Tag Archives: arizona wildcats

College Football, Huskers

For Whom the Bell Trolls

Twitter trolls are a fascinating species. You never know when they’ll strike from their dark and dank dens deep under the staircase that leads to their parent’s basement.

A couple Sundays ago, Husker Nation and its players received enough constructive feedback from the trolls that it felt like Middle Earth came to life.

Considering what happened that fateful morning, #TommyBomb’s reaction to the news was no worse than your aunt who will post a 500 word rant on Facebook whenever Hy-Vee doesn’t honor an expired coupon.

However, Tommy’s tweet had the trolls smelling blood in the water.

According to @Drama419‘s Twitter bio, he’s a “Family man, traveling man. Sports nut, Noles, Vikes, Pens! I get to travel the world and engage in Tomfoolery” and lives in Maumee, Ohio, a hamlet of 14,000 on the banks of the mighty Maumee river. The town’s biggest attraction is the interstate. I-80 and I-90 magically become one (according to the Google Maps) as it passes by Maumee.

Now @Drama419 claims to have a wife, a pair of kids and a wonderful life. A life so wonderful that he had nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than harass a college kid who just found out he lost his coach, mentor, and friend.

One can only imagine what the rest of his Sunday Funday was like. “Hey honey, round up the kids. We’re taking a cruise up to the I-80/90/475 interchange to watch all the big dreamers who are driving someplace that isn’t Maumee.”

Cut to the following Friday night.

I’m on the couch with my feet up watching the Pac-12 Championship Game between the Oregon Ducks and the Arizona Wildcats. It’s absolutely amazing how fun and relaxing college football can be when the Huskers aren’t playing.  And by fun and relaxing, I mean your heart doesn’t stop beating every time the ball is thrown in the air.

Oregon won their rematch with Arizona in a landslide and before the final whistle even finished blowing, a Twitter troll lashed out at your humble author, his friend, The University of Arizona Athletic Department and the Los Angeles Kings hockey team.

WTF, right?

A couple points to clarify in my response to @colebigby: 1) when I said Oregon is my second favorite team, the gap between the Huskers and the Ducks in my fandom (like any true Husker) is so great you’d need Matthew MacConaughey, a spaceship, and a conveniently placed wormhole in order to properly measure the distance. 2) By “watching the game with Coach Neal‘s brother” what I really meant was that we were both in our respective homes furiously texting back and forth like a pair of 12-year-old girls who just guzzled their first Frappuccinos. Lord help us if we ever figure out Snapchat.

In his defense, @colebigby was quick to own up to his mistake.

But he revealed an interesting look into the mind of a Twitter troll. What he responded to was a Twitter chat that happened two months earlier about Duck Hunt memes.

Score one for the Wildcats coming up with the Duck Hunt joke first.

And seriously, trolls. When your team wins, celebrate and enjoy the victory. If you feel compelled to tweet about it, write something nice to your team and players.

Don’t be so quick to rub your team’s victory in the faces of the losing fans that you rely on a program to help you find Twitter users to troll. But if you insist, at least make sure you’re trolling the right people.

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College Football

What games to watch on a Husker-free weekend

The Huskers will be enjoying a weekend off (aka Nebraska’s fall wedding weekend) so that means there’s an absolutely golden opportunity to revel in the misery of others without the risk of having to join all the other losers in to the cesspool of defeat.

Before you spend an entire Saturday on the couch watching strange teams easily making all the plays the Huskers can never seem to make, we can’t stress enough the need to make an appearance with wife and kids (if applicable) and make a noticeable dent (no matter how small) in household duties that have gone neglected since August 30th.

Pick a game or two and enjoy a stress free-weekend.

Georgia at Missouri
11am (all times listed at Runza Time)
CBS

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After their Heisman hopeful Todd Gurley was suspended due to being ratted out by a jilted autograph dealer, the Bulldogs turn to true freshman Nick Chubb (best name for an unproven backup ever) to lead the ground attack. And Missouri has… wait… who really cares about anything Missouri does? Root for Georgia in this one.

Texas vs Oklahoma
11am
ABC/ESPN3

Beat-Texas

The Sooners travel to Dallas for their annual Red River Rivalry showdown with Texas. The game has always been a little off-putting in the sense that it’s like your favorite cousin going to a big invite only blow out party with the half of his family you’re not related to. Once you get over the FOMO, sit back, relax and watch that favorite cousin do the Lord’s work by kicking the crap out of the Longhorns.

