Combine fajitas

By Trev Alberts
formerly of ESPN.com

The offseason has not begun to drag, but at least we have the NFL combine to sate our message-board yearnings for useless stuff to obsess about. Am I right, comrades? Eh? Eh? Damn right, I'm right!

It's just me and the kid while most of the staff takes a not-really deserved winter break. Ah memories, it seems like just a year ago it was me and my scrappy editor before all the scruffy types and tag-a-longs tagged a long like so many unnecessary boxes of second-tier Girl Scout cookies. The delicious Samoas and Thin Mints of the season are long behind us now, leaving only the stale half open boxes of girly shortbreads hidden towards the back of our metaphorical snack cabinet.

Back to the endless stat-parade that is the NFL combine, The Wiz is reporting that Florida's Chris Leak scored an 8 on his Wonderlic. I don't exactly recall what I got on my test, but I'm pretty sure it was a 10, or at least a check plus, because I totally pwn those ScanTron tests. I'm an excellent bubble-filler. Here's a few more tidbits and unsubstantiated rumors I dug up on my own. This is usually Bloo's territory, but he headed off to Pismo Beach in the middle of the night...freaking free-loading cartoon figments....

• The press is reporting Leak scored an 8, but the coaches have him at a 16 and the computers are giving all Florida players 2s.
• GT's Calvin Johnson ran a ridiculously fast 4.3 40. The trial time was slightly flawed as he was hit in the back of the head by an errant Reggie Ball pass somewhere around the 38.
• Rumors that LSU's JaMarcus Russell ate a water buffalo in under 6 seconds remain unconfirmed at the moment, but we did observe the buffalo running a sub-5 cone drill.
• That Notre Dame's Brady Quinn scored 24 bench presses, more than a fair number of linemen, is not surprising to most pundits. Having to carry teammate Darius Walker (5'10", 205) had to be plenty of preparation.
• WR Jacoby Jones tied for the highest broad jump among receivers. This is exceptional considering he is 107 years old.
• Auburn's Kenny Irons scored a 38-inch vertical jump, but it was still not good enough to ride nearby Indiana Beach's "Hoosier Hurricane."

Trev Alberts enjoys poring over extensive lists of the physical attributes of young athletes in a laboratory setting. He can ride the "Hoosier Hurricane" whenever he damn well pleases.

Allez le Trev!

By Trev Alberts
formerly of ESPN.com

Sorry for my relative laziness of late, fair followers, but between the snow and my patriotic zeal for our nation's Presidents' Day, I've completely lost track of time.
(That weekend long White Castle bender may have done something too.-IO)

Anyway, we're shutting down the office even more for the fearless editor's birthday festivities tonight. We've got Fat Tuesday AND birthday action prepared to fuel my various unnecessary largess! Cajun fried cajun cooking, the brownest of the brown liquors, and intoxicated video rugby action is on the preliminary agenda. You heard me. EA Rugby 06 dynasty....March can't get here soon enough. Maybe some sunlight will cure us of this temporary non-posting, real-life insanity!

We're running out of ideas here, people!

Trev Alberts is currently checking his Horoscope. He likes to take the best parts of each and write his own as all of his numbers are lucky.

I gave college football my heart, it gave me a blog.

By Trev Alberts
formerly of ESPN.com

I thought I told you to do something about this snow, kid. The path to the mailbox is just one big sledding hill, and my snowshoes are still in the shop. We're stranded in the middle of nowheres! How am I going to read all of those lovely letters of intent my followers have lovingly sent me? HOW!

I'm forlorned. Really, I am. It's the big V-Day, and there's no college football, not even spring practice, to keep me warm at nights. Sure, it's unofficial strength and conditioning season, but that only warms the cockles of my heart so much. I miss you, college football. I miss your musk, I miss your scent. I miss being near you! I miss being around you! In your eyes, the light, the heat, the tailgating! Woe is this footballess husker of a man, says me!


The only thing to cheer me up is to give loving odes to my favorite things about football season. If it turns out that this only makes my readers more miserable in this cold and unforgiving wasteland I like to call February, and NO, NASCAR and regular season college winter sports definitely DO NOT COUNT, I say too bad! We're all going to be nostalgic and possibly melancholy together. Now, fire up your favorite emo album, preferably something with a piano and talking about yearning, and let's go.


O, my beloved Jagermeister, while you may always be with me year 'round, you lose that glint in your eye when winter falls. I miss the hot fall afternoons we spend with various mixed beverages and insane shooters. My Sparks is nothing but a delicious malt alcohol-based energy drink without you to be the yin to its yang.


