Thank God for a Week Off

After witnessing firsthand the single-worst offensive half of football in recorded history in Boulder on Saturday night (FSU had negative yards in the 4th quarter), this week off is a welcome respite from 1st down dives of Antone Smith into the line. The wonderful pic below is courtesy of EDSBS, and could just as easily sum up the feelings of Nole fans as the final seconds of the 3rd quarter ticked away, and Jimbo!! decided against trying to punch in a TD in the one end of the field swarmed by FSU fans, opting instead to kick a field goal into the student section. Joy.

KICKOFF - Prayers answered and requested…

After taking in 12 consecutive hours of college football glory on Saturday, our brains are wired for explosion in, oh, about 7 hours.

Some of our prayers were answered over the weekend:

Appalachian State 34, #5 Michigan 32: Not that we hate Michigan for any particular reason, but holy crap do they implode under expectations. Good luck in your future endeavors, Ron English.

#9 Virginia Tech 17, East Carolina 7: Dusty doesn’t begin describe the saline-inducing assault on our eyes produced by the pre-game tribute in Blacksburg- we were barely able to keep ourselves from becoming blubbering ninnies. We got a whole lot happier, though, watching the VT offense do it’s be Notre Dame impression.

#12 Cal 45, #15 Tennessee 31: Ah, sweet ganja-wafting nectar of revenge. Seeing the gorgeous live footage of the once and future homeland made me wistful; seeing Nate Longshore, DeSean Jackson, Justin Forsett and Jahvid Best on one side of the ball for Cal made me downright giddy.

And some prayers will have to wait until tonight’s game to be answered:

For the love of all that is holy, please don’t give me an offensive box score like this again.

Please don’t grant me the unabashed joy of watching my starting quarterback tackle.

Please give me just one glimpse of future brain suregoen Myron Rolle performing corrective surgery on a wideout whose sternum has wandered a dangerous distance from his spine.

We also pray for safety from this man and his deadly rock.

For some greater previews and videos relating to tonight’s game, please visit some Nole experts:
Scalp ‘Em: Preview / Video
Tomahawk Nation: Preview / Video

For accurate history on Clempsin College, check out what our investigative team turned up.

Introducing Your Week 12 Opponent: Florida Gators

With less than two one month week until kickoff, it’s time to end our roll through the upcoming FSU schedule with little-known and untrue facts about the Noles’ opponents in 2007. We finish with a team described by H.G. Wells as “those orange and blue clad harbingers of doom.” Enjoy.

The University of Florida was founded in 1513 by Juan Ponce De Leon, having discovered on the site a “font which pour’d forthe gilded trophies the magnitute of which have never before been seen by Christian man.” The land surrounding the fountain was then named Hoggespaniola, and all treasures to be recovered thereupon claimed for the Spanish Crown. For over 4 centuries El Fuente de los Trofeos del Campeonato Nacional, Mítico y No Mítico, produced awards of unparalleled beauty and significance, all of which were crated by university students and shipped to the Iberian penninsula, for redistribution. The indiginous peoples who had made Central Florida their home objected to this thievery, whereupon they were shot at, attacked with alligators, and chased to the northern reaches of the state, where they took their revenge by founding their own college to collect and harvest fertile young white women.

De Leon ignites the Florida / Florida State rivalry by stating simply, “All your trophy are belong to us.”

The tradition of sending maginificent trophies elsewhere would likely have continued, if not for the intereference of a fiesty young Tennessee native, who in 1966 led a small raiding party north to New Yorke, stole one of the most coveted prizes in the United States, and returned it to the Hoggespaniola campus. At the time, the U.S. Government still considered areas of Florida “so wild and unihabitable as to make a reasonable man cease chase for his very mother into those dank swamps, much less attempt to recover an unsighlty bronze bust handed out every year to some sport’s Mr. Popularity. Fuck it, we say.” The raiding party was known as the Denim Britches Band, led by a man known today only by his website url, but referred to in those days as, The Placekicker. The Placekicker’s raids continued, mostly upon local turkey grillers and private golf courses, until he was exiled from Florida for a term of 15 years.

