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Kings Of Kaos, Week Five: It’s A Texas Trainwreck, Y’all!

by | Oct 6, 2015 | 0 Comments

In a battle for most chaotic team of the decade, forget Lane Kiffin getting capped on an airport tarmac. The real contest should be between Texas 2015 and Texas 2013. It was only two years ago that the Horns finished atop The Chaos Index when we wrote this at the end of the 2013 season:

God, what a mess. Boosters planting stories of Mack’s resignation while he was out on the road recruiting. Rick Perry – an Aggie honk – trying to push him out the door. Nick Saban leaving his latest contract extension unsigned for a week while the world figured he was heading for Austin. Mack refusing to leave. Mack leaving. Right after Nick Saban reupped in Tuscaloosa. Charlie Strong hired. Charlie Strong insulted by key boosters. What a year, boys!

How do you top that. Howzabout if:

  • A freshman retweets a “Y’all should transfer to A&M” tweet at halftime of a game.
  • The major league baseball team that shares the state’s name with you tweets “Fire Charlie” during the game.
  • You give your hated rival that you never play any more cannon fodder to call you a “cupcake”. Douchebaggery, sure, but it’s hard to look at the douchebag in question and say, “Are not! Are not!” when you currently are.

And now, we’re in the run-up to the Red River Shootout, er, Showdown. Remember how you were ready to run Mack Brown out of town until the 2013 game until you shocked the Sooners, after which we wrote this:

As expected, the game was a blowout. It doesn’t get much better than ending a losing streak against the hated rival you still lower yourself to appear with on a football field every year, especially when you’re a two touchdown ‘dog. Tragically for the Longhorn faithful, they’ll have to stop bitching about Mack Brown for a week. Little would have been more entertaining than to watch him announce his retirement on live TV immediately after the game, especially if he’d have announced he was hanging up his horns as soon as the 2014 season was done.

Ah, sweet blissful memories. Things could never get that ugly again, right?

Silly us. Let’s recap the fun facts for the first half of 2015:

  • Week One was that ugly bludgeoning at the hands of the Irish. Hey, there’s no shame in getting a Notre Dame beatdown. At least, not if you’re UMass or another G5 bottom-feeder, though those eight first downs and 163 yards of offense seemed a trifle frail.
  • Week Two: a win! Over a former SWC rival, no less! Also, a bigger win: Steve Patterson was kindly shown the door.
  • Week Three: a thrilling comeback from three touchdowns back in the fourth quarter! Never mind that you gave up 31 straight points to Cal after going up by ten. What? They missed the extra point? Oh, damn.
  • Week Four: seriously? The punter dropped the snap with less than a minute to go?   Before you blame the kid, need we point out Oklahoma State was going to get the ball around their 40 yard line? Trust us, you’d have found a way to implode. At least this was more memorable than a drive to your 33, followed by a 50-yard field goal for the win.
  • And now this: down 30-0 before the first quarter was in the archives. Down 50-0 before scoring that meaningless touchdown. And yet, there was the creativity of it too, finding a way to work in a callback to the OSU game with another botched punt snap. Don’t tell us you don’t know what you’re doing, Texas.

Texas, y’all are one of a kind! We’ll always love you for this, ‘Horns! But we’ll always love you more for being so magnificently combustible.

Welcome to 1-5 guys! Rest assured of three things:

  1. You’re the best 1-5 team in the land, hands down.
  2. No one will ever have a more interesting series of disasters on a football field.   Ever. (Until next week, of course.)
  3. The rumors that Saban (and his personal umbrella holder) are coming to save you will be starting again shortly.

We keep expecting you to explode at any minute and deliver a massive whupping to somebody. Of course, we expected that before the TCU game, and look what happened. Please, please, please make it happen soon, and there’s precedent with Oklahoma. It’s also your last chance to smack somebody meaningful unless we count the Baylor game, and you don’t think we count on that after TCU, do you?