Oregon at UCLA
2:30pm
FOX

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OK. This one hurts. It’s like being back in time eight weeks before the events in Sixteen Candles take place. You’re Samantha sitting at the geek table in the cafeteria watching a hunky blond version of Jake Ryan having a sweet and playful tickle fight with his longtime girlfriend Caroline (bet you didn’t know that was her name). For some sects of Husker Nation, the day Oregon goes Ice Princess on Scott Frost can’t come soon enough for Nebraska would welcome him back with open and loving arms. Then again, that’s what was promised for Bo Pelini. And if we remember correctly, Husker Nation didn’t react to kindly to a guy who originally chose Stanford over Nebraska’s finest land grant institution. Even without factoring in what UCLA did to Nebraska the last two seasons, you want Oregon to win this game just to keep Michigan State’s strength of schedule up. All the better if they can do it with Marcus Mariota having a sub par day. And on a final note, any college that plays 25 miles (a two hour drive in LA) off-campus can suck it.

Alabama at Arkansas
5:00pm
ESPN

Alabama-Fan-Tattoo

The only attractive part of this game is Bret Bielema’s wife and she’s bat shit crazy. Cheer for neither team but hope Alabama loses in a gruesome manner so that everyone is happy and little angels get their wings.

Mississippi at Texas A&M
8pm
ESPN

FLAG

You want Ole’ Miss to lose to ensure playoff chaos and I want them to lose because I’m still bitter about wasting two hours of my life watching The Blindside. Note to aspiring actresses: If you ever want to win an Oscar, simply do your best Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich impression. It worked for Sandy. Just don’t invite your cheating-with-a-white-supremacist-stripper biker husband to the ceremony. And seriously, fuck any team that can make Texas A&M’s militarized fraternity scene look almost sane and rational.

USC at Arizona
9pm
ESPN2

Screen Shot 2014-10-05 at 11.12.47 AM

The Wildcats are enjoying their best season since 1994 when they were named Sports Illustrated’s preseason number one and a U of A sweater warmed the terrified shoulders of Sandra Bullock in Speed. Cheer for Arizona in this one. For another Wildcats win will add to the suffering of Michigan fans and add to the dysfunctional chaos that is USC’s football program. And not to worry, Zona will have plenty more chances to derail their so far perfect run.

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Big Ten, Huskers

Jupiter Was Aligned With Pluto: Proof Nebraska Can Beat Michigan State

This is what things have looked like at Big Red Fury HQ the last few days…

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We stopped taking our crazy pills and went deep down into the college football rabbit hole to find the connection, any connection that would prove the Huskers have the power to take down Michigan State.

Heading into week 6 of the season, teams are becoming intertwined with common opponents. We looked at Nebraska and Michigan State’s opponents. We looked at their opponent’s opponents. We looked at their opponent’s opponent’s opponents. No stone or conference went unturned. Never before have the  South Dakota Coyotes received so much scrutiny.

THESE ARE OUR FINDINGS:

NEBRASKA VS MICHIGAN STATELast night’s Duck Hunt, only helped solidify our theory that was sketched out underneath the patently obvious (in red).

Michigan State’s signature loss of the season (so far) came at the hand of Oregon which is not coincidentally the only real competition the Spartans have faced. These are the same Ducks that struggled to put away a Washington State team that opened their season by losing at home Rutgers. Rutgers in turn lost to Penn State who we all know went on to be mauled by the Northwestern Wildcats back home in State College, PA.

In their season opener, Northwestern was taken down by Cal 31 – 24. Last weekend, the Golden Bears took Arizona to the brink on the road, losing 49 – 45 on a last second Hail Mary that made the Westercatch look like a routine play.

So back to last night, the Oregon Ducks could only hang 24 points on Arizona. (Yes, we know Oregon’s O-line is depleted and the D has suffered some key injuries, but still.) While Oregon showed some brief flashes of what had previously qualified them as the number 2 team in the country, Arizona had a harder time with UTSA (a team in its 4th season) and the Nevada Wolfpack.

Nevada, in case you haven’t been paying close attention, took down Washington State 24 – 13 — a bigger margin of victory than Oregon. The week before, the Wolfpack opened their 2014 season with a 28 – 19 win over the Southern Utah Thunderbirds.

Two weeks ago, Fresno State finally notched their first victory of the year when they defeated Southern Utah 56 -16.

Finally, Michigan State and Oregon did a about the same against their common foe Wyoming, winning 56 – 14 and 48 – 14 respectively. Between losses, the Cowboys edged Nebraska’s first foe, Florida Atlantic, 20 – 19. Of FAU’s two wins this season, their most recent was against UTSA, a team that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Arizona.

Pee Wee Herman

But what we do know is that college football is a weird and wacky sport and Nebraska should have no reason to be afraid of Michigan State Saturday night.

If the Huskers take care of the ball and turn Ameer Abdullah and Randy Gregory loose, they should have no problem leaving East Lansing 6 and 0.

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