And to my darling Sparks, whilst you keep my heart twittering at dangerously unhealthy levels these cold mornings, I miss our walks in the parking lots as the passerby stop to comment "you're not actually going to keep drinking that are you?" and "sir, please locate your pants." The hookers, tonight they are safe, and that makes me die, just a little bit, inside.


To our editor's hero, Mr. Louford Holtz, gone are the days when your unintelligible lisp warmed our hearts nightly. Your homespun brand of gee-willikers football knowledge is absent in these stark months, replaced by the less godly knowledge of Digger Phelps and his assortment of superfluous highlight marking pens. While your loss also signifies the loss of one Mr. May, a loss the royal we surely does not miss, we smile a little less without your speech impediment.


My lovely, sweet cupcakes, you never seem to get the attention you deserve during those rough stretches of the season, when conference play seems months away, and local powerhouses call on you to help them tune-up for the real games. You are the unsung heroes of the college football landscape. Paid off by the heavyweights like some optimistic stripper, you gladly take the dirty singles of home-home series as you save up for medical school. The early season is nothing without your directional charms, and like spring training, I look forward to seeing you most.


More literally, to our beloved ladies of schools south of the Mason-Dixon line, your sheer unfathomable ladyness makes even the most emasculating blowout manageable. Spending equal hours grooming and celebrating, you set a standard that no man, no matter how early he wakes up, throws on a t-shirt and jeans, and starts his 16-hour drinking and gorging binge, could ever manage to achieve...unless he was a fancy lad. Donning clothes like halter tops, tubed tops, sun dresses, and a myriad of other fashion choices that most Yankee girls eschew, you require beer goggles less often than I would ever admit.


To rule 3-2-5e, I will never miss you. You are like the burning discharge that reminds me of previous failed decisions. Back then, it seemed like a good idea, but now, I have fewer plays and more commercials to check if I'm still able to spread the infection.


Finally, to the random trophies of our country's historic rivalries, life seems that much more the hollow without an oaken bucket, megaphone, or lug nut to fill it. Sure, the more popular victory bells and walking sticks get their share of the limelight, but I'm talking about the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk, the Cy-Hawk trophy, various other trophies that also have hawk in their names, jug-shaped trophies that yonder back to regional antique moonshine industries, and all those other googaws that make you say "WTF" when you try to collect them on Xbox. You, the underdogs of the trohpying world, I miss you dearly. Please, return to me.

Trev Alberts is currently trapped in the snowed-in FireMarkMay compound. He stocked the supply closet with discounted chalky candy hearts last June.

Unfrozen Caveman Blogging

Global Warming our Trev-ridden hineys! First, offseason slowness business, and now the entire compound is covered in multiple fine layers of fresh powder! Unfortunately, Mr. Alberts sold our snowplow to fund our Best New Blog celebration, so we've had to cancel classes for the last few days. The inter-office paperwork is also piling up considering Bloo has been saucer sledding since Sunday. Hopefully, we can get some fresh posts down today as I attempt to defrost the place with Morton's salt.

It's just "Cirroc", your Honor... and, yes, I'm ready.

-irishoutsider

All Your Intention Belong to Trev

By Trev Alberts
formerly of ESPN.com

Let me just take this time in the post-apocalyptic day-after haze of Recruiting Day to remind everyone that it is not too late to send me your Letters of Intent. Become a Trevian today! I promise to provide plenty of opportunity for playing time and no cash compensation what so ever (Trev Fun Dollars are not considered legal tender and, therefore, are an eligible form of remuneration.-IO)

So email FireMarkMay.com your intent to join the loyal followers of the Trev, The Fighting Treviacs, The Legion of Trev-based Doom today! No Holds Barred, and we'll see if we can't find some space to post some interesting profiles of reader zeal. Illustrate your fealty in electronic mail form today!

*Send all submissions to the kid by clicking here*

Trev Alberts is FireMarkMay's official recruiting coordinator for life. He plans on running a 4-3 look with 3-4 personnel and an occasional smattering of "All Out Block" defense.

Molders of Men: The Orgeron

By Trev Alberts
formerly of ESPN.com

We start our intesive coverings of Letter of Intent season by profiling one of the kid's favorite Molders of Men. Without further ado, let me just suggest that Everyday Should Be Lemsday.

