The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 10/22

In this edition of the LKSOC we have how to finish off a Twitter fight, hopelessness in Ann Arbor and even more hopelessness for Urban Meyer:

◊ Desmond Conner says you ain’t got no alibi, you ugly!

Seems that my favorite AP college football poll voter, Desmond Conner, has been mixing it up pretty good in the Twittersphere over his strange voting practices. A special thanks to @ehudhoops for making me aware of the exchange below between Conner and multiple tweeps and a bigger thanks to @GochFaceKiller for providing the transcript:

@CFTalk: Does @desmondconner have an explanation for his AP vote? http://bit.ly/cpCfHL Bama 3, Auburn 8, S. Carolina 13? Wow.

+ @GCN7897: @CFTalk @desmondconner Of course he doesn’t. He writes for the Hartford Courant. Guys like that shouldn’t have a vote

@desmondconner: @GCN7897 Just voting the way I want - not the way anybody else wants. Thanks for checking me out though

+ @GCN7897: @desmondconner I mean, if I were the only person that questioned your logic, I could be understanding. However, I see that I’m not

@desmondconner: @GCN7897 you, 2 others. So much going on in the world; so many issues 2 use your voice and freedom of speech. Wasted on stuff like this. Sad

+ @GochFaceKiller: @desmondconner That’s about the most hypocritical thing ever tweeted. You waste your voice writing about a bad football team. Make that 3…

@desmondconner:  @GochFaceKiller what a joke!

+ @GochFaceKiller: @desmondconner It took you a full 2 days to respond with that gem? How do you find work? I’m a blogger and more qualified to vote than you.

@desmondconner: @GochFaceKiller yeah but you’re not voting - take a hint will ya?

@desmondconner: @GochFaceKiller and I was responding to your comment. I was responding to your picture. Your comments aren’tworth responding to

+ @GochFaceKiller: @desmondconner You have ZERO room to bring appearance smack. You look like Starr Jones with Down’s syndrome.

@desmondconner: @GochFaceKiller that’s fairly funny, I guess. In all that still look better than you - gosh what a mug! Lol.
Take care…what a waste

+ @GochFaceKiller: @desmondconner Wasn’t about being funny, I bring truth. Lol, you’re better looking than me? Only to the
blind and dead, maybe.

@desmondconner: @GochFaceKiller later UGLY

Whoa partner, did Conner drop the U-bomb to finish off that exchange?  He most certainly did!  Then again, this is the guy who brought the world the following:

If “UGLY” isn’t strong enough of a comeback for you to finish off that nasty Twitter fight you’ll inevitably find yourself in, then Conner recommends trying, “You are a straight knucklehead!” or the much more blunt, “Sit on it!”

◊ Michigan fans have so little to live for

A few weeks ago, Denard Robinson was American’s Heisman favorite of choice. But as Michigan started sliding closer to another season of RichRodian mediocrity, Robinson’s Heisman stock began to fall. That sucks to no end for Big Blue Nation, which was hoping for something, ANYTHING to feel good about this season.

You can see the bitterness oozing through the comment this Michigan fan left on Dennis Dodd’s article concerning the current Heisman flavor of the week, Auburn’s Cam Newton:

“Dont get me wrong, Newton can make huge plays and take a broken play and turn it into something amazing. But we have all seen that Denard just has that grab your attention ability. I think Cam Newton is a great QB and a great player, but he is just one bad game away from being 7th on the next weeks heisman ratings.” Oh, diehardblue7, cheer up, things will get better. Someday.

◊ What an Urban Meyer email to Dan Mullen might sound like today

“Hi Dan, it’s me, Urban. Let me congratulate you for coming into the house we used to share together and kicking my ass this past Saturday. At first I was sad, then angry, then confused, then a little constipated. Now, well, now I just miss you, bro. I miss you a ton.

I know you have your own gig now and everyone in Starkville loves you, but you remember the good times we used to share, don’t you? We were the kings of the world, nobody could touch us. Now I’m a Starsky without a Hutch, a Cagney without a Lacey or a Hardcastle without a McCormick.

You can tell Addazzio doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. At this point I’m surprised he can remember his way to the stadium when we have home games. What do I have to do to get you back here in my life? Just tell me, man.

I was going to send you a super mix CD with a compilation of songs that most convey my feelings for you, but I know you don’t have that much time these days. So I am attaching a simple audio clip that pretty much sums it all up. Click it, and write me back if you feel the same…”

A vulgar display of redunkulous arm strength

In Saturdays 34-31 victory over Kentucky, Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton did most of the damage with his legs, running for four touchdowns. But on this play in the second quarter, he showed off his arm strength by alluding Wildcat cornerback Anthony Mosley and making this seemingly impossible throw:

Right now, Newton is part of the Heisman Trophy discussion, but he’s not the guy getting most of the lip service. However, with Auburn having consecutive high profile games against Arkansas and LSU, he could force himself onto the Heisman short list if he can lead the Tigers to wins in both of those contests and look good while doing so.

