FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[GoldandBlueBU]

G and B, Carl is as real as you want him to be. One only has to climb to the top of Elk Mound to understand. When heading down I-94 you go right by it.

It's just past Shooters, which is TDT's favorite spot to stop each time the Johnnies travel to Eau Claire: http://www.shootersshowgirls.com/

gotcha 

I love that there is a note about him on Elk Mound's Wikipedia page.

The CT - Gerby personality parallels certainly exist.

[sjusection105]

Hey guys,
Been on vacation.

Well, you picked a fine time to take some time away with the family. You didn't miss anything......

[wsuc/wiac fan]

To badger 1845. / I would be interested in your ( or anyone else's) response to my post tuesday on the wiac page. Thank you. Wsuc/ wiac fan.    Ps- I was at carleton's final game of the 2013 season when they launched a huge late comeback to beat Augsburg 45-42. I believe that is their only miac win over a team other than hamline or st Olaf in seven years or so.

[OldAuggie]

Hey guys,

Been on vacation. Did UST do something to disrespect the moral fabric and holy unwritten rules of the mighty game of FOOTBAWWWW?!

I bet I know what it is, they forget to bow to their opponent. Or did they forget to purify the playing surface and offer up their palms to their opponent and the gods to show they have no weapons or proverbial tricks up their sleeve?

Ugh. I just wish we could go back to the days of being 6-4 and having a 117 year old man calling our plays.

In a nutshell; Caruso decided to practice a few gimmick plays vs Carleton that he could choose from to attempt to score the UST touchdown and subsequent 2 pt conversion vs. Mount Union in a few weeks. The backfire has been deafening.

[USTBench]

Hey guys,
Been on vacation.

Well, you picked a fine time to take some time away with the family. You didn't miss anything......

Old Auggie, I was on vacation sure, but I was also being facetious.

Yeah, I figured Saturday would be a relatively innocuous standard issue blowout so the umbrage takers serving on behalf of Mother FOOTBAWWW would scour the UST box score to find something upsetting, I just didn't realize it was going to be so easy, with their 2 point conversion going viral and all.

Almost everyone has weighed in on this point, but I guess my thoughts are it's not gimmicky and disrespectful if stuff like that a) works quite frequently for you; b) has been part of your modus operandi for years (And I know it's been said, but to those who think UST wouldn't dare try something like that against mighty Linfield, Mt. Union, UWW, et al, see fake FG for TD in the 2012 Stagg Bowl).

There's a HS football coach in Arkansas that onside kicks every time, never punts and always goes for two, he basically just uses the football equivalent of sabermetrics and plays the odds, noting that in HS football you only give up an avg of 15 yards if you fail at an onside kick and your odds of getting a first down if you go for it on 4th down every time go up exponentially. People hate his guts, but he wins. Chuck Klosterman argues that as hardline and obsessed with tradition that most football people are, football is actually the most innovative and progressive sport there is. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=klosterman/091019

The run-and-shoot, West Coast Offense, zone blitzing, the no huddle offense, the wildcat, even a loophole in the HS football rulebook that allows every player on the field to be eligible in kicking situations lead a California football coach to invent the A-11 offense, whatever, it might make Vince Lombardi shake his head, but I think even he'd abandon the "Packer Sweep" in today's NFL.

BUT BENCH! Dowdle threw a ball behind his back straight up in the air! So disrespectful to the GAME OF FOOTBAWWW and the OPPONENT. What's the difference between that and Matt Stafford throwing a corner fade route to Megatron for the 900th time? You're just throwing a ball straight up in the air knowing you have a bigger, stronger, more athletic player than the opposition, and hoping he uses that athleticism to make the play. I mean at least UST has the decency to disguise what they're doing, take a look at the elements: 1st quarter (not rubbing it in), and the misdirection, kicker takes off as if going to take a pitch or catch a swing pass, OL run blocks to the right and the TE blocks down for a second and squeaks out the backside. Would Gouid be any more accurate throwing it normally?

