The Search

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life . . . To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

What do you seek- God? you ask with a smile.

I hesitate to answer, since all other Americans have settled the matter for themselves and to give such an answer would amount to setting myself a goal which everyone else has reached- and therefore raising a question in which no one has the slightest interest. Who wants to be dead last among one hundred and eighty million Americans? For, as everyone knows, the polls report that 98% of Americans believe in God and the remaining 2% are atheists and agnostics- which leaves not a single percentage point for a seeker. For myself, I enjoy answering polls as much as anyone and take pleasure in giving intelligent replies to all questions.

Truthfully, it is the fear of exposing my own ignorance which constrains me from mentioning the object of my search. For, to begin with, I cannot even answer this, the simplest and most basic of questions: Am I, in my search, a hundred miles ahead of my fellow Americans or a hundred miles behind them? That is to say: Have 98% of Americans already found what I seek or are they so sunk in everydayness that not even the possibility of a search has occurred to them?

On my honor, I do not know the answer.       

-- Walker Percy, The Moviegoer 

College Football 2011- In List Form

OUR FINAL POLL

1. LSU
2. Oklahoma State
3. Alabama
4. Stanford
5. Wisconsin
6. USC
7. Boise State
8. Oregon
9. Kansas State
10. Arkansas
11. Baylor
12. South Carolina
13. Clemson
14. Michigan
15. Southern Miss
16. Virginia Tech
17. Houston
18. TCU
19. Michigan State
20. Georgia
21. West Virginia
22. Oklahoma
23. Georgia Tech
24. Nebraska
25. Missouri (FOR THE LOLZ)

OUR HEISMAN BALLOT

1. RG3
2. Honey Badger
3. Montee Ball
4. Andrew Luck
5. Trent Richardson
6. Denard Robinson
7. Matt Barkley
8. Case Keenum
9. Sammy Watkins
10. Nathan Scheelhaase/AJ Jenkins (co-champs)

COACH OF THE YEAR

1. Ron Zook (OBVIOUSLY)
2. Rick Neuheisel (the poor man's Zook for the poor man's Champaign-Urbana)
3. Paul Johnson (for the triple-option and for not giving a fuck)
4. Gary Pinkel (for the drunkards)
5. Brian Kelly (for his strong resemblance to Grimace of McDonald's fame)
6. Paul Rhoads
7. Mike Gundy 
8. Kevin Sumlin
9. Les Miles
10. Bill Snyder (actual winner- for his evil overlord powers)

ASSISTANT COACH OF THE YEAR

1. Ted Roof 
2. Charlie Weis
3. Jerry Sandusky

WORST TRAVESTIES

1. Me not getting an interview for the Illinois head coaching position
2. Penn State
3. Rematch in the BCS Championship
4. Nick Saban
5. Kansas' defense

BEST THINGS

1. Mizzou moving to the SEC
2. Mike Leach finally hired by Washington State
3. Plot to assassinate Ron Zook foiled
4. Michigan State-Wisconsin games
5. Oklahoma running classic QB Power

BEST SPORT, BEST TV SHOW, BEST THING ABOUT LIFE IN TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN THE YEAR OF OUR LORDS BEAR BRYANT/PAT DYE/TIM TEBOW

1. College Football

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

Tomorrow, for the first morning in seven years, the world will wake up to find Ron Zook unemployed.

The sun might as well not come up. The Mayans might as well be right. We might as well all just commit suicide and leave it at that, for all is lost.

Now, who will go for two point conversions just for shits and giggles? Who will allow the prolific Scheelhaase-to-Jenkins combo to flourish? Who will create his defensive playbook on the fly by pressing the Ask Madden button? Who will look so hot and dangerous while waterskiing? 

The answer is nobody, my friends. Though there are many worthy candidates for the Illinois head coaching position- namely, Mike Leach and Kalen Wagoner- those men, and all others really, are incapable of filling the Zooker's small, oddly-shaped, putrid-smelling shoes. 

