I am guessing that no reader of this blog is a member of a college football message board or fanzine, am I right? Don't let me encourage you. I think it is a requirement to be a member that you have a plate in your head. The people on those things are insane. It's like reading the Liverpool Echo. If you were a visitor from Mars and got on any fanzine, pick the school with the most awful tackle football team in the history of earth, like Rutgers, you would think by the fanzine's content that this school's team had never lost a game; that they only recruit--No, they don't recruit, they select.--five star athletes with perfect SAT scores who share the Heisman Trophy every year and who as a team have won national championships since the Beginning of Time.
Excuse me, that is the most ridiculous fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
I have been following the Rutgers head coaching search as an outgrowth of my fondness for horror-comedies. The first bit of speculation I saw, this was a couple of weeks ago, was that Greg Schiano was the leading target and that it was practically a done deal that Schiano would accept the position. That in itself was doggone good speculation. It made perfect sense. Schiano had been Rutgers head coach another lifetime ago and after a predictably miserable couple of years turned into the best head coach the team had ever had. Bolted for the NFL, two head coaching jobs in the NFL if I am not mistaken, and is currently unemployed. So yeah, every box of speculation was ticked.
But see, this was a fanzine I was reading. Sensible reasoning is never enough on a fanzine, it is required, like the plate in your head, that your reasoning must venture into the twilight zone. So this is what this thing I read said: Schiano had left Ohio State for reasons, that if I never knew I have forgotten, and took a position with...The New England "Patriots." :o THAT is landing on your feet! But then, for reasons that have never been adequately clear, Schiano left the "Pats" after like a month! (???) He was like the "Pats" defensive coordinator from February to March. Been sitting at home since. All of that is true. The guy with the Scarlet Plate in his head then went here: Schiano had been told sotto voce whisper whisper whisper that the Rutgers head coaching position was going to open in mid-season and he would be offered the job. Schiano, per Scarlet Plate, was bowled over. Oh my God, I get to leave this shit hole with the greatest NFL team of all time under the greatest head coach of all time, my mentor too, and return to Paradise upon Piscataway! Schiano, in this telling, immediately went to Bill Belichick and told him with a heavy heart that the Rutgers head coaching position was going to open up in the middle of the season. He hoped Belichick understood. Belichick did, according to Scarlet Plate, and took over defensive responsibilities himself and wished Schiano godspeed. Insane, insane! But that is what you get on fanzines. Now, it's been over two weeks, you'd think if this was such a no-brainer that Schiano would have been hired and introduced by now but then you wouldn't have a plate on your brain. Scarlet Plate has some explanation for the hold up, I can guarantee you that! Oh! Oh! I have it! Scarlet Plate got one detail wrong from his sources which were his former college roommate on a drunk and his current crack dealer. To make this story fanzine Hall of Fame-worthy Scarlet Plate needs to go full Truther: Ol’ machiavellian Bill Belichick is the one with his eye on the Rutgers job. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Bill Belichick is going to leave New England mid-season to become head coach at Rutgers!
And just now I was at my pizza joint waiting on my
