Monday, September 22, 2014

Duke Hate Week

The last 2 weeks we have witnessed a completely different team.

It took a few seasons to get here. The system had to take hold. Pillars had to be firmly implanted before the could be built upon.

Last season the team showed flashes, including a win over a big in-state rival. Sure, it didn’t end the way we wanted, but still, progress was there.

This season, the team has continued to trend upward. There was the loss to a big conference opponent early, but hey, we played them tough. The last two weekends, the offense has looked great, and the QB seems to really be coming in to his own.

Yes, life sure is great as an East Carolina fan.
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East Carolina is a middling state school in Greenville, North Carolina. Their head coach is Ruffin Mcneil, a LONG time assistant coach who got his shot at a head job when his boss at Texas Tech, Mike Leach, got fired and the then-coach of his alma mater, Skip Holtz, son of satan, left to coach USF.

Really, that is what ECU is. A school so mediocre that it a stepping stone to a job like USF.
And yet the last two weeks East Carolina has taken it to, in succession, Virginia Tech (fresh off a road victory against Urban Meyer’s Buckeyes) and North Carolina (by the score of 70-41).

Here is why I bring this up: more than I could hate 1,000 Duke football teams combined, I FUCKING HATE that right now, East Carolina has a better football program than Miami.

Could Miami, in any scenario, beat UNC and VT in back to back weeks?

Maybe, but I hate to think of the Pyrrhic cost that would entail.

We have reached a stage where NOTHING good can happen without some sort of opportunity cost.
Defense looks decent against Louisville? Doesn’t matter, because the offense is going to look like the JV squad playing the varsity.

Offense finally looks good against a good team? Doesn’t matter, because the defense is going to revert back to last year’s form!

By the way, Nebraska ran the ball on 37 of their last 40 plays…and Miami was still playing 2 deep safeties. Good call guys, the scheme TOTALLY works. Don’t change a thing.

It’s gotten to the point where it is even happening in recruiting. We can’t get a kid to commit without another kid deciding he would rather go elsewhere.

It is all enough to make you want to stop giving a shit. But then there is East Carolina. A mediocre program, with a mediocre coach, with mostly mediocre players, and yet they have figured it out. They add to the frustration, but also lend hope.

Could East Carolina beat Alabama? Probably not. But there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that they would beat us, and they would give Saban’s Boys a hell of a better game than we could.
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On to Duke.

Look I hate that place for all the same reasons you do.

The cheerleaders are BY FAR the ugliest in the ACC.

The campus is beautiful but SO BORING.

The students are either Jersey douche bags who couldn’t get in to Harvard OR engineering / math geeks who will all make more money than me.

The basketball team is great and obnoxious and omnipresent and arrogant and beautiful and ugly and pretty much everything you have ever read about them is true – good, bad or indifferent.

They play up the “Harvard of the South, Stanford of the East” card which is true but also IT’S NOT LIKE THEY HAVE A TON OF COMPETITION. Seriously, who else is there? Vanderbilt? Emory? Morehouse? See how quick that list thins out?

Their football team plays in a glorified high school stadium, and they talk about “doing it the right way”, which is one of those phrases that should always trigger a red flag in your brain.

(A couple of years ago, people were praising Roger Goodell, Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice for “doing it the right way”.)

Duke is a basketball school which happens to have a pretty decent football program.

Last year’s run to the Peach Bowl was pretty objectively cool, if you can take away the “I hate everything about Duke” glasses for a second.

David Cutcliffe is an amazing coach and always has been, with a great mind for the game, even if he does look like Franklin the Turtle. 

Duke is going to put a lot of points on this defense. That's a fact. 

Brad Kaaya, if this playcalling stays as good as it has been the past 8 quarters, is actually going to be the guy that keeps us in the game. 4 games in, and he already has "the look". If there it anything that I am going to take away as a positive from these first 4 games, it is that Kaaya appears to be every inch of what we thought he was as a recruit. 

I hate that Duke has a great coach.

I hate that we don’t.

I hate that I don’t expect to beat teams like Duke anymore.


