Football Articles
2008 Iowa State Preview – State of the Union
Posted by dedfischer on August 19th, 2008 under Football
Since I don’t really know anything about Iowa State football, besides that Gen Chizik is the coach, I began digging for information. To give you an idea of how tough it is to come up with anything of substance, check out this link and see if you can make it through two sentences of a practice report. The PR department seems to apply some kind of mind-fuck, Stockholm Syndromium method of hypnotizing their fan base, and that’s probably not a bad approach to take from a season ticket sales perspective. Although, I did make it through this quote from special teams coach Jay Boulware: “We’re probably about two-thirds of the way on our installation,” said Boulware. “We’re installing the last stage right now. We’ve probably got another day before that is ready to go.” I’m not sure if he’s referring to a football team or a new air-conditioning unit for the locker room. I gave up and decided to wing it. 
The utility bill should be down in Ames along with the ppg.
This is as appropriate place as any to add that everyone complains about how cold it gets in Iowa come November. Being a state away from Canada, I can believe that the weather is unpredictable, and at times, gets pretty frigid. But, I’m from Texas by God, and none of these son of a bitches have ever been to Dalhart, so I don’t know what all the incessant whining is for.
There was a rumor floating around among Big 12 football fans that Todd Blythe had finally exhausted his eligibility. I can confirm this, so you can relax a little bit when the Cyclones come to your town and you see your 5’9” corner trot onto the field. Now, that the fade route has been scratched from the page of the playbook, I’m thinking ISU may have to go back to the drawing board to generate offense. Pencil this one in as a shutout for your defense. That’s the only relevant thing you need to know. Todd Blythe is gone. The first two practice reports I read led off with tidbits about the kicking game. I’m guessing these guys are going to come in handy at some point during the year.
Brandon Foster would have owned the ISU receiving corps this season.
Trust me, you’ve never heard of one guy on their two deep. There’s an equal shortage of vowels and talent on the ISU roster. The name R.J. Sumrall sounds familiar for some reason, and he sounds like a black guy, which is good. I vaguely remember how Ruffin McNeill turned Tech’s defense into the top ranked unit in the Big 12 (at least, according to the media) by prison raping someone named Jason Scales. Transfer Katie Hnida won the MLB job in the spring, and should provide a much needed upgrade in speed and toughness as well as valuable experience in fending off Darrell Scott from the end zone. True freshman LB Kevin Hamlin from West Palm Beach signed up for a change of scenery and could play a factor, after spurning offers from The University of Phoenix and DeVry Institute. On a tragic note, 5 star DE recruit Paranthropus Eldurrelli was found dead in the deep woods of Georgia. Eldurrelli was considered a Smithsonian Institute lock before signing with the Whirlwinds and was expected to contribute immediately. Tell me you didn’t see that BCS blowout coming on OU, after watching them struggle to beat this team 17-7? In retrospect, all the signs were there.
Eldurrelli was penciled in to start at the left DE position.
Given the difficulties above, I thought it might be more appropriate to focus on the big picture here, since I get my rocks off kicking puppies and shit. I’m going to try to effectively form an inapplicable parallelism here, so bear with me a little. I apologize for that sentence. I’m not quite the Thesaurusatical Sensei that your beloved Bill Little is.
In the spring of 2007, I re-dedicated myself to the upkeep of my lawn after my friend came over and I mentioned that all it really needed was some Roundup, and he suggested that what I really needed was about 3 good sheep. Pissed off and marginally embarrassed, I went to work the next day committed to win yard of the month by season’s end. I absolutely worked my ass off, and it started to pay off by June. My
St. Augustine grass was so green and full, I busted Mike Gundy practicing his short game in my lawn one morning. Neighbors were complimentary, my significant other was proud to have friends over, etc. Then, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. It didn’t stop until mid-July. One would think this would be ideal conditions for growing plush, healthy coverage, but that wasn’t the case. The most bizarre thing happened. My grass began to turn yellow and eventually large, brown circular patches began to appear. After consulting with my local nurserist, he diagnosed my herbivorous infection as a fungus named, appropriately, “brown patch”. It’s been a struggle ever since, and the only cure that has been relayed to me, is to treat it with fungicide, kill your lawn by not watering it for a month and a half, and then hope for the best. If anyone knows a better cure for that shit, let me know.
Brown patch in St. Augustine.
Iowa State Football also suffers from a case of “brown patch”. Except, not the variety that infects your lawn, but more similar to the form that develops in the bottom of your boxer briefs the next day, after 4 bowls of your homemade chili the first time it drops below 50 degrees in Texas. I checked on the bottle of fungicide in my shed, and it doesn’t treat aberrational Midwest football programs. I’m thinking their only option might be 6 tons of Ammodium AD followed by a couple of years of constipation, and then hope for the best. 
