An Open Letter to Bob Stoops from The SEC: Thoughts on the Oklahoma head coach and The Big 12 (excerpted in the Oklahoman)

This Off-season Bob Stoops decided to talk bad about the SEC... Now we're going to talk about Bob and his conference

I was reached by Jason Kersey for my thoughts on Bob Stoops. You can read that article featuring my opinion along side those of Clay Travis, Paul Finebaum, Tim Brando and many other people who are way more well known than me HERE

Dear Bob,

     From our viewpoint, you calling out the SEC in the off-season is just kind of silly. Stoops called out the SEC's schedules and the have and have-not culture of the Super Excellent Conference (SEC) while football was on vacation. OU did beat Alabama last year. We don't dispute that. Granted, Alabama has a history of not showing up in "consolation games" under Saban (see: versus Utah in the 2009 Sugar Bowl). Alabama threw caution to the wind against Oklahoma and decided to throw passes on first down quite a bit in that game. That's not how Nick Saban and "the process" is supposed to operate. Analysis of tendencies aside, Oklahoma won the game in a convincing fashion. Hats off to them. They played well. It was THAT game though. Against THAT Alabama team. Then Bob had to go and get all uppity with us.

     If we're going to use one game to make blanket statements about leagues then let's just point to Iowa State getting blown out by 20 at home to FCS North Dakota State. If we want to talk about schedules then let's talk about Baylor playing a non-conference slate with teams that may or may not be actual accredited universities. They play nobody out of the league. The joke floating around is that one of the many cutting edge features at Baylor's new stadium is the security system that locks out any decent non conference opponents. 

     The most or second most prestigious team in the Big 12 is Texas. I could explain why they're bad by using thousands of words. For the sake of brevity, let's just point out that Texas got beat for the second year in a row by BYU last Saturday. And I mean BEAT. Like beat in a slash-and-burn manner where everyone has to pack up and leave town to start anew somewhere. Baylor's rise has been legitimate. I say that for two reasons. The first, I like Art Briles as a human being and he seems like a "legit guy." The second, because I doubt the Baptists are buying up a bunch of players or anything close to it down there in Waco. Following the rules and bylaws of the NCAA is "doing things legitimately" even by the strictest definition of the word. But I digress... My point here is that Baylor was defeated handily by Central Florida in their BCS bowl game. Nobody used that to make any blanket statements about the Big 12 (until right now). 

     What I always remember about Stoops is that he's Spurrier junior. He wore the visor and everything and looked like a young Steve on the UF sideline. Without his defense Florida never wins a title. I like to think he learned to talk from Steve. What Stoops has failed to realize is that Spurrier's quips were always clever and funny. Bob's remarks about the SEC didn't strike any humorous chords.

     So here's the deal Bob. We, the people of the SEC, always kind of respected you. You were like the little sister that grew out of the shadow of her more attractive and socially established elder sibling and got her own swag. But remember Bob, we are the older sister that taught you all you know about being cool. You can't forget who made you. If you want to talk about Oklahoma being good then you can Bob. It appears you have a contender there. We know this because we have about five title-caliber teams a year. (#BLESSED)  You are a good coach with a good team that will beat a middling Tennessee squad on Saturday. Sadly, due to the comments you made, the focus this week will be on you instead of your football team. The Big 12 is a joke though Bob, and by calling us out, you became a punchline too. Can't wait to see you in January.

Love,

The SEC

Cult Heroes and College Football

Cult Heroes and College Football

     On the first weekend of September in 2011, Oregon played LSU in Jerry Jones' new palace of a stadium in front of 87,000 people with millions more looking on at home. Somewhere along the way in the first half a guy named Tyrann Mathieu ripped the ball free from an Oregon punt returner in what was both a violent and incredibly smooth motion. The ball took one bounce and cam up off the turf perfectly into the hands of Mathieu as he strode into the end zone. He looked as shocked as anyone else that it happened as fluidly as it did because footballs are oblong and they do weird things when left to bounce on their own volition. A month later he would do similar things in a nationally televised game in West Virginia and, due to the fact that taking what he wanted was obviously in his nature, was dubbed the "Honey Badger" on a plane ride home. Naturally, LSU fans loved this, but so did a lot of other people. There was this guy running around with reckless abandon ripping fumbles loose and intercepting passes and he did it with a quiet swagger that set the tone for a team that would go onto an undefeated regular season. They appeared destined for a national title until for some reason Jordan Jefferson was allowed to play the entire national title game and someone decided that running the option with him to the short side of the field was a good idea. What I really remember about that team was that LSU's mascot that year wasn't a tiger. LSU's mascot in 2012 was Tyrann Mathieu. He was fun to watch and even more fun to make things up about. As the season was going on, nobody knew that much about Mathieu and so people could decide what he was. He didn't talk to the media much and was a three-star recruit who wasn't quite a DB and wasn't quite a linebacker and nobody knew who exactly he was and so he just became the Honey Badger. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a little much for Mathieu and he was dismissed from LSU before the start of the 2012 season. I don't know Tyrann Mathieu. However, I imagine that he probably struggled being around people and them wanting to meet a Honey Badger and then meeting a Honey Badger instead. 