And I hate that even though we are only 4 games into the season, there is NOTHING that makes me think this season isn’t over already.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Nebraska Hate Week

Boy oh boy do I hate me some Nebraska.

Since this is an historic rivalry more than anything else, let’s start this by looking at the history.
As we all know, Miami won their first national championship following the 1983 season, beating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl in a massive upset. Kenny Calhoun knocked away a 2 point conversion attempt that would have put Nebraska ahead with less than a minute to play.

Had Nebraska merely kicked the extra point, they would have finished undefeated and still been awarded the title. So for years people have been gargling the Tom Osborne juice, celebrating the “courage” that it took to go for 2 in that situation.

I get it, it was ballsy. Hard to hate the guy for that decision alone. What I really hate, however, is the way it is talked about and the overall attitude it reflects.

First of all, courage is volunteering to serve in the military while the country is at war. Courage is running in to a burning building while others are running out. Tom Osborne deciding he wanted to go for a win instead of a tie so he could nail another pelt to his mahogany walls while wearing some, admittedly, *killer* red chinos? Well, I wouldn’t necessarily put that on the same level. So spare me the deifying, Nebraska fans.

Nice pants.
Second of all, Nebraska fans think that they are God’s effing gift to football. They brag about how they have sold out 3 million consecutive home games, and how on Game Day the stadium becomes the 2nd largest city in the state, and how they support their team through thick and thin.

Newsflash: Nebraska is the WORST. And I don’t mean the university. I mean the state. It is literally a giant farm and Warren Buffett. That’s it. And I get the rustic beauty and the true *America-ness* of it all. I love the God damned Chevy and Budweiser ads during the Super Bowl just as much as the next guy. But as someone who has lived in his fair share of small towns, I can personally tell you there is NOTHING to do there. Nebraska is like the Green Bay Packers of college football. OF COURSE THEY SELL OUT EVERY WEEK. There is nothing else to do. I know that this seems obvious and on the nose but I am not sure I am doing an adequate job of conveying the depression and desperation that comes with living in these places. You get to a point where you will look for literally ANYTHING to do to be around people and feel some sort of meaning in your life. Nebraska selling out every football game is like a drug dealer going to an NA meeting and bragging about clearing out his entire inventory.

Really, Nebraska’s fanbase is a bunch of lonely red-staters (coincidentally?)  wearing freakin’ plastic corn cobs on their heads unironically. It would be pathetic if I didn’t feel kind of bad for them.

Third of all, back to Tom Osborne. They paint this dude as Vince Lombardi if he exhausted Clive Owen’s entire supply of liquid cocaine from The Knick.  They elected this dude to the U.S. Congress when he retired; I guess they thought he was they sort of guy who could coach up this country.

After leaving Congress, he was their  Athletic Director until 2012, and is still pretty much Nebraska’s version of the Turkish or Pakistani army; the silent hand, the menacing hook sitting just off stage, ready to yank back the current coach/stooge on stage at any moment, installing martial law in his stead for a transition period before the next figurehead gets propped up.

The worst.
Osborne was part of a generation of coaches…your Joe Paternos, your Lou Holtzes, your Bary Switzers, your Gene Stallingses, your Jackie Sherrills…who yammered on and on about being leaders of men (Osborne even wrote a book about it) and developing these kids into real adults and looking down at Jimmy Johnson and Miami, who did it a different way and had no interest in pretending otherwise.

Look, Osborne’s teams might have been paler in complexion and worn suits and ties in their team photos, but they were WORSE than anyone else in the country, and the same could be argued for any of those other dudes.

To wit: in 1995, Tom Osborne assembled arguably the greatest college team of all time. They killed everyone. Tommie Frazier, Lawrence Phillips, the famed “Blackshirts” defense at its peak…they were amazing. Here are some of the guys that were on that roster:

·         Lawrence Phillips, the Heisman hopeful running back, who dragged his girlfriend down the stairs by her hair. This would NOT be the first of Lawrence’s legal issues.
·         Christian Peter, leader of the defense, had 8 convictions in 7 years (a remarkable efficiency rate) with the law during this time at school, most notably SEXUAL ASSAULT and grabbing a woman by the throat. Sidenote: AFTER all this Peter ended up getting drafted anyway and 3 different teams gave him a shot. Moral: talent is all that matters. Time is a flat circle.
·         Riley Washington, running back , stood trial for second degree MURDER during the season
·         Tyrone Williams, cornerback, stood trial for felony weapons charges

Osborne didn't discipline Peter. He didn't discipline Phillips. He said it was too important for them to have team structure in their lives...never mind the raping and woman abusing.

