Zoot's Symphony

Zoot's got something for us today; Spreadin' like Butter returns tomorrow.


(A quick note from Beauford)
I love Ohio State's Fan enthusiasm. This was actually dictated from a recorded conversation that Zoot and I recently had. It started as a normal conversation. You know - exchanging ideas, going back and forth, etc. I distinctly remember that something - probably the fact that I was actually having a sane conversation with a Buckeye - made me turn on the recorder. Perhaps divine intervention, because seconds later, this symphony came from Zoot.


I don't just say symphony to be funny - it had everything: crescendo's going from pianissimo to forte, tempo changes, even metric changes. It was beautiful. It started slow, building to the Charlie Weis fiasco...then back to controlled rage...only to build back to the bowl game home game stuff...back to barely suppressed unadulterated hatred...and culminating with the Fortissimo: "Fuck Off!"

Zoot immediately left the room for more water, sweating profusely. Beethoven would be proud.

Enjoy from Zoot, as transcribed by Beauford Bixel from the recording of a conversation 2/20/08. All parenthetical statements were said as an "aside" as if speaking as someone else - perhaps the rational part of his soul:


So can anyone fully explain to me the hatred from college football fans aimed collectively at Ohio State these past two years? I have my own ideas and can understand some of it but I also think that most of it is unjustified. I mean there are some schools that you hate just because they can pull in top recruits and are always winning and you’re just jealous. Notre Dame would like to claim that but I personally hate them for being Irish. That’s just a side note. I really dislike ND for thinking they matter more than any other school simply because of their past. NBC has such a limited sports lineup these days that it is clinging to scraps thrown at it from a team that went 3-9 last year and hasn’t won a bowl game since 1994. Charlie Weis is the most conceited fat son of a bitch I have seen on TV since Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden. Being obese, he realized he needed to do something about it and went for bariatric surgery. When it didn’t work out and there were complications (which is common knowledge and doctors always advise about), he sued the docs. When he lost the suit, he had the gall to send a letter to Notre Dame alums bitching about it.

But I digress, back to OSU. I understand they have not met expectations set in the past two years. But who sets these expectations? The god damned media assholes decided two years ago that OSU and Michigan were 1 and 2 and labeled their match up the greatest game of the century even before anyone stepped on to the grass. It was a great game but nothing like Michigan and Florida this year or Texas and USC a few years back. After the disappointing losses during the bowl games, the media was left looking like idiots (which I think was an accurate representation). So OSU had a bad game against Florida, they didn’t step up. The Gators definitely came out stronger and deserved the win. But was it necessary for every fucking announcer and commentator to rip apart the season and the program because they had a bad game. So the next year, everyone discounts OSU and when they get to the championships, everyone expects them to lose again. This time, the media hedges and says they will be blown out. Blogs everywhere decry the rankings as blasphemous. While they didn’t win against LSU, the Buckeyes also didn’t roll over and play dead. They were in the game but LSU made the plays it needed. It has been extremely annoying to hear about people bitch that the Big 10 is weak and mention OSU’s two losses. They seem to forget that all the games are held in the south and west coast where it becomes a fucking home game for the SEC and Pac-10. They don’t mention the losses that SEC teams had to Big-10, only the wins. Its pretty one sided.

Spectators whine that the Buckeye’s had an easy schedule. They seem to have forgotten that OSU is one of the few schools in the country with the balls to schedule a top 10 team to play during the non-conference schedule. In the past six years, they have played NC State (when they were good), Washington State (when they were good), and Texas, one away and once at home with each team. They had Washington (which is sucking) this past year which was schedule a few years back when the Huskies were respectable. They are playing USC twice in the next couple of years and are having talks with Oklahoma as well. So I don’t buy the soft schedule bit. So what is really behind this hatred. We are not like the Patriots, we’re not cheaters. We play hard and don’t take for granted what we get. Fuck off!

Ohio State: The University of the Gods!!!