We believe in you, Texas, and we want to see you go bowling.

Little would be more entertaining than to see you playing Old Dominion in the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl. Hell, if there’s a way to resurrect the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl just for you, we’re totally in favor of that.* College football is so much more fun when you’re feeling burnt orange in the face.

Plus, we really respect Charlie Strong (seriously), and we don’t want to see anything bad happen to him.

*And yes, we know they still play the game, but with six sponsors in the last 19 years, it’s hard to keep track, and nothing says cheesy bowl game like “Poulan Weed Eater”.

The Chaos Index, Week Five: Chaos Meets Consistency

by | Oct 5, 2015 | 0 Comments

Chaos. It’s “a state of utter confusion or disorder.” How can chaos be consistent and orderly? Join us as we feel the consistent madness that was on display in Week Five.

  1. Texas – What’s most consistently chaotic about the Horns’ 2015 reign of error? Howzabout the fact that they always find a new way to make a hash of things. And how do you top going down 30-0 in the first quarter? Perhaps by having a player tweeting about transferring during the game, while the Texas Rangers (or at least one rogue now-ex-employee) are busy sending out Fire Charlie missives. Nice touch, by the way, also doing that callback to the Oklahoma State game with a messed up punt snap.
  1. Georgia – How ’bout them Dawgs! So much talent. Such an easy path to the SEC East title. They’re CFP material! Best of all they never ever ever blow a big game. Never ever. Let the freakout begin anew in Athens! Just one warning Dawg fans: we see you getting ready to call for Mark Richt’s head. After all, you’ll never get over the hump until you change coaches. Ask around about how that usually turns out. Perhaps your almost-neighbors in Hattiesburg might have a few thoughts on the subject.
  1. Clemson – Ahh, Clemson: the ACC’s answer to Georgia. Given the perpetual Luck Of The Irish, how else could things have turned out, especially when Notre Dame just needed a two-point conversion to tie with seven seconds on the clock to send it to overtime for the inevitable win? Wait…what? You won? How dare you trash a perfectly good narrative by going against form!?! Never mind.
  1. UCLA – It’s become a Pac-12 tradition. Every year, the Bruins open 4-0, blowing the doors off some alleged powerhouse in Week Four. The four-letter declares them a national championship contender. This year, there’s the bonus narrative of “the kid QB is invincible.” Then, Week Five rolls around, and they self-destruct against a double digit underdog. Here’s how the rest of the story goes: they rise from the ashes, return to national prominence, then blow it again at the moment you’d least expect it. It’s consistent, yet chaotic.
  1. Michigan – Sometimes, chaos is happy. Everywhere he goes, Jim Harbaugh makes madness – exciting, happy madness (at least for the home fans). Can you imagine the khaki chaos that’s going to descend on Ann Arbor after two straight shutouts? Win the next two games at home, and the madness will be beyond blinding. Little brother might have something to say about that, of course.
  1. Tennessee – Look on the bright side, Vol Nation: at least this time, you didn’t blow a two score lead in the fourth quarter. You did it early in the game! Plus, you’ve got two more chances to bounce back and get that signature “we’ve turned the corner” win in the next two weeks! On second thought, this might be a good time to book a three-week cruise to Australia.
  1. Kansas – Does it get more consistent than the Jayhawks? It takes some serious awfulness to get treated like a piñata by Iowa State. And now, their best chance for a win this year is against…Texas?
  1. LSU – Life With Hat is a chaotic little television series. Given the ability to pretty much name the score against the shambles that is Eastern Michigan, the master of mystery chose “whatever”. Since he needed to rest Leonard Fournette and get the Tiger passing game going, Crazy Les dialed up 26 more carries for God’s Tailback and 80 yards of passing offense. Who needs rest when Florida is still two weeks away?
  1. Nebraska – Say, Georgia: ask Bo Pellini about that bit where you fire the coach who can’t quite get you over the hump. Here’s guessing the Huskers won’t need to wait until the last ten seconds to lose to Wisconsin. Have we told you how nice Mike Riley is lately? Bo was never nice; unlike most football coaches, he used naughty words.
  1. Purdue – Congratulations on earning a participation trophy for that moral victory against Michigan State. Oh Purdue, you monument to mediocrity – never too good, never too bad. If there’s a more meh program in the game, we don’t know what it is. (Though the Darrell Hazell years are certainly testing that last part, aren’t they?)
  1. Ole Mississippi State – Jim Morrison sang Break On Through (To The Other Side). Unfortunately for the RebelDogs, he went to UCLA (not that they’ve been very good at breaking on through to the other side either, of course).
  1. The U – It’s not the Fire Al Golden plane following him all the way to Cincy that says consistent chaos. It’s the fact that it wasn’t even surprising that the plane was there. Here’s betting the incredibly loyal ‘Canes Nation won’t be at all upset that Al went for it in easy field goal range late on fourth down while down 11 points. Luckily, loss #1 did nothing to wipe out their dream of finally winning an ACC title. Next week’s visit to Felony State will take care of that.
  1. Virginia Tech / South Carolina – You’ll never believe it but [Frank Beamer / Steve Spurrier] is nowhere near retirement. He knows he can fix this mess, and he’s not hanging ’em up until he does, never mind that the rest of the [ACC / SEC] is recruiting against him by saying, “Do you really want to play there when Coach Legend is forced into retirement?”
  1. Boston College – We’re really stretching the chaos concept this week, so why not push it to its ultimate limits? How can Boston College cause chaos when the Eagles are busy boring us to sleep week in and week out, averaging eight points a game against FBS competition? Simple. We have really chaotic nightmares dreams.
  1. Auburn – Things are looking up! Just kidding. The San Jose Mercury News said it best in their pregame story about this week’s game: “San Jose State heads to the mouth of the beast Saturday, except it’s a mouth with cavities, canker sores and gum recession.” Since we can’t top that, we’ll just inform you that the Tigers got outgained at home by one of the least relevant programs on Earth and would have lost without four Spartan turnovers. Speaking of San Jose State…

