Ranting on Rutgers

 

Fuck you, Navy.

 These are the words of the Rutgers University student fans to their opponent this past Friday.On Tuesday, September 11th, Mark Di Ionno wrote a story for the {where} Star Ledger about the thin-skin complaints of Navy fans, family and staff.On Wednesday, September 12th, SI.com’s Stewart Mandel reiterated Di Ionno’s complaints, and went on to blame the “classless” behavior on Rutgers’ newly acquired status as a winner and a potential conference powerhouse. He reasoned that Rutgers had some growing up to do on the being a winner front, and this behavior was somehow directly related to folks actually, for the first time in generations, expecting Rutgers to win games.I really like Mandel. I usually find him lucid, reasoned, and right. But, here, he’s woefully, inconceivably wrong. Pick Michigan to win by 70 over Oregon wrong. Here’s where he gets it most wrong: 

My guess is a lot of these kids grew up going to nearby Eagles, Jets or Giants games, where booing and obscenity is par for the course. That’s not cool in college football, however, where the participants are not multimillion-dollar professionals. 

I have to believe that there’s a generational divide at work here, and one that I would expect Mandel to be at least moderately accepting of, if not apologetic for. In the last forty years, our humor has grown more crass. Our violence has become bloodier. Our college sports have become more professional. And our yearning for meaningless titles has become unbounded. And as it has become more acceptable to behave like a moron at one level, it has become more acceptable to behave like a moron at any level.We disparage the baseball parents who hoot and holler at the umpires on local television, and we rightly adjudicate the hockey dads who try to kill each other after matches. But, have we done anything but lust for a number one ranking for our children, our towns, our universities, our professional teams, our country? Even our religion? 

Fuck you, Mandel.

 No.Sports generally have become a place in which our everyday lack of social graces has become manifest, and accepted. It is the one place in our everyday lives where truly making asses of ourselves has come to be celebrated.This is no less true in college football than anywhere else, and it’s completely ridiculous to suggest that because college athletes aren’t being paid, especially college football and basketball players, they can’t be booed. Is it cold and heartless? Hell, I’m not even sure of that. It’s rude. But, it’s rude to cut someone off when you’re driving, and I don’t see any more or less of that depending on who’s driving and riding on the highway.I don’t know about Mandel, but when I attend a sporting event, I pay my way. And while there are acceptable levels of bad behavior while attending a sporting event, booing and chanting obscenities, in my opinion, is very much my right. Clearly, I can’t go overboard. Crossing the line with racial or religious epithets (Fuck you, {nigger/jew}), making beyond the pale threats (I’m going to rape your mother’s dog while my friends murder your children by hanging them from their genitals), throwing anything (even popcorn or peanuts) should get me expelled from the game. I know this because by paying the fee for the ticket, I’ve signed a contract of acceptable behavior. I know this because these things feel wrong, in the moment and afterward. (Though pegging that Yankees fan three rows in front of me with a big wad of chewed up peanuts would feel pretty good for a few seconds.)Screaming “fuck” at the top of my lungs doesn’t strike me as offensive. Some of the reason for that, I recognize, is that I’ve lived most of my life using the word in pretty much whatever mode of communication I wished to. Today, “fuck” isn’t so much an obscenity as it is a curse. The weight of the word “fuck” is very much down there with the word “damn,” give or take a couple channels on the television dial. Sure, it sounds a little harsher, but only because our ears have become so sensitized to the word “damn” that we’ve had to adopt a new sense of offensive.And that’s part of the problem. We are more crass. We are worse when drunk. And, in a crowd, we’ve completely lost control.It may be stupid. It might even be an excuse. But, there’s no denying that it’s a fact of sports in our lives. Until we get over the obsession with being number one, and the fascination with demeaning everyone who isn’t on par with us, this is the kind of downward spiral sports fans are on. Everywhere. It’s nothing to do with Rutgers. At all.And there’s no line, written or unwritten, to keep this type of behavior from traversing all of our sporting events, in time. If it offends your sensibilities, feel free to try to change the behavior. (Reversing this national trend, especially in a segment of the nation where this type of behavior is fairly average and everyday, is quixotic. Almost as quixotic as fighting the inevitable college football playoff system.) You’re better off, though, either refusing to attend, growing thicker skin, or accepting a certain amount of asinine behavior.If you think I shouldn’t have been shouting at the kid who ran down the sidelines during an eighth grade football team after he had been tackled and kept from scoring on my team, well… you are a better person than I. Or I care more than you do. Or something. 