'Tis a shame the old Greek poets have long been gone, for Homer could've written a bitchin' tome about the tragic hero named Ron Zook.

College Football Poll- The EVERYTHING IS GOING TO HELL! Edition

Horrible things are happening in college football, you guys. Boise State has lost! Stanford has lost! Oklahoma State is about to lose to the juggernaut that is Oklahoma! These teams were three of our favorites; we wanted to see one of them take on LSU for the national championship. Had that happened, there would be no bad result in our eyes. We have noted our love for Les Miles and LSU before, and have no problem with them taking home another title for the SEC! SEC! SEC! (Are we Mizzou folk allowed that cheer yet?) But we also love the multitalented Mike Gundy, Andrew Luck and his enviable neck beard, and, of course, the Idahoan smurfs who will be number one in our hearts forever. 

Stanford and Boise appear to have no shot at this point; Oklahoma State has a seeming walkover in Ames (though you never know when Paul Rhoads will get Iowa State playing quality football) before a stiff test against the archrival Sooners in the last-week Bedlam game that may serve as a de-facto play in for the national championship. Though Oklahoma will miss Ryan Broyles, the little engine that's powered their ruthlessly effective passing game for what seems like forever, the Sooners' talent caliber still overwhelms the Cowboys' as a whole. In the end, Okie State will have to score, and score a shit ton, to give themselves a chance, as their rather porous (but opportunistic) defense will not stop the Sooners. We hope Gundy can find a way to pull it out, but we just don't see it happening.

Where does that leave us? The short answer- some level of chaos. It could be DEFCON 3, or it could be DEFCON 1, but a hypothetical Oklahoma State loss leaves the BCS without two clear choices. This isn't Auburn-Oregon of last year, or Texas-USC of a few years ago. The outcome won't be objective. It won't be fair. People gon' be pissssed.

Here's the DEFCON 3 scenario. Does Alabama deserve a rematch with LSU after losing an ugly game at home? Does Oregon deserve another neutral field game against the Tigers after their own week one loss? Does nobody deserve a rematch, opening the door to an Oklahoma team that got dominated at home by a shitty Texas Tech team? Does Oklahoma State, who blew out the Red Raiders 66-6 on the road, deserve to stay ahead of their in-state rivals after a hypothetical loss? If Clemson wins out, they'll have impressive wins over Auburn, South Carolina, and Virginia Tech (twice); how are they worse than an Alabama squad that's beaten Arkansas, Penn State, Auburn, and nobody else? Or should we just say fuck it and put Houston in the national championship instead? 

Where we all really go to hell, though, is if Arkansas goes into Tiger Stadium and beats LSU on Black Friday. If this happens, the top three teams in the SEC West will all be 11-1, ranked in the top five, and sporting losses to each other, we will be at DEFCON 1, Iran will drop a nuke on Mike Slive's bunker, and Jon Huntsman will become president.  

But really, though- how do you break the tie to determine who gets to wipe Georgia off the field in the SEC Championship? Alabama will have the most convincing win, a resounding victory over a banged-up Arkansas at home. Arkansas will have the best win, knocking off #1 in their own house. LSU will have the best body of work, having rolled through the SEC and beating Oregon along the way. 

The system that would determine who gets that right? The BCS rankings, of course. It's the BCS determining the BCS, it's own self-fulfilling prophecy. With the Penn State scandal making the game no fun off the field, the last thing the game needs is another huge BCS controversy.

So please, LSU and Oklahoma State- make this simple for everyone and just win the rest of your fucking games pretty please?!