The very couch on which Zoot Doonsburg was conceived

I’ll give you three guesses about what a high school football player does at night: homework, call Quest to find hot young singles in his local neighborhood, or think about college football. I’m guessing that it is probably the latter although the second one is possible.
The vast majority of high school ballers will end up like Al Bundy, sitting on their couch thirty years later reminiscing about their high school days with one hand around a beer, and the other down their pants. But for a select few who have the talent to play collegiate ball, they get to choose where they will likely spend their next three to five years. So as a highly touted high schooler with offers from all over the country, how do you decide where to go? If you’re Kevin Hart, you don’t waste time waiting for a school to offer you anything. You set up a massive media frenzy and dictate where you go…until the school says no. Most kids though play coy and pretend to care about education and the school but what matters most is the coach’s track record. Can he win consistently and take his players to the next level? What is he putting on the table? If you are a coach in the SEC, you might offer your players money, nice rides, and classes which ask how many points you get for a three pointer (answer is 3). The Pac 10 might offer sexy beach blonde girls with fake tits. Even the Big 12 offers plenty of sheep for their horny farm boys. So how is a guy supposed to choose? To begin with, fuck all the other conferences, Big 10 is where they should go (I might be a little biased). It offers great schools with die hard fans who care about their teams and players. You have beautiful campuses, a credible education if they are interested(a knock on most other conferences who have one or two schools with a reliable educational backgrounds), world class facilities, and Midwest charm.
I am sick and tired of the experts who predict wins and losses and which team had the best recruiting class. If they were right, Notre Dame should have won the championship at least three times over by now. Pundits will wave their arms around wildly, wearing flashy/tacky suits, with one hand pointing at the monitor and the other holding a pen to make us believe they know how to write and often do so. But honestly, we all know these guys are idiots with the exception of one or two guys. Fox sports discriminates heavily, choosing retards with an IQ below 60. They claim everything is cyclical, and the SEC is currently the number one conference. I totally agree SEC makes for exciting football. But there are many conferences in D-1 which can be a good home for the student athlete. He needs to find a place where he can showcase his talent while developing for a professional career. He wants to go to a reputable program with proven results but also a place where he can stand out. In the Big-10 that basically rules out Northwestern, Iowa, Purdue, Indiana, Minnesota, and until recently, Illinois. Don’t get me wrong, the previous schools are all great and I would much rather go to them than any piece of shit in the SEC. But these schools just don’t have the track record of a school like Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin. And among these five, hands down a player should choose Ohio State if he is blessed enough to have Jim Tressel knocking on his door.
A few minor stats: Ohio State is tied with Notre Dame and USC for the most number of Heisman Trophy winners at 7. Michigan is the next highest in the Big 10 with 3. OSU also claims the most number of national championships in the Big 10 with seven, fourth behind Notre Dame with 12, Alabama with 10, and USC with 9. Michigan is a close second with 6. Ohio State has produced the most number of NFL players in the Big 10 at 364 (Michigan has 312, Penn State has 310). Tressel has proven that he will change the system to adapt to the player’s ability. Look at the differences in offenses run by Craig Krenzel and Troy Smith. Where else can you revel in watching the greatest band in the land and the tradition of the dotting of the i besides OSU? Where else will you find rabid fans willing to travel across the country to watch their team with such ferocity? A booster shelled $200,000 just so the band could travel with the team when they faced Texas three years ago. Ohio State has the fourth largest stadium in the nation, always packed. It has world class facilities with some of the latest equipment. They even have a fulltime Japanese masseuse who gives a great happy ending after she helps you stretch …although that might be just a rumor. To quote Larry David, OSU is “pretty, prettah, PRETTTTTTY, pretty good.”

Introducing Zoot Doonsburg

As you all know by now, Beauford doesn't discriminate based on team. As I've said from the beginning, they will all be treated with the same verbal ferocity. However, if you've been reading for awhile now, you'll see that occasionally we have some guest writers come on and give us a taste of what it's like to wear the tin-foil cap of a specific team. Hardly meant to descend into murky message board argument waters, these posts are meant to simply be a glimpse of life as a fan - as made evident by our next writer.

Zoot Doonsburg hails from Columbus, where he claims he was conceived on a couch of fire. He will, from time to time, weigh in on Ohio State. For his first offering, a simple "why we're sooooooo much better than you" delves into part of what makes college football so interesting. Take, for example, number of National Championships won. This should be an easy calculation, except that College Football never crowned an official national champion until the advent of the BCS. So you get differing numbers, with each school claiming whatever number suits their purposes the best. Notre Dame has 1.3 million National Championships, and so on. Take a look at Zoot's calculations. It's a beautifully imperfect system.