Muskets and free throw swatting
Light day today…
DID YOU KNOW THAT MUSKET WAS REAL? The one the West Virginia mascot carries around? I didn’t. Anyway, Jonathan Kimble has agreed to stop hunting with the musket after he was cited for not wearing blaze orange while killing a bear with it on Dec. 3. I’m soliciting Mark Taylor’s thoughts on the matter.
TEXAS TECH HIRES Texas A&M coordinator Kliff Kingsbury as its new coach.
BERMAN HAS A FEATURE TODAY on Redskins wideout Pierre Garcon, who went from the Stagg Bowl at Mount Union to the Super Bowl with the Colts.
ALABAMA QUARTERBACK A.J. MCCARRON announces that he’ll return for his senior year. So that’s one other quarterback that wouldn’t be in the draft pool if Logan Thomas decided to declare.
DENNIS DODD RATES THE BOWL GAMES 1-35, picking the Russell Athletic Bowl 16th and among those games “worth meeting at a bar for a watch party.” If we all assume the title game is No. 1, what would be your No. 2? I’d go with the Chick-fil-A Bowl between Clemson and LSU, which Dodd has fifth. I finished my bowl guide last night and will post it here this weekend. Games begin Saturday.
RANDOM VIDEO ALERT! A referee tries to block a free throw attempt by the Nets’ Kris Humphries. Nine seconds of gold right here.
NAME THAT TUNE
Oh baby
Lady driver
Let me take your wheel
Smooth operator
Touch my bumper (Bumper)
Hey, let’s make a deal
Make it real
Like a road runner
Coming after you
Just like a hero
Outta the blue
I’ll be your non-stop lover
Get it while you can
Your non-stop miracle
I’m your man…
December 13, 2012 - 8:17 AM
The bowls I’d watch? BCS title game, ChikFilA, Russell, Cotton, Fiesta, Capital One, in that order. The rest of them? I won’t watch for all the obvious reasons. Too many meaningless games. Dodd calls several bowls ‘worth meeting at a bar for a watch party’, that means ‘the game is on in the background at a bar where you meet and you occasionally glance at the score when the conversation is boring’.
It’s college basketball season.
The bowls I’m keen on are only two: Russell Athletics and Chik-a-Fil bowls. That’s it. I’m not interested in the national championship game nor am I interested in the rest of the bowl games.
What I am amazed with is how did that mascot accurately kill a bear with that musket, and what on earth possessed the man to use the school’s property to hunt a bear with it? That was just stupid, but given that he’s a West Virginia student, I guess it just comes with being a ‘neers. And for not wearing a blaze orange? Was he walking on the ground while hunting, then he should have been wearing the orange because it’s all about safety, but since he didn’t, he could have gotten himself killed for being mistaken as a deer or a racoon. Maybe the mascot should have just hunted the bear with flaming couch instead.
A.J. McCarron is coming back? I don’t know if that’s a great idea because so many quarterbacks who come back usually have a mediocre season.
Those NBA refs are a class of clowns. Were they replaced with the NFL replacement refs? What a joke.
It’s obviously a working musket, and it’s also pretty obvious this wasn’t the first time the mascot had used it without university permission. His stupidity was in doing the typical – ‘Hey, everybody! Look what I just did!’ – act of publicizing it. Then again, he is an ‘eer, so it’s sort of redundant.
I like the matchups in those bowls I listed above. The BCS title game will be two old school teams slugging it out. The Cotton & Fiesta will feature the best of modern football. The Capital One will probably be a bad game, but I always tune in to a little Nebraska or Georgia just because of the tradition. The Russell? If I weren’t a Hokie, there’s no way I’d watch as it will probably be as dreadfully boring as the UVa game.
Anyway, it’s college basketball season.
I don’t believe I actually know this freaking song but it is Get out of my dreams, get into my car by Billy Ocean. Product of spending way to much time riding in a car as a kid.
The one and only Billy Ocean. Nicely done, Bob.