Welcome to the consistently irrelevant section of The Chaos Report! We start with…

  1. Indiana – A tip of the chaos cap to you, Hoosiers, for earning your participation trophy for the scare you put into tOSU. We’re shocked – shocked we tell you – to find out that you actually have a worse program winning percentage than Iowa State. We’re even more stunned to find out that you’ve had a coach with a winning record as recently as the 1940’s. Perhaps it’s time to focus on basketball, guys. It works for the Big East, and maybe you can talk Maryland into going there with you.
  1. UCF – Has any program gone from Who? to Wow! to Who? faster than these guys? Getting smacked around by Tulane might be the ultimate indignity. Going from beating Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl two years ago to hoping you’ll be able to bump off horrible USF just to avoid going Kansas, er, winless this year is an amazing crash and burn. When next to nobody cared about your program before that big Fiesta Bowl season, it’s amazingly chaotic-yet-irrelevant implosion.
  1. Georgia State – How do they do it? The South’s answer to San Diego State, the Panthers play in an NFL stadium in incredibly fertile recruiting territory. While the Aztecs have finally advanced to mediocrity, these nice young men still manage to suck. With what they’ve got going for them, it should be almost impossible to continue to lose to the bottom feeders of FBS and decent FCS programs, but by jove, you’ve done it again, GSU! We salute your commitment to awfulness.
  1. New Mexico State – Losses to UTEP, New Mexico, and oh yes, Georgia State lead us to two simple questions: why are you here and what purpose is served by your continuing to play college football at the highest level?
  1. Idaho – So you’re the FBS program from Idaho? Cool! We’re dying to see your blue turf. Say…you’re not Boise State. Shouldn’t you and New Mexico State be shooting it out together in the Big Sky or something? Okay, so the Big Sky might be aiming a little high, but you get the point.

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