Quit Making Us Defend David Huertas, People

Let's go ahead and state the self-evident: the RedSoloCup > Forward Rebels. That blog is well thought out, its funny, its sharp and timely and you can tell the guys who maintain it take pride in what they do. They don't take days off like we're prone to do. AND they've always been nice enough when Forward Rebels has had internet/techish questions. AND they write about Ole Miss sports, which is obviously our interest, and thus we check in on them daily. We're fans of those guys, and almost always agree with them.

Except when, in a probably flippant little moment of inter-Cup division, one of them takes a lengthy swipe at Dahveed. Which truly wouldn't be that big a deal except that a large amount of people actually believe this shit. Since we like to pretend that we're above wading into message boards and correcting every idiot we disagree with (and the Huertas Haters are legion, believe us), we're glad that Cup author The One That Got Away teed one up for us. If you call out a blogger, he's at least got the means to defend himself, if need be. Anyhoo, let's get all FJMish up in here by dissecting this argument. The usually on-point tOTGA's thoughts are in bold:

I am going to politely disagree with Ghost and say he [sic] Huertas is overrated and inconsistent. I don't like Dahveed and if you have ever sat around me at a basketball game it should not come as a surprise.

Fair enough. He doesn't like David Huertas and has been vocal about it at basketball games, while presumably cheering for all Rebels not named David Huertas. And how would you like to substantiate your dislike? Maybe pointing to a huge loss that Huertas caused?

Yesterday was a perfect example of Huertas and how he hurts the team.

Oh. You went that way with it. See this piece was written on Sunday, meaning "yesterday" was Saturday, the day Huertas dropped 17 on Georgia in a convincing 69-47 home win to pull us to .500 in conference. OK, OK. I'm still listening, I guess. Continue.

Kennedy decided to take Dahveed out early because Huertas was throwing up retarded shots. The one that did him in was a drive to the basket when he was triple teamed and threw up a circus shot that hit nothing but backboard.

Hmmm. The coach took out a shooting guard because he started off cold. I guess that reflects poorly on the shooting guard. Like he's trying to do too much on offense. Why would a shooting guard, and the team's most tenured player, think he needs to do that much? Doesn't make sense. Now, you may look at it logically and say: "Dahveed is the SEC's 4th leading scorer and the only player in Saturday's starting lineup who had started a college game prior to this season. And also, he's one of only two consistent, legitimate offensive threats on our team." Well, don't go thinking too much, friend. Observe:

AK immediately went to the bench and when Huertas saw he was being taken out made sure the crowd and everyone on the court knew he was upset with AK's decision.

*GASP!* David Huertas: 17 pts, 5 rebounds, 2 assts, 1 scowl at that bastion of public restraint and emotional discipline, Andy Kennedy. Kick his ass off the team!

It's clear that AK and Huertas have a strained relationship. This isn't the first time they have got into it with each other. I think it was the UT game when they were both yelling at each other, probably because Kennedy reminded Dahveed that he has teammates.

Ok, in seriousness, I would rather our players didn't talk back to our coaches. BUT, I'll take 20 points and a hissy fit over 2 points and "thank you sir, may I please have another" every day of the week. You want a team full of Patrick Spachs? Good luck. When scowling at your coach starts being worth -20 points, call us.

As for "reminding him that he has teammates": David Huertas has 62 assists on the year. He leads the team in that statistic. Granted, the starting point guard went down early in the year, and the new point guard hasn't played enough to catch him in that category, but 62 assists out of your 3 guard is nothing to scoff at.

I think the "reminding about teammates" argument is a subtle nod at the prevailing notion that Dahveed is a ball hog (a sentiment reiterated in the comments section of the RSC post). Before we address that issue, lets point out that another paradigm among the Huertas Huaters is that Terrico White plays the "Rebel way" or some shit like that, and that White is the greatest player of all time at Ole Miss (seriously, lots of people think this. tOTGA says as much in the linked article, where he also complains about Huertas missing too many shots).
UGA game FG-FGA stats:
Huertas: 5-12
T. White: 8-18

Season FG %
Huertas: .423
White: .420

It drives me insane watching Huertas, who is not a very adept ball handler, waste 10 seconds of the shot clock trying to find his way into the lane or get a look at a three.

Woah. Chill out there, tOTGA.

