The Fake Lonnie Finch

The reason you haven't heard about the defense is that, unlike with Dajon, poster didn't get on here to three weeks in a row saying the defense was going to be our Jesus Christ, okay? But, we already knew the defense was poor and we were stuck with whatever bodies the coaches could stick in there. But, many of you got such hard-ons for Dajon that everything else was an afterthought. As if it was Greer's fault that the defense was playing like sh*t, and it would all go away if Dan and Mike would just stick Dajon in as the starter at QB. It's team game. Just like Derek Thompson, Dajon can't play offense and defense, too.

We got the helmets we wanted.

Tulsa did not to a search for either an AD or a head coach when both of those positions opened up a few years back. The AD was hired from within, then fired amidst a gambling scandal. They head coach was simply elevated from within the staff without even so much as a hint of a coaching search. In short, Tulsa got what it deserved by being lazy and simply elevating from within. Southern Miss got what it deserved when it tossed out Jeff Bower. Imagine this, your a C-USA team, you've been to six consecutive bowl games, and 10 in the preceding 11 seasons...so, you fire the coach. No team deserves more of the hell it is going through right now than Southern Miss. They should be on their knees at Jeff Bower's doorstep begging him to return. He took the school that is #3 on the food chain in a state that isn't highly populated and somehow turned them into a very consistent winner. And, for all of that, what did Bower get from USM - a kick in the nuts. Screw, Southern Miss.

It is true that I'm part Cherokee. And, yet, I do not oppose the Redskin moniker. And, neither do the vast majority of what you call, "Native Americans." In fact, many of their own schools use names like Redskins, Warriors, Apaches, etc. for their mascots. They have magazines called, "Redskin" and whatnot. It's only an issue to people who have walnut-sized brains. In other words, yankee carpetbaggers with nothing better to do but find fault in anything anyone else in the world outside of their kitchen is doing But, look...you're not addressing the quarterback and coaches issue. I'm going to tell you what I saw this morning while in the office of a client. On one wall of their offices, they have a sign hanging up, quite probably by a little nail behind it, and most certainly driven into the drywall. Nonetheless, this sign reads: "If you do not control you attitude, your attitude will control you." It's akin to this advice my dad used to give me when I was a young man, "Shut the f*ck up and get back to work." Both Dan and Dajon need to take heed that message. If Dan is sulky about his lot, he needs to not make it public. He's a man, so he needs to be a man. This isn't Texas, where it can be mismanaged for years and still be a bowl team. He knew that coming in. The whipping to UAB surely stung. But, hell, World War II wasn't won in a day. And, it carries over to Dajon. He's already man enough to reproduce other human with his private parts, he needs to man up emotionally. No one without the last name Kennedy, Bush, Rockefeller, Du Pont, Gore, Koch, Walton, Perot, etc. gets an easy road in this life. And, sometimes, even some of those guys f*ck up their easy road with poor choices and bad attitudes. If what Dajon gets out of tough times is, "The world is against me, screw it" then he will have a hard life; forget about football. Football is the least of a man's worries once he has other mouths to feed, other bodies to clothe and keep healthy, and other bodies to roof and shelter. Don't whine about your football lot, when it's a simple as throwing the damn ball away if no one's open. You don't win the ballgame with one throw in the middle of the game. Throw it away or take the sack and live to fight another down, okay? And, I'm going to tell you something that you may not want to hear: If Dan and Canales haven't already told Dajon what I wrote in the sentence above, they both need to be fired yesterday. Okay? I mean, I have the sneaking suspicion that they have. But, Dajon needs to learn it and live it. Surely it occurs to them all that if their opponent has as many points from their defense as you have with your offense, it's a problem. So, throw it away or take the sack. Get up, get back to the huddle, get back to the center, and play the next down. It's that simple. How the f'ing Sam Hill blazes do you think Derek Thompson was so successful? So, Dan and Dajon need to keep their dirty laundry and whining in house and work it out with each other and themselves. Otherwise, they will screw up whatever opportunities that have left at this level. Dajon only has three more years of eligibility, and Dan is no pup. It would behoove them both to hash out their differences, stick their chests out like men publicly, but keep their opinions to themselves. This Generation Selfie/Poor Me act that both of them have thrown down this week is putrid. Worse than having to listen to a full Lady Gaga song.

In the morning, some people eat grapefruit; others eat Grape Nuts. And, yet, neither one, despite the names, are eating grapes. Do you know what I mean?

