being nice--he actually preens like Mussolini). No team runs up the score with such unmitigated glee like Oklahoma. If they scheduled a pee wee squad, I’m sure Stoops would find a way to justify practicing ball control and chop blocks on 8-year olds.

“Boomer Sooner” remains the most banal, overplayed, derivative fight song in the history of insipid sports theme music, the Boomer Schooner brings suffering and pestilence to law-abiding citizens everywhere, and human growth hormone gobbling Oklahoma players are paid under the table by crimson-faced, screaming boosters under the watchful eyes of NFL commissioner Roger Goodall. OK, I don’t have the evidence—yet—to back up some of those claims, but I am member in good standing of the mushroomingly popular facebook group “Bob Stoops hates puppies, Santa Claus, and sunshine.”

The Sooners remained scant percentage points behind Texas in the BCS poll, poised to leap frog them and face Missouri in the Big XII championship. They cannot be stopped. The are evil incarnate. My doomsday scenario was coming true.

Gameday: St. Louis

Mizzou vs. Illinois

Opening Day of baseball season makes you feel warm and happy, no matter how cold the temperature is. Hearing the umpire bellow, “Play Ball!” means that summer isn’t far away.

Opening Day in college football makes you want to throw up.

That’s because college football has no pre-season games. Teams scrimmage against themselves and then take the field in games that count. The nausea factor increases because teams turn over a big chunk of personnel every year due to graduation (not an issue at the University of Oklahoma).

This year, head coach Gary Pinkel will play more freshmen than ever before. That can be a good thing, to borrow a phrase from college pigskin and correctional facility expert Martha Stewart. In 2002, freshman quarterback Brad Smith ran for 138 yards in the opener, on his way to rewriting the Missouri record book. In 2007, Jeremy Maclin returned a punt for a touchdown, on his way to setting an NCAA record for total freshman yardage. But generally speaking, freshmen are on their way to getting lost on campus and trying to purchase beer with a Best Buy card.

To add some churn to the acid reflux, the 6th-ranked Tigers were taking on the 20th-ranked University of Illinois in the only opening weekend game between ranked teams. The Illini went to the Rose Bowl last year, and despite the fact that they foolishly rode around on floats waving rather than playing in the actual game, they entered 2008 with a tough defensive line and a seasoned quarterback in Isiah “Juice” Williams.

The game was scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. national airing on ESPN. I drove from Chicago to St. Louis that morning, trying to become comfortable with the fact that one of the offensive linemen responsible for keeping our quarterback from getting killed was a freshman named Elvis. On route, I called my friend “News” Hughes, who immediately launched into play-by-play announcer mode: “Chase Daniel is down! He’s holding his right knee! He got blindsided and this, Tiger fans, looks bad. Very bad.”

I thanked him for the vote of confidence and hung up.

Anxious to get to the Gateway City, I flipped Sirius radio stations between classic rock, 90’s alternative, garage and, finally, 60’s pop hits. “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy” by Ohio Express feels almost like Zeppelin when you’re on I-55 doing 110 mph on Labor Day weekend.

To be honest, the contest is somewhat of a cooked-up rivalry, as evidenced by its promotional name--the "Arch Rivalry." True rivalries are not described by puns. Missouri and Illinois border each other, but the schools are in different conferences, and this game, for all that's at stake, doesn’t measure up to the nasty blood feuds like Ohio State-Michigan. Missouri borders seven states.* We can’t be mad at all of them.

*Missouri shares the state-bordering record with Tennessee. You’re welcome.

Despite its history, Illinois football lacks a certain je ne sais quoi (literally, “reason to watch”). They’ve spent lots of time bringing up the bottom half of the Big Ten, so Missouri fans should feel some empathy, and yet we don’t. Why is this? Perhaps it’s the university’s bold helmet choice, with “ILLINOIS” spelled out in an easy-to-read, conservative font. Maybe it’s their ex-mascot, Chief Illiniwek—a white guy in war paint and full head dress who the NCAA labeled as “hostile or abusive” when they banned him in 2007. They could have shut him down by labeling him “lame and uncompelling” instead, and few non-Illinois fans would disagree.

Plus, what’s an Illini? Kind of like a Phillie? As best as anyone can tell, the team was named after…wait for it…their student newspaper. Apparently, in the late 19th century, other football teams quivered at their scathing editorials. Post-Chief, I suppose you have to give the administration points for not stuffing a student into a big, fuzzy “I” with a press pass dangling from it and asking him to run around at games like a jackass. Still, a college football program with no mascot. Come on.

In fairness, the full moniker is “Fighting Illini.” Adding “Fighting” to a college team’s name always struck me as redundant. Isn’t it a given that all football teams are out there to fight for old State U? "Fighting" sounds generic, not badass. (The Fighting Irish earn a pass on this, since their logo features a leprechaun putting up his tiny magical dukes, and historically, the Irish have excelled in bar brawls.) If pre-nickname adjectives actually matched the team’s behavior, they’d be more far more interesting:

The Thuggin’ Hurricanes (University of Miami)

The Not Goin’ to Class Oftenin’ Sooners (University of Oklahoma)

The Not Winnin’ Muchin’ but it beats Goin’ to Iraqin’ Black Knights (Army)

Changing the name to “Fartin' Illini” would at least strike some fear in the opposition.