The ONE thing that makes me strangely even more okay with it: Carleton actually had it covered really well.

[SJUrube]

There were a lot of similarities between the Nebraska and Oklahoma football programs of the 70s & 80s. They played in the same conference, were highly successful, and often times blew out their opponents. What's interesting is Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne is held in much higher regard than Oklahoma's Barry Switzer. Osborne stayed at Nebraska for a longer period of time, though Switzer won just as many National Titles (3) in a little less than half the seasons and he added a Super Bowl trophy as well.

I'm sure there were plenty of people who didn't like either of the programs because of the continued success they had. But it was Switzer and Oklahoma who received the vitriol and were positioned as villain - with people taking more exception to their way of doing things than anyone did Nebraska. There's no doubt results played a role in how people felt about Oklahoma, but an even larger piece was the style with which they went about doing it.

The fact is no level of hate or dislike will take the wins and titles from Oklahoma or Switzer's record - but the record also doesn't hold them in high regard.

[OzJohnnie]

It's just past Shooters, which is TDT's favorite spot to stop each time the Johnnies travel to Eau Claire: http://www.shootersshowgirls.com/

I had to take a look at that website. I love all the pool tables, set up and organised so well. They are like the "I buy it for the articles" excuse of the stripping world.

[bennie]

Let's ease up on the poor, dead pony.  It's quite obvious that Caruso's lackeys aren't about to be swayed.

Resorting to name-calling? My work here is indeed done.

Oh noooooo!!! Not the dreaded "lackey"!! Shame on you Duffman and your potty mouth...er keyboard!!

[sjusection105]

But it was Switzer and Oklahoma who received the vitriol and were positioned as villain - with people taking more exception to their way of doing things than anyone did Nebraska.

Barry did run a pretty loose ship, with the felonies highlighted by QB Charles Thompson getting caught selling cocaine to an FBI agent......
Pretty easy to hate them.

[OzJohnnie]

The second regional rankings are out. http://d3football.com/playoffs/2015/second-regional-ranking

1 St. Thomas 9-0 9-0
2 Linfield 8-0 8-0
3 UW-Oshkosh 8-0 8-1
4 UW-Whitewater 6-1 8-1
5 St. John's 8-1 8-1
6 Whitworth 8-1 8-1
7 UW-Platteville 7-2 7-2
8 Dubuque 7-2 7-2
9 Wartburg 8-1 8-1
10 St. Norbert 9-0 9-0

These seem a more appropriate RR.  We won't move up the rankings from here, but with the top three teams already auto-qualified and potential #1 seeds then we're in very good shape if we beat STO.

[GoldandBlueBU]

...we're in very good shape if after we beat STO.

I appreciate the sportsmanship, but in this case I believe that honesty would be the best policy.

[USTBench]

There were a lot of similarities between the Nebraska and Oklahoma football programs of the 70s & 80s. They played in the same conference, were highly successful, and often times blew out their opponents. What's interesting is Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne is held in much higher regard than Oklahoma's Barry Switzer. Osborne stayed at Nebraska for a longer period of time, though Switzer won just as many National Titles (3) in a little less than half the seasons and he added a Super Bowl trophy as well.

I'm sure there were plenty of people who didn't like either of the programs because of the continued success they had. But it was Switzer and Oklahoma who received the vitriol and were positioned as villain - with people taking more exception to their way of doing things than anyone did Nebraska. There's no doubt results played a role in how people felt about Oklahoma, but an even larger piece was the style with which they went about doing it.

The fact is no level of hate or dislike will take the wins and titles from Oklahoma or Switzer's record - but the record also doesn't hold them in high regard.

The philosophy Barry Switzer lives by (and to a greater extent, his former Arkansas teammate, Jerry Jones) was that legacy preservation is just (for lack of a better word) masturbation.