Brown patch in Ames, IA.
The evaluations of potential football scholarship recipients at Iowa State are eerily similar to the interview process for getting a gig here at Barking Carnival. If you have the ability to effectively operate a qwerty keyboard and stay eligible, you’ll have the opportunity to test your coverage skills against the likes of Jeremy Maclin for the next four years. ChrisApplewhite will be running first string on the field goal block unit by this time next summer. The good news is Baylor’s back on the schedule, so the winner of this pillow fight should determine who sucketh the least in the Big 12.
I could go on and on here about the pastiness of the women in Iowa, but those jokes have been played out. Iowa State frankly fucked up by firing Dan McCarney, and in writing this preview, I’m not so sure he wasn’t one of the top 10 coaches in the country (I jest). When you think about it, does ISU really have any advantages over Baylor? The #2 option for in-state recruits? Is that really an advantage in Iowa? I’m not sure this thing can ever be fixed, so I’ll add the best thing Iowa State has ever produced. The lovely Mallory Snyder, former ISU soccer player turned Real World celebrity turned SI Swimsuit Model: 
It’s not all gloom in Ames as there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon for Iowa State football. The one guy who could get this thing turned around is new Strength and Conditioning Coach, and noted dietician originally from Lawrence, Jeff Cormaney.
For the real scoop on all things ‘clone, check out our friends at Clone Chronicles.
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Activity
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James commented on the blog post Things To Do While Not Watching OU in the NCAA Tourney 5 minutes ago
Nate, agreed on the buying players. What does the NCAA do? Oh yeah, you “vacate wins”. I vacated my bowels this morning.
I was busting your balls on Oklahoma. I have had some good times in some of the surprisingly scenic areas. Also, Maker’s is my poison and who would ever
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Burnt Orange Wookiee commented on the blog post Bienvenidos a Miami: Heat Preview 9 minutes ago
The emergence of RJ being what we thought he would be seems pretty big. Oh, and that Ginobili guy is playing pretty good right now. Seeing Manu be Manu always brings a smile to my face.
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Blake Stansbery wrote a new blog post: Arkansas Razorback Football’s Top Six Impact Freshman for 2010 35 minutes ago
The Arkansas Razorbacks’ 2010 signing class did a good job of filling areas of need and adding size, speed, and talent to Bobby Petrino’s roster.
The major recruiting services did not rank the Hogs among the top 25 recruiting classes, while the Max Emfinger and Tom Lemmings of the recruiting world did think more highly
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Ibas water bottle commented on the blog post All Signs Point to March Madness Expanding to 96 Teams 37 minutes ago
Somewhere in rehab Sean Sutton is pissed this didn’t happen 4 years ago.
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Kevin Berger wrote a new blog post: Bracket Analysis: The Beasts of the East 56 minutes ago
If the South is a region of guards, the East is a region of men. Large men, that play an old school, physical brand of basketball. Guys like Demarcus Cousins, Kevin Jones, Damion James, Trevor Booker, and Al-Farouq Aminu, put the power in power forward.
These guys rebound above the rim and
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J Rog wrote a new blog post: Reggie Miller is a Bad Man 1 hour, 15 minutes ago
If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend watching ESPN’s latest 30 for 30: Winning Time about the Indiana Pacer’sReggie Miller’s rivalry with the New York Knicks in the early 90’s. Anyone that can make Spike Lee look stupid is a friend of mine.
The things that Reggie did to John Starks in those playoff series are
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Nordberg commented on the blog post Texas finishes sweep of Iowa 1 hour, 34 minutes ago
Green and then Workman I’d imagine.
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J Rog wrote a new blog post: Bienvenidos a Miami: Heat Preview 1 hour, 40 minutes ago
If we can score, we have a chance. The Heat are a poor team in a mediocre conference this year and don’t come with a lot of fire power. The one thing they can do is play defense, holding teams to 95.2 points per game, 5th best in the NBA. Dorrell Wright returns from a
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Nate Heupel commented on the blog post Things To Do While Not Watching OU in the NCAA Tourney 1 hour, 48 minutes ago
coloradoag:
First of all, I’ve very seriously thought your proposal #9 over. See: Calipari, John. People don’t seem to care if you buy basketball players. Only if you do it blatantly (USC) or you call/text them too much.