After crossing the Mississippi into St. Louis, I spent the afternoon hanging with mom on the Hill, the Italian neighborhood where she grew up. It’s only around eight square blocks or so, but peppered throughout with restaurants, delis and bakeries. Joe Garagiola and Yogi Berra grew up there, on the same street my dad did. Mom and I strapped on the feed bag at Zia’s (Italian for aunt) and as I sat there I couldn’t help but feel a little sad about the fact that, with her parents gone, she doesn’t really have much reason to come down there anymore. Not so sad that I didn’t ask her to go in the restaurant kitchen and whip me up something, though.

One pre-game nap, shower, and donning of a gold t-shirt later, I made my way to Dubliners, a bar in the shadow of the stadium. My first close college friend, Tim “Buddy” May, greeted me, resplendent in the Mizzou version of a Magnum P.I. Hawaiian shirt. “I’m wearing my lucky overshirt,” he beamed, and upon seeing another fan wearing something similar, added, “this one's vintage.”

The atmosphere in the bar consisted of excited Tiger and Illini fans setting a base with Anheuser-Busch (ok, Anheuser-Busch/InBev) products and avoiding eye contact with each other. Illini fans sensed that the odds were against them, and the Mizzou faithful didn’t feel confident enough of victory to remind them. On the plasmas, the Michigan Wolverines were dropping their home opener to Utah, which both sides seemed to enjoy.

We headed to the Edward Jones Dome, home of the St. Louis Rams. Domed stadiums fit college football like O.J. Simpson fits polite society. The Edward Jones Dome is no different, cavernous and capable of sucking the sound out of the crowd. Spanning the perimeter of the stadium is a “ring of fame,” featuring the names of both St. Louis football Cardinal greats like Larry Wilson and Roger Werhli, and Los Angeles Rams legends Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones, and Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch. The effect, apparently, is to provide fans with a constant reminder that they had a team stolen out from under them and they had to swipe another city’s team to come out even.

Our seats were located directly over the Missouri locker room tunnel, which consisted of a branded “Arch Rivalry” plastic tarp stretched over the end zone corner exit. The position of our seats allowed us to see underneath the tarp as the team prepared to take the field, and possibly hand a beer to one of them, if necessary. The Tigers jumped up and down in the make-shift mosh, and then, almost eight months to the day of their Cotton Bowl victory over Arkansas, charged out to begin the 2008 campaign.

Our new starting tailback, Derrick Washington, scored the first points of the game, running as though he were in a hurry to make people forget graduated senior Tony Temple. But the Illini came back with a perfect fade pattern and an interception return, and led with a little more than 9 minutes left in the half, 13-10.

The knock on Illinois coach Ron Zook has always been that he’s a world-class recruiter but a mediocre coach. As if to confirm that, he instructed his kickoff team to boot it to Maclin. The Kirkwood High School speedster gathered the ball at the 1-yard line, and 99 yards later, the Illini’s only lead of the night vanished after all of 13 seconds.

The Tigers poured it on after that, leading 31-13 at the half and stretching that to 45-20 late in the 3rd quarter. Mizzou was toying with one of the top teams in the Big Ten. The opening weekend of the college football season was ours--until we looked over and saw Mizzou trainers on the field, working on Jeremy Maclin. We didn't see the hit--turns out there was none--but a few minutes later our tunnel seats offered the best view in the house of the worst thing imaginable. Maclin was carted off the field, a towel to his face, his legs stretched out in front of him and a trainer stabalizing his ankle.

The Tiger offense stalled and the Illini came back, as Juice Williams began picking apart the Tiger secondary. When the final gun sounded, he’d connected on 5 touchdown passes. It took a late interception return by Mizzou linebacker Sean Weatherspoon to ice the game. Final score, 52-42, with Illinois scoring their last touchdown as time ran out. The best news: Maclin returned to the sidelines on crutches, an ice pack on his bum ankle. An MRI the next day would reveal no damage--just a slight sprain.

We staggered, exhausted, into the street at 11:30 p.m., had one more beer (which tasted like…victory), and then crawled off to our respective gutters. The Tigers had played in one of the tougher contests of the weekend—and maybe their season—and lived to tell about it. We learned what Mizzou was good at (scoring quickly), what they were not (milking the clock with a lead) and what really needed shoring up (pass coverage).

Driving I-55 back to Chicago the next day, I stopped at an off-ramp Steak ’n Shake, grabbing a local paper for an account of the game. “How’s the steakburger?” the waitress asked, employing the franchises’ term for their chopped cow sandwich. I smiled and gave the mouth-full thumbs up, thinking about one of the chain’s old taglines, “Steak 'n Shake. It’s a meal.”

The Illinois game was a meal. Maybe a meal and a half.