Jason's Untimely Thoughts

On Saturday, Mizzou plays their final home game of the season, improving to 8-4 on the year and 6-0 at home. Kickoff is scheduled for 12:00 n, we don’t expect much of a tailgating crowd so won’t be out there much before 11:00. If you’re looking for a ride or want us to haul stuff for you, please let me know.

Zack Abron will become MU’s all-time leading rusher on Saturday, needing just 13 more yards. I say he gets this on a 22-yard scamper in the first quarter.

Brad Smith needs 286 yards passing to become the first player in NCAA history to have two seasons with over 2,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing. If he doesn’t get 286 yards tomorrow, he will certainly still manage the trick in the bowl game. It’s also fairly reasonable that Smith will become MU’s career Total Offense (yardage) record holder in the bowl game. If not, he’ll certainly get that milestone as junior. Smith likely won’t get any milestones tomorrow as we’ll be beating Iowa State so bad it will be in poor taste to throw.

There’s not much funny to say about Iowa State. The notable things for them are that they suck, they’re not very good, and they suck. (They had it going on for a while, but amazingly enough it fell apart shortly after they hired the coach KU just fired. The KU stench is powerful stuff.) Traditionally, their uniform choices have resembled candy corn. One year they had the Offense and the Defense wear different colored helmets. Their team name is Cyclone, their mascot is Cy the Cardinal , and in print they represent all this as a bird stuck in a tornado. Not exactly a fierce image of a team that’s got it all figured out. “We’re so good we got stuck inside the other part of our mascot!” Makes me wonder if they go to Halloween parties as the back guy in the two-person donkey costume.

The Tigers are going bowling, I predict to the Alamo Bowl in San Antone. We’ll beat some overrated Big 10+1 school there, then just over three months later the basketball Tigers will win a couple of games in the same building.

I close with a heart-warming holiday story.
The Flight
A Missouri alum gets on a plane headed home to Kansas City, MISSOURI, for the holidays. As he sits down he introduces himself to the guy across the aisle from him and learns he is a KU alum. He kicks off his shoes and announces he’s getting a coke and offers to get one for the KU alum. When he leaves to get the coke, the ku alum leans over and spits in his left shoe. When he returns, he discovers a second ku alum has joined the first and repeats his offer. When the second accepts and the MU alum goes to get him a coke, the second ku alum leans over and spits in his right shoe. Upon landing, the Missouri alum slips his feet back into his shoes. He immediately realizes what has happened as the two kansas alums are laughing out loud. The Missouri alum sighs and says, “when are we going to get over this insane hatred of each other? The spitting in shoes… the pissing in cokes…”

On Saturday, the Tigers improve to 5-0 at Faurot Field. Game time against Texas A&M is at 11:30. I’ll be out to the tailgate by 9:30. It’s too damn early to kick off, which traditionally means a poor tailgating crowd as well, but come on out & prove me wrong. After we beat A&M, K-State will beat Neebraska setting up the North division title game next week in the little apple, with a Big XII North victory party the following weekend against Iowa State.

Lots of festivities for Veterans Day including a B2 flyover pre-game and the A&M marching band at halftime. Also, Brad Smith was just today named one of 15 finalists for the Walter Camp award (Player of the Year in College Football). He’s pretty good.

A&M stands for Agriculture & Mechanical, so with all the originality of KU’s student newspaper, the Daily Kansan (I guess the official title is the University of Kansas Daily Kansan printed Daily in Kansas?), they call themselves the Aggies. I guess “Mechies” didn’t suit them. Regardless, the Aggies constitute the largest recognized cult in the history of the world.

Aggies pride themselves on tradition, to the sickening degree that they never think how stupid some of the things they’re doing are. They’re just lucky wheels had been invented before their institution was founded or they’d still be walking everywhere. At Aggie home games, students stand the entire game, taking particular pride in standing during the halftime show. While their band is good, no further evidence will be provided on my earlier comments about the general stupidity of a crowd of Aggies. If you’re bragging about standing during your marching band’s performance, maybe it’s time to brush your tooth and look for something else to do.

Oh wait, one more example. They place the graves of their former mascots (dogs named Reveille) where they can “see” the scoreboard so they always know the score. The dead dogs. When construction was going on, they had a student sit out there and report the score to the dogs. The dead dogs. Presumably, the dead dogs can only hear a short distance, that’s why they needed to have someone placed near the grave. They have a dog as a mascot because a group of students ran over a dog once (true story). Similarly, I now have 2 birds, 3 squirrels, and an armadillo as my personal mascots.

Sorry, I can’t help myself. Here’s some more information taken directly from the Aggie webpage.

• Elephant Walk — Annual ceremony held the day before bonfire in which seniors gather in front of the Academic Building, form a single line and wander about the campus like old elephants seeking a secluded spot to end their days. What can you say about this — a degree from A&M sets you up to die, to move into seclusion? There are lots of other things I can say about this, but none are clean.
• Humping It — Position taken by an Aggie when giving a yell. Bending forward from the waist with the hands placed just above the knees properly aligns the back, mouth and throat for maximum volume. Again, There are lots of other things I can say about this, but none are clean.
• Whoop! — Aggie expression of approval. No word whether this expression is appropriately used during either the Elephant Walk or when Humping It.
• The Aggies’ catch phrase is “Gig Em” uttered while holding out your fist with your thumb up. Again, no word on whether this is related to the Elephant Walk, Humping It, or Whoop!. I’m trying to keep it clean, I really am.

All that being said, i’d still wear an A&M sweatshirt in my grave before cheering for UT. (Don’t even ask about the poor saps to our west.)