Fuck you, Di Ionno

 Where Mandel is wrong in telling us that college athletes shouldn’t have to put up with the stress of being booed or cursed, Di Ionno is wrong in telling us that the service academy football squads should be afforded some special status on the football field simply because their players may or may not leave the nation to oversee a combat zone. 

But you’d hope our Jersey kids would be smart enough to make an exception for the service academies, especially the weekend before the anniversary of Sept. 11, their generation’s own Day of Infamy. You’d hope they’d be sensitive enough to realize that some of those Midshipmen may soon be among the young American men and women fighting and bleeding and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

And he quotes some doofus verbalizing this sentiment: 

“This is how you treat people who may die for this country?” said Bill Squires, an Annapolis graduate (Class of’75) who was on the sidelines for the Friday night game in Piscataway and was shocked by the obscene chants directed at the Navy players and fans throughout the game. “It was the most classless thing I’ve seen.” 

If this was truly the most classless thing this guy, Squires, has ever seen, I wonder if he’s ever watched a football game on TV. Far more classless is the chest-beating and tribal dancing that follows a touchdown or sack, nevermind the level. Professional, semi-pro, college and high school alike, the celebration routines run classless through its paces much more thoroughly than shouting “Fuck you, Navy.”But, there’s another part of their sentiment that really gets my goat. More than being offended by the words used, they seem to think Navy (and Army and Air Force) is a special opponent. Undermanned, undersized, and underpaid, Navy is just another football squad. What happens to the members of the football team after they leave the field is so very much not a concern to Navy’s opponents that it is irrelevant.That’s right. Irrelevant. Today, they’re playing football. If they’re lucky, they’ll blow out a knee and never play football again. Their military future will be behind a desk. But, wait! These are Navy midshipmen. With the exception of getting to spend time on a boat, which has its own inherent risks, these Naval and Marines officers-in-training are almost certain never to be under fire in a combat zone.Graduates of the academies attend these academies to learn the theories of combat, the history of ammunition, the strategies of Global Thermonuclear War. They move pieces around on a map of the world, like a chessboard, and then, when they’ve obtained appropriate clearance, order real men, men who sit in the stands and root for Rutgers, men who sit in the stands and root for Nebraska, for Oklahoma, for the New York Yankees, the Cleveland Indians, the Columbus BlueJackets, men who chant “Yankees suck!” at Red Sox games, men who couldn’t read as well as those attending the service academies, men who couldn’t afford to go to college, men whose whole lives revolved around the idea of throwing a perfect game in the World Series for the LA Dodgers up until they tore their rotator cuff in high school, into combat zones where they may die.Who rallies around, asks for special treatment, for these men? If these men and women are lucky, they’ll come home to root for their home teams as vociferously as they did before they shipped off to war, saw real blood, walked through real guts, felt body parts spatter against their clothes and faces and hands. Before they watched guys they had become brotherly toward disintegrate before their very eyes.Spare me your whining, oh, military veterans, when the greatest, most classless crime you know is the chanting of “Fuck you, Navy” by drunken Rutgers fans.Perhaps the most ridiculous part of this commentary is the idea that this former Annapolis grad complains about the classlessness of Rutgers football fans, when, ideally, he saw people spitting at Vietnam returnees and heard the chants of “babykiller” at these same folks. He must have been absolutely shocked and surprised to hear the vice president, then, use the word “fuck” in the open chambers of the Senate. 