     On Saturday night a true freshman running back named Nick Chubb came onto the field for Georgia. On his second carry, he ran out of a shoe, through a couple defenders and around another before breaking into clean air for a touchdown. I sat in a room of friends as this happened and none of them were Georgia fans. Before Nick Chubb did what he did all I knew about Nick Chubb was that he was an excellent high school football player and that he apparently possessed freakish strength. After his run, I knew that Nick Chubb was another beast to compliment Todd Gurley.

     A couple of things happened after Nick Chubb's run. The first was that I found out when Brad Nessler says the name Nick Chubb in an excited manner people laugh. The second is that Nick Chubb became a cult hero in my household. My roommates are not UGA fans. One of them is even a Florida fan. Within a hour after the game my friends and I were making up stories about Nick Chubb. In the past few days I have had numerous conversations about what Nick Chubb is doing. He probably is practicing and going to class and doing college football things. However my roommates and I have decided that he is going around being a boss and swagging out all over the place. We have decided that Nick Chubb can bench press a solid half ton. We are convinced that Nick Chubb has numerous side hustles like teaching Michael Jordan how to dunk. We are convinced Nick Chubb is what would happen if somehow Snoop Dogg, Herschel Walker and an angel somehow had a baby and that child of promise chose football as his path over many potential careers he could have excelled in. It's fun. Right now, we can make Nick Chubb whatever we want because he has played one game and we have no idea what or who he is. Like the Honey Badger, eventually we will get a clear picture. For now though, he is the ChubbAngel. The below picture was taken in my house and its contents were written by a Florida fan. It's worth a thousand words.

We're still undefeated... Well, half of us anyways

We're still undefeated... Well, half of us anyways

On the joys of optimism

     On Saturday months of anxiety came to a head for myself and countless others across the country and possibly the world (thank-you internet) when college football kicked off its season. For myself, the tension leading up to and into the Georgia-Clemson game was thick enough that I asked myself what heart palpitations feel like and whether or not I was having them on multiple occasions. This does not make me unique. If anything, it is the norm for football fans today. Yes, you watch the games during the season, but you ultimately spend many more hours pouring over the recruiting rankings, predictions, etc. during the eight months of the year without football. If your team started the season with a cupcake opponent that roughly equated to playing a school for the deaf or blind then I envied you at 7:00 PM CST on Saturday night. As Georgia entered the fourth quarter of a then tight game that they lead by a mere three points, I wished desperately that the schedule had been more fortuitous. I wished the last weekend of August had brought forth a sacrificial lamb of an opponent. A school from some obscure place. A school that would be over-matched to a degree that the game allowed for casual snacking and checking out some second stringers in the fourth quarter.

     This was not the case. As I waited for the game to start I thought of how much it sucks to lose your first game. I thought of how when the dream dies on the first weekend of the year, you are rudely jolted awake before the fun even starts. I am happy to report to you that Georgia put on an impressive display of power football that resulted in three touchdowns and much joy in the fourth quarter. Joy. It's an appropriate word to express my feelings about the game now. But then? As it was being decided? Relief. It was the relief of knowing that you didn't waste the last eight months filling yourself with anticipatory excitement for a group of 18-22 year olds that, ultimately, shit the bed four hours into the season. It was the relief of knowing that the fatal flaw of this group has yet to be exposed. I know LSU fans felt the same way.

     Half the teams in the country are still undefeated. As the weeks tick by every team, or all but one or two of them, will collect a tally in the loss column. However, for this week, many of us are able to continue living in the happy delusion that this might be the year. We can sleep for another week without any of the rude awakenings that often come. They come in the form of your defense getting gashed for 500 yards in a blowout loss. Sometimes you wake up when your QB throws his third interception of the day while driving for that late, gamesaver of a touchdown that never comes. These are sobering moments and they happen most years for all of us and all years for most of us. So enjoy the week ahead. Enjoy the next two weeks if your school has been blessed with a bye. Enjoy it now. College football is a crazy sport played by young and unpredictable students who posses the athletic ability to do anything at anytime. Sometimes they do things to you and sometimes they do things for you. Hail Mary passes get caught. Stud athletes go down. 2013 Auburn does 2013 Auburn things. Les Miles does Les Miles things.

     So dream now about the confetti falling on (insert your team's name here). That ocean of optimism will turn into little tide pools spotted across a few parts of the country by the time Thanksgiving rears its head. But week one belongs to all of us. Well, half of us. Sleep deeply.

-Graham Coffey