An Auburn quarterback as a Heisman candidate? Sounds strange when you consider the school’s been Tailback U. over the last 30 years (refer to James Brooks, Bo Jackson, Brent Fullwood, Stephen Davis, Rudi Johnson, Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown). But the Auburn’s first Heisman winner was in fact a quarterback. That was Pat Sullivan back in 1971, who edged out Cornell’s Ed Marinaro for the award that season.

Taking back Reggie Bush’s Heisman is an exercise in pointlessness

Reggie Bush is guy whose here and now is about as good as a here and now gets.  He’s a running back on the defending Super Bowl champs.  How many fat, lethargic, cheesesteak-eating American males would kill to switch places with him?

His occupation also happens to make him rich.  Therefore, he’s the envy of all those who could care less about what he does to earn his fat paychecks.   It’s pretty much the American dream, a high profile job that pays a whole lot of coin.

While he basks in the glory that is his here and now, I wonder if Bush even cares about his tarnished recent past.  You see, the road to his current good fortune ran through the USC football program.  Funny thing is, if you look around USC today, it’s getting harder and harder to find any trace of him.

The school broke open the display case and sent back its copy of the 2005 Heisman Trophy that was awarded to Bush.  Man, I wonder how much FedEx charged them for shipping something that heavy…

Once upon a time, there were murals of Bush within USC athletic facilities.  Today, the only surface you might find Bush’s likeness on in Heritage Hall is the back of a men’s room urinal.

And if you’re hoping to catch a glimpse of Bush’s No. 5 jersey somewhere at the school, you’ll be out of luck.  You would probably have a better chance of stumbling across Gary Beban’s No. 16 UCLA jersey on the USC campus these days.

All this because Bush was declared retroactively ineligible following that ugliness with Lloyd Lake and Michael Michaels.

While his former school has redecorated and, more importantly, wrestled with NCAA penalties related to his indiscretions, Bush hasn’t been touched by any of it.  He’s still riding as high today as he was the day before USC started painting over his likeness.

Oh, he lost some cash in settling the separate civil suits brought by Lake and Michaels, but he’s not starving as a result.  And the NCAA’s wrath?  That’s USC’s problem, not his.

But now there’s word of something related to all of this that affects Bush directly.  It seems the Heisman Trust, which isn’t affiliated with the NCAA, wants to relieve Bush of the award it gave him back in 2005 and leave the honor for that season vacant.

Bush would become the first guy in the 75-year history of the Heisman Trophy to have it taken away.  That’s because he’s the first winner to have been declared ineligible for the season in which he won the award.

In the eyes of the Trust, the player they gave the 2005 Trophy to is no longer qualified to have it.  And these people must uphold the honor of the Heisman.

Hey, it’s their prerogative to do what they please with their award, but I can’t help but feel there’s some hypocrisy at work here. Why?

Because they didn’t even take O.J. Simpson’s Heisman away.  And he killed two people.

And they didn’t lift a finger when 1997 Heisman winner Charles Woodson let it slip that he took money while at Michigan.

Those Heisman winning quarterbacks produced by Miami in their glory days?  Yeah, I’m sure they never pocketed any Uncle Luke bonus money.  Right.

How about degenerate gambler Paul Hornung, who won the award in 1956 while playing on a losing Notre Dame team?  He gets to keep his.

You would think that the Heisman Trust might have a problem with a past winner having masterminded a counterfeiting scheme.  But that’s apparently not the case, so LSU’s Billy Cannon gets a pass.

I realize the obvious flaw in what I’m doing here is that Bush’s case is different.  He might not be a gambler or a murderer, but unlike the guys I’ve mentioned, he’s the only one who’s been outed as being ineligible.

Wow, that’s the line that has to be crossed to get your Heisman taken away?  The Trust will ignore the actual criminals among its roster of winners to reach back in time and snatch away Bush’s award?  Sweet!

I guess in their minds, the Trust is taking back what now amounts to the world’s biggest paperweight in hopes of protecting the award’s honor.  That’s because they gave it to a cheater, and cheaters should never prosper.

Uh huh, right.  Reggie Bush won’t lose a minute of sleep over this as he lays on 1000 count sheets in his mansion.  So if the Trust wanted to make a point about this, I’m not sure what it was.

Seasons I still can’t believe actually happened: Barry Sanders in ‘88

Back in the glorious decade of the 80’s, my friends and I played a computer game by Epyx called “Summer Games.” There’s a clip of the actual game below, but before you start laughing hysterically while watching it, keep in mind it was the friggin’ 80’s.  Back then, this damn thing might as well have been “Halo”:

If you skip to the 1:30 mark of the video, you’ll see the 100 meter dash portion of the game.  It was painful watching that pixelated guy take upwards of 11 or 12 seconds to finish the race when I knew good and well Carl Lewis could do it in 10.

So I devoted an inordinate amount of time to getting this bastard to move faster.  Oh yes, this is what passed for an actual, honest to goodness goal during my wasted youth.  Practice my jump shot?  Get better at math?  Help the elderly?  Nah, those pursuits were of no interest to me, I was much more concerned with doing better at a crappy video game.