So yeah, Osborne TOTALLY wasn’t just the same old rich white guy asshole as every other coach in college football. He TOTALLY did things the right way. Real leader of men, developer of character, all in all good guy. Build this man a statue…he did it the RIGHT WAY. So effing courageous!!!

Tom Osborne is essentially Bud Kilmer.

Miami has beaten Nebraska for the national title three different times, including in 2001. Since then, both teams have been on a long downward spiral into mediocrity after collectively running the sport for the better part of 3 decades. Who knew?

Nebraska currently has mongoloid Bo Pelini running the show. Greg Schiano, the biggest meathead coach to ever meathead coach, likes the cut of Bo Pelini’s jib. Bo Pelini and Bret Bielema are destined to co-head coach a Division 3 program together some day. They will singlehandedly make the University of Wisconsin – Stout a powerhouse, playing real “hard nosed, smash mouth, grown man” football.

This dude would love nothing more than to make his star running back do 100 up-downs as punishment for having the balls to suffer a concussion. When Mike Leach locked Craig James’ kid in the closet, Pelini couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. And, knowing Pelini’s brain capacity, he still doesn’t understand why The Pirate was fired for it. The only thing missing is a widespread outbreak of Staph Infection in the Nebraska locker room.

There are really 2 names to know for Nebraska: Ameer Abdullah and Randy Gregory.

Abdullah is the Big 10’s Duke Johnson. Explosive guy, can do it all, and really only needs a small hole to go the distance (that’s what she said?). He hasn’t been as great through 3 games as we all thought, but that is really more a function of his offensive line than anything else. Sounds familiar.
Gregory is a nightmare of a defensive end that will probably break someone in half. He missed a couple of games hurt but should be good to go for our game. Which is great, because our offensive line has been MISERABLE.

The game plan is to make their running quarterback stay in the pocket and beat us with his arm. The run defense needs to limit Abdullah. And the offense has to stay out of 3rd and long, because that is when Nebraska will pin its ears back and attack our right flank, which is made of balsa wood.

This game is essentially Louisville all over again. We will learn something about the mental makeup of this squad on Saturday night. Will the coaching staff handcuff the offense again? Will the defense play 4 solid quarters? Will Pelini and Golden sumo at midfield?

Time will tell. In the meantime, get your hate on.


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Arkansas State Hate Week

Know what I hate most about Arkansas State? The feeling of impending doom.

This is the “little brother” school in the state of freakin’ Arkansas, is on its 5th coach in as many seasons, and has a “Red Wolf” for a mascot. Whatever the F that is.

Their greatest hope every year is to win the Go Daddy Papa John’s Humanitarian.com Bowl…and yet they have a very reasonable hope of beating us in our own place this weekend.

Arkansas is the West Virginia of the Southeast. Sure, it is pretty and you can find decent people there, but mostly it is a bunch of methed out Bible thumpers with this weird college football superiority complex based in…pretty much nothing.

The University of Arkansas has a fan base that makes our chinstrap beard-wearing, ear pierced, Pitbull worshipping hordes look intelligent and sane…so I guess by default I don’t hate Arkansas State that much, because WOW look what they could be.  Dodged a bullet on that one.
I honestly am kind of out of shit to talk about here.

Their campus is in Jonesboro. Far as I can tell the most interesting thing about Jonesboro is the 1931 Church War, when the National Guard was called in to stop a battle between the followers of Joe Jeffers and a pastor named Dow H. Heard. I know nothing about this other than what I just read on Wikipedia…but any dude named Dow probably deserved to lose that war. On the other hand Joe Jeffers makes me think of Warren Jeffs, so maybe HE deserved to lose that war.

What the shit am I even talking about at this point?

