Dear Supwitchugirl,

Thank you for the relevance.

Eternally,
Mark Morrison

Oregon’s biggest hit since LeGarette Blount just uppercut the world wide web last week. Supwitchugirl, whom we admittedly know nothing about and will freely fabricate backstory where needed, just released a sequel on par with Godfather II, Empire Strikes Back, Aliens and Breakin’ 2: Electric Bugaloo as creations that rival and perhaps surpass the original.

Supwitchugirl, though talented and creative, had not hit the proverbial tipping point until the Oregon trio released “I Love My Ducks” in the fall of ‘09. It went down as, perhaps, the best college football fan anthem ever created. I mean, “Holy moly, is that my boy Masoli? Cookin’ up the offense like he’s cookin’ ravioli” is truly inspired work…taking that to a Spicoli / E.coli rhyme and a 300 average when he goes Rose Bowling was some serious next level shit.

For the record, that was not Masoli cookin’ up the offense, that was Masoli breakin’ and enterin’, which is exactly unlike poppin’ and lockin’ (is that Van Damme?).

Here is the gritty og, aka “I Smell Roses”:

Notice the innovative nighttime and moving camera shots, the cell-phone quality “inside Autzen clips”, the limited and off-duty access to Donald the mascot Duck.

Flash forward, if you will, to late September 2010 and Supwitchugirl’s much ballyhooed and über-hyped follow up effort….”Return of the Quack”. The University knows a good thing when they see it, and by good thing I mean merchandising opportunity. Of the one million or so views of all the versions and remixes of the original, you know a chancellor of this or that watched, brought it to a dean’s attention who viraled it to a president who decided…all access passes to the field, the cheerleaders and the mascot were an order.

Anyhow, you can plainly see two things in this follow up effort…Joey Harrington is really awkward and Supwitchugirl are now some heavy-hitters in Eugene with a bit of Phil Knight-like backing. Oh my video production quality…

The video is such a bittersweet thing for us. On one hand, as serious Boise State fans, we find it really cute and wish our little brother-like Ducks well…and on the other we are super envious and almost inspired enough to get the man band back together. Almost.

Either way, Mark Morrison, you owe Supwitchugirl some love after your youtube relevance must have skyrocketed in recent weeks. I know I found myself watching and rewatching this gem. Is he from UK? If not, is his steering wheel? Enjoy, and think of rollerskating parties past…

Wow. Upon further review, both Kriss and Kross, at age 11, are harder than I was / will ever be.

If, somehow, the Big 12 is exceptionally persuasive and manages to stem the flow by not only retaining the Texas and OK schools, but also wooing the power from the MWC, I say Boise State roll the m-effin’ die and take their program independent for three seasons, or until all this settles and the BCS contract is done anyhow. How bold would that be? Suicide? Perhaps…but, honestly, the only reason ESPN bothers to sign a contract with the WAC is for BSU. Call me myopic, but I can see no meeting in which ESPN TV execs are clamoring and banging tables and outright demanding they land the Idaho – Utah St. game in a primetime slot. So, it seems, BSU would not be without TV money (and TV money they would not have to split with SJSU), and a TV deal that could even be more lucrative than what the current deal offers…or a move to the MWC and their stunning array of broadcast partners might be able to provide. If nothing else, BSU has become “Must-See-TV”™ on ESPN.

Free of most delusions, I am aware Boise State remains a circus in many people’s eyes (circus, get it)…an appetizer that deserves a slot on Tues/Wed/Thurs/Fri evening and need not be anointed Saturday afternoon network royalty…both aware and certainly OK with this. I’ll ride the reputation of “upstart spunky trickster” right to the NCAA championship game. Gladly. Can you put a price tag on near weekly, national exposure on a stage void of competition for viewers’ eyeballs? Well, I’m sure people smarter than I could, but I cannot. I can’t tell you which is worth more to the BSU Football Broncos…the extra $3 million they’d receive in tv partnerships through the MWC and it’s affiliates (who are seen exactly nowhere in the US outside of Laramie, WY and a few hotbeds in central UT), or national exposure on ESPN at least every other week. Would BSU have landed New Jersey’s Kyle Wilson without its ESPN exposure?Texas’ George Iloka and his amazing Kwamé tribute do? If you don’t remember the hip hop superstar with a logo dedicated to his high top fade, here is an amazing video from “The Bone Age”.