Fuck you, Rutgers

 So, all of this is hyperbole and oversensitive belly-aching by people who think we, as a nation, don’t support our troops. That’s what it really boils down to. Some oversentimentalized response to the nation’s almost desperate desire to not be at war.Military officers-in-training, and their ilk, are upset that Rutgers fans would deign to treat them like any other opponent. Oh, the humanity! It leaps off the page, doesn’t it: You can catcall West Virginia all you like, but look! These guys might just one day wear stripes on their faggoty white uniforms!But, it’s nothing to do with war, Navy or respect. It’s about football. And football is about invective, injury and insolence, to a certain degree, anyway. Kind of like war, I guess.On the other hand, if it’ll make them feel better, maybe they should just let loose with some “fuck you”s of their own.And, if not, well, that’s okay. I plan on sending several dozen “fuck you”s to Rutgers when WVU marches onto their field.

Glances around the Mountain State

Soccer. Yes, soccer.

I know it goes unnoticed, but when I conceived of this project some 18 months ago, I swore to myself that I’d hit on all the goings-on in Mountaineer sports that I could find information about. And, the interwebs being all inter and webby, as long as you keep your eyes open, you can find info on almost anything.

Sometimes, that can be very awkward.

On to soccer.

First, since the Women’s World Cup in China began yesterday AM Eastern time, we’ll glance first at the women. Ranked 18th, the Lady ‘Eers (Is that Lady nickname still used in college athletics today? I confess, I don’t pay close attention to women’s sports.) beat the Lady Nittanies 1-0 Sunday afternoon. Penn State was 15th ranked at the time.

In an effort to be more confusing than football’s ranking situation, there are three ranking sources in college soccer. The Mountaineer-ettes are 14, 18 and 19, depending on which publication/association you’re abiding by. That’s an average of #17. Not too shabby.

The men’s soccer team isn’t yet ranked, but beat Duquesne Monday evening, 1-0, scoring the game winner late, according to the report you can catch here at msnsportsnet.com.

That’s probably enough college soccer for now.

UPDATE: The Men’s soccer team is ranked 13th.

Injuries

As I scrolled through the college football headlines on espn.com yesterday and this morning, I was struck by how many season-ending injuries folks were dealing with. Not quite as bad as the Scroll of the Dead that the NFL put out over the last 48 hours (apologies to Kevin Everett, who has apparently improved more than expected between Monday and Tuesday).

How is it that the Mountaineers have enjoyed unusually good health in the Coach Rod era, anyway? For that matter, I can’t recall the Mountaineers losing a player to injury that changed a season. Yes, last season saw Slaton’s running one-handed affect a game (his wrist problems versus Louisville was almost as responsible for that loss as the defense’s ineptitude), but in general, injuries haven’t claimed major stars in Morgantown.

Perhaps I’m cursing the crew by even typing this.

Maryland

While I’ll write a more thorough preview tomorrow, I was struck by the score of Maryland’s game Saturday over Florida International, team #118 of 120. I would have expected the T(w)erps to have blown out the Golden Panthers, but instead they eked out a 26-10 win.

They were on the road, so that counts for something. Also, they had to have skipped game planning the game at FIU, instead focusing on the visiting Mountaineers during practice. That’s all that makes sense to me, because FIU is, well, a Division I-A team in name only. Sure, anything can happen, as Appalachian State proved on the season’s opening Saturday, but Appy State’s a good squad. FIU would lose ten games out of ten to Appy State.

So, I expect the T(w)erps will show up on Thursday night, but I truly doubt the Mountaineers will have any more trouble with them than they did with Marshall.

Administrivia

I’d promised a near-daily look at college athletes involved in police matters, but honestly, I’m overwhelmed. You’ve got computer thieves at WVU, batterers everywhere, murderers in New Hampshire, kids getting suspended for anything and everything. I will get to it. I promise.

‘Till then, I suck.

Mountaineers in the NFL

WVU grads (or, at least, former attendees) have gone on to the National Football League. I thought Mondays would be a good day to track them. And, when I’m feeling nostalgic, I’ll write about former Mountaineers who went on to have at least a year in the league.

Anthony Becht, TE Tampa Buccaneers

Becht’s career is just about over. He’s on the Tampa roster, but he had no stats in yesterday’s loss to Seattle. Things have been going downhill for him since Pennington’s chronic wrist problems began.