I know he puts up points, that's great,
Better than great. Its how you win basketball games, which is the point of playing basketball. Anyhow, here comes the crux and fallacy of all of this...
but it frustrates me to no end how he takes plays off,
One of the most intense defenders on the team. If anything, he is too passionate, as Latin athletes tend to be...
doesn't pass,
Leads the team in assists...
blows up on his teammates when they do something wrong
Guaran-fucking-tee you if he was white everybody would be cool with this. We were watching the UF-LSU game tonight on ESPN and Nick Calathes chewed out a freshman (black) teammate on camera and the announcers ooohed and aaaahed about Nick's leadership abilities.
Not saying tOTGA is racist, believe us we're not. But why is it not cool for the most experienced player on the team to chew ass sometimes?
and disrespects his coach.
Who spent the night in jail for calling someone Osama Bin Laden, and also probably hurls some of the most venomous insults anybody can imagine in team huddles. Also, that coach plays him for 35 minutes a game, so, you know, there's probably an understanding there.

He's done good things for us, no doubt, but for now I am not going to miss him when he leaves.
"Water is essential to life on earth, no doubt, but for right now I could handle a drought for a year."

In sum: Take David Huertas off this team and we are looking at maybe 8 wins this year. That's not wild proselytizing. That's the truth. He is the best player on this team, and if he weren't here, nobody associated with Ole Miss would give two shits about basketball at this point in the season. Don't succumb to this chic prevailing notion that he is somehow bad for our team, or worthy of your hate. He's just goofy. And goofy's always been alright with us.

David Dellucci: Make Believe Hero, Full-Time Jackass

Yes, Ole Miss lost games to South Wichita Polytechnic Institute and the Mobile Shrimper's Guild softball team this weekend. So what. Happens every year. Newsflash: we were over-ranked at No. 6 anyway, so don't act like your dog just died.

Now, on to more entertaining news: David Dellucci is telling the Cleveland media that he injured his thumb while saving a small child from an alligator attack. And they believe him.

Thanks Dave.

Does Anyone Remember? Does Anybody Care?

When the sun shines down on what's left of me /

About a hundred years from now /

I'm gonna cut my water with Rebel Yell /

And claw my way back to town

100 years, 100 years /

They'll break me, but I'll break them too

--Dr. Dog, 100 Years

The Rebels will take on Georgia in the Tad Pad on Saturday, and the University will do its best to celebrate 100 years of not-so-storied Ole Miss basketball tradition at halftime. The school has selected an All-Century team to commemorate the occasion of this season. A genuine +1 to Langston Rodgers and Co. for that.

But this is the same Sports Information Department that gave us manually dropped crepe-paper from the score board and "the redblue in you" campaign. Anything they promote should be taken with a grain of salt. The occasion, though - that of a century's worth of basketball at the University of Mississippi - brings up a very important and existential question that we've all asked ourselves before: How am I supposed to feel about Ole Miss basketball?

Let's not confuse the situation. No one at Forward Rebels wants you to rationalize not going to the game tomorrow. And it is decidedly not valid to answer basketball taunts from State fans with "Well, we're a football school." Because we all know first hand that when the Rebels are good, we care. The Forward Rebs editorial staff, to be sure, cared a great deal back in 2001 when a special Rebel was making it cool to be a small fry right when all 125 pounds of this blog's staff was hitting campus.

But what are we to make of this basketball program that once promoted its head basketball coach to Ass't Coach of the Freshmen in football (not even joking)? What to make of a team who's greatest basketball coach (Country Graham) is only regarded as highly as he is because he notoriously spied on opponents of the school's greatest football coach (Vaught)?

The answer, of course, is to treat it exactly the way it gets treated. Sure, in an ideal world every game of every season would be sold out and raucous, and we could raise the funds for better practice facilities, and we could eventually say bye-bye to the Tad Pad. But it took the University of Mississippi about 50 years to regard its basketball program as anything other than a primer for football season, so its taking the fans a while to warm up to the sport.

Consequently, its fitting that the Centennial would fall in the same season that brings us three year ending knee injuries and Bin Ladengate. Outside of a few notable exceptions, Ole Miss basketball has been hounded by mediocrity.

That said, it doesn't take an improbable SEC Tourney Championship run to endear a program to a fanbase. All it takes is competition against blood rivals, and players who prove that they will run through walls for the same program that we struggle to make it to Wednesday night games to see if it happens to be raining outside. Its those players, no matter how many times they missed out on post-season play, that deserve the recognition they'll get tomorrow night. If you've been around for a century and have never been considered a UK or a KU, you learn to appreciate grit, and pluck and scrap and mostly spite. You truly do have to appreciate the idea of going into games and seasons thinking "They'll break me, but I'll break them too..."

