College Football Alphabetical, Week 12: In Which The Season Devolves Into Epic Poetry

By Spencer Hall - Featured Contributor

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Nov 22, 2010 - A is for Aeneid. A full season of college football works way less like a straight narrative, and far more like epic poetry. This is because epic poems, unlike straight narrative, often make no sense whatsoever, involve a lot of blood and total nonsense, irrational turns of the plot, and in the end usually just kind of fizzle-out when the author says, "Um, dinner's on, and I'm too drunk to continue, so everyone dies except for this one guy, and he's fine and has all the money and bye--"

B is for Babble. Like an epic poem, there's abandoned gibberish storylines everywhere. 

• The Alabama Repeating Narrative, rudely scuttled by South Carolina in Columbia.
  
• The Invincible Emergence of Your New Emperor Terrelle Pryor, who has emerged as a sort of Todd Boeckman on a souped-up Segway, and not as the second coming of Vince Young (yet) (won't happen In Tressel's offense ever.)
  
• The New Guns-Forward Air Assault at Florida. Canceled two minutes into season.
  
• The Great Meeting of the BCS Busters in the title game! <---still possible, though not plausible.
  

This list doesn't even make mention of the micronarratives like "Michigan State is this year's Iowa," or "Notre Dame's totally winning ten games." That last one is a Mark May Special, and this does not surprise you.

C is for Choler. 

That's Carl Pelini allegedly attacking a camera on the field at Texas A&M, something you can also see done Zapruder-style here. Bo Pelini already looked like murder in a sweatshirt for much of the night, and with good reason: his team was on the end of an officiating nightmare, a 16-2 penalty landslide resulting from some combination of the most pungent home-cooking at Kyle Field ever, and from some seriously half-assed play by Nebraska. There's never a reason to kill someone over football, but a light strangling? Certainly merited by the evening's events. 

Still, pick a worthy target, Carl, not the cameraman. Try Mike Sherman. He won't punch back, because he experiences no emotions, but he'll wear you down while you just exhaust yourself attempting to bruise his girthy figure. Then, he'll sit on you, and my, this is a better analogy for the defensive struggle that happened on Saturday in College Station.

D is for Drunk. It's hard to say how large my liver would be if I were an LSU fan. In contrast, I've consumed less alcohol this season than in previous seasons because, without the possibility of Florida being close to competent on offense, hope isn't even an option, and therefore the tension of games evaporates in a sober hopelessness.

On the other hand, being an LSU fan would have driven a sane man to cirrhosis this year, and then into a booze-coma during the Ole Miss game. Jordan Jefferson was given the game to win, and...did? After moldering on the bench, all-Universe recruit Michael Ford actually got significant carries in gametime situations? Gary Crowton called an effective game? Houston Nutt, after a horrendous season, did not pull his usual caper of kneecapping LSU late? The defense struggled? And yet nabbed the game-clinching interception when you needed them to?

Your season of pulling out the compass and watching it spin in all directions continues, LSU, but never fear. It's quite pleasant in the Bermuda Triangle Les Miles has created for you, and with one loss you're still sitting on a ten win season, a quality bowl, and another year of Mr. Toad/Miles driving the program as close to the edge of disaster as possible, and then pulling it back from the edge on two teetering wheels. (He's giggling while he does this, and putting grass between his lip and gum like it's dip.)

E is for Expulsion. One of the great mysteries of this year's season is the strange, season-long fainting spells experienced by the Ole Miss defense. This was not supposed to be the case, as SB Nation's own Ole Miss blog Red Cup Rebellion wrote in the off-season:

Defensively, though, we're telling a completely different story. Last season, the Rebels were the best defense in the SEC on third down, tallied the second most sacks, boasted the 2nd best red zone defense, and otherwise sat in the top-half of the conference in every single team defensive category except for interceptions (where the Rebs were 7th) and fourth down defense (10th). ...The Rebels success these past two seasons have been carried on the backs of the Landsharks, and this season will be no different.

This wasn't mere homerism: they were supposed to carry the team while Masoli and company fell into a rhythm, a project that became a rush job once Injuries began to pile up (particularly the killer loss of defensive end Kentrell Lockett). Despite that, Tyrone Nix should be a dead coach walking, as Ole Miss's defense is 12th in the SEC in scoring defense and 11th in total defense. They were unable to stop one of the SEC's most inconsistent offenses on Saturday, gave up scads of yards to FCS school Jacksonville State in their season-opening loss, and have spat out tasty candied yards like a cheap pinata all year long.

F is for Further Hemorrhaging. Mikel LeShoure's optimal running mode has been identified: like our forefathers, he runs fastest toward a manifest destiny in the west, which is good since that was the only direction anyone ran from scrimmage on Saturday in a one-way game at Wrigley. (See next note about "folly of expecting competence.") LeShoure averaged ten yards a carry moving towards the setting sun in a 33 carry, 330 yard 2 TD performance. Mark our words: direction-specific running backs will be the new hotness for 2011.

