… The BCS is over for another year… One college community and its partisans are celebrating in their fashion… There is a lingering controversy to stoke the fires of reform and indignant outrage among the goggle-eyed crowd .… The SOMETHING’S GOT TO BE DONE crowd present endless brackets and playoff scenarios that the powers that be MUST ADOPT…. your faithful ol’ Internet curmudgeon smiles, in his best Peter Falk Columbo fashion, asks But what about ….. And in their best Gary Coleman fashion, an indignant sportsworld replies Whattcumean BobLee? …. (Also a Dr Cathy & Orage Update!)
The national football fan community was hardly over it’s tirade on I hate the
Notre Dame hype because … before that Meyer kid from Ashtabula OH became the first guy named Urban to hold up a crystal football on national TV and say the words “… Gator Nation”. This set off a second round of national football fan tirade on I hate all that Big Ten hype because … Don’t confuse Notre Dame hype and Big Ten hype with Southern Cal hype and SEC hype and Texas hype. In a sticky-floored sports bar in Broken Arrow OK two guys named Luke are drinking themselves into a stupor over all this Boise State hype.
Alas, the sports media in all its forms have to talk about something. Unless they are praising your team 24/7, they are discussing other teams otherwise known as all that ridiculous (pick one from the above list) hype. Is there such a issue as Lenoir Rhyne hype? I bet there is.
I am looking at a map of America indicating the current distribution of Rams Club members across the fruited plain. It’s a very interesting case study. How many Rams Club members do you think live in Arizona … Iowa … Maine … Minnesota? Give it some thought while I play The Jeopardy Theme ………… The answers in order are … 8 … 2 … 1 … 6. …. Simon and Garfunkle’s Sound of Silence echoes across 
monitor screen around the Tar Heel Nation. That grand total of 17 Rams Club members is, of course, twice as many as post regularly on either of the primary Tar Heel fan sites supposedly populated by the (TAA DAA) real fans. ….. THIS FREAKIN’ WEBSITE has a better national distribution than the Rams Club and that doesn’t count Clark in Brisbane.
This Rams Club report does not count how many urban (no relation to the Pope or the coach) street gang members buy C-Blue ball caps to set sideways on their heads to be cool. …… and provide drive-by targets for rival gangstas wearing Oakland Raider gear. This all has a point. Stay with me. If I had Barbecue Bobby Purcell’s WPC member map it would be similar or even less generously spread out. …….. Gap-toothed yahoos scream for a football playoff similar in fashion to March Madness conveniently leaving out several salient realities. Here in BobLee’s Real World we are old-school realities freaks.
Who among even the erudite subscriber base of this website has not borrowed a pen from a Hooters waitress to diagram YOUR brackets for 4 – 8 – 10 – 12 – 16 team football playoff on a cocktail napkin? OK, I see one hand raised … oops, that’s Chris in DC and he just needs to run to the restroom. Go ahead Chris, we’ll wait for you.
Realize that no matter how many teams you have, there will be the next one that thinks it should have gotten in. That team is known in March as the #1 seed in the NIT. You are not eliminating controversy, simply transferring it to some mid-major that has even fewer boosters in AZ than UNC does.
Let’s use the ever-popular 8-team bracket. The # 8 is popular because everybody lik
es Lawrence “Yogi” Berra. Everybody likes Cal Ripken too. Thanks God everybody doesn’t like Julius Peppers or we’d have a real mess. With 8 teams there would be a quarter – semi – final progression meaning a total of three games for the two teams that become Florida v Ohio State.
If The Pale Rider leads Carolina to The Promised Land it would mean 12 regular season games + Little Johnny’s ACCCG + the 3 games BCS gauntlet. That’s 16 games. No biggie for the players, even the three walk-ons with real majors. The price to get into Kenan is going to go up very soon (oops, was that suppose to be a secret?). Little Johnny ain’t charitable with his ACCCG ducats. The Road To The BCS will be $100+/per seat for sure. $100 here . $100 there … no biggie for those 6 Rams in Minnesota but MAYBE an issue for the 15-20,000 that are expected to trudge faithfully along each week. ….
Oh, what’s that? You say you would probably WAIT until your team gets to THE FINALS … THEN spend $2,000 in travel and miscellaneous to show your loyalty. …. Uuuummmm, that means really tight camera shots to avoid aluminum reflection from mucho empty seats in those quarter and semis, not to mention Little Johnny’s Gratuitous Payola ACCCCCGGG Bowl.
BUT BobLee … it works in basketball.