We finish with our poll. Be looking for something non-football related soon. -kw-

1. LSU
2. Oklahoma State
3. Oregon
4. Alabama
5. Oklahoma
6. Arkansas
7. Clemson
8. Houston
9. Stanford
10. Virginia Tech
11. Boise State
12. Georgia
13. Kansas State
14. Wisconsin
15. South Carolina
16. Southern Miss
17. Michigan State
18. Michigan
19. Nebraska
20. Baylor
21. TCU
22. Virginia
23. Notre Dame
24. Georgia Tech
25. Illinois (FOR THE LOLZ)

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS IN CHAMPAIGN-URBANA

(DISCLAIMER: We did not come up with the idea for this post. For complaints about offensiveness, contact somebody who lives in Highland and goes to UIUC. There are like 15 of them. Take your pick.)

URBANA, IL- A starting safety for the University of Illinois football team was shot in the hand at an off-campus party Sunday night by a disgruntled fan who claims the incident was a hit gone wrong.

Trulon Henry and two other victims were shot by 35-year old Todd Bradley, a sociology teacher from Troy, IL, after a brief fight on the patio of the Urbana home.

While Bradley struck a blow to the reeling Illini football team, it wasn't the one he hoped. Multiple sources confirmed Bradley's actual target was embattled head coach Ron Zook.

"I'm pissed at my murder coach, Motherfucker Jones," said Bradley in an exclusive interview with this blog. "He told me that dumbass Zook was gonna be there, and goddammit, he was nowhere to be found! I was suspicious that there weren't no middle aged white people there. The intelligence failed me, man! I just did what I had to do to get outta there alive afterwards."

Bradley claimed he received directions to the house from a co-worker, Doug Strong, who claimed to have a friendship with Zook. He became suspicious as he was led to what has been officially termed a "sketchy" neighborhood by witty UIUC engineering students that have never ever seen a ghetto in their motherfucking overprotected lives.

"I come to the house, and I'm kinda surprised a guy that makes so much money would live in this shack across the corner from Church's, but when I got inside and saw the people, it all made sense," said Bradley. "Apparently it was Soul-Food Sunday. Totally nutso. There were boxes upon boxes of fried chicken, as far as the eye could see. Watermelon seeds littered the floor. Right after I came in, this bitch started doing a keg stand- yeah, that's right, they had a keg of grape soda! And the worst part- the whole place smelled like waffles. Nasty, I tell ya."

Bradley, who wore a dreadlock wig and FUBU jacket in an attempt to "fit into the environment," briefly conversed with a few members of the mostly college-student crowd. According to an eyewitness, the confrontation only broke out when the subject turned to comedy.

"Man, that sumbitch was one crazy Caucasian," said former Illini offensive coordinator and New Mexico head coach Mike Locksley, the only partygoer who agreed to an interview with this blog. "We was in a side room watching YouTube clips of the funniest mothafuckas there is- Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, Chris Rock, Katt Williams, Kevin Hart, Lisa Lampanelli- and the crackah had no problem. But right before we put Pryor on, the guy was like, 'WAYNE BRADY! PUT ON SOME WAYNE BRADY!' We didn't even aks him any questions, we just pulled our Berettas out right then and there."

A firefight ensued, the partygoers packing pistols, Bradley with a Tommy gun authorities found was registered to a notorious Ugandan arms dealer. Bradley struck the Henry and the two other victims before a bullet through his shoulder rendered him helpless. Police arrived to arrest him immediately.

Zook had no comment on the situation, but said learning of the hit was unnerving. "I only took this job because of the low expectations. People in Chambana don't give a shit; I mean, even this is not even close to what it was like in Gainesville. I was actually in the witness protection program my entire last year at Florida, because these people started a siege around my house. And they all had AK-47s. It's a miracle I'm still alive to coach this shitty football team to four straight losses, really." He later remarked that despite the setback, he remained excited for next week's loss game against Wisconsin.