After much trial and error, I figured out that I could (try to follow this) bend my knees, force the joystick snugly between the calf and thigh of my left leg (with the stick pointed at my other leg) and then use a rapid up and down motion with my right hand to make the guy run faster…MUCH faster.  If my mom had walked in, she would have thought I had a masturbation problem, but that was still at least two years down the road.

My somewhat vulgar but effective method yielded a 7.37 time (yes, I remember it to the tenth of a second) that the game saved as a world record.  When my friends saw that number on the screen they stared in amazement.  You know that look of awe the nerds had when they saw Molly Ringwald’s underwear in “Sixteen Candles?”  That’s the same reaction that a 7.37 in “Summer Games” generated.

I bring that story up because it’s the only frame of reference I have for the numbers Barry Sanders put up at Oklahoma State in 1988, the year he won the Heisman.  Whenever I come across them in print I get a slack jawed look of wonder.

That season, if you count the bowl game, Sanders ran for 2,850 yards.  TWO THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY YARDS.  He had nearly as many games of 300+ rushing yards (4) as he had games in which he ran for between 150 and 200 yards (5).  The guy gained 1,152 yards in OSU’s last five regular season games alone.

His regular season total of 2,628 yards came in the old days when the only way you got a 12th game on your schedule was to get into the Kickoff Classic in the Meadowlands or play a road game against Hawaii.  Yup, Barry blew it up against the old fashioned 11-game schedule. What he could have done with an extra game or two, as players get these days…

This was the old Big 8, before Bill McCartney got Colorado’s house in order and Nebraska and Oklahoma shared dominion over the league.  Against the Huskers on October 15, Sanders put up 189 yards and 4 scores.  Three weeks later he ran for 215 yards and 2 touchdowns against the Sooners.

Oklahoma State lost both of those contests (their only losses that season), but Sanders sent a message to the league’s power duo.  Not since Gale Sayers had an opposing player in the Big 8’s little six bombarded the Huskers and Sooners that way.

I’ve basically only touched on the yardage to this point, but the number of times Sanders found the end zone was just as impressive.  He broke the single season TD record of 31 in OSU’s ninth game.  He would push that record to 37 once the dust had settled.

Then came five more touchdowns in Oklahoma State’s Holiday Bowl win over a hopelessly outmatched Wyoming team. That’s a total of 42 touchdowns that season.  FORTY FRIGGIN’ TWO.  At this moment, if you don’t look as if you’ve just seen Molly Ringwald’s underwear, then you’re not much of a college football fan.

Here’s Rick Reilly singing Sanders’s praises in October of that year, before most of America realized how special the guy was (that would be Sanders, not Reilly).  You’ll notice in his writing that Reilly hadn’t fully committed to the general douchebaggery that’s come to dominate his persona.

The reference I made to my goofy “Summer Games” obsession is relevant not just because of the impressive nature of the numbers, but also for how unattainable they are.  Back then I taught everyone my pseudo-masturbatory 100-meter method, but try as they might, they couldn’t match that 7.37.  Oh, there were some low 8’s and such generated by others, but they couldn’t quite get to the promised land.

It’s been two plus decades since Sanders ran wild across the heartland, but nobody’s really come close to matching his production.  In the pantheon of sports records, 2,850 yards rushing in a college football season is looking as unbreakable as Rickey Henderson’s 1,406 career stolen bases or Latrell Sprewell’s track record of knuckleheadedness.

Plays I still can’t believe actually happened: Miracle at the Meadowlands

Plays I still can’t believe actually happened: Matt Davison in ‘97

College Football News’s Notre Dame preview goes horribly wrong

When Pete Fiutak sat down to write his preview of the 2010 edition of the Fighting Irish for CollegeFootballNews.com, he had no idea he’d end up in the middle of a shit storm because of it.

Once his preview was posted, it’s only natural that the folks from the Notre Dame blog HerLoyalSons.com would stumble across it and give it the once over.  Not only did they find incorrect names (Nate Montana was referred to as “Nick”) and some questionable analysis (Fiutak tabbed the Navy game as being Notre Dame’s most important of the season), they also found this:

New recuit Matt James might not be an elite prospect, but he was on everyone’s list of the best tackles of this year’s recruiting class with the size and frame to sit at one tackle spot for 4 years. At 6-7 and 291 pounds, the Cincinnati native followed Brian Kelly to South Bend and will get a long look at playing time right away on the outside. Even though he’s tall, he’s physical for the ground game and does a good job of shoving people around. (CollegeFootballNews.com)

Here’s where the preview went off the rails, because Matt James passed away this past spring after a fall from a hotel balcony in Panama City, FL.  It was sort of all over the news, everybody involved weighed in on it at the time.

Of course, you can imagine the roasting that ensued in the Twitterverse.  All of this prompted Fiutak’s CFN colleague Matt Zemek to go into full damage control mode:

If you clicked on the CFN link above you can see that any reference to James has been edited out.  As for Fiutak, word is that his 2010 Heisman watch list will be out soon.  He really likes Nebraska’s Tommie Frazier, but he’s touting Michigan State’s Lorenzo White as a serious dark horse.