The Placekicker prepares for yet another raid with his infamous Denim Britches Band.

The Placekicker returned to Hoggespaniola in 1990, and for the next decade pilfered all manner of trophy that had once been destined for the University of Alabama, especially those for feats on the football field. This prickly pear was especially adept at bear-mauling the egos of his quaterbacks, shoving needles into voo-doo dolls of opposing coaches, and winning a crap-ton of football games. Realizing that the ensuing avalanche of font-spewed trophies would kill an ordinary man, they secreted the famous Placekicker away to a rumored safehouse in the NFC East, while work began on a football-coaching robot that could withstand the sheer weight of El Fuente’s wares.

The beta version of the robo-coach was a half-success. While able to lure the finest of footballing youth to Hoggespaniola, the RZ model was unable to properly function on Saturdays, where sweltering Southern temperatures caused wiring glitches in offensive play-calling, and fourth-quarter defense. In response, El Fuente’s gilded trophies escaped far to the West Coast. And possibly Louisiana. Although three years of getting better and better followed it’s initial launch, the early model robot was redacted from the project and shipped North. There, far from the reaches of debilitating humidity and the title producing fountain, wins are measured only in friendly tazering incidents and currency alteration.

University scientists perfected the robo-coach in 2003. In order to hide their creation from competitors, they named the artificial intelligence after singer song-writers of dubious talent, yet considerable access to hot women, and tested the robot in the furthest reaches of the Western desert. The hard work was justly rewarded, as the robo-coach proved more than able to handle El Fuente’s resurgent glut of trophies, all while sporting leather jackets rejected by Arnold Schwarzenegger from the set of “Terminator.”

Urban Meyer, robo-coach, after taming El Fuente de los Trofeos del Campeonato Nacional, Mítico.

Now that Univeristy of Florida has a newly created robo-coach with all manner of cheetahs (chronically inflamed or not), baby rhinos (Ewok or not) and fire-starters (on roster or nearby) at his disposal, it’s true what your granpdpa told you: The road to glory goes through Hoggespaniola.

Previous Opponents: Clemson, UAB, Colorado, Alabama, NC State, Wake Forest, Miami, Duke, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Maryland.

Introducing Your Week 11 Opponent: Maryland Terrapins

With less than two one month until kickoff, it’s time to roll through the upcoming FSU schedule with little-known and untrue facts about the Noles’ opponents in 2007. Enjoy.

K’un
In the northern darkness there is a turtle and his name is K’un. The K’un is so huge I don’t know how many thousand miles he measures. He changes and becomes a coach whose name is P’eng. The gut of the P’eng measures I don’t know how many thousand miles across and, when he rises up and directs a team, his jowels are like clouds all over the sky. When the field begins to move, this coach sets off for the southern bowls, which is the Lake of Heaven.

The Universal Harmony records various wonders, and it says: “When the P’eng journeys to the southern bowls, the land is thundered for three thousand miles. He breathes a whirlwind and rises ninety thousand miles, setting off on the eight-month gale.” Wavering heat, bits of dust, living things blown about by the wind - the sky looks very blue. Is that its real color, or is it because it is so far away and has no end? When the coach looks down, all he sees is blue too.

P’eng: Jowely

If the water is not piled up deep enough, it won’t have the strength to bear up a big boat. Pour a cup of water into a hollow in the floor and bits of trash will sail on it like boats. But set the cup there and it will stick fast, for the water is too shallow and the boat too large. If the wind is not piled up deep enough, it won’t have the strength to bear up great jowels. Therefore when the P’eng rises ninety thousand miles, he must have the wind under him like that. Only then can he mount on the back of the wind, shoulder the blue sky, and nothing can hinder or block him. Only then can he set his eyes to the south.

