“JP Sports” Part Deux

The venom has been festering in the Ghost since Kentucky pulled off the unthinkable Saturday afternoon and the realization dawned on me.

Oh Gracious. THE GAME is going to be on JP Sports.

It is what it is, folks

Then, I boot up the ol’ blogsite and what do I see? My good buddy, The Daddy of All Things Crimson, beat me to the blog that I wanted to write. Then I thought, “You know what? This is such a travesty, it deserves TWO blogs. By gosh, I’m going to echo his sentiments in my own way.” (This is how great minds work, folks.)

Daddy did a fine, fine job with describing the sheer horror of Tennessee and Alabama fans when they realized the biggest game of the year would be on JP Sports.

(Forgive me, y’all. I refuse to call it Lincoln Financial. To me, the bastion of announcing putridity will always, ALWAYS be known as Jefferson-Pilot.) It’s a little like Ole Miss and UT fans still calling Memphis “Memphis State.”

You can paint a turd yellow and tell everybody it’s a canary, but it still smells like a turd because it is a turd.

Hey, it was this or a picture of a turd

Dave, Dave and Dave are the turds of broadcasting. It just warms my heart (or is it “sickens my soul?”) that after Old Dave retired, they scoured the nation for a younger Dave that was just as terrible so they wouldn’t lose their “Dave, Dave and Dave” shtick.

Of course, ESPN already took Auburn-LSU, which justifiably should be ahead of our esteemed game. So, CBS — whose Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson aren’t much better than the JP guys, what with Danielson’s verbal lustful favors he performs on Tim Tebow every time he covers a Florida game and Lundquist’s rehashing of the same tired old storylines (how many mentions of “Jim Bob Cooter is a great name” and “JaMarcus Russell housed Fats Domino during Katrina” stories must we hear over and over and over and over again?) — takes Florida-Kentucky.

Jeez, that was the longest sentence of all time. William Faulkner would be proud.

Sadly, William’s mustache never connected in the middle 

So, unbelievably, JP Sports lands the gold-mine game. Seriously, JP doing Tennessee-Alabama is like Stevie Wonder tripping over a million dollar bill. But for the fans, it’s like we’re the ones who dropped the million dollar bill in the first place.

And, it’s not like we have options. What are Bama fans going to do? Turn the radio on Eli Gold and Kenny Stabler? Yuck. What are Tennessee fans going to do? Tune into Blob Kesling? Double Yuck.

Ruggedly handsome 

Not only that, but this game is IMPORTANT. Very important. I mean, Bama and UT control their own destinies. Heck, Bama could lose and STILL control its own destiny. It’s even more big-time than it normally is.

It’s also Nick Saban’s first game in this ridiculous rivalry. And, in case you didn’t know, the fans in Alabama aren’t too fond of Phillip Fulmer. (I know, you’re stunned). The ramifications of this game are entirely too immense to be broken down by the likes of Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest, um, Dave, Dave and Dave.

And — not to be underestimated — I friggin’ bought a $2,500 television to watch the Vols in High Definition, and just like the Golden Flake, Purnell’s Old Folks Country Sausage and Yella Wood commercials it employs, JP Sports hasn’t exactly joined the 21st century.

It’s Goooo-ooooooooooooood!!!!! 

HD? You’re just happy if the cameraman follows the play all the way downfield.

There’s a slight possibility that the Kegs-and-Eggs start time will give the Vols an advantage since Bammers won’t be as lathered up as they would be later in the day, but WHO CARES? The negatives are just too much.

As ramped up as all of us are this week, this has been a blow to our considerable momentum. Just get ready for Dave Baker the Cliche Maker.

Sigh.

Ghost of Neyland 

God Does Have a Sense of Humor

Forget about all the huge upsets that are happening on a weekly basis. All one needs to do to figure out that this is one whacked out season of college football is look at the TV slots for this weekend’s SEC slate. Alabama - Tennessee is the 11:30 CT game and Kentucky - Florida is the 2:30 game. God does indeed have a sense of humor.