Oh, OK, so that bracket you drew up at The Hooters in Roswell thanks to the sharpie that Bobbi the waitress with the birthmark above her left one loaned you is like the basketball playoffs? So 3,000 Tar Heel fans w
ill spend a minimum of $1,000 to get to the game site but they go expecting to see TWO games at one site on one trip … and that’s just 3,000 in a venue that seats 70,000 not an arena that at most seats 20,000. Your team is also going to play two football games in a 48 hour period? Now THAT might get a bit testy even for the three walk-ons with real majors. …. ….. I’m sorry, what are you telling me now?
Oh … you have no intention of actually going to the games!! That’s the responsibility of those awful fat cats in the lowerr level that tailgate too long … interesting!!… including, I assume that one Ram up in Maine. YOU intend to plop down in your knock-off Laz-Z-Boy from Rooms To Go, call Dominos for a large pepperoni, click on that flat screen with only 34 more monthly payments to go … and, assuming that damn Dickie Baddour doesn’t screw it up somehow, watch YOUR Tar Heels kick butt so you can go on a message board and flatulate how YOU ARE A WINNER and CAROLINA FANS, like you, ARE BETTER THAN WUFFS, DOOKIES, GAMECOCKS, HOOS and even those over-hyped Golden Domers and those slimey idiots at Alabama and Tennessee. OK, now that I see how it will really work, I understand. …… apparently Apple Cheeks isn’t the only FRAUD hanging around The Old Well … huh?
BobLee, you’re a real jerk you know that! I’ve been called worse. So, how would you do it, BobLee?
I’m fine with the current system. I can sleep just fine at night without knowing how Boise State would do against Urban’s Gators. What I hate is all these temporary corporate names for bowl games. I like Peach, Sun, Independence, Orange, Sugar, Liberty. Although Poulan Weedeater was kind of cool. But you’ve made BobLee the BCS Gauntlet-Master so listen up. Here is the way it MIGHT work.
BobLee’s BCS Gauntlet
Stay with the Yogi Berra (aka Cal Ripken) 8 Plan because I like Yogi too. Lets use a variation of the NFL playoff format. No … lets reinvent the wheel … no, lets not.
I don’t care how the 8 teams are selected, the 9th team is going to be pissed and all their little Shineys are going to cuss on their little message boards … yawn!
Use Sagarin, or RPI, or USAToday, or SAT, or, my fave, get the dance teams for the Top Twenty schools all together at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha (central location) and Riverwalk Bobby and I will pick the Top Eight based on a combination of killer abs, killer tans, and killer smiles. By the way, Michael Beale, whats the latest on bronzing up the UNC ghost dancers? Ask John Edwards what artificial tan he is using. …. zing … the requisite Fraud From Robbins zinger artfully inserted. … hehehehe.
Once the 8 teams are picked, the “bowls” can divide up the rest of the 112. Who cares? The four teams that lose in the First Round of the BCS Gauntlet are saved spaces in the two most popular bowls not being used for the semis and finals.
So we have our 8 teams (and 112 pissed off fan bases whining about gettin’ no respect … yawn again). Seed them in some who cares fashion. Get the 8 mascots in a room … blindfold Kirk Herbstreit’s Uncle Ernie … hand Ernie a Smith & Wesson … spin Ernie in a circle and he starts shooting. The first mascot he nails is the 8th seed, next is 7th, and so on. Now we have our brackets filled. 20,000,000 Americans and assorted illegals stop everything they are doing to enter office pools like March Madness. The same deadbeats that never get around to paying their entry fee in March do the same for this pool. The same new girl in accounting that picks teams based on their tight ends because saying tight ends makes her giggle will win this pool too.
Of the Head Coaches of The Eight all of whom have 10 year contracts and currently bleed the color of that current contract … a minimum of three of the eight will bolt each year for either the NFL or to replace 
one of the other 8 who bolts first. ESPN and Sonic will co-sponsor a Pick the LDLWs contest. Before the Quarters, go to your local Sonic Drive-In and pick which 3 of the 8 will be Low Down Lying Weasels within the upcoming three weeks and pick the total value of their new contracts within the nearest bazillion $$$.
Quarter Final Round of Eight …. Played at the HOME FIELDS of the Top Four Seeds assuring virtual sell-outs by local fans. If any of the bottom four teams complain, call the 9th t
eam and invite them to replace the whiner. Play all Four Games on the same Saturday beginning at noon and going straight thru. Have Mercury as the overall sponsor of the day so we get to see Jill Wagner the Mercury Stilletto and Sweater Hottie all day long. Do not use Brett Musberger because he is senile.
Semi-Final Round of Four (played one week after the quarters) … Play BOTH GAMES in the same DOMED STADIUM location ON THE SAME DAY … either Atlanta, New Orleans or Phoenix (or the new Texas Stadium when Jerry gets it built). Consider a non-Dome ONLY if it never rains there in early January and is never colder than 60 degrees. All tickets are for the double-header guaranteeing if you go you can see two games. Each of the four teams bring 15,000 fans … the building is full. Have one hour between games End zones and midfield have generic paint jobs. Continue to use Jill Wagner because she is HOT, but not Brent Musberger, he is senile.