Some students were disappointed by the failed hit, but most really didn't care. "I actually found out about this on Reddit before I got on this awesome thread about Neil Degrasse Tyson," said Kole Italiano, the only non-Asian student we could find to interview. "I mean, I hear people want to Occupy Zook, but as part of the 1% myself, and as someone who doesn't give a shit about sports at a school with a mostly shitty athletic program, none of this really registers with me, and I don't give a shit, you know? Now let me get back to Skyrim, OK?" (We let him go back to playing Skyrim.)

Henry is expected to make a full recovery. The starting safety, an integral part of the defense, will miss the rest of the season. Let's be honest, though- nobody will really notice anyway.

Darkness in Happy Valley

There are few certain things in this world - death, taxes, gravity, Rams losses. Tonight, there is one less certainty.

Joe Paterno has been fired as Penn State head football coach. On Saturday, for the first time in over 60 years, he will not roam the Nittany Lions sideline at Beaver Stadium.

Football coaches, by the nature of the profession, don't last long in one place. The job is just too hard. The head coach is a teacher, a tactician, a counselor, a business manager, a policeman, a CEO- all in one job held by one man. The demands of time, family, and body drive some from the profession; demands of on-field performance drive out many more.

For a man to last as a major conference Division I head football coach for the 18 years I have been alive is surprising. To last the 43 years of my parent's lives is remarkable. While clearly Paterno took less on far less responsibility than the average head man over the last decade or so of his career, he was still the boss, a testament to his legend, his lucidity, his ruthlessness, and in part, as we have learned, his negligence.

By now, the sickening details and horrific allegations of child abuse against former Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky have been rehashed again and again. We won't discuss them anymore because, quite frankly, we don't need to know anymore.

What we do need to know, the question we do need to ask, is simple. How? How did nobody know a pedophile was walking in their midst? After multiple complaints, how could nobody put the pieces of the puzzle together? How could Mike McQueary do nothing after seeing a 55 year old man raping a 10 year old boy in the football locker room? How could four men in leadership positions (McQueary, Paterno, vice president Gary Schultz (who was in charge of the police department) and athletic director Tim Curley), four men in the business of educating young people, four men who claim to follow the motto "success with honor," successively fail not only to report the incident to police, but even to confront Sandusky himself about it?

"With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

The old cliché that hindsight is 20/20 has always struck me as totally unsatisfactory, no more so than in this case. It's a natural impulse to dwell on bygone events. But, as my wise mother always says, "you can't go back and unring a bell." The past is the past now. It is gruesome, it is awful, people deserve to pay for it, and it cannot be changed. It all leads to the biggest question these men must ask themselves everyday for a significant number of days. How can I look in the mirror each morning, knowing what I have (and have not) done, and go on with life as usual?

In 61 years at Penn State, Joe Paterno did so much right. In this situation, though, one can't skate by on some sort of lifetime achievement award. What happened years ago, and the (lack of) reaction to it, was unacceptable. We all face the same challenge with humanity- namely, that people are inconsistent and unpredictable. Good people do bad things. Worse, bad people can seem good.

Though Joe Paterno the football icon was an institution bigger than his institution, Joe Paterno remained a human being. He leaves in shame the gigantic hole he occupied for so long, a hole that threatens to swallow the identity of Penn State that he so carefully constructed over the course of his lifetime. What happened makes no sense, and never will. The whole situation is incredibly sad; the outcome for Paterno, deserved and unavoidable.

In State College, God is dead. It's the end of everything. Nobody escapes. Everybody loses.

The victimized young men most of all.

Highly Questionable Post is Highly Questionable

Nothing fancy today. I will get back to making good posts soon.

1. Oklahoma State*
2. Alabama
3. LSU
4. Wisconsin
5. Oklahoma
6. Stanford
7. Boise State**
8. Arkansas
9. Kansas State
10. Oregon
11. Clemson
12. Texas A&M
13. Virginia Tech
14. Nebraska
15. Michigan State
16. West Virginia
17. Houston
18. Auburn***
19. Arizona State
20. Georgia Tech
21. Illinois
22. South Carolina****
23. Notre Dame*****
24. Penn State
25. Washington******

*Oklahoma State is ranked number one because they play at Mizzou this weekend. Therefore, if Mizzou wins, I can say we beat the number one team in the nation. It won't happen. But just in case it does...