Arkansas State’s most famous alumni include Cleo Lemon and Fred Barnett (as a Dolphins fan I say F both these guys) and Mike Beebe, the current Governor of Arkansas. This guy seems like he is actually a pretty decent Governor who steered Arkansas pretty well clear of the financial crisis, arguably even more so than Rick Perry did in Texas despite far less notoriety.

I literally Googled “Mike Beebe Scandal” and one of the results pages said “No controversys (sic) have been entered for this representative”. I gave up right after that. Maybe this dude loves hookers and blow. I hope he does. But I guess I will probably never know.

This is easily the most boring Hate Week I have ever done. If I can’t even come up with something mean to say about a sitting Southern governor, maybe it is time for me to stop.

Arkansas State has a running quarterback and a quick hitter offense that masks their greatest weakness, their young offensive line.

On defense they return 11 starters, so that whole thing where we blow at converting 3rd downs (3-23 through 2 games)…yeah that’s not changing. Get ready for the excuse making.

Arkansas State just played Tennessee over the weekend. Tennessee won 31-17 but it wasn’t pretty. I honestly think we could be in a bigger world of shit, because at least one side of the ball at Tennessee knows what it is doing (the offense). More than I can say for us.


I hate this game.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

FAMU Hate Week

This week we take the Hate Show back to Miami, where the ‘Canes face off with the Florida A&M Rattlers.

Honestly, it is hard to muster up a lot of emotion about this one. Most of my hatred is of the “self-loathing” variety this week, as the reality of spending another fall rooting on college football’s equivalent of the Italian Navy settles in.

However, I’m gonna give it a go. I am going to put my fingers in the best possible position to win so that if they mess up, at least they mess up while playing aggressively. In that way, I am very much unlike Al Golden, James Coley and Mark D’Onofrio.

FAMU, or as I like to call it “Florida State’s Best Recruiting Tool”, is located in Tallahassee. They are known for having a decent FCS squad, although not one that will ever challenge the North Dakota States and Appalachian States of the world, and an amazing band, The Marching 100.

Well, they were known for having an amazing band, but now they are known for having a band that literally hazes people to death. To. Death.

Don’t believe me? Didn’t click the hyperlink? Google it.

This band is Greg Schiano’s spirit animal.

There’s your everyday” high school cafeteria” hazing. There’s your “frat house, repressed homosexuality” style hazing. There’s your Richie Incognito “I’m a 300 pound sociopath who uses the N word a lot and wants to go full American Pyscho on your younger sister” hazing. And then there is” beating someone to death on the team bus” hazing.  

To be fair, this incident occurred back in 2011 and the current members of The 100 probably have nothing to do with it. So I don’t mean to condemn any of them when I say this, but F this school and F this band straight to hell. F them with a crab leg…they can go across town to FSU’s campus to find one.

(SOTS: Taking unsolicited cheap shots at FSU since 2008)

On the field, I know literally nothing about this team. When I typed in “FAMU 2014 roster” in to Google their basketball team actually was the first result, which is crazy, because I didn’t even fully realize they had a basketball team.

As far as I can tell, they didn’t even do me the courtesy of having a former Hurricane that transferred into their program. At least when I do this shit for Bethune Cookman I have a familiar face or two to look forward to!

What I really hate is that I fully expect that we will sleep walk through this game.

All of the bullshit Golden is talking about this week, how we need to attack downfield more, how we need to play more freshmen, how we need to get Duke the ball in space…it all sounds great.

However, I don’t expect it to happen in this game. I really don’t. I expect us to just run the ball against an obviously smaller, weaker, slower, worse team and win something like 38-14.

And even if we do, it doesn’t matter, because this team blows. We have them on the schedule merely to serve as sacrificial lambs.

Perhaps the thing that I hate the most is that I know full well what this is, but am still looking forward to it. 

You will see me going full meathead and yelling at spittle-inducing levels at the TV in the 4th quarter, because after losing 5 of the last 7, and all in blowout fashion, I have become a bully.

I have issues in my own life and need to take it out on someone weaker than me in order to make myself feel better. Might as well sign me up for The Marching 100.