Finals … do it like they do now. Have the game two week after the semis to allow for overblown media hype so all the non-competing fans can really complain.. Always use a Domed Stadium or somewhere it never rains or is cold and that has lots of hotel rooms, convenient flights, and strip clubs and that has a city administration that has a clue about big crowd logistics. Do not let Brent Musberger have anything to do with this game either. He is still senile and Jill is still HOT! Let Uncle Ernie Herbstreit use Brent for target practice.
I also like the idea of having the College Super Bowl and the Pro Super Bowl on the same weekend … college on Saturday … pro on Sunday. Different cities of course otherwise the strip clubs would be over crowded and waiting one’s turn for a lap dance, I hear, can produce pervert rage which gets nasty.
Now that I’ve solved this crisis, can I go back to negotiating that lasting peace in the Middle East and between Donald & Rosie?
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What’s New with Orage @ The N&O and with Dr Cathy over at Duke ???? …. Curious huh?
Back in the good ol’ days, most newspapers were local family-owned and published by multi-generations like The Daniels in Raleigh and The Binghams in Louisville. Local citizenry railed against these pompous ink stained tycoons but they were local guys. They were responsible for what was written in THEIR newspaper. Alas, inheritance tax laws wiped out the family-owned local papers and they were snatched up by faceless corporations like McClatchey.
Corporate nomads like the N&O’s Orage Quarles are now sent in by “the home office” to run the regional office and be sure the daily reports are faxed to Sacramento. The N&O will never consider apologizing for their egregious coverage of the Nifong Mess. The people at The N&O are not bad people. They are simply average at best, average and quite smug … plus they are irresponsible and could care less what their readers think. Newspaper profits are melting faster than algore says the Arctic glaciers are. Orage will be transferred to Des Moines or Tucson soon … why should he care. He doesn’t. …. Sigh, sob, sniff. ….. never thought I’d say this but I MISS FRANK DANIELS JR.! He was a crusty sumbitch, with a buncha dysfunctional relatives, but he was OUR crusty sumbitch.
Poor Dr Cathy … its been a rough few days for my new friend on the Gothic Rockpile. She learned the hard lesson of political activism … step out from behind your comfortable campus fortress and it gets a mite testy. Those right wing blog hooligans are all over Dr Cathy like Roy’s Boys after a loose ball. Right wing blog hooligans apparently is the Duke 88’s official term for anyone who does not send them an Attaboy/girl/trans/bi You are wonderful and soooo brave!. …. And Thurs IT GOT WORSE!
The #1 Repub She-Devil and Vampire Queen of the Right Wing Blog Hooligans herownself popped a nuke on Dr Cathy. Ann Coulter mentioned the esteemed misunderstood academic crusader in her globally read column. Being blasted by the longlegged She-Devil actually has a positive side for Cathy. She becomes a certified martyr among “her people”. She joins Cindy Sheehan among the valiant Liberal warrior-ettes who have suffered at the cruel keyboards of the eeeevilll right wing hooligans.
I know what you’re thinking … that I put Ann on to Dr Cathy. Nope. While Ann and I have several mutual acquainti, I didn’t do it. Now, when I did read an advance copy of the column, I did immediately contact Ann and we e-chatted about it. But Ann Coulter doesn’t need BobLee to pick her targets for her.
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? Where is Jerry Jones building his new Texas Stadium ?
Bonus …. what is Jill Wagner’s alma mater?
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The connection between The Triple Lindy & The 4077 was Sallie Kellerman who played Rodney’s girl friend and, of course, the movie’s Hot Lips.
Congrats to Ken Browning and Tommy Thigpen who survived The Pale Rider’s Purge and will be on the sidelines in the Butch Era. Rick Brewer is scouring the archives to find a picture of Ken Browning standing by Carl Snavely as they discuss quick-kicking with Choo Choo. …. apparently what saved Tommy was his last minute decision NOT to use his recruiting of Jarrell Miller as what I can do for UNC in his interview with Butch. Good thinking Tommy.. …. does this leave just Jeff and Marv sitting nervously outside Butch’s office?
EVERYBODY knows U of Florida now has reigning Champs in both Football and Basketball … but how about Celebrity BallRoom Dancing. Former Gator Emmett Smith is reigning champ….. damn it BobLee, how do you get all this stuff ??? …. clean living.
NC State will have an assistant coach named Bible (Dana Jr.). I’d apaid cash money to watch UNC faculty squirrels stew on THAT ONE. They still ain’t happy about Butch’s whole Christian thing.
Want to e-chat w/ BobLee? … [email protected]