It would also give Dajon time to get his head right with ball, study the playbook, watch film, and come out in the spring to battle Means - or, whomever else signs in 2015 - for the starting job. I think if anything else, Dajon now must realize he can't just put on the pads an run around out there. Okay, he can do that against Nicholls State. But, we don't play them 12 times a year. But, you get my point. Dajon can grow up and learn, and we can get Means some experience without pressure... ,,,of course, this is all based upon the assumption that we lay another egg on Saturday against USM. If Dajon pulls a rabbit out of the hat on Saturday and we wiin big, all of this hand wringing will have been for naught. (Sigh) Such is the bipolar existence of a Mean Green football fan.

I'll say this in following untjim1995, who often makes the best points of all: Yes. If Dan McCarney cannot make this a winning program, then what? We've tried just about everything you can. High school coaches twice. Dan McCarney: FBS school position coach (Florida), head coach of a D I-A (Iowa State) Todd Dodge: high school coach Darrell Dickey: offensive coordinator of a D I-A mid-major (SMU) Matt Simon: offensive coordinator of a D I-A mid-major (New Mexico) Dennis Parker: high school coach Corky Nelson: defensive coordinator of a D I-A (Baylor) Bob Tyler: pro football scout (Dallas Cowboys), former head coach of a D I-A (Mississippi State) Jerry Moore: offensive coordinator of a D I-A (Nebraska) Hayden Fry: head coach of a D I-A (SMU) Rod Rust: defensive coordinator of a D I-A (Stanford) Odus Mitchell: high school coach What have we not tried? We've had former head coaches. We've had high school coaches. We've had offensive coordinators from mid-majors and majors, and defensive coordinators from mid-majors and majors. We've had coaches with and without Texas ties. Experienced in the Midwest, Texas, the Southeast, the West, and the Mountain time zone even. Dare I say, we go way out on a limb after McCarney leaves and hire a yankee position coach? We also haven't tapped any coach from whatever division has been lower than us...collegiate. I know we've dipped into high schools. I mean, when we were I-A, hiring a I-AA. When we were I-AA, hiring a D II. It seems like the only thing we haven't tried: -A position coach -From an Eastern seaboard or yankee state -Or, a head coach, coordinator, or position coach from an FCS anywhere. So, if McCarney leaves or is fired, just to be different, I say make a hire from the staff of an ACC school. Or, hire an FCS coach whose star is rising.

Is it too late to switch this to the school fight song before Saturday's game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwcExd8jlX0

With my own organ and clusticles, I've fathered two children. And, I can say from experience that diapers, baby wipes, and formula are expensive. To say nothing of the doctor visits for checkups and shots and whatnot. Did the NCAA change rules to where the schools can now help their student/parent-athletes with such expenses? I'm sure the Criminal 5 are way out ahead of the G5 on this issue as well.

It's the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup approach to coaching. You get one that you like, then you eat him up quickly and throw away the wrapper. Then, you are hungry to win (eat) again, so you buy another one (buttercup/coach). On and on and on this vicious cycle goes until, years later, Type II Diabetes set in and you begin to vote for Democrats because your poor life choices which have destroyed your health and driven your health care costs up are now too high for you to pay for yourself, so you need them to force more responsible people to subsidize the skyrocketing health care costs associated with your sickness and unwillingness to control your appetite and make healthier choices. Instead, take the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup that you bought first and put it in the freezer, thereby preserving it for longevity. You mention Bob Stoops. Many times when he speaks, he sounds like a junior high school kid, getting his words and phrases mixed up, seemingly unable to grasp the simplest of grammar rules and traditions. It's because they haven't fully thawed him out yet and his brain is still half frozen with thoughts of past gridiron glory, fifth grade spelling tests, and memorization of the 23rd Psalm all mixed together and trying to come out of the mouth part of his face at once. They won't let Stoops fully thaw out in Norman because they know a fully thawed Reese's Peanut Butter Cup will be eaten up quickly. Instead, they just thaw him out a little at a time and take a tiny piece of bite out of him every season. He will not soon be used up, then. More likely, he will be forgotten, pushed behind frozen hunks of ground beef, vegetable bags, and bits of ice that have fallen out of the automatic ice maker so that he can't be gotten to. Then, when they need to buy a new refrigerator/freezer, they will discover him again, frozen solid and no longer edible. Then, they will throw him away...after a long, successful stay: safe in the freezer. We did the opposite with Dan McCarney. We opened the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, devoured the inviting chocolatey peanut butter treasure inside, licked and sucked the wrapper clean, then began to eat the wrapper like a three year old child or small canine, confused that the chocolatey peanut butter delightfulness is long gone and not coming home again. In our belly. And, so our moms have to grab up the half-eaten wrappers away from us and say, "No, no, honey...don't eat the paper, sweetie!" And, she makes a yucky face at us. And, then we cry. And, then she buys us another one, thinking that this time, she'll keep a closer eye on us. This is what we've done to Dan McCarney. We've made him into no more than formerly chocolate and peanut butter-filled, half-eaten piece of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrapper. What is wrong with us! Dear God! What is wrong with us!