Marc Bulger, QB St. Louis Rams

Bulger was mildly miserable against the Carolina Panthers. His line was:

CMP	ATT	YDS	CMP%      LNG	TD	INT	RAT	        ATT	YDS	AVG   TD

22 42 167 52.4 18 1 0 70.2 3 18 6.0 0

While the Panthers do have a defense that could be decent, one would expect more from the QB of a supposedly high octane offense, even in week one. The Rams played poorly overall, but the QB has to perform, and Bulger’s numbers stand as evidence of either 1)He didn’t play well, or 2)His team stinks, or 3)Carolina’s better than I suspected, or even 4)Linehan’s offense ain’t so hot, after all.

Antwan Lake, DT New Orleans Saints

Antwan’s Saints got completely outclassed by the Indianapolis Colts on the league’s opening night. Lake offered two tackles as a sub in the Saints hopeless defense against the Colts, who looked incredibly strong overall.

Corey McIntyre, FB Atlanta Falcons

Since Corey had no stats against his name in the Falcons’ obliteration against the Vikings, I want to ask him one question: How’s my boy, Prince Killer? That pitbull is one good doggie.

Jerry Porter, WR Oakland Raiders

The second best former Mountaineer receiver to play in the league actually had two catches for the Raiders yesterday as the Raiders went down to the Lions. Two catches for twenty-six yards. It’s something, I guess.

Todd Sauerbrun, P Denver Broncos

Sauerbrun may be long in the tooth, but remains a really good punter, steroid issues aside. Todd had three punts yesterday, dropping one inside the twenty. Of course, one of those three punts went for six points for the Bills. Not that it’s all Todd’s fault, but…

Gary Stills, DE Baltimore Ravens

Stills had no numbers in tonight’s loss to the Bengals, though that doesn’t mean much. The Ravens playmakers are linebackers and safeties.

John Thornton, DT Cincinnati Bengals

Former teammate of Stills, big John Thornton had one tackle tonight in the Bengals’ victory.

All in all, a pretty crummy week for former Mountaineers, going 2-6.

Oh, and of course, this doesn’t include any former Mountaineers who might be suspended or otherwise detained by police.

Top 25, Week Two

On the AP, and being jumped by Oklahoma

I don’t mind, too much, that the Sooners leaped ahead of the Mountaineers in this week’s AP poll. OU pounded Miami, who pounded Marshall, who got pounded by WVU. So, that makes sense.

Oh, wait. It doesn’t? Are you sure?

Marshall went to Miami, and got killed. Miami went to OU, and got killed. WVU went to Marshall, and… didn’t get killed. Sure, they weren’t great for an entire game, but… what do we really know about OU at this point?

It’s early. West Virginia’s defense doesn’t seem to have improved very much. But, I think there’s a risk in letting OU jump ahead of WVU when there’s so little to go on. Can Miami actually do anything on offense? That WVU didn’t do?

Short answer: no.

So, why would Miami have been any better against OU than WVU would be?

It’s arguable, of course, Miami would have rolled around useless for an entire half in Huntington, too.

Ah, whatever.

LSU

I would like to suggest that jumping from having five first place votes to twenty-five first place votes based on what I thought was a fairly predictable stomping of a very overrated, over-sympathized, under-talented Virginia Tech team.

Virginia Tech proved to everyone in week one that while they might be able to play some D, their offense was going to struggle against all comers. Even against Louisville.

The only surprise about VT’s loss to LSU was that anyone thought it deserved the hype that rang it in. VT was clearly not a top ten team, but had a top ten ranking because they (and Michigan) were overrated at the season’s start.

If I had found the matchup remotely interesting, I might have watched a down of the game. If I had, perhaps I’d have been aroused to full LSU lust. Instead, I was watching games whose results didn’t strike me as preordained (or were on an upset track).

I’ll grant that USC didn’t do much in week one to support their overwhelming number of top ranked votes. But they didn’t do anything yesterday to lose it.

On the USAToday, and being jumped by Florida

Ummm, you guys are kidding, right? They’ve played two games at home, against Western Kentucky and Troy State. Neither team would survive a half against Western Michigan. WTF?!

Whatever. You guys are clearly idiots.

Hawaii

Both polls are clinging to this idea that because the Warriors have one good player, they’re a Top 25 team. Their performance against Louisiana Tech yesterday should really have proven that, in fact, they’re just another overrated team with one college superstar, and really absolutely nothing else.