H/T: Chuang Tzu

Previous Opponents: Clemson, UAB, Colorado, Alabama, NC State, Wake Forest, Miami, Duke, Boston College, Virginia Tech.

A Sad Day

The Tallahassee Democrat is reporting the death of Ronnie Andrews, son of FSU Defensive Coordinator Mickey Andrews, at 41. The story is brief, saying only that Ronnie “was found outside his father’s house,” and that foul play was not suspected. There are no useful words to describe a tragedy like this to the Andrews family, and the FSU football community. Our sincerest condolonces go out to family and friends.

H/T: EDSBS and SMQ.

Introducing Your Week 10 Opponent: Virginia Tech Hokies

With less than two one month until kickoff, it’s time to roll through the upcoming FSU schedule with little-known and untrue facts about the Noles’ opponents in 2007. Enjoy.

Well, we’re gonna go ahead and take it easy on the Virginia Tech Hokies, and not just because they had the bad luck to house the most friendly man ever to hand out “pistol kisses” on an American educational campus most insane motherfucker on the planet not residing in Iran, Pakistan, or Washington D.C. (apologies - ed.) making us all Hokies. Truthfully, there’s not much history to work with. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University was founded in 1998 by educational philanthropist Michael Dwayne Vick, who served as the University’s President until succeeded by his younger brother, Marcus Deon Vick, in 2002. The football team is coached by an ultra-successful extra terrestrial residing in Frank Beamer’s neck, and a guy named Bud that still brings a lunchbox to work. And the team carries a nonsense-named mascot that is represented by a forest fowl you can lazily hunt with pistols. That’s it- that’s the list.

Oh, and the smartest man in college football picked a team with a new head coach, no offense and no QB to beat the Hokies out in their division. So they got that going for them.

Big Love to whoever lovingly crafted portrait of VT’s second President, then gave it to Deadspin.

Previous Opponents: Clemson, UAB, Colorado, Alabama, NC State, Wake Forest, Miami, Duke, Boston College.

Day-Anon: Fandom Explication and Acceptance

Good morning, and welcome to Daywalkers Anonymous. My name is Halleck, and I’m a daywalker. Technically, I’ve been a daywalker all my life, since I began rooting for a college football team long before i reached a qualifying age to attend said college. Still, when I became of college age, I decided not to attend the academic institution attached to my favorite football team, yet proceeded to cheer for them vociferously both while attending a different school, and after graduation from said school. To further compound matters, I will be attending a 3rd school this fall that is neither School A, which represents my favorite football team, nor is it School B, where I received my undergraduate degree. And yet, I still plan on rooting for my favorite football team (even as they play against School C this season) and consider my connection with that team, ephemeral as it may be, to be a valuable part pf my identity. I’m a daywalker, and proud, and this is my story:

Being born in south Florida, my first memories of FSU football came from watching games on Saturdays with my dad, and trips to Tallahassee to see relatives (and FSU grads) for Thanksgiving. I remember turkey, bonfires and Gator games. My family moved to Tallahassee in 1988, enough time for me to be on the floor in a friend’s living room when Leroy Butler executed the Punt-Rooskie against Clemson, and I’ve been in love with the all-white unis ever since. The first jersey I ever owned was a garnet #2, and it’s still on the wall in my TV room. The first memories of live games at Doak Campbell mostly consisted of trying to hang with the cool kids at halftime during 60-3 blowouts of Maryland, when they would congregate at the flagpole which used to sit in the corner of the stadium. And I was in the opposite endzone for Wide Right I, with the same “Yes! Yes! Wait? What?!” look that Bobby Bowden had on his face after the kick. My best friend and I had entered the stadium ticketless 2 hours before kickoff, after promising the high school girls softball team that we’d work their concession booth during the game. We worked 1 quarter, and watched the rest from various tunnels around the field, finally settling behind Gerry Thomas, a vantage point that made the kick look good until we noticed the Miami band celebrating.

Michael. Deion. Igniting the greatest college football rivalry in ‘87.