It’s sacreligious to even think about playing the Third Saturday in October before noon. Thank you, Les Miles and LSU. Two yards, that’s all you had to get to keep the game going. Two dadgummed yards. (Aside: do you guys remember the old Harlem Globetrotters cartoon? And the guy with the afro would always pull stuff out of it. I think of that every time I see Miles, and am waiting for the day when he reaches up and pulls out a ladder or something to that effect out from under his hat.)

Not only that, but UK v. UF is classic JP/LF TV. I mean, who doesn’t remember all those definitive bouts between Florida and Kentucky where you always thought this could be the year that Kentucky overcomes itself more than anything else Florida does to finally beat the Gators while Dave, Dave, and Dave kept us on the edge of our seat with the play-by-play and the oh-so-colorful commentary.

Seriously, do you go to Applebee’s and order the Fiesta Lime Chicken® first, then the potato skins? You may try, but your waiter will probably mock you and then have to bring over the manager. Sure, the Kentucky game has more national significance this year, plus has two Heisman trophy candidates squaring off, but so what. The potato skins taste better than the stinking chicken too, but try telling that to your waiter. He won’t care, and neither do I.

And when was the last time Kentucky has been the main course two weeks in a row? Is Bill Raftery doing the game?

The kind of hatred that the Alabama - Tennessee game brings out needs time to ramp up during the course of the day. It needs to build and fester before it pops from the pressure of squeezing 90,000+ people into the stadium. It won’t be ready at 11:30. Sure you can try the normal squeeze, and it might even pop, but for sure, there’s gonna be blood, pain, and scarring to go along with it.

11:30 games stink!

Crimson Daddy

Chaos

Before we, or I at least, jump headfirst into the game that gave rise to the name of this humble blog, let’s take a look at another earthquaking weekend that incredibly shifted the tectonic plates of the college football landscape even more.

• LSU can’t make the plays when it needs to two weeks in a row. That juggernaut of a defense looks to have some chinks in the armor. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it probably takes a QB the caliber of Woodson to expose it. Does it seem like for the last 5 years LSU has the most talented pass droppers in history? Yes, even including the Georgia receivers. I thought LSU would be better with Flynn because he wouldn’t lose a game all by himself like Russell was prone to do once or twice a year, but it also looks like Flynn isn’t near the playmaker JaMarcus was when the game is in his hands. Still, keep in mind this was a triple OT loss on the road to a ranked team.
• For the second straight week, the top ranked PAC-10 team loses a game at home to an overmatched opponent. Cal takes the honor this week with a horrible clock management decision by the second string QB at the end of the game. It’s a four horse race between Oregon, USC, Cal, and Arizona State for the Pac-10 title. If one of these finishes the season with only one loss, I look for them to be in the BCS title game against either one loss Oklahoma or LSU.
• South Florida is #2 in the BCS. South Florida is #2 in the BCS. I had to type it twice and it still doesn’t make a lick of sense. A program that has fielded a football team for all of 11 years has a very good shot to play for all the marbles. The national coach of the year will either reside in Tampa or Lexington this season. Maybe this will force the powers that be to at least come up with a plus-1 scenario for the future.
• Almost half the teams in the SEC still control their own destiny: Alabama, Auburn, LSU, South Carolina, and Tennessee. By mid-afternoon Saturday, Alabama will still control theirs.

Saturday @ the Big House

Before you guys and gals think we’re off our rocker for putting pee-wee football (aka Big Ten football) on our blog site during our biggest, most important week of the year, just read the following entry. One of our esteemed readers ventured to the Big House this past weekend and relayed her experiences, and the prose alone makes this easily the most well-written thing that’s appeared on our site yet. Amy is a Vols fan, true and through, but she takes us back to her maize and blue roots here, and we’ll allow it — even before the Third Saturday in October. 

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — This weekend’s Purdue-Michigan game at The Big House was homecoming for Wolverines alumni, and it was also a personal homecoming for me as well.