Name: Ed Orgeron

Known aliases: The Orgeron, Coach O, DaCoachO

Current position: Head Coach, Ole Miss 2005-present


Previous notable position(s):
Defensive Line Coach, Southern Cal, 1998-2004
Recruiting Coordinator, Southern Cal, 2001-2004
Assitant Head Coach, Southern Cal, 2003-2004
Armwrestling Champion, Greater Los Angeles, 1998-present


Hobbies: Pumping iron, general flexing, boar wrangling, amateur photography

Current hoopty: the ever-predictable Hummer. It's big, tough and agressive. Tell 'em bout it Joe-Joe!



Playing Style: Yaw yaw yaw yaw YAW yaw, yaw yaw, footbaw.



Playing Time?: Before any Rebel player can start for the Orgeron, they must first pin the Orgeron.

Coaching Style: Brutal. Like normal hate but more black. If it was a street gang, we'd fight it with bottles and chains.

Recruiting philosophy: The 2004 Recruiter of the Year is a man of few words, at least ones we can understand.


Trev Alberts is an analyst for CSTV. He can't afford a Hummer.

Oh Rexy, you're so sexy...

!@#$#-ing sex cannon...



Back to the collegiate football soon enough,

-irishoutsider

A line in the sand

By Trev Alberts
formerly of ESPN.com

TRAVASHAMOCKERY! Yeah, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic that my analytical prowess has been determined toppest by the communal blogging community. I kicked all forms of internet backside this year, and I know it. In fact, I make it a point to remind the staff daily how much the website baring my visage both serves and "pwns." But, if you think I'm just going to sit idly by in the corner with my Best New Blog award and go quietly into the still night, you've got yourself the wrong Trev Alberts my friend. Maybe in some alternate dimension were awesomeness is outlawed and sissy-marys run nimbly-pimply over the land, I could see how my journalistic exploits would not be awarded the honor of the award that bears my name.

OH NO! This is what we get here, in apparently such a Bizarro internet, is
this: Funniest Blog of 2006 (a.k.a. "The Trev)- Orson Swindle, EDSBS

This will not stand! This isn't 'Nam, there are rules. I AM THE TREV! You'd think that I am the only one deserving of the Trev. Sure, I didn't write about lame Appalachian State recruiting videos or surrender my site to some basement-dwelling numbskull, but I employed a muppet and a whatsit! I've got the freaking "Short Circuit" robot breaking down game tape AND a dastardly villain attempting to break down the system from his zeppelin fortress! This disgraces me! This disgraces them.

I'm fully aware that I did not even take second in my own award category, but I will spare the good people at Hey Jenny Slater, and focus the Wrath of Trev squarely on the one Orson Swindle. It's going to be like "Raiders of the Lost Ark," man. I am the boulder. I am the idol. I am the Ark of the Freaking Covenant, and I will rain the holy fire of jihad onto you, sir. You and you're entire lot of goose-stepping, organized marching, questionable hand-saluting gang of stereotypically jort-wearing, electric blue-wearing, North Floridians!

You are entering a world of pain, Swindle.
(I dont think I have to warn anyone that this clip is R rated, but I will anyway.-IO)



Trev Alberts is Il Duce Eterno of FireMarkMay.com. The streets will flow with the blood of the non-believers.

Happy Groundhog Day.

It may be old-fashioned, but the Church still recognizes it anyway. For your enjoyment, "Groundhog Day" in 60 seconds.



-irishoutsider

It's a major award!

Modesty is not a virtue espoused in Trev's organizational philosophy, but while he still sleeps off last night's "pre-celebration celebration," I would like to thank everyone involved in awarding the site Best New Blog of 2006.

First, let me thank the Academy of the Blogging Sciences, headed by Rocky Top Talk, MGoBlog, EDSBS, Dawg Sports, and Burnt Orange Nation, and the CFB blogging community for recognizing the ramblings of a jilted broadcaster and his island of misfit toys.

Secondly, my staff of local ne'er do wells. Where would we be without Johnny 5 breaking down numbers and putting out small fires, Muppet Newscaster and the ESPN guys keeping us on top of the latest news, or Bloo beating the snot out of Mr. Alberts in Xbox on a consistent basis? This is for all of us and the legion of interns, especially those currently employed as Trev's various ottomans and lounging furniture.

Last but not least, internet high-fives to the Trevians, the loyal readers, and close friends who chose to spend their spare time carrying the Gospel of the Trev. None of this is possible without you. An extra padlock goes to Fightinamish at House Rock Built, Captain Eclectic of our legal staff, and resident commenter Pellee, constant sources of insanity, revelry, and fraternity. Put a chain on it.

I do not expect Mr. Alberts to be as modest. The interns have been up all night tinkering with their golden calf.



Once again, thank you all.

-irishoutsider