When it came time to choose a college, it was time to get out of town, and to a school I could play soccer for. That meant all the way to a D-III liberal arts college in New York. But I made it back my first Christmas to make it to New Orleans, where we sat in a hotel room all New Year’s day, watching every piece of the puzzle fall the right way to make the Sugar Bowl the National Title game, then was on hand for a game that gave every Gator fan their ATM code for life. I distinctly remember a phone conversation from school with my dad that went something like, “Winkie who? 6 picks?! How can you even stay in a game long enough to throw 6 interceptions? Against NC State! This guy sucks!” I made the drive to the Meadowlands in Jersey to see the Kickoff Classic against Texas A&M. After graduation I brought two college buddies to the Miami game in Tallahassee, which remains “the most insane sporting event” either have ever attended. By some strange luck I’ve been to both Miami games in years FSU has won the National Title, with the 1999 game being the last I got to see in person.

Moving to the West Coast meant a lot of screaming at cable providers whose ABC affiliate was showing cartoons instead of college football. It also meant ponying up for ESPN Game Plan and breakfast Bloody Mary’s at Bayside Sports Bar at 9 AM, and tabs from same that read like a laundry list of gastrointestinal and sobriety-crushing items by the time you walk out at 6 PM. That move also began “The Dark Times” for my favorite team, beginning with 2-13 against Oklahoma and extending through the Chris Rix era. A change of scenery to the Rocky Mountains got off to a good start with the first win over Miami in years in ‘05, then extended to being, along with my girlfriend, the sole eyes on a corner screen at Chopper’s taking in the horrors of Wake Forest 30, FSU 0. In between I started a side project of blogging about college football with friends on an all-sports site, which quickly spiralled out of control into an FSU death march chronicle.

But things are looking up- I’m attending University of Colorado this fall, so I’ll be on hand for the Noles’ trip to Boulder, and FSU has never lost more than 3 games when I’ve been enrolled at an academic institution. I’ve been asked who I’ll root for on September 15th. And really, there’s no question at all- it’ll be the same team who’s first Heisman winner we used to imitate at tailgates; the same team I rooted for when I chose a college that didn’t have a football team; the same team I rooted for when they went from juggernaut to laughingstock in 4 short seasons. It’ll be the first team I fell in love with- FSU. After all, I’m a daywalker, and proud.

Introducing Your Week 9 Opponent: Boston College Eagles

With less than two one month until kickoff, it’s time to roll through the upcoming FSU schedule with little-known and untrue facts about the Noles’ opponents in 2007. Enjoy.

Boston College was founded in 1863 as the 59th educational institute begat in the greater Boston metropolitan area. It was the 57th founded by the famous school financier Kashminster Brothers, also responsible for Harvard, Cambridge College and Roxbury Community College, among others. Boston College was the Jesuit template in the brothers search for the perfect university, a task they would not complete until founding another 17 schools in Boston, the last being the Berklee School of Music.

Attendees of Boston College are commonly called Heightsman, or Heightstonians (but never Heightswomen, unless in a derogatory nature by Tufts undergrads), due mainly to the location of the campus perched high atop the 10,743 ft. peak known as Chestnut Hill. The mount was named after the kernel-firing artillery guns placed thereupon, and used to repel invading non-Catholic students from St. John’s Seminary, Emerson College and MIT. The guns were removed from service following the 1904 treaty of Saint Columbkille’s, which provided a parochial feeder school as a non-invasion means of enrollment into Boston College.

Heightsman at the Chestnut Guns trained on the Bunker Hill Community College campus, circa 1897.

The illustrious Boston College football program began on November 23, 1984. After being pummeled by La Universidad Miami Del Santo Castro for 3 straight quarters in the Orange Bowl, the University of Boston football team called in famous Heighstmen and decathletes Doug Flutie and Gerard Phelan. After sacrificing a virgin Vinny Testaverde to the pagan god Mary, Flutie and Phelan went on to rout the highly-ranked Hurricanes, bringing eternal football glory (and the ability to ruin perfect seasons for Notre Dame) to Boston College. This is now known as The Flutie Effect.