Look, Ben means as well as anyone else on here... ,,but, he took the hard, hard stance of Dajon being Dajesus based on the Nicholls State scrimmage. The thing is, the seasons are won, largely, in two ways: (1) In the offseason: prepare, prepare, prepare - which means, loosely, run your ass off in 100 degree weather and study your playbooks from spring (2) During the season: the offensive and defensive line (3) Post season: recruiting battles Of the two items needed to be a successful winning program, Dajon was only responsible of one - offseason preparation. You can't hold him accountable for the lines. You can't hold him responsible for the talent around him (or, some would posit, the lack thereof). If I could say just one thing to Dajon for the betterment of his career, I would say this: (1) Watch Tyrone Swoopes' game against Oklahoma (psst...it's on youtube). He only threw one touchdown to the opposing defensive backs. The rest of the time, if he didn't have the throw he wanted (or needed), he quickly threw the ball waaaaaaaaay the f*ck out of bounds to the point where not even the assistant towel boys could catch it. And (2) You held me down, but I got up (HEY!); already brushing off the dust. You hear my voice, you hear that sound like thunder - gonna shake the ground. You held me down, but I got up (HEY!). Get ready 'cause I've had enough: I see it all; I see it now. I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire. 'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar!

Please, dear God, not Grant Teaff references. He was the father of the "both socks not pulled up rule" in the 1990s once they released the old man to the NCAA rules committee. Just...it's good enough to say, "Don't bitch about Dan" without bringing up Grant Teaff. Yuck. Baylor would still be sucking biscuits out of the proverbial doughnut can if he were in charge of anything more complicated than letting his own dog out to pee in the morning.

"And, kids, don't tweet...the reputation you save may be your own."

Yes. That's true. But, the fandom here...some of it...want "exciting" football, yes, even to the detriment of winning football. I give Dan credit for sticking Dajon in there to see what would happen. The blow out at Indiana? Not surprising. Kevin Wilson, former Big Ten OC, back in the Big Ten after a stint at OU...you knew his 2014 team would be better than his initial 2011 group. UAB? This is a whole different story. They have been just flat out awful. They just changed coaches for the second time in what, three/four seasons? And, yet, they whipped us like Adrian Peterson in a pecan tree grove. That ain't right. Now, Southern Miss is worse than a bad case of asian persuasion. If they give us the Peterson Pecan Grove treatment, I fear a Jonestown scenario in way of donor check writing. One: Something's got to give. Two: Something's got to give. Three: Something's got to give Now: Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the flooooooor!

Any chance Rex Ryan ever ends up at Texas State, given the propensity of the females estudiantes to eschew full foot coverings? Rexy like him some soft feet.

You're not wrong. So...get out there and kick a little ass! Do it for Johnny!

Heh. Fourth girl from the left didn't get the flip-flop memo. San Marcos Wal-Mart has got to make a mint in flip-flop and styrofoam cooler sales. Not to speak of koozie sales.

UAB, I'd wager, is the toughest FBS football job in North America and the Western Hemisphere. Texas State...2nd. You've got no chance to keep the players' attention with all of that bikini mess along the rafting thingy right in front of the school! "Welcome to San Marcos, son. Grab a locker and try to find your playbook. F*ck it. Just show up at practice every once in a while, okay? And, if you're not going to wrap that rascal, mix in a little penicillin for the cause."

"That's the way fan noise go." -Ron Washington "That's what fan noise do!" -Jarrod Dyson

I posted last week that there could be a point at which McCarney just says, "F*ck it. I gave it my best; but, this place and these people are impossible. I can make almost as much scratch as a DL coach at a bigger place and get much less crap for my effort." I called long and loud for an experienced coach, and we got one. And, he led us to a bowl game. And, yet... ...the better recruits didn't seem to notice ...the city and county of Denton didn't seem to notice ...the perpetually apathetic alumni didn't seem to notice. You can't say the man hasn't busted his ass for this place. He has. He's busted his ass more so, I'd stake, than Dickey and Dodge combined. At some point, the closing years of his career staring him in the face, Dan McCarney will have to gauge whether this place is worth the long term effort...because, that seems to be what it will take here.

Exactly.

That seems like a quitter's mentality to me. That means admitting that there isn't one QB on the roster that can make few enough mistakes from here on out to be competitive against the Murderer's Row of Rice, FAU, UTEP, FIU, and UTSA. And, as I've already written, losing to Southern Miss will be my threshold of panic.

Yes.

This was, probably, the easiest piece Vito has ever written. I mean, the story writes itself.

I can agree with that. This is the game of the year, then.