Either way, Kwamé’s questionable fashion notwithstanding, as of this morning, University of Texas is toying with following Mizzou’s lead (what?) and pledging its allegiance to the Big 12. Hey Texas, the only reason Mizzou stayed is because the Big 10 jilted the Tigers at the alter. You understand they would leave tomorrow if the if the opportunity arose? Don’t get me wrong, I think a limited expansion to a Big 10/12 (what would they call this conference now) and a Pac 12 is perfect…if those conference do not poach the current MWC lineup. That would be ideal…however, the economics of the situation almost demand schools like Utah, TCU, BYU and BSU jump when they can jump…and though we’re fine blaming BYU for loads of other things, we couldn’t blame them for pulling a Jeffersons and moving on up…but we can hope it doesn’t happen.

Whatever. The entire future of NCAA Football and the tradition of “the little guy” hinges on the 2010 Boise State Campaign…and we just received word that though BSU fans will be outnumbered approximately 84,367 fans to 5,633 when Boise takes on VaTech in DC this Labor Day the Boise State Broncos opened as 2.5 point favorites. Wow. Much respect given Trickeration Nation.

We don’t intend the title to insinuate we believe that the USA will be bringing the actual World Cup home…we hope that is the case, of course. Nor do we reference our recent bid to bring the World Cup tournament back to American soil in 2022. The title refers to an entertaining and wildly educational blog post from The Unlikely Fan wherein the author, one Brendan Hunt, equates each of the 2010 World Cup sides to the American sports team they most closely resemble…in style, history, colors or fan base. It is a fun read…and makes picking the teams that will (most likely) advance from group play much easier. That said, there is always a Valparaiso.

Cameroon is the new Boise State. Irrepressible charisma, mandatory viewing and impossible to root against. Most of that I made up…but The Unlikely Fan does have Cameroon as BSU…which will make hard to root against them if they play the USA in the semis or finals. Not that hard, I guess.

Either way, we suggest boning up on a little ethnocentric edumacation that speaks a language the casual/non fan can appreciate. I mean, can you really see the New Jersey Nets getting over on the New York Jets?

New Jersey sucks, but we freely admit the Nets now have the most interesting ownership going. Hands down. Russian Playboys and rap megastars…come on. This picture of Mikhail Prokhorov and Jay-Z breakfasting together with the Mayor was, well, 6/7 totally awesome and 1/7 weird dream. You know, between the two of them, they had 198 problems, and though none of Hov’s were about women, we fear that nearly all of Prokhorov’s may be.

Either way, Jersey sucks and we’ve the shirt if you second that emotion.

You’d like to think one has to achieve something, anything, at the highest level to be given a nickname. That, or something equally dubious. “Wilt the Stilt” has done both. Evidently, as this faily comprehensive list of NBA nicknames points out, you don’t often have to do much.

We say “fairly comprehensive” because though it has “The High-Ayatolla of Slamola” assigned correctly (we assume) to Larry Nance, it has some glaring omissions like “Pale Rider” for Keith Van Horn. Maybe if a murderer gives you a nickname it doesn’t count.

We think the best one on this list may be the nickname supposedly bestowed by “The Round Mound Of Rebound” to Sam Cassell, and that is: “Gollum”. We were always kind of partial to Ant Man, until reading that. It is kind of rough, because, admittedly, Cassell’s game is one of our all time favorites.

Please supply us with any nicknames you like, but didn’t see on the list.