Switzer was the son of a bootlegger who was frequently in jail. He saw is mom kill herself with a .38, and his dad was ultimately murdered. The guy wore giant fur coats, cowboy boots and was unapologetically himself with the swagger to match, which is why guys like Brian Bosworth gravitated towards his program, when Bosworth was pretty much threatened that if he didn't stay in Texas his life would be made a living hell. This coming out of Norman, Oklahoma in the 1970s and 80s at a time when people honestly thought Merle Haggard was paying homage to the "Muskogee" way of life un-ironically, was something new. The idea that Switzer would give two-turds about what anyone thought about him, especially a rival, is laughable.

Osborne is the local boy made good story that is as Nebraskan as it gets. He probably was overlooked by Nebraska as a HS athlete (his tale of adversity) and despite all odds managed make it to the NFL, and ultimately back to Nebraska where he wound up coaching. He even served in the House of Representatives for the 3rd District as a Republican. The guy is so wholesome he probably sweats fresh squeezed warm milk.

Not perfectly analogous to Caruso and Fasching, but it does take my mind to interesting places, and probably a more accurate comparison than say Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes (student becomes the master or whatever).

By comparison, Caruso lost his mother at a young age, battled a childhood illness that damn near killed him, was undersized o-lineman at Ithaca, and was pushed by his father to follow his bliss and go somewhere no one even knew his name. He went to NDSU and got a grad assistant job at the most heralded Division 2 program (now FCS) in the NCAA, worked his way up the ladder and fell into what seems like his dream job (not saying he won't leave if the right opportunity presents itself, but he never threw his hat in the ring for the UND or USD jobs when they opened up, and he has been recruiting those areas for 15+ years) But, tattoos, long hair, priests, weirdoes, hippies, bikers, 5'9" quarterbacks who played 9 man football, it doesn't matter. Chicago, South Dakota, Minnesota, California, whatever. You go play for him, you be yourself, you do the proverbial FAMILY bit as clichéd as you guys may think it is, and you win a lot of football games. Make no mistake, the guy is loved by a lot of guys that played for him, the UST twitter posted a picture of him at someone's wedding (can't remember who), surrounded by a ton of dudes that played for him having the time of their lives. I don't know about any of you, but my college coach didn't exactly make the cut on my wedding invites.

Fasching is a local guy made good. Starting LB at SJU for 3 years, masters from SCSU, took St. Cloud Cathedral to two state titles, and became the first new SJU head coach in like a thousand years. They'll probably erect a statute of him in front of the Stearns County Courthouse when he retires. Fasching is starting to implement some 21st century tactics to SJU and has cast a wider net recruiting-wise, so it's not completely Gags Redux, but there is more of an archetype at SJU and an expectation of doing things a certain way.

UST's football "tradition" wasn't really worth talking about save for a few Cigar Bowl appearances shortly after WW2. And who's going to want to play non-scholarship football for a guy that has a picture of General Patton in his office? We all had enough of that in high school. Caruso is doing what he had to do, to get his team where he thinks it should be. Probably not going to get him to really care about his perceived legacy by his biggest rivals, he cares about the W.

If there's any big time college football comparison that could be made, it really has this 10-year war Michigan/Ohio St. had during the Hayes/Schembechler era feel to it. I really hope UST and SJU meet up again this year.

[hazzben]

But it was Switzer and Oklahoma who received the vitriol and were positioned as villain - with people taking more exception to their way of doing things than anyone did Nebraska.

Barry did run a pretty loose ship, with the felonies highlighted by QB Charles Thompson getting caught selling cocaine to an FBI agent......
Pretty easy to hate them.

It might not have cost Switzer games, but the NCAA sanctions cost his successor scholarships and bowl bids.

[OzJohnnie]

For an old time pick-me up, my favourite Australian beer commercial: Carlton Draught's Flash Beer.

Through the power of dance,
Kevin did become a Brewery worker.

He still drinks Carlton Draught.

[OzJohnnie]

And the add that has best tickled my funny bone, all time: Devondale Milk's Sunshine Bubble.