**Why does Boise State keep dropping when we promised they wouldn't? Because our rationality prevailed. Wins over Oregon, Nebraska, Virginia Tech, aTm, etc., are indeed more impressive than Georgia, Nevada, Colorado State and the like. We still love the blue turf, and we still think Kellen Moore can beat anybody anywhere, but the schedule does matter.

***I am super excited for Gus Malzahn's forthcoming tenure as the head football coach at the University of Mississippi. The SEC West will get that much more hellish. Mizzou is going to die (I pray they get in the East- we can beat Vandy and Kentucky! (maybe (OK, maybe not, because Gary Pinkel is a dumbass with a shitty goal line offense))).

****Marcus Lattimore is a hell of a back, but I've never seen him as very fast or quick-twitch from a pure athletic standpoint. With the ACL, he becomes like a glorified Toby Gerhart- someone who won't have the explosiveness to run in the NFL. It's sad, and Spurrier shouldn't have ridden him so hard, for all running backs are only born with so many carries in them...

*****Trust me, Notre Dame is an excellent football team. Besides Oregon, the biggest test Stanford faces this season.

******Keith Price is showing why the 2011 draft was so idiotic. The coming group of quarterbacks are so much better than Locker, Ponder, and Dalton. So why the fuck did they all go so early last year? Why you pick busts NFL? Why you value smarts over, you know, actual quarterbacking ability? YOU KNOW REDHEADED QUARTERBACKS ALL FUCKING SUCK, BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE SOULS!!!!!!

Calm down, urrbody, we're just doing what we're good at- baseless stereotyping. I love you, ginger readers. Make it a great weekend. -kw-

Time Marches On

YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS. Rankings for the week are as follows:

1. LSU
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma
4. Boise State
5. Oklahoma State
6. Wisconsin
7. Stanford
8. Arkansas
9. Clemson
10. Oregon
11. Michigan
12. Nebraska
13. Georgia Tech
14. Kansas State
15. Virginia Tech
16. West Virginia
17. Illinois
18. Arizona State
19. Notre Dame
20. Michigan State
21. South Carolina
22. Baylor
23. Texas A&M
24. Auburn
25. Wake Forest

We do these polls and follow all college football, but let's be honest- all we're waiting for, in eager anticipation, is November 5th. #1 LSU. Les Miles. The hero of this blog. #2 Alabama. Nick Saban. The Great Satan of this blog. Hatred. Fierce defense. No offense. Jarrett Lee pick sixes. Trent Richardson mauling shit. Honey Badgers. Punters scoring touchdowns rescinded for taunting. Tuscaloosa. Bryant-Denney. 2:30 PM. CBS. Uncle Verne Lundquist. Me. Bag of chips. Couch. (Actually, office chair). Huge ass TV. (Actually, 20-inch). Three and a half blissful hours of great college football. Nothing better. We can't wait.

A Blogger's Embarrassment & Retarded Yaks, Uncle Hank & Ass-to-Ass

I have no idea why I continue to look at Blogger's stats page, for it only leads me to depression. Why, you say? It tells me the search keywords that lead to the vast majority of this blog's traffic. The top ten are as follows:

• yak (1,535)
• retarded yak (7)
• pictures of yaks (5)
• funny yak (3)
• funny yaks (3)
• highland liberation army (3)
• yaks (3)
• fat yak (2)
• funny yak pictures (2)
• gentlemen fuck this bitch (2)

Sigh. So I am not the purveyor of an informed, germane discussion on bringing communism to America, college football, and the sad state of our culture; no, Highland Liberation Army is known worldwide as "that yak blog."