Oklahoma (outside of Oklahoma City and Tulsa metropolitan areas) is a lot of fun if you’re
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Sailor Ripley commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 1 hour, 49 minutes ago
Ha ha ha ha! It’s Joel Osteen’s world. You just live in it.
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admin commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 1 hour, 49 minutes ago
Ha ha ha ha! It’s Joel Osteen’s world. You just livesin in it.
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admin commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 1 hour, 49 minutes ago
Ha ha ha ha! It’s Joel Osteen’s world. You just live sin in it.
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ghostofagroundgame commented on the blog post Beat the Barkers NCAA Tourney Bracket 1 hour, 57 minutes ago
I will own that tote bag. And it will hold my porn.
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James commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 2 hours, 12 minutes ago
Baylor has the horses to make it to Indy, but Scott Drew is the Mike Gundy of college hoops. He’ll find a way to blow it.
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HenryJames commented on the blog post Robinson can, no? 2 hours, 46 minutes ago
Yes, it sounds like he is planning on hitting Texeira third.
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 2 hours, 59 minutes ago
“And I can understand the Longhorn fan thinking mighty Baylor goes all the way. After they bitch slapped the Horns three times this year, they are the basketball equivilent of the three foot long rat my wife saw in the garage.”
I actually like Baylor based on how they played Kansas and to an extent KSU.
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Ag_in_TX commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 3 hours, 6 minutes ago
Of course not.
Here is another bold claim – all 7 Big XII teams bolt out the gate and win their first round games.
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The Wild West Regional 3 hours, 12 minutes ago
Work, I love Xavier. Really athletic team that feeds off of mismatches that superstar guard Jordan Crawford creates. Hell, he’s good enough to carry X past Minnesota and even Pitt if he’s hot.
The problem for XU is that they don’t defend as well as they have in the past. They’ll have
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 3 hours, 25 minutes ago
Ag, cool, I agree with pretty much everything you say except your claim that you dictated tempo to UNM. But no biggie.
The reason I like Siena is that it’s basically the same team that beat Ohio State in the tourney last year and then played a 1 seeded Louisville team down to the wire.
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Mister Mike wrote a new blog post: State of the Union – NU Basketball, Part 1 (or Why We Are Where We Are) 3 hours, 27 minutes ago
NU’s Ugly Duckling Program
Read that and you’ll say to yourself “State of the Union of…what??”
I know that’s what most of you will say. It’s not really shock or surprise that NU has a basketball program, though. It’s that sense of shock and surprise to anyone (especially our Barking Brethren over at OBK) that
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Hiphopopotamus commented on the blog post We talkin’ ’bout brackets 3 hours, 37 minutes ago
I’ll say the same thing I did at March to March…
I love this Baylor team. They’ve got all the pieces for a run and they’re in a ridiculously underwhlemingly regional, BUT…
It’s Baylor. They haven’t won a tournament GAME since I think 1950…now we’re expecting them to go out and win 4 in a row?
Certainly those
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Hiphopopotamus commented on the blog post We talkin’ ’bout brackets 3 hours, 37 minutes ago
I’ll say the same thing I did at March to March…
I love this Baylor team. They’ve got all the pieces for a run and they’re in a ridiculously underwhlemingly regional, BUT…
It’s Baylor. They haven’t won a tournament GAME since I think 1950…now we’re expecting them to go out and win 4 in a row?
Certainly those
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post March Madness Brackets Rackets: Can Las Vegas Pick The Champion? 3 hours, 45 minutes ago
Triston, wow, that’s a great number. Nice work.
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 3 hours, 51 minutes ago
Speaking of history, when was the last time Duke got out of the round of 16?
Villanova has something going on underneath the surface. They look beatable.
Baylor’s playing really good ball with really good players. I guess that’s why I picked them, but I’m probably overthinking things and should have written Duke in.
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 3 hours, 55 minutes ago
Ag in TX, have you watched them play?
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Sailor Ripley commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 3 hours, 55 minutes ago
Exactly, HipHop. It’s a brand recognition issue.
That’s a truckload of pressure. Maybe they have it. Maybe Scott Drew is the man. I just wouldn’t bet my house on it. But I’d love to see it.
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texasengr commented on the blog post All Signs Point to March Madness Expanding to 96 Teams 4 hours, 27 minutes ago
I started watching the NCAA tournament in 1997 or 1998 and in 1998, Valpo’s incredible run to the sweet 16 hooked me for life. Since then, I’ve completely ruined a spring break cruise because, let’s face it, the NCAA tournament is way better than sitting by a pool. Now I fully intend to crush my
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Kevin Berger commented on the blog post Bracket Analysis: The South is a Bear of a Bracket 4 hours, 28 minutes ago
Why? Three seeds make it all the time? Put them in a bracket with the weakest 1 seed and one of the weaker 2 seeds and they have a great shot. Especially with two games in Houston.