G is for Great Expectations. The controversy over the outfield fence at Wrigley resulting in the move to a one-way game played toward the west endzone only is another chapter in a long history of people expressing blind outrage over a general lack of competence. As Wrigley Field happily pointed out, the plans had been in the hands of the Big Ten for over six months, and Conference officials had reviewed the field in the week leading up to the game. The path to misery lies in assuming an endeavor involving more than three people won't be the most inept malfunctioning ball of confusion you've ever seen. It's a small miracle when things actually work out, as in the tiny miracle of 85,000 people all showing up in one place every weekend, getting along, and then leaving peacefully without incident or leaving too much trash behind. So if you used the word "joke" to describe this game, congratulations: you officially misunderstand the mess that is reality. They went one way, it wasn't a big deal, and Chicagoans got to do something they really enjoy: drinking beer outdoors while watching football. 

How serious are we about this point? There's a clear shot here to make fun of the Big Ten and we decline it. 

H is for Heartbroken. The 36 yard line in Starkville was blacked out in remembrance of Nick Bell, the MSU defensive end who died of cancer this month at the age of 20, in one of the more subtle but touching tributes to a teammate I've seen. He was remembered where a football player would want to be remembered: on the field itself.

I is for Infanticide. Beating a man like that is just child abuse, Andrew Luck.

Jim Harbaugh beats up rivals the old-fashioned Mongol way: by levelling them and salting the earth with the tears of the vanquished. Stanford was at one point up 45-0 before they, like a tiger attacking a bus full of schoolchildren, completely lost interest and allowed a few late scores to make up the final margin of 48-14. This was AT Cal, too, just to add insult to...well, injury seems too light a word to describe what happened here. (Disembowelment? Decaptiation? Disenbowelmentapitation? I don't even know what that last one would be besides gory and apt.)

J is for Jacory'd. If you enjoy new college football terminology, "Jacory'd" may have entered the vernacular as a term for losing your starting job to a freshman, as Stephen Morris has been nearly impossible to differentiate on paper from Harris. Admittedly, that means throwing at least a few interceptions a game while struggling without decent protection, but at least if there is no quarterback controversy coming out of spring next year for the 'Canes they know they have two quarterbacks who can be beaten bloody behind Miami' s offensive line.

K is for Kismet. It is fate or destiny that even if Virginia Tech begins the season by losing to Boise State and JMU, they shall finish with ten wins and a shot at an ACC title. It's as persistent a trend as the cloud of brown liquor fumes surrounding Lane Stadium.

L is for Ludicrous. The funniest moment of the weekend: for one moment Alabama's special teams took a collective nap, woke up, and found Georgia State kick returner Albert Wilson showing the collected Crimson Tide special teams unit his taillights on the Panthers' only score of the game, a 97 yard kickoff return no one may ever delete from the history books. This statistical note is the football equivalent of the one German soldier who died from a sword wound when the Wehrmacht ran over the horse-drawn carriages of the Polish Cavalry in 1939. 

M is for Matchless: Akron maintained its perfect record this season by losing 19-14 to Miami of Ohio, who beat the Zips and attained bowl eligibility by kicking four field goals, a.k.a. known as the Paper Cut Suicide Attack of Losing for poor, poor Akron. Only Buffalo stands between the Zips and perfection. LET'S DO THIS MEN. 

This picture is really just a visual allegory of Akron's entire season.

N is for Nanos gigantium humeris insidentes. "standing on the shoulders of giants." in Latin. If Boise slingshots TCU for the third spot in the BCS rankings, and heaven forbid if it makes the title game, it will have done so not just on the merit of this team, but on last year's, and the year's before that, and on the 2007 Fiesta Bowl team who more than any other Boise team to cement the team's reputation in the national eye. Voters effectively elect teams in the BCS system, and all too often they vote based on the team's collective historical stock. So know that if Kellen Moore's cleat trods the field of the BCS Title Game, it does so stepping off the shoulders of Jared Zabransky and Ryan Dinwiddie. (You may not ever think of them as giants, but size really is all about perspective. Their shadows certainly are tall enough in Idaho to qualify.)

O is for Ondaatje, Michael. The author of The English Patient, which if you'll recall ends with a horribly burned shadow of a nobleman's former self recollecting the good old days to anyone who'll listen shortly before his death.

/clears throat

/points

That's Lane Kiffin, who probably would have crashed the plane a lot sooner in the story than the doomed man in The English Patient, the coach whose USC Trojans lost their most lopsided game since the first year of the Pete Carroll reign of terror in a 36-7 loss to Oregon State in Corvallis. Just for additional sting, Matt Barkley left the game and their second-string punter, a.k.a. backup Mitch Mustain, had to come in for some miserable relief duty. This movie is overly long already, but the really tragic part begins next year when scholarship sanctions start to kick in with seriousness. If Lane Kiffin is still at USC in three years, he is officially the greatest coach to ever walk the earth, or he has nude pictures of Pat Haden doing unspeakable things with the Cuban National Women's Volleyball Team. Either way he'd be a genius.

