Posts by Brian Cook at FanHouse

Okay, Lou Holth is kind of awesome sometimes. The ESPN studio crew is justly ripping the morons who wrecked the BYU-Washington game, and Holtz is teetering on the edge of madness:

"I am very much against thowboating, but that was a shavesty [sic] of justice."

...and the edge of pure unadulterated awesome:

"The thing that thcares you is thethe people can vote."

Amen. They're probably deciding between Bob Barr and Millard Fillmore. This "point of emphasis" we can do without.

Meanwhile in officiating fiascos: Jim Tressel called out the refs in the Ohio-Ohio State game for a missed block in the back call... on Ohio State. Not a good weekend for the men in stripes.

I love you, West Virginia player. I love you so much. Isn't this nice? What do you mean we're down three touchdowns?

Well, West Virginia just punted from midfield with seven minutes left in a game they're down three touchdowns, so it's time to write the requisite "boy, I bet Ed Pastilong wishes he didn't wake up on January third with a wicked hangover, the faint memory of something profane at three in the morning, and a contract signed by Bill Stewart" post.

So, yeah, I bet Ed Pastilong wishes he didn't wake up on January third with a wicked hangover, the faint memory of something profane at three in the morning, and a contract signed by Bill Stewart. We heard all fall about how Bill Stewart was a terrifically nice man who didn't yell at his players and boy wasn't that nice and new offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen would UNLEASH THE UNBELIEVABLE PASSING ABILITY OF PAT WHITE.

These are the fruits of magnificent freedom: 214 yards and three points against Eastern Carolina. Even Michigan managed more. As you might imagine, West Virginia message boards have turned into Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and will feature heavily in This Week In Schadefreude.

And hey, how about East Carolina? If they run the table do they get a shot at the national title? They've got Virginia on their "tour of teams with Virginia in their name who want no piece of this," and if they take 'em out that's three BCS teams, two of whom should/might win their conference.

HAI GUYS I THINK OHIO STATE MAY HAVE PARTICIPATED IN A COUPLE OF EMBARRASSING CONTESTS THE PAST COUPLE JANUARYS WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT I THINK THEY'RE SCARED OF MULLETS WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT I THINK THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEM SOUTHERN BOYS WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT WOO THE SOUTH RISES AGAIN

WHY THEY'LL WIN

The nation reserves its scorn for the two-time defending National-Championship-game whipping boy, but it was quite an accomplishment for Ohio State to even make the NC game minus a whopping nine starters from their defense plus every starter at an offensive skill position. Remember: 2007 was supposed to be Ohio State's down year. This was supposed to be the up year, and it's easy to see why: terrifyingly, last year's two deep had all of five seniors on it, and three of them were fullbacks. On defense, every player of note returns save edge-rushing terror Vernon Gholston, and those guys were good: the #1 scoring defense, the #1 defense overall. On offense, Beanie Wells is one of the favorites for the Heisman trophy and the offensive line is burly, talented, and experienced. The passing game... well, whatever. Who needs to pass?

Wide receiver Josh Jarboe has been relieved of his scholarship by Bob Stoops and Oklahoma after a video of him that middle-aged sportswriters invariably refer to as "violent" and "expletive-filled" showed up on the youtubes. It does indeed have some expletives, so keep it away from children and those constitutionally prone to fainting spells:



This would be the most insane player dismissal ever if Jarboe hadn't gotten expelled from his high school and charged with a felony for bringing a gun to school. Still, the Wizard of Odds notes that Bob Stoops was of one mind Thursday...

"Kick a guy off the team for what he says?" Stoops said. The whole Internet culture frustrates Stoops. "We're starting to talk about everything kids say and do," Stoops said. "Now we're in people's homes, in their private spaces."

...before he was of the opposite mind a couple days later. What happened?

Ryan Ferguson brought you a first-glance review of NCAA 09 that was generally positive, but some words of warning if you're still thinking about buying the game: it's plagued by an unusually high number of serious bugs this year. A sampling:

• Sliders are broken. CPU sliders do nothing and human sliders affect both the computer and the player.
• Roster editing remains enormously problematic, though EA says there is a patch coming in the next week.
  
• There are reports the online dynasty mode is broken and sometimes simulate games that have been played by human players.
• The new speed model (where a 99 speed is significantly faster than a 98 speed, which is a stupid change to make... just change the distributions of speed) causes major problems with CPU pursuit angles.
• SuperSim is still broken: if you use it to fast-forward through the end of a blowout and you're on 7 or 8 minute quarters it will pack in 60% more plays than would happen in an actual football game and you'll end up winning 120-17 or something. The sound you hear is my friend Anthony looking for a gun and a pen to write his suicide note ("DEAR EA: I HATE YOU SO MUCH") with.
• Kick returns are so, so broken.