Players like Elston Turner and Gerald Glass and Ansu Sesay and John Stroud and yes, Lil' Harrison (who was somehow left off the All-Century Team) understood this when they came to Ole Miss. And they allowed us to have those fleeting moments that validate 100 years of basketball. If anything ever does come from this program, it will be because of the players on the court at halftime on Saturday.

If you're in Oxford this weekend, please attend for their sake, at the very least.

Six and a Half Months Out

You know how in Jurrasic Park they'll just be sitting there in the jeep or something, just talking about music and food and stuff, and Jeff Goldblum is making some weird but vaguely witty comment, and then all of a sudden somebody's water will get ripples in it and everybody goes quiet because you know, you just all of a sudden know that those little water ripples in the cup are being made because that mofo T-Rex is waaaaaaaaay out there but he a comin andnoLittleTimmythatain'tnotremorweain'tonafaultlinelet'sgetthehellouttahereandquick - you know what I'm sayin? You know that thing is out there but dammit it's big and it'll be here soon enough.

It's really a little cinematic tool that foreshadows and builds suspense. Frebaholics, I present our water-cup ripples.

Goose.Bumps.


I'd like to take this opportunity to announce to you all that I plan on witnessing every minute of Ole Miss football next year. If it breaks me (and it most certainly will), I will sell things to make it. I'm not saying we're going to win the SEC or the National Title or anything like that. That's not the reason I'm doing this at all. I'm doing it because I'm at a point in my life where I can do it, and I've always wanted to and why the eff not? If not now, when? And of course, for all you poor little schmucks who aren't able to take on that enormous feat, I'm willing to lay it all on the line and let you live vicariously through the blog. I'll send you postcards from the road.

Anyhoo, we'll keep our eyes open for more water-cup ripples in the meantime.

A massive HatTip to Ledhendrix for creating this video.
A smaller HatTip to BhamReb of NAFOOM for finding this thing.

The Heartbreak Kid

In case you were unaware, we're playing LSU on Saturday, which is also Valentine's Day. As such, I'd like to be the first to remind you of what went down the last time we played LSU on Valentine's Day.

Cold blooded.

For the record, Clay Sanders is one of my all-time favorite Rebels. The guy always had a smile on his face. I was on floor under the basket at the Fed Ex Forum in 2007 when Memphis' student section collectively decided that Clay looked like Flavor Flav (Flavor of Love was in its heyday). Everytime he touched the ball they'd start doing the emphatic "FLAY - va FLAYYYVV!" line. Most guys might take offense but I remember Clay actually laughing with them at one point. He was just that type of guy - not really a mean bone in him, as far as I could tell. But he had ice in his veins at the end of the game.

On a related note, the Ole Miss basketball All-Century Team (1908-2008) is being announced this weekend. If DeAundre Cranston isn't the starting forward, then we're boycotting basketball. We'll keep ya posted.

The Defining Moments of 2008

As you are well aware, its February. And our basketball season has pretty much been about next year for the past two months. And we don't even have a game this week until Saturday. So naturally, we're gonna talk about football. "But" you say, "baseball's starting up soon! You could write about that!"

Well, the guys over at Red Solo Cup are cranking up the baseball coverage just fine, so feel free to peruse their pre-season takes if you're into that kind of thing. Forward Rebels, in the meantime, will do the only logical thing during this slow athletic period and look not to a preview, but to a postview. Backwards, Rebels.

Backwards to a recap of 2008 in the only way we know how. We're not going to pick some title that will tempt the Sports Deities to humiliate us for another five years. We're simply choosing a totally accurate and official list of the Eight Most Defining Plays of the 2008 Season. Note what we're not calling it. "Greatest." "Exciting." "Important." "Orgasmic." None of these adjectives will suffice.

These are plays that we believe best sum up our season. If someone were to put a gun to our head and say "HEY! You have to define Ole Miss's football season by selecting EIGHT PLAYS. Be prepared to defend your answers!!!" We'd be like "Woah. Why eight?" And they'd be like "Because it was 2008 smartass!!!" And then we'd go "OK that just seems a little arbitrary and lazy. I guess it was 2008 and all, but you'd only have to pick 2 more to get to a nice round number..." and then they'd just go "LISTEN dipshit I took Samir Husni and he said its cool to choose non-round numbers in listmaking to increase reader interest by lending an air of creditiblity to the selection process now SHUT UP and do it..." Wait what?