BUT- to those gentlemen who were looking to fuck this bitch, I say: +1000 cocktails to you, sirs! Though it's not porn, I think this video will tickle your fancy (and maybe show you how to pick up a cougar, since, if you're searching for "gentlemen fuck this bitch," you obviously don't have bitches of your own to fuck). -kw-

Kids, no matter how awesome he seems: don't emulate Uncle Hank. He does not actually fuck bitches.

He only watches them go ass-to-ass with a dildo. While this is more acceptable than

))<>(( FOREVER, it is still grossly perverted. Though he looks happy, he is a sad, morally depraved man.

Go watch Requiem for a Dream, kids.

Conference Realignment and the Loss of Jobs

First, the rankings for the week:

1. Alabama
2. Wisconsin
3. Boise State
4. Oklahoma
5. LSU
6. Oklahoma State
7. Stanford
8. Clemson
9. Oregon
10. Georgia Tech
11. Auburn
12. Michigan
13. Texas
14. Arkansas
15. Illinois
16. West Virginia
17. Arizona State
18. Virginia Tech
19. Michigan State
20. Florida State
21. Kansas State
22. Florida
23. Notre Dame
24. South Carolina
25. Air Force

I realize I have senselessly forgotten teams in the past, like Florida State, which I have never ranked, even when they were top 5 in all the actual polls. I believe this time I have not done such a thing. I'm sorry, Jimbo Fisher, it was just a mistake; I won't forget you again. (Too bad for them, just as I remember they exist, they start losing games and not deserving to be ranked.)

AND NOW: Commentary!

Mizzou athletic director Mike Alden should go die in a ditch on the side of Illinois Route 160 between Highland in Alhambra after getting violently shovel-raped by Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach (and rumored meth-head) Quin Snyder. He is awful. He does not understand anything about athletics. He thinks Frank (No Faith In) Haith is a good basketball coach. He allows people in his department to have the gall to admit, as Mizzou tries to join the SEC, that they'd still prefer a Big Ten invitation but continue to get jilted by the B1G. This is really shitty PR. Your office is a two minute walk from one of the better journalism/marketing/"strategic communications" schools out there. Learn a fucking thing or two from them.

You wanna be the best in anything, you gotta compete against the best. And the best in collegiate athletics is certainly not any team coached by Turner Fucking Gill. Get a fucking clue. The Big XII is a hashed together mish-mash of underdogs in outposts no sensible 18-year old recruit wants to go to (when faced with other choices). Is it a bigger deal to be playing an 11 AM game in Waco on ESPN3 or in Tiger Stadium at night? Is it more respectable to compete in Lubbock or The Swamp? Hell, even Starkganistan and Mississippi State is more desirable than Ames and Iowa State. (Can't argue that there are no positives to Vandy or Kentucky, though.)

People are not born to shoot for mediocrity, but often we forget this later in life. We're fine with telling average jokes, and performing OK at our jobs, getting close to breaking 80 on the golf course, watching monotonous daytime television, allowing our football team to go 8-4 over and over while making the same mistakes. (Looking at you, South Carolina-era Steve Spurrier.) I say fuck that. Always shoot for more. Better yourself and your life. Be smarter and funnier tomorrow than you are today. Do good work. Advance to higher places in life. Shoot in the 70s on your next 18 holes. Don't watch Hoda and Kathie Lee and read a book instead. Know what the fuck you're doing. Live life the best you can. Join the best conference you can.

People are born wanting to do something in their time on this Earth. Sports teams, likewise, should always want to win something in their brief time together, to be the best they can be. To be the best, compete against the best. If you're Steve Jobs, compete against Bill Gates. Right?

So Mike Alden, I implore you, don't settle for the status quo. You know what to do. I expect to be listening to this before watching the Tigers (not Auburn, nor LSU, but Mizzou) next year.

Also- watch below. RIP Steve Jobs, one of the last Americans to truly know what the fuck he's doing. Live like he did, errbody. -kw-

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life"