EA is promising an emergency patch for the roster editing and a second patch down the road. Last year, that second patch took two months. I'm going to hold off until the patch and see what the internet says.

The eternal question, isn't it? You know it's mostly going to be the same game, that it's going to have some infuriating bugs, that it is eventually going to break your spirit and leave you in the fetal position going "no, no, no." But... you're probably still going to buy it, junkie.

Well, if you can hold of the Fanhouse will be going full-force with a multi-party liveblog starting at 5 PM. Every Fanhouser that gets his sweaty paws on the game will be posting impressions of all sorts; if you couldn't resist, junkie, you can offer up your opinions as well. Interesting comments will be posted for general consumption.

For now, you can check Bill Abner's blog for advanced impressions. Abner's had the game for a couple weeks now and has been a busy man since. I've summarized Abner's posts on the home blog; Operation Sports also has an excellent "should you buy it" article that assembles the opinions of their message boarders with game in hand. The main points of all these things:

• there are major problems with roster editing, which could be a gamekilling bug for some
• gameplay is supposedly much more fun, though slanted heavily towards offense on default settings
• kick returns are stupidly easy
• EA is promising patches

The upshot: according to Operation Sports, "the reaction is cautiously positive."

Same as it ever was, eh?

As Adam Jacobi posted yesterday, a hoax article that claimed two Oklahoma quarterbacks had been arrested for coacaine trafficking caught fire a couple days ago, spreading across the internet and prompting a wave of "it's a hoax!" stories.

Now the hoaxer is coming under legal threat from the entire state of Oklahoma. Landry Jones' dad:

"I'm going to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. I've got deep enough pockets to do it."

The Oklahoman:


Oklahoma's associate athletic director:

"We feel it's real unfortunate how many things have germinated from an anonymous starting point that are unfounded, untrue and, as this story proves, hurtful," Mossman said.

Now... wait just a damn minute here. This was parody, and it should have been clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

Over the course of the past year or two, Lou Holtz has morphed from a lispy old coach who left every team he directed on probation into college football's wacky old uncle. He did this with magic tricks, mostly, and now everyone loves him.

Except former Nebraska star Jason Peter, that is:

"I still wouldn't turn down the opportunity to spit in Lou Holtz's (bleeping) face ... Each Saturday in the fall when Holtz makes his jovial, dumb ... remarks on ESPN, I hope he knows that there's at least one family on the other side of the screen, the Peter family, that knows what a -- -- -- he really is."

Anyone with even the slightest skills at expletive inferral knows what "bleeping" is, but the three sets of double en dashes are mysterious, aren't they? This is fun. I would like to know what those are as long as I don't have to buy Peter's book, which is about his heroic triumph over a bunch of drugs.

Why is the Peter family so anti-Holtz? Peter relates that his younger brother was a highly touted offensive lineman who committed to Notre Dame shortly before he broke a vertebra in his neck. Holtz never called or visited, though two Notre Dame assistants did, and in the fall Damien was "frozen out, ignored, discarded" by Holtz and company.

IMO: weak sauce. Probably hyped up to sell books.

(Via the Wiz.)

The foremost thing in your mind is about to be "is that a real baby"?


Yes. Yes, it is a real baby. You can see real baby in a number of different shots on the left sidebar of South Asia Rocks, South Asia being Tim Tebow's location in late June and rocking being Tebow's profession. You can also see Tim Tebow doing the Heisman with a baby. In orange and blue crocs. In Thailand. Except you can also see all that just above.

And, like... man. Let me tell you, it's pretty awesome. This is the exact opposite of that time Michael Jackson dangled a baby off a balcony. Thailand Heisman Baby is set for life, man.

(via EDSBS and Busted Coverage)

Penn State just got a commitment from an unranked wide receiver who plays running back for his high school team. PSU fans are naturally a little wary, especially given their struggles recruiting skill position talent of late, and this didn't help:

"I liked the coaches, and I think it's an up-and coming program," he said, adding that "I really do believe better days for Penn State are coming."

...and we've all mentally inserted "when JoePa finally retires," haven't we? Kuntz also had this beauty:

"My dad and I searched the internet looking at UConn and Penn State's rosters and where they are in terms of depth at wide receiver. Penn State doesn't look like they have much (coming back) and me coming in as a freshman that's going to be a huge advantage for me to hopefully play four years for them."

When you're considering UConn and Penn State and you pick Penn State for playing time, the Pennsylvania apocalypse is nigh. It was nice knowing you, Pennsylvania. Except Philadelphia.

Also, yes: hur hur hur he's got a funny last name. Have we mentioned Michigan picked up a commitment from Shavodrick Beaver? If this was Idiocracy, we would all be laughing so hard we would die.