Now, we didn’t actually say that LT drinks a girl’s beer (as far as he knows), but we did do a tribute shirt to Lawrence Taylor, or, more specifically, to his awesome earwear. It is on special for $12 until we run out, or he comes back to NY. The OG LT, not the new LT.

Maybe pros are superhuman. Wade Boggs allowed us to see that certain professional athletes are a breed apart…on and off the field. Various, wildly unreliable sources, report that Wade put down 64 Miller Lites on a cross-country flight. Google it. It is even referenced, and partially acknowledged, on Wikipedia…which, admittedly, can be viewed as a dubious source in itself. If you remain a non-believer, let’s go straight to the horse rider’s mouth….

Boggsy would certainly be putting that beer’s slogan to task as well…after 64 beers we can’t believe you’d still be chanting, “Tastes Great! Less Filling!!” But that’s just us.

Now, all this is simply a JV matinee, or single-A ball when compared to Andre The Giant’s legendary feats. If you are unfamiliar, acquaint yourselves with one of the world’s biggest, if you will, drinkers. And pour some out. We understand that it may be tough to listen to a bunch of ex-wrestlers sitting at a roundtable like CNN Crossfire or something talking about Andre downing 156 beers in one sitting, but this story is just one of many you can find with a little research.

And because some of you out there don’t believe wrestling is a sport (us included), we had to put this shirt up on our sister site, No Star. It isn’t exactly Andre The Giant…it is Bizarro Luchador Andre as “El Gigante.” It, too, is both awesome and on sale for just $15. Pick one up, maybe a few. Ha! Get it? You will if you look at the shirt.

This amazing ad aired in game one of the Nugs – Utah series. I’m not sure which is more amazing, however…the buzz this ad created, or the fact that whoever is now running the Jordan ad campaigns doesn’t have an HQ video readily available online to get all H1N1. Viral video has to be a huge component of successful campaigns these days…we feel that exactly unlike Melo in game one, Nike/Jordan dropped the ball on this one. So it goes. Enjoy it here as videotaped on betamax through a window on a neighbor’s tv…it’s certainly still worth the watch.

This ad is so good, they not only borrowed inspiration from Monty Python for the floating-head-ascension graphics, but even squeezed in a flock of the Utah state bird.

If one of the 2 or 3 people who occasionally read this thing could please find a decent quality version of this commercial and forward it to us, it would be greatly appreciated.

That said, when it came time to fill out our brackets, it was no surprise that ours was rather close to Lunardi’s…and we based this on the fact that he obviously studied every team all year long and should have a good handle on who was over/underseeded. Let it be known Joey Brackets is a fraud. Our brackets are an irrefutable disaster…and the only saving grace is that we chose Syracuse to be cutting the nets down in Indy this year (no surprise there…we pick them to win the NCAA tournament every year…even when they’re in the NIT).

We stumbled across an amazing story today about a Chicago area teen, Alex Hermann, who has both autism and a perfect bracket through two rounds! No kidding! You may have picked Cornell to be this far (we did), but you were probably drunk and picked Murray State to be here too (we were). Do you have any idea what the odds are of picking the entire first two rounds correctly (we do)? They happen to be 1 in 13,460,000. We don’t know why or how, those are just the odds. We read it on the internets, so we are pretty sure it’s true. The odds have to be pretty high, because we’ve never done it. So that’s good enough for us. Read the article here.

I feel for the kid, because he can’t possibly go perfect for the whole tournament as he has Purdue winning it all and Syracuse bowing out to K-State this weekend. He let his heart get involved (we always do too).

Here is Alex’s perfect bracket…if you want to follow along at home (we do):

Is it awkward that Dwight now wants to be the modern day Superman, and they both established that persona with the Magic?

Which former Magic teammates, in their prime, would win this 2-on-2 battle: Shaq and Penny vs. Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis?

And a little Shaq-Fu for nostalgia’s sake.