P is for Pryor. Why Terrelle Pryor went to Ohio State, from a football perspective at least, is still a profound mystery. It's not like Jim Tressel's ever needed a quarterback to win ten games, and in fact he sort of seems to prefer a machine that doesn't have all those fancy whistles like sport handling, traction control, and a big, souped-up engine. (A sensible sedan like a Craig Krenzel would be best for the Senator, please.) Pryor will likely still be drafted in the first three rounds of the draft, and could have a successful pro career, but if/when he leaves the nagging suspicion is he'll leave as a very shiny square peg whose talents were always at odds with the careful, methodical, and economical approach of Tresselball. 

Q is for Quadrifid. Split into four, as in the possible scenarios for the BCS Title game at this point. Those allergic to defense will want the Auburn/Oregon game; those fond of the underdog will want the Boise State/TCU matchup; and those who hate everything and want the BCS Title Game to embarrass itself after Cam Newton to be declared ineligible, and then for Auburn to face Oregon, who will then beat Auburn by a score deemed unsuitable for family audiences halfway through the third quarter. 

R is for Reminder: Please, if you do have a Heisman vote, recall that I don't care, because the Heisman is more a kind of TV coverage quiz regarding which running back or quarterback had the most screen time in the year of college football coverage. But if you do, Cam Newton is still eligible, and still the best player in college football, and if the award means anything, he'll get it. (It doesn't, so he won't, but quixotic causes like bringing some meaning to the Heisman are a pet favorite of mine, so consider it anyway, plz k thx bai.)

S is for Sixty-Six Percent. Two-thirds of Michigan's total offense has come from Denard Robinson. If there is a script where the world works the way I want it to, he will hug Greg Robinson at the end of the year, kiss him on the lips, and then watch dispassionately as the defensive coordinator of the Wolverines is stuffed into the boot of a car driven by hard men with murder on their faces.

T is for Tavon Austin, Celebration Denied. Oh, so not cool, Steadman Bailey of West Virginia.

That's not from this week--the Austin TD came in the previous week's game against Cincinnati--but it should serve as further proof that West Virginia, who ground out a hard 17-10 victory over Louisville this week, is like many teams in that their freshmen are still learning the basics of the game itself: blocking, tackling, and properly meeting a teammate in mid-air for festive bumping.

U is for Urbane Coaching. The Urban Meyer coaching tree has, in sum, had a pretty decent year. Dan Mullen's win total exceeds his mentor's at 7-4 on the year, and he very nearly had an eighth win if not for the worst ending to any offensive drive, the fumble-through-the-endzone-for-touchback, in the second overtime against Arkansas. Charlie Strong could end the year at 6-6 with a win against Rutgers. Doc Holliday's Marshall team is 4-7, and...well, two out of three ain't bad, mind you. One huge element in Florida's decline this year is brain drain over the past two years, and here's where it shows up in the positive sense.

V is for Vacancies. Minnesota will enjoy a magnitude of prominence in the offseason round of hiring it might not have in any other year thanks to the relative stability of the job market and lack of prominent openings. The aforementioned Mullen will be on the short list for the Minnesota game, though whether he'd give up an SEC gig for a job that is objectively only marginally better than the Mississippi State gig is a legitimate question. Gus Malzahn, on the other hand, has to be looking to pull the ripcord in order to flee Auburn at this point, and would be a better (and cheaper) alternative for the Golden Gophers.

W is for WANNSTACHE ON THE BEACH. Like, the worst Phillip Glass/Robert Wilson collaboration ever, and that's saying something, but the reality of "Pittsburgh, Orange Bowl invitee and Big East Champion" is still real provided they beat West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl. Is it a good coaching job if Pitt plays like this both with an experienced quarterback or not? Dave Wannstedt is the cilantro of football spices; add him to anything, and no matter the ingredients it always just tastes like eight baffling wins and nothing but Wannstache-spice. 

X is for Xenocracy. A government by foreigners, which is precisely what it feels like to play in conference all year and then emerge into the strange arms of the bowl system at the conclusion of the season. "Congratulations on all you've achieved, and now let's take you to...Charlotte? El Paso? Thanks? Thanks!"

Y is for Yale. The only time you will see Ivy League football mentioned here: when an Ivy League player is stoned by his own coach.

Z is for Zoanthropy: The delusion that one is an animal. and possibly the condition Nick Fairley has been functioning under all season long. The last time Alabama center William Vlachos lined up against a first-class defensive tackle, Drake Nevis added "an extensive injury to the soul" to Greg McElroy's Rhodes Scholarship application. Fairley is at least as good as Nevis and undoubtedly nastier, so do yourself a favor when watching the Iron Bowl this Friday: watch the trenches. It's going to be gory, brutal, and undoubtedly entertaining.

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