Vincent “The Virgin” Testaverde, immortalized after his ritual sacrifice at the hands of Doug Flutie.

Long time Boston College coach Tom O’Brien, who came to the Eagle football program after stints at Saint Ignatius, Wheelock College and the Franklin Institute of Boston, recently left for the head coaching position at juggernaut NC State. He was replaced by Jags, the animal mascot for the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL football team. Jags reportedly prefers to cooler climate of Chestnut Hill, saying, “Do you have any idea how fucking hot it is in this idiotic jungle cat suit? Like, a hundred fucking degrees or something, dude! I’m serious, I’m sweating my damn nards of in this thing.”

Jags, on his way north from Jacksonville.

Previous Opponents: Clemson, UAB, Colorado, Alabama, NC State, Wake Forest, Miami, Duke.

Falling Towards The Starting QB Position: A Race

Two-a-days start for the Noles today, but we’ve already gotten a preview of the QB battle from the always prescient SMQ:

• Florida State: Quarterback controversy rages on at FSU, where Xavier Lee leaps to field a high snap from the shotgun, pump fakes, steps up into the pocket to escape onrushing ends, spins away from a blitzing linebacker, jukes a fourth rusher while simultaneously powering through the arm tackle of a fifth, escapes into the flat with a frothing Mickey Andrews in pursuit on a suped-up moped (Chuck Amato is in the sidecar) and heaves a pass out of bounds that collapses an entire section of the brick facade surrounding the Doak Campbell sideline from the practice field as six defenders pound him into the turf, and Drew Weatherford calmly underthrows a six-yard slant route.

Sounds about right. Although I remember well the Fall of 2006, where report after report surfaced from practice that Weatherford had gone another day without throwing an interception. Mythic tales of him protecting the football floating from the sweltering fields of Tallahassee like an intoxicating ether. Guess he was just waiting for when it mattered:

The battle between Lee and Weatherford, and QB play at FSU over the last 6 seasons in general, has been tossed around by pundits like a Motley Crue groupie circa 1986, and is touted as The Big Question Mark for 2007 season. The possibility has even been raised that the next FSU quarterback is still in high school. For my money, though, greatness at the QB position at Florida State merely requires competence. Danny McManus, Peter Tom Willis, Casey Weldon, Danny Kanell, Thad Busby. All lead FSU to bowl victories and top-5 finishes, and all they had to do was refrain from sleeping through exams, stealing checks to cover gambling debts, and/or contracting Lyme disease. Not that tall of an order. For the record, I rooted for Lee last year, based solely on the fact that I thought his athleticism could bail out the shoddy play calling. Which is exactly what’s different this season. I think Jimbo!!’s system will only require the QB to not be bad, and it will roll. So today begins the race of two previously bad quarterbacks to get, as fast as they can, to merely competent. 

This Week’s Audacious Bowman Award

Goes to our favorite name in the business: Jimbo!! Fisher. Jimbo!! had the gall yesterday to go on radio and suggest that the defenses in the ACC might be on par with those from the SEC. In so doing, he points to units from Virginia Tech, Miami, FSU and NC State (and their recent first round draft picks) noting they may be just as good as squads from the SEC. Apparently, Jimbo!! didn’t get the memo from Dan Shanoff that the SEC is merely an adjunct to the NFL- basically the only conference that keeps college football competitive. It seems Fisher has forgotten that the all our trophies are belong to the SEC, the most awesomest conference college football has ever bore witness to, which just graces the other measly, weak, girly conferences with its very presence. For going out on such a limb as to suggest a mere serf is on par with the king, Jimbo!! garners this week’s trophy of chutzpah. Keep speaking truth to power, Jimbo!!

Chutzpah to you, Sir!!

H/T: Tomahawk Nation