They could win the WAC with just that. But, I’m betting they won’t. As is the case with any conference, coaching generally wins the day. And I think we saw last season that Boise State has a superior coaching acumen to Hawaii, player (or players) be damned.

Week Two in College Football

First, my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon, ranked #25 in Division 3, slogged out a 16-6 victory over Grove City College, a rival just up I-79. The Tartans are 2-0, coming off an undefeated regular season last year, and have won twelve regular season games in a row.Also, the same guy who was coaching football there when I arrived in 1990 is still coaching there 17 years later. Talk about comfy. 

Michigan Sucks

 I think Lloyd Carr loses his job on Monday. I’d fire him in a heartbeat. Michigan, with the exception of Mike Hart, looked completely awful today. Hart wanted to carry the team, but his ankle was obviously bothering him. Were I him, I’d insist on Carr’s dismissal based simply on false hope. He, quarterback Chad Henne, and tackle Jake Long all stayed in hopes of going after a national title. Carr forgot to tell this trio that he wasn’t going to field anyone on defense.I think WVU could score 80 points against that Michigan D. In a single half. They’re about as atrocious as WVU’s D, in fact. 

Notre Dame may not win, but they do fight

 And by fight, I mean actually throw punches.Why that Irish player wasn’t ejected from the game in the second quarter after sitting on a Penn State player and pummelling him for several seconds, I’ll never understand. The official was standing over them, seemingly enjoying the assault, for nearly ten seconds before finally getting involved.Abysmal.This is what Charlie Weis is all about, by the way. “If my team stinks,” he says behind closed doors, “we’ll just beat the hell out of kids who don’t expect it.” Weis is a dirty little bastard. He has no football qualms, and he has no football morals. The team will go dirtier as the moaning about how horrible his squad is gets louder and louder, too. He’s a rat. A complete sheister.And his team is going to get killed at Michigan next week. 

Louisville tries playing without defense, realizes problems with that

 By now, everyone’s seen highlights of the Louisville v. Middle Tennessee State fireworks show from Thursday night. Great stuff. If you hate Louisville as much as I do. Well, till they separate, anyway.As a Mountaineer fan, I’m salivating over that matchup. Should be a 150-point game, the way the two teams play D. 

The Big East

 As I write this post, South Florida is tied at Auburn. Check that: South Florida just intercepted a Brandon Cox pass into a crowd of four Bulls and a single Tiger and returned the ball to the Tiger 3 yard line. South Florida seems likely to win this one. Suggesting that they do, after two weeks of play, only one Big East team will have lost: Syracuse to Washington and Iowa. The same Washington who went to Boise State and won today. And the same Iowa who will likely contend for the Big Ten title.While the opponents of the Big East in general leave something to be desired, other conferences that are considered far superior to the Big East have faced lesser or similar opponents, and fared less well.UPDATE: Auburn has taken a 3-point lead with just under three minutes to play. Five turnovers, and South Florida has scored zero points from them. Nice D in Tampa. A terrible, terrible offense.UPDATE to the previous update: USF returned the ensuing kickoff to the Auburn 34 yard line. Incredible. The Bulls may still be able to win this one after all.UPDATE numero tres: The Bulls win! The Bulls win! And, in his postgame on-field interview, coach Jim Leavitt says of his team’s win at Jordan-Hare Stadium, “This is a big shot for the Big East.” And he’s right. Huge. Makes me wish that WVU would try to schedule some bigger-time opponents. (For the record, I believe the Mountaineers have Auburn on the schedule in ‘08 and ‘09, or ‘09 and ‘10.) 

Big Ten and Coaches #5

 It’s early fourth quarter as I type, but maybe the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll ought not rank Big Ten teams so highly. Wisconsin appears prepared to choke away a game to not-quite-a-football-power UNLV.UPDATE: Wisconsin holds off a very game Runnin’ Rebels team. But, overall, the Big Ten’s looking quite shaky two weeks into the year. Wisconsin is my pick for winning the conference, but I suppose you can’t overlook Penn State or even Iowa.