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dutchhorn commented on the blog post All Signs Point to March Madness Expanding to 96 Teams 4 hours, 34 minutes ago
nordberg said:
March 16th, 2010 at 8:32 am
“Sometimes, I watch the 4th quarter of the title game.”The best is when it’s tied at the end of regulation, and they have a shoot-out. And if they’re still tied at the end of that, they play an extra 18 holes the next day. “Extra innings” is what they
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Sailor Ripley commented on the blog post All Signs Point to March Madness Expanding to 96 Teams 4 hours, 35 minutes ago
Fire Bob Wetlick!
Huckleberry said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Parlin Hall said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Thinking of them as tiny crop circles makes a lawn more interesting.
dedfischer said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Much like an Iowa State football fan, it has killed my spirit with regards to lawn work.
dedfischer said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:26 am
It does however, look like things have picked up a bit since the last practice report I read on Friday.
HenryJames said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:28 am
I’m not sure I’ve ever actually read an Iowa State practice report.
dedfischer said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:30 am
It was definitely my first time. I’m not sure their fans have either. I googled “Iowa State” and the first thing that popped up was that guy with the big, fat pig.
Scipio Tex said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:52 am
I think Coach Johnny Orr will have this Iowa State football team ready.
Troy Davis should be steady as well.
Anonymous poster said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am
As someone that is married to an ISU alum, let me just say that you have not seen better on ISU’s campus than Mallory. Her presence is a six sigma event in Ames.
Vasherized said:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Grown adult sporting what appears to be a Transformers T shirt at a pig fair. Go Cyclones!
That pig would be a serviceable OL over any of their starters. Ears are already pinned back, cogniscent of the importance of hydration, doesn’t mind standing around large dudes …
HenryJames said:
August 19th, 2008 at 10:06 am
They have a player named Euseph Messiah. How is that guy not the answer?
dedfischer said:
August 19th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Yeah, I caught that one after I had written it. That was probably the best joke in there, and I whiffed it.
HenryJames said:
August 19th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Googling him brings up an episode of Cyclone Cribs.
dedfischer said:
August 19th, 2008 at 10:13 am
And a cameo by RJ Sumrall to boot! Damn, my due diligence was piss poor at best.
BRAGGonUT said:
August 19th, 2008 at 10:36 am
That Cyclone Cribs episode actually shows every one of RJ’s career highlights. That’s right — both.
KilgoreTrout said:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Have you tried aerating?
dedfischer said:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Are you serious? Does that work? I’m desperate. My neighbor down the street owns a lawn service and he’s thinking about firing one of his hotshot entomologists that he hired a couple of years ago from back east. I was thinking about making the guy an offer. But, I might try aerating first, if that helps.
Ojnab Bob said:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:52 am
While I am a fan of the site, this preview was (1) more mean-spirited than funny, and (2) contained far less than the usual amount of informational football nuggets. 10 yard penalty.
You’re certainly right, however, about the broken spirit of the typical Iowa State football fan… they’ve seen more eviscerations than Prometheus.
dedfischer said:
August 19th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
There’s nothing funny or football related to report in Ames.
coach callahan said:
August 19th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Under a doctors orders I had to move to Ames. He told me I had to get as far from college football as possible.
Howard said:
August 19th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
CURE for BROWN PATCH: Go to any feed store and pick up a 50 pound bag of “agricultural” corn meal. Spread 2 pounds per 100 sq feet over the entire yard. Repeat in a couple of weeks. No reason to be skimpy since corn meal is safe.
I got mine at Callahan’s general store. I endlessly battled the nasty fungus for 5 years with the expensive fungicides from Lowe’s/Home Depot. That crap don’t work.
I spread the corn meal last fall and this spring. No brown patch this summer.
dedfischer said:
August 20th, 2008 at 3:40 am
Thank you very much, Howard. I’ll try that this fall.
BatesHorn said:
August 25th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Iowa St. is one of the games on UT’s schedule I don’t even bother going to a bar to see if it’s not on local DC cable. I’d rather weed my yard or sniff glue.
On the other hand, the Mallory Snyder pic automatically makes this one of the better posts in the SOTU series.
Barking Carnival — Blog — 2009 Iowa State Football Preview: State of the Union said:
August 26th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
[...] also see dedfishcer’s 2008 Iowa State State of the Union here and Scipio Tex’s 2007 version [...]