The Monsters Blog

It is with a heavy heart and profound regret that Teton River Productions, Inc. announces that James “Lil Jim” Donaghy passed away sometime over the December 1st weekend.  As you may know, Lil Jim’s disappearance was first reported on the Monsters of the Midweek podcast (Episode 14) and the information we received was that he was traveling in the company of an unidentified man from Florida, who he had met online.

Lake Worth, Florida police tell us that the semi-clothed body of Lil Jim was discovered on the beach behind a public restroom early Monday morning.  Due to decomposition and lack of identification, Lil Jim was not identified until earlier today.  While most details of his passing must be withheld due to the ongoing investigation, it is clear that Lil Jim met with foul play and it is suspected that a sexual motive is involved.

Police throughout the 16th Congressional District of Florida are searching for two men believed to have had contact with Lil Jim after his disappearance.  One man, who is known only as “Former Congressman” is believed to have initiated the internet communications with Lil Jim.  The other man, who police say is only a “person of interest” is believed to have been in or near the restroom at the time of Lil Jim’s death.  Police are asking for public assistance in identifying this person, who uses the street name “Senator C” who is described as an older, gray haired, Caucasian man, with an accent decidedly from the Pacific Northwest, and a bizarre speech pattern.

Contrary to rumor spreading like wildfire on the internet, police have not questioned or detained Lee Corso in this investigation.  While police will confirm that a ruler was confiscated at the scene, they refuse all comment on whether any mascot heads were used in the commission of the crime.

Please join us here at the MotM family in extending our condolences to Tim and the rest of Lil Jim’s family, in this their time of sorrow.  While we are pained by the passing of our good friend, Lil Jim, we know there is nothing that Lil Jim would have wanted more than for us to continue the podcast and bring to you the key matchups in the upcoming bowls.

Lil Jim is survived by his wife, the Chupacabra.

In light of all the complaints about boring, predictable offenses that can’t beat mid-tier conference non-rivals, I am submitting the below play for consideration for addition to your bowl playbook.

Good luck with the SMU job. You are far and away my top choice for it.

Love,

Larry

Dear Coach Akina:

As a diehard Longhorn fan, I watched with great excitement as the Pirates of Lubbock knocked OU down and gave us a chance to jump back into the conference title race.  Of course, the first step is for us to beat Texas A&M.

I have watched the last two games with Aggy, and I think that it is possible that A&M will try to run the option.  If they do, it would be a good idea for us to defend both the quarterback and the pitch man.

Just my two cents!  Good luck Friday!

Hook ‘em,
Larry

In last night’s podcast, my co-host, Johnny Crisco, made some rather demeaning and condescending comments about the University of Montana Grizzlies and the NCAA Football Championship Series. While I know in my heart that Johnny intended his comments in good fun, I understand and empathize with the outrage and sense of betrayal that has been voiced by football fans across the nation since last night’s broadcast.

Yes, Johnny understands that the FCS is not Division 6 football. He knows there is no such thing. He knows that scoring and math theory apply in the same manner in the FCS as it does in the Bowl Championship Series. As I mentioned, his comments were intended to be light-hearted and not to impugn the good name of FCS players, coaches, schools or fans.

However, Teton River Productions, the producer of Monsters of the Midweek has heard your complaints. It is with a heavy heart, but complete understanding, that I have to announce that Johnny Crisco has been indefinitely suspended from his duties as co-host of the Monsters of the Midweek podcast, and he shall have no involvement with the podcast for the duration of his suspension.

During this time of healing, I hope that Johnny will reach out to those fans he has offended, and hear their very real pain. While TRP will be providing Johnny with anger management and sensitivity training courses, all the book work in the world is only preparation for the toughest test he will face, which is to look you, the listener, in the eye and share your pain on a truly human level.

For Lil’ Jim, Stormy and the Chief, I want Johnny to know that we support him fully in his recovery. He is a part of the Monsters family, and families don’t turn their back on their loved ones when times get rough. We look forward to his recovery, and will be there for his family while he is out. Please keep the Crisco family in your prayers.

Larry

My post of this week’s Top 10 list to the Rivals.com Notre Dame board was not well received.  I was asked to “get a life” and also it was suggested that one poster would print the list, and my picture, and use it to clean up after his toilet.  Things are apparently a little touchy at Our Lady of the Lake University in South Bend.  On the plus side, however, a USC poster immediately linked the Top 10 list on their board.  Thanks!  While viewing the Top 10, I was amused by this image in an SC fan’s signature.

I may not like the Whack 10 much, but nobody here denies that USC is a great program and one of the top teams in the country.  And apparently, they have a bit of a sense of humor as well (except that tool who posts on our forums).

Enjoy!

Longhorn James Henry arrested on felony charges

Tuesday, September 18, 2007, 09:59 AM

Updated at 11:05 a.m. with details of incident from court records:

Longhorn football player James Henry has been arrested on a pair of third-degree felony charges. He is accused of retaliating against victims who turned in a teammate for an alleged robbery.

