Mulling it Over: From the Beaches of Amity Island

Gi. Ggi. Tty.

HN: Oh hey there Frebs! Heh, Frebby-man! The Frebster! Frebby-reb-reb! Heh, what's up there, bud?

FR: Oh. Hey Coach. Good to see you again. Sorry I'm not feeling well (again) but apparently sitting out in a damp, cool, drizzly afternoon for three-hours isn't the best thing to do when you're battling a headcold. Don't think the whole cheap whiskey thing helped much either.

HN: Aw hell, Frebelicious, you stayed for that whole damn game? Thing was over before my first Gatorade break man. You shoulda left after Dex hit the sideline and turned north on that first little TD scamper, bud.

FR: You may be right, old pal. Anyhow, helluva win there. You may not know it yet, but you'll make and keep a whole lotta friends in our little hamlet if you keep beating the pants off of LSU and State. Just you wait and see.

HN: Listen little bud, if I wanted to hear "good game" I'd just call up Sylvester again. He uh, he quit answerin my calls at midnight. Said something about a meeting with his boss. Whatev. Listen gimme the skinny on this win. You think we got a defensive line, or what?

FR: Well Houston I guess I'll answer that question with a little story. I went to Catholic school, see, and because of some type of beef between the church itself and the Mississippi Private School Association, I wasn't able to play sports against other kids that looked like me. I don't know how much you know about Mississippi's public school system, Houston, but let me just tell you there aren't many 5'7 130 pound white kids on any of the public schools' basketball rosters that I'm aware of, at least not the ones we played against.

As you might imagine, this caused some problems for my teams throughout school. I only mention all this because I remember one particular game from Jr. High when my basketball squad was playing our crosstown rivals from O'Bannon. Heading into the fourth quarter on that fateful night in Greenville, we hadn't scored a single basket. The score was literally 60 - 0 by the time me and my fourth-string friends entered the game. I quickly found out that the other team didn't care much about scoring any more. They had their own little game-within-the-game, one that involved (not joking here) a point system based off of how high up in the bleachers they could swat one of our shots. Blocked shots that didn't leave the court got zero points. Blocked shots that made it to the student section (down low) got five points. The higher the ball landed in the stands, the more poinits, ya see? It was demoralizing.

I only mention all this because after watching several replays of the Egg Bowl, its obvious our defense had a similar game-within-the-game going on. There's a youtube video floating around the webs that shows each of our sacks. Its obvious that our players don't even get excited for the shoe-string tackles, the "qb conceding the sack" type hits. But when they lower the boom, a la Jamarca Sanford on MSU's third-string guy's first play, they go ape shit. They throw up the dorsal fin. They start talking smack --- to eachother. It's like they're challenging themselves to be more destructive. Can you see me smiling, Coach? A Rebel defense with a swagger? I effing love that shit.

HN: Uh, did you say something about Catholic school girls? Giggi...

FR: Easy Coach. I ain't done.

Amid all the defensive love, we shouldn't overlook the fact that we just put up 45 points against a solid SEC defense. Say what you will about how terrible the Bulldogs were this year, they had a legit defense that featured some SEC caliber talent. And don't listen to anyone tell you that they gave up after it got lopsided. We put up 24 points in the first quarter - meaning they were still keyed up - of a rivalry game that they looked at as their only bowl game this year. Jevan did his efficient thing, minus one throw, and the WRs (Mike Wallace) proved once again that they are the most underrated unit in the SEC. BTdubs, Hootie, check plus for that play action bomb just before half.

HN: Yeah I figured you'd like that. Listen, heh, Frebbalebadingdong, what say you about uh, about these bowls? Orlando? Dallas?

FR: Well, much like everyone else, Coach, I guess it all comes down to the opponent for me. Orlando would be fun, but only if we're embarrassing Jim Tressel again. The media coverage there would be wonderful for our program, no doubt about it. But, should tOSU sneak into the BCS bowls (likely) I don't want to wind up playing Michigan State if we could be beating up on super weird / Adult Attention Deficit Disorderite Mike Leach. After all, beating up on a top-10 school who's fans don't think we deserve to be there in the first place would just be the perfect cherry on top of this season.

Like most of our fans, Hootie, there are really only about 6 teams in the nation that I don't want to play right now. We may be all starry-eyed and delusional, but after the last four years, I can't fight this feeling anymore. Oh, to have the Truth and DK fully healthy during the Wake and Vandy games. Ah, to have another shot at Alabama now that we've figured out how to play defense and hold onto the ball. Them's the breaks I guess.

A short note to Leach, Tressel, et. al.

Listen fellas, this:

does not a gameplan make. Stick to the x's and o's, aight? Also, Leach, in light of this Baylor game we're watching here, uh...

You're going to need a bigger boat, you weirdo nerd.

Croom Relives the Horror; Takes a Bow

Aye, but we floated with character...

The scene: aboard the Orca, first light just creeping over the horizon. The ship's three passengers are weary. After a long night of drinking, the crew still has the refrain of "Oh what shall we do with you seven Spanish ladies" running through their heads. A delirious, somber mood has suddenly overtaken them, as the reality of their predicament settles in again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnd Scene:

Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus/Greg Byrne) - "You were on the Indianapolis?"

Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider/Mark Keenum) - "What happened?"

Quint (Robert Shaw/Sly Croom) - "Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from a win in Starkville over Petrino. A week away from the offseason. Solid class comin' in. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. One game left, see. Smooth sailin, right? Well, eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 15 minutes.

Didn't see the first shark for about five minutes. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week.

Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Wide receiver. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later they started to pick us up. Called the game. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, November 28, 2008.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb. I'll just leave you men to yourselves now.

:Quint/Croom exits the hull, jumps overboard:

:Lights slowly fade to black, leaving the two men in stunned silence:

Truthiness

Silver lining, Jarrett. Your day's over and you didn't throw any TD's to the other team.

Off to never neverland...

Just came across this picture and decided it was too much not to share. The gentleman in red there is far and away the scariest human being on the planet. Yeah. It's Shark Week, Sly. Bring your floaties. More images of the coming destruction to follow.

Ed.: Its worth noting that the Oracle spake thusly: "Peria will be foremost on (Lee's) mind."