I guess I’m the type of fan that the bowl system is designed to appeal to. Mid-December hits, and I go into football withdrawal. It’s a weak field of match-ups this year, and very few of the games qualify as “appointment viewing” for me, but I’ll still end up watching part of most of them, and I’ll probably get sucked into watching most of a random bowl game that suddenly turns into a nailbiter.
As for matchups, I am most interested in the title game (Notre Dame has been the most balanced team for most of the year & I think they are underrated going into this game), the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl (might actually be a good game), and the Cotton Bowl (A&M post-Kingsbury will be fascinating to watch, since Manziel is stuck there another 2 years).
The worst part of the whole thing is the exceptionally weak slate of games on New Years Day, especially without an NHL Winter Classic to soften the blow.
Since WVU is in the Big 12 now, I have to ask. Was it a Baylor Bear and if so, what yard line was he on?
Of course I’ll watch the Hokies. I may check out some others and if it looks like it might be a good game I’ll keep watching.
All you guys have mascot envy. Here is a mascot that can hunt and kill a bear. Most mascots wear silly suits or have a prop sword or something. Come on man! Not a WVU fan but their mascot just jumped up the power rankings. Don’t suggest not wearing the blaze orange though.
Was the guy who shot the bear actually the mascot or did this goober just “borrow” the gun?
Doesn’t it make you wonder? Was he out there wearing that mountaineer get up, and the ‘coonskin cap?!?!?! Playing like he’s Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett.
Since VT has a no gun policy, it will be interesting to watch how things play out the next time WV plays VT in basketball @ VT. Wonder if the VT police will arrest the mascot or confiscate the musket?
Yes, 540, he was the mascot. And good bear joke.
540, if it was a Baylor Bear, he had to be in the endzone.
Dave H, Tech used to allow the mascot to carry and fire it at football games, but never basketball games. I’m not even sure they’re stupid enough at WVU to let somebody fire a gun off inside like that. The sound and percussion is tremendous outside, let alone inside.
It pisses me off that Tech brings the cannon on the field and doesn’t do a better job of monitoring the charge the Cadets put in it. There have been a few times it was ridiculous.
Back in the day, they blew the damn thing up at one of the military balls, pieces of it went flying everywhere – from Squires all the way thru a window in Slusher Tower.
Its a wonder somebody didn’t lose a finger.
Tech don’t use firearms the use cupcakes.
Ahh, Skipper, your thunderous boom is the sweet sound of victory. I think they keep it on the practice field during the game because somebody’s eardrums might get ruptured…
I hear the bear that was shot was Smokey…he was probably trying to educate the Mountaineers the danger of lighting couches too close the forest and the mascot was paid to silence Smokey.
Logan Thomas should leave quickly and take the money, any amount is better than the non coaching he is getting with the VT offensive coaches. It would also send a message that most VT fans agree with that the offense is offensive and stinks ! ! !
Definitely won’t watch the NC game, that will be a slaughter by Alabama. Sun Bowl would be next, Chicken Lickin Bowl next and the Rustler Athletics Bowl last. The NC game should have featured the Tide and Stanford.
I’ve been to four games at WVU. Quit going when I found out about the live musket, throwing of batteries, et al, and the couch burning. Fortunately left there alive all four visits.
The difference in the AJ McCarron decision vs, Logan Thomas’ options are simple.One of the them wants to come back to have a chance to win a BCS Championship.
There have been some unfortunate incidents involving both Virginia Tech’s cannon and West Virginia’s muzzle-loading long rifle. In 1967, during the 70-12 football win over VMI on Thanksgiving Day in Roanoke, the cannon’s barrel was so hot from the frequent firings that a charge went off in a cadet’s hand as he was loading it. He was hospitalized with powder burns.
A year or two later, during a game with West Virginia in Lane Stadium, the Mountaineer’s long rifle misfired. He lost a finger.
Both weapons are great for team and fan spirit; neither of them is a toy.
I thought Doug Doughty was the one going on vacation…