Born and raised in Southeastern Michigan, I spent many a Saturday propped up on my elbows lying in front of the television watching Bo Schembechler lead Big Blue to win after win. (Granted, I am the daughter of an East Tennessean and die-hard Tennessee football fan, but we didn’t always get SEC games on Detroit-area television. …) So, suffice it to say, that my love of college football stems from a childhood devotion to the maize and blue. And you can thank Bo for my high expectations of what a football coach should be.

 That said, Saturday’s game was pretty spot-on to what was expected out of the Purdue Boilermakers. We had southern end zone seats, about halfway up from the field, and the visiting Purdue fans sat a few rows behind us. (If I hear “Boiler Up” one more time, I might strangle someone.) On the flipside, they have one particular chant in which they count to four, so I’m glad to know all that higher education is paying off for them.

When my sister and brother-in-law offered us the chance to come and see a Michigan game, they gave us the option of Purdue or Minnesota. I chose Purdue because, back in the day, I had an Aunt and Uncle who lived in Lafayette, and one time, we happened to be visiting the week Purdue played Notre Dame. Up to that point, I don’t think I ever had witnessed someone screaming so boisterously at a football game before, and it forever stuck in my mind that I should enjoy every football game experience the way my Uncle Dave did.

True to form, Michigan came out ready to put on a show at The Big House. The energy was electric and the crowd was pumped and ready to go. As a stadium experience, Michigan is very, very different from Neyland, as I’m sure you can imagine. Dug deep in the ground, every seat feels like it’s within arm’s reach of the field, yet shadowed by the Jumbotron scoreboards that tower over each end zone. Early on in the game, Purdue seemed to put up a fight for on-field dominance. Boilermakers QB Curtis Painter started off strong and was seemingly unimpressed by the noise and size of the maize and blue crowd, let alone the size of the hefty Michigan linemen. Unfortunately for Purdue, Chad Henne kept putting the ball in the capable hands of Heisman hopeful Michael Hart despite short gains for yardage early on. Mario Manningham put up yardage through the air — which is easy to do when you’re single-covered to an insane degree — and the Wolverines got it clicking after a slow start.

IT’S BAMA WEEK…AND?

Tennessee is coming to town boys, and their bringing Fulmer and his big bag of doughnuts with him.  The Third Saturday in October, ahhh…its finally here! This is a huge rivalry, right? I mean, everything rides on this game! Everything! If you bleed orange or carry around toilet paper on a roll this is THE day. Or so it used to be.

The Third Saturday in October used to make my blood boil, used to make me nervous as can be, used to get me fired up. It’s still Bama, it’s still Tennessee, but for some reason I just don’t get the same feeling that I used to get. Maybe it’s because Tennessee has bigger fish to fry now, I mean we have more to worry about with Florida, Georgia, and the ‘ol ball coach at South Carolina. Maybe it’s because Bama hasn’t been a threat to Tennessee in so long that this game is almost forgotten.

Is the feeling the same for Tide fans? I don’t think so. I am around ALOT of Bama fans and it seems that Tennessee is still THE game for them, with the exception of Auburn.  That game splits up families. I know, I’ve seen it happen, but I want that feeling back that I used to get for Alabama/Tennessee.   I want that sick feeling that I used to get when the Crimson and White took the field. I want that upsetting feeling back when I hear Yea Alabama, I want to see red when I see Crimson. I miss it.

I think I almost got it back last year when Alabama nearly knocked off the Vols in Knoxville after breaking our hearts the year before in Tuscaloosa, but I smiled and said, “That’s a nice win.” I thought it would come back after Alabama hired Nick Saban…nope. Although I did get pretty tired of hearing how Slick Nick was gonna return Bama to the glory days. He won’t be there long enough for that to happen, but that’s another issue for another time. Anyway, I am looking for this Saturday to be the day that my hatred for the Crimson Tide returns. I am looking for something…anything to make my stomach churn when Bama comes out at Bryant-Denny. Maybe, I shouldn’t be looking for it, maybe I should just let it happen. Whatever the case may be, I miss it. I miss hating Bama.

volwalk