Anyhow, let's start with these two plays. These are listed in decending order, BTdubs, as the rest of the list will appear gradually over the next few days:

8.) Bye Bye WildBoyz. Hello WildRebel. Dexter scampers 32 yards for a TD from new-fangled offensive formation in first game of year.

Granted, in August, no one associated with Forward Rebs was doing nearly as much blog reading / message board lurking as we do right now, but we genuinely don't remember much "Wild Rebel" speculation during the preseason. Surely people were talking about this. Surely people had seen it in practices. But we just don't recall there being that much WildRebel buzz.

Whatever the case, we doubt anyone predicted the formation would debut with such a splash. Jevan had already announced his arrival with a long touchdown pass to Shay, but it was Dexter who put the Rebels up for good late in the first quarter against Memphis.

With the game tied 7-7 Dex took the snap from the shotgun formation, faked a hand off to a scampering Brandon Bolden, and darted around John Jerry's right side before turning north and covering 32 yards for the touchdown. A collective lightbulb went off in Frebs' little corner of the South Endzone. "Woah," everybody seemed to gasp simultaneously, "this could get fun." The play itself foreshadowed a diverse offense that was the lightyears smarter than the Orgeron years and a metric ton more creative than anything David Cutcliffe could envision in the midst of a mescaline binge nightmare.

In the short term, Dex's run foreshadowed the type of trickery that would lead to Bolden's 37 yard pass to Snead later in the game. For the long-term, the play announced a formation that would keep defenses on edge for the next 12 games - which was about the same amount of time it took us to truly appreciate the mad-hattery of Kent Austin.

7.) Peria Places Index Finger Over Mouth: Bryant-Denny Shushes

Of Going Down, And Going Down Swinging

Bryant-Denny Stadium is a pretty underrated place to play when it comes to toughness. No, a 2:30 October kickoff in Tuscaloosa isn't Death Valley at nightfall, but 90,000 + drunks hellbent on a perfect season is plenty enough to cause a ruckus. And you better believe they were rocking and rolling after Dexter McCluster's fumble with 12:00 minutes left in our game this past year.

Understand the context of that moment. We weren't, by any stretch of the imagination, expected to make much noise in that game or on the year. Sure, we had beaten Florida. But that game could be written off as a fluke while the South Carolina and Vandy losses were still fresh on everyone's mind. Bama was coming off upsets over Georgia and Clemson. We were staring at going below .500 on the year while they were eyeing a No. 1 ranking. Also, they put up 24 points in a very ugly first half that saw us trailing by three TDs.

The Rebels had closed the gap to 14 points in the third quarter, and had just begun to make the hometown Tide fans nervous when Dex put the ball on the ground for the umpteenth time in the still young season. Bama's coronation party was back at full force when the Tide offense took the field. Saban played it safe after a short gain on a pass play, electing to send his Senior Glen Coffee up the middle between All-American Antoine Caldwell and Outland Trophy winner Andre Smith.

The Truth shoved Caldwell with his left arm, literally put left guard Mike Johnson on his ass, and met Coffee two yards into the backfield. Coffee lost the football in the midst of that collision, and Kentrell Lockett had recovered it by the time Peria's 300 pounds came crashing down on Coffee's torso. It wasn't until Forward Rebs had replayed the play several times later that night that we realized how quickly the noise in that stadium had gone from deafening to non-existent. It was the closest thing sports can get to the scene from Animal House when Otter walks in on Otis Day and the Knights at the nightclub. Peria's hit was the 'record scratch' noise.

Anyhow, four plays later Snead hit Shay on a stop-fade in the endzone and the Rebs had closed to within one TD. We all know how that turned out, but the statement Jerry made with that one play spoke volumes about the difference in attitude this team would display for the rest of the year. It's worth noting that the Rebs wouldn't lose another game for the rest of the way. Oh to have been a fly on the wall during that Bama halftime speech.

What's that? You thought the Defining Moments would come from wins? Please. The two greatest plays of Forward Rebs' entire fanhood didn't really end ideally. We are Ole Miss, after all. Watch for the rest of the list throughout the end of this week.

Defending Dahveed

There's a fortune inside your head /All you touch turns to lead You think you might just crawl back in bed /The fortune inside your head

You know you're just a mama's boy/ Positively unemployed

So misunderstood

Wilco, Misunderstood

A theoretical: If you moved to, like, New Jersey or some metropolatin exurb up north, would you change the way you dressed or acted? I got a friend who made such a move recently.

