Friday Misery - one-thirds Odoms, plus Donny, Monica Lewinsky, and cans of paint

I keep reminding myself, “Hey, we won last week man. Chin up!” Yet somehow I just want to curl up into a ball and wallow in my own pool of self pity.

<deep sigh>

So let’s pass this handle of corn liquor around the circle until we all feel like we haven’t been kicked in the balls for six days straight.

Know thine Enemy, much much betterer this time.

By God we are going to do a MUCH more thorough job of researching this week's opponent than the half-assed stuff my staff trotted out there last week for you to digest. Folks from southeast Louisiana been making me eat every word of that mess all week!

So, onto the actual real life facts!

• 

  According to Google, this is neither Dave nor Barry.

  Missouri’s coach is not Gary Robin Pinkel any longer. It’s Barry Odom.
• Coach Odom is NOT the former basketball coach at South Carolina and Wake Forrest.
• Also, Wake Forest actually has one “r” and not two. (See?!? I’m on point this week!)
• The Tigers are quarterbacked by Drew Lock. And just as Barry ain’t Dave’s son, Drew ain’t Andrew Luck’s younger brother. I know this because Luck is spelled with a “u” and not an “o”.
• (Damn, we’re on a roll now!)
• Missouri has played in front of a combined 111,317 people this season, which also happens to be the aggregate attendance of #93KDay’s concession lines.
• The Tigers’ most complete drive of their first two games was a 10 play 80 yard romp late in the game against the West Virginia Mountaineers when their fate had all but been decided.
• Put their offensive stats up against the timeline and backdrop of current events, and it’s clear that Missouri’s offensive coordinator Josh Heupel gave Hillary her pneumonias. Their offense is still getting it’s feet under itsownself.
• Their fans drink from paint cans.

Annoyingly cute.

A puppy just before it shits on the rug. Soccer games. A newlywed couple standing on a beach, making pouty-lipped faces in the direction of their selfie-stick. Charlie, until he bites Harry’s finger. Kittens. Every kitten.

All appropriate similes for Missouri fans.

CLICK BARF

These jokers can’t completely understand Fall Saturdays, bless their hearts. Follow that link in the last bullet point up there. We’ve seen first hand. I mean, their fans go through all the right motions, but they lack intensity, commitment, drive, as well as an ability to fathom college football the way it’s meant to be fathomed.

Exhibit A. Found this excerpt from a site that is now defunct, but it best exemplifies how Missouri fans go through the motions with a haphazard lackadaisicalness that is really cute...until it’s annoying as hell.

"Like a Tiger at the Zou, shake your tail at the gate. Tailgating is one of the oldest traditions in college football. It's simple. Get a tent, some Missouri apparel, maybe a grill, and you're set for a good time."

Uh, I’m gonna zip right past that part about the tiger and his tail and the gate and head straight to this - “maybe a grill”...??

Again, cute until they’re just pissing you off with the nervous smile that is more than a bit overly forced and how they’re all wearing hoodies even though the temperature is easily in the 80s. And we’re just waiting for a cameraman to jump out from behind a tree and everyone says “PUNK’d!! Hahahaha!” Then everyone is actually normal.

But there’s no tree with a cameraman hiding behind it. The weird just gets more weird over yonder.

Remember that scene in The Big Lebowski where Steve Buscemi’s character Donny continually tries to add to the conversation until at long last Walter yells “YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT DONNY!!”

That’s Missouri fans in the SEC y'all. Hopelessly and completely out of their element until some suit with an SEC pin on the lapel takes his head out of his ass and gives Missouri back to the midwest.

Don’t take it too personal Pinkels...ya just ain’t our style of people.

Know thine ownself too and also...

This is us coming down the tracks last Saturday…

And this is us filing out…

By Monday it struck me that college football season is an ever teetering balance between the weight of the questions and the weight of the answers. LOT more questions this week than answers. It’s like that time you were expecting the usual 25 multiple choice test in Government and ol’ Coach Watson doubled it and added an essay.

I strutted on in there like a Jeopardy champion, all “Yo Trebek, gimme System of checks and balances for five benjis!” But I crawled out like a low rent lobbyist that’s been outbid.

You beat North Carolina and you feel like Harry Gotdamn Truman. “Howya like the taste of that nuclear Chubb Fedora? Boo-yah!” Then ya eke out a win over little ol’ itty bitty Nicholls and suddenly your name is Monica and your blue dress needs Martinizing.

Karma is a fickle bitch. When she slaps you back down to Earth you gotta smile back and say, “That all you got lady?”

"Truman ain't never seen these nuclear
codes Baby!"

Look, Eason is fine. We gotta trust him more. You know this because the opposing defenses don’t trust him not to throw over their safeties’ helmets. A night game on the road makes you nervous for the true freshman and an offensive line trying to find its collective identity, but if Rodrigo brings that cannon as a Delta carry-on, and the defense plays aggressive and knocks those receivers off their routes, then I think we’ll be okay.

After all, beating a really over-matched FCS team by two points proves you have some issues - namely a young coaching staff coaching a lot of young players. But if you lose to Missouri, you’ve besmirched all that is sacred about Life in the (real) South.

You win this one for Sweet Tea. You beat that block in the name of Grits. You catch that pass because Lewis and Larry are waiting out an Eternity to light their cigars. You pancake a dude because it’d make your momma proud son!

Let’s win this game because we were prepared to do so. Let’s be the bigger dog in the yard, the one that eats all the bowls of food because no other mutt will stand up and ask us not to. Let’s fight for every yard and claw for every loose ball as if the winner gets the honor of getting grandma’s macaroni pie recipe handed down to them by the Grace of God!

Now, please bow your heads...Dear Lord Almighty, please help us repair the broken button on the Human Joystick. And make sure Chaney brings the Payne!