Last I talked to this kid, he was having trouble. He couldn't really find the right crowd to run with and kept having girls "scooped right out from underneath" him. The only reasoning he could come up with, and I tended to agree with him, was because he refused to put product in his hair, or wear jewelry or sport the omnipresent backwards fitted flat-billed hat.

Anyhow, I couldn't help thinking about that as I read the Ole Miss message boards yesterday following our 10 point loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville. The problem with Ole Miss's effort yesterday, according to everybody with a keyboard, was David Huertas.

Understand: our problem wasn't that Mac White and DeAundre Cranston got pwned by an Australian guy on the boards all game. It wasn't that Vandy shot 67% from the field in the second half. What it was was that damned David Huertas and his 19 points that only accounted for 30% of our offense.

Before I get too deep into this, I'd like to address the fact that Forward Rebels is just as guilty of Hurt-us-cising Dahveed as anyone else. We've got an "Is David Huertas an Alien?" tag. We're culprits. BUT, there's a big difference in having a cheap laugh at a guy's goofiness and actually believing he's what's wrong with our team. Make no mistake, David Huertas is the MVP of this team, and I'm not so sure that's simply by default by virtue of EP and Warren's injuries.

But its his goofiness that leads to all the negative pub he gets. Or more accurately, its his Puerto Rican-ness that makes him stand out. Just like I wouldn't put product in my hair if I lived in State College, PA, Dahveed is not going to quit scowling when things go wrong on the court in Mississippi.He's not going to quit being abrassive to opposing players and referees.He's not going to quit being overly dramatic when trying to draw a foul.

It's easy to see, after watching the international players in the Olympics this past year, that Huertas' style of play is 100% FIBA, which is to say that morally its a lot closer to soccer than it is to the NBA. The players wear their emotions on their sleeves. They take dives. They generally cut corners that American players wouldn't.

This phenomenon of villifying your star isn't exclusive to Ole Miss. The Yankees do it with A-Rod (and have long before A-Rod's recent troubles). Nevermind the fact that Alex Rodriguez puts up MVP like numbers in New York. Nevermind that he's the best player on their team. He dates movie stars and hasn't won the World Series, so he's the problem with the team. He's not a "True Yankee" like Derek Jeter.

Likewise, if Dahveed had gone down with an injury early in the year, leaving Chris Warren to lead a group of freshmen into SEC play, and then Warren had a poor start to the game against Vandy, I don't think anyone would've put our failure to make the NCAA tourney on Warren's shoulders. I saw multiple threads on the Spirit and Rivals boards yesterday doing just that to Huertas. Why? Because Warren is essentially emotionless on the court and hustles his ass off. Huertas grimaces, he scowls, he smiles, he talks shit in Spanish, he isn't totally submissive to the coaches.

But he's also the best thing we've got right now. Terrico's had an excellent three or four game run, but David's still averaging about 20 a game - and that's from the first game on. While his slow start did play a factor into Saturday's loss, it wasn't the reason we lost. It was maybe 9th on the list, and remember that Nos. 1-3 are "knees" and No. 7 is probably "Saddam Hussein".

Bobbie. Yes.

Ok. This is easily the raddest piece of video to come out since Peria v. Herman at the Senior Bowl. Fast forward to about the 1:42 mark.



The second best part, minus the whole "flippantly throwing Alabama's hat on the ground" thing, is that Massie actually mentions Bama's blogs as a reason for disrespecting them. Being a logical group ourselves, we're going to interpret that as meaning that Bob is a fan of Forward Rebs. Thanks for the vote of confidence, friend.



HT: RidgeReb of NAFOOM.

38 Special or What Would Gavin Stevens Do?

We can't get mad at anyone for hating us. We truly believe that. It was the unsinkable George Straight, after all, who told us that you can't make a heart love somebody. And hate, being the contrarian bastard that it is, doesn't submit itself to reason either.

So while we disagree with the Razorbacks about Houston Nutt, obviously, we can understand their angst. They're relatively new in the conference, and nobody really cares about playing against them. True, they have that trophy game with LSU, but that game is only a rivalry by default. Auburn had Bama. State had Ole Miss. And LSU and Arkansas looked around and realized there was nobody left but eachother, so they might as well make the best of it. Sorta like the two nerdy kids during a slow song at the Jr. High dance. What's worse is that LSU probably considers four other games as bigger rivalries than the Hogs' biggest.

The Battle for the "Golden Boot" or whatever

They've been desperate for a genuine rivalry, so when Razorback fans go on ad nauseam about Houston Nutt's shortcomings, the only courteous thing to do is quietly ignore them, and extricate yourself from the situation. Similar to what old Houston himself did in the first place.

The walk-on alums don't really recognize that you are trying to politely back away from the confrontation, though. Thus they're still trolling message boards, still calling into the radio shows, still bitter in every way imaginable. Even the brighter ones want to wax poetic about a man who rid himself of their lives over a year ago. They'll go highbrow on you. Get all literary.

The same fanbase that produces knuckleheads who degrade our coach's family, also sends us some bookish dude to let us know that in some fictional alternate universe, Houston Nutt runs with the Snopes clan in the wrong part of Yoknapatawpha County.

Well excuse us, but we fail to see just what in the motherfuck these people are talking about. Being from Oxford and all, we'd like to take the opportunity to ask these clowns what they think Gavin Stevens would do if 50,000 overzealous, ill-tempered crazies made it clear that they hated him and wanted him to leave. We'd like to think that Faulkner's hero, the traditional Southern Marcus Aurelius disciple that he is, would leave and vow revenge. Consequently, we'd like to congratulate the literary Hogs on getting one thing right: The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.

For us, National Signing Day was the official end of the "courteous" period with our neighbors to the Northwest. It's pretty much been a full football year with Houston. The honeymoon has had every opportunity to be over. We're still pretty keen on the guy.

They told us, first, that in general the guy couldn't coach. Once soundly disproven, the argument was then whittled away and whittled away until, finally, the last leg the lunatic fringe had to stand on was Houston's recruiting. "Once Orgeron's talent leaves, you'll see!" they said.

Well today we watched as the University recieved 38 Letters of Intent from kids who held offers from damn near every team in the nation. Georgia and Florida want the blue-chip offensive lineman? He chooses Ole Miss. Bama after the can't miss wide receiver? Sorry, he's in too. Auburn offers a slew of our defensive commits? Staying solid. The mighty Petrino gets after those Florida DEs and LBs? Sorry Bob. Welcome to the SEC.

What we wound up with at the end of today was something that has a very legitimate chance of becoming the very best signing class in the post-Vaught era. It is large. It addresses needs. It is short on grade risks and long on talent.

It's also a little scary, but that's cool.

The point of all of this is that we don't have to be polite with the Hog fans anymore. If they are too stupid to realize that they have consistently been made to look like fools, then so be it. They have every right to continue to call us rivals, as long as they understand that for 51 weeks out of the year we'd rather not be bothered with defending our coach. We got nine wins, an excited fanbase and, as of today, one bad ass signing class. One of these days their burning hatred will flicker then dim then burn itself out, and perhaps the smarter ones will realize: those are really the only things that matter.

The Cincinatti Vid and a Couple of Observations

• 
  
  Oh boy: Well, the Zapruder film has finally surfaced in Taxicab Confessions/ Bin Ladengate. Here's the abbreviated version from the news station WLWT in Cincinatti. I would like to link to the entire thing, for those of you who wish to watch an hour's worth of fuzzy police dashboard video footage, but midway through the elongated version Kennedy gives his cell and SSN#, and I'm not a big enough ass to spread that around. Also, WTF WLWT? That shit better be edited out by the time I get up in the morning. I watched the whole thing, and will say that the majority of the video consists of AK being level headed, while the Armstrong guy goes ape shit at certain times. Meanwhile, Cop #1 is a ginormous dickhead, while Cop #2 wins the game of life. The highlight of the entire thing? Cop #2: "You think we've never dealt with the national media? We deal with the Bengals." Your move, OchoCinco.
  

• 
  
  Ugh. Recruiting: Full disclosure, I've been tuning in to the recruiting boards a little. First off, 99% of the people who post there are unbelievably stupid. Secondly, it should go without saying that Forward Rebels believes "star rankings" are subjective, arbitrary and about as accurate as odds on dog-racing. But, but but, the first week of February is fun in that way that 90's Country songs on the radio when no one else is in the car are fun. Guilty pleasures are indeed, highly pleasurable. Frebs' sources confirm that of our remaining big name guys we're after, only Marlon Brown is unlikely for us. Take that for what its worth. Also, if you think Ja-Mes will be the weirdest name for a wide reciever in this class, you got another thing coming.
  

• 
  
  Hey Dogs:
  

This is what a mismatch looks like.