Henry, a redshirt freshman who has played on special teams this season, is charged with “obstruction or retaliation” and “tampering or fabricating physical evidence.” Combined, bail is set at $30,000. Henry was booked into jail at 3:59 p.m. Monday.

In their arrest affidavit, Austin police accuse the 19-year-old Henry of retaliating on behalf of teammate Robert Joseph, who was arrested July 27 on aggravated robbery charges. Joseph and teammate Andre Jones were charged with breaking in to a Southeast Austin apartment and robbing several people in the apartment.

Police say that Joseph called Henry the next day from jail, and their conversation was recorded. In that call, police say, Henry told Joseph that he’d gone to the scene of the robbery and confronted witnesses. “I went over there and whooped all them niggas last night, fool,” Henry is quoted as saying in the recording, according to the arrest affidavit.

When police interviewed Henry and confronted him about the conversation, he admitted that he’d confronted the victims and gotten into a fight with them, the affidavit says.

The victims told police that Henry had come up to them and asked, “Who narked on us?”

They said that Henry tried to get into a fight with one of the men, 18-year-old Andre Swain, and told him, “Bitches deserve to get kicked, so that’s what I am going to do!” The witnesses said that Henry then kicked Swain six or seven times in the head and punched him repeatedly.

Henry is the latest in a string of Texas football players to be arrested over the past four months.

The roundup since June:

— Backup safety/receiver Tyrell Gatewood (now suspended indefinitely) on misdemeanor drug charges, accused of having Xanax and prescription codeine cough syrup in his car. Freshman cornerback Ben Wells was cited in the same traffic stop for possession of drug paraphernalia but not was not taken to jail.

— Joseph (now transferred from the team) on the aggravated robbery charge and attempted car theft charges in separate incidents.

— Jones (now suspended indefinitely) on the same aggravated robbery charge as Joseph.

— Linebacker Sergio Kindle (returning from three-game suspension this week) on a charge of driving while intoxicated.

— Defensive end Henry Melton (also returning from three-game suspension) on a charge of driving while intoxicated.

I waited. I hoped the long summer months away from the structure of the program was a one time anomaly. I hoped the team meeting, with Mack Brown laying down the law, would put an end to it. Yet I am gonna say it. On Wednesday night, Thursday morning, Longhorn senior safety (read “team leader and example to underclassmen”) Tyrell Gatewood was arrested and charged with being in possession of marijuana, Xanax, and some codeine laced liquid in a baby bottle allegedly. The arresting officer made a traffic stop, found the car smelling of marijuana, and conducted a search. Gatewood was released from custody Thursday afternoon. Although the Austin American Statesman seems to have mysteriously moved many of their original reports on the story from their website, I believe the arrest occured between 1:30 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. Oh yeah, and there was another player in the car with him - freshman defensive back Ben Wells, who was cited for possession of drug paraphanelia, but not booked.

“A team spokesman said Brown took no disciplinary action against Wells, who was set to redshirt this season.”

These incidents represent the fifth and sixth KNOWN brushes with the law from UT Longhorn players in less than 4 months! It was Gatewood’s second arrest in his time with the team, and by the way, he was found to also have an outstanding warrant for his arrest stemming from a reckless driving charge. In early August, Mack Brown laid down his zero tolerance policy. Apparently freshman Wells carrying drug paraphanelia doesn’t violate the policy.

When there are continued arrests, suspensions and the like from any major college football program, the responsibility lies with and traces back to the head coach. The day is coming, mark my words, that the good name of the University of Texas will bring to mind the images of thuggery, excess and lack of control that the hoodlums from past Miami teams still visit on that fine institution today. And apparently nobody, including and especially Mack Brown, cares.

I think that Mack Brown needs to call the players together and say:

“I’m sick of it. I will not have the reputation of the University of Texas tied to the mistakes of this football team. When people hear of Miami, they don’t think of the school, they think of the football thugs. Not at Texas. The next player arrested, no matter what for, no matter what excuse, no matter if you were provoked, picked on, profiled or just mistaken for someone else - you are suspended indefinitely from this team. And make no mistake about it - if your case is resolved by anything other than an acquittal or dismissal of all charges - your scholarship is gone and you are no longer welcome on this campus.”

And then follow through on it. Tough love? Sure. But it has to be done. The good upstanding players on the team ought to demand it. The coaches ought to require it. If a player can’t follow the simple rules of our society, what makes you think they can follow the game plan on the field? As an alumnus of the University of Texas, I am ashamed of the growing bad reputation of our football program.

Maybe I am mistaken, but in the early part of this decade, Mack Brown was an uptight old codger, who appeared to at least instill enough fear in his players that they didn’t all need to carry the business cards of the DWI Dude in their wallets. But then I remember the great VY who taught Mack to loosen up and listen to some rap music. But VY had the leadership to keep his team in line. VY is gone, but Mack Brown is still getting jiggy wit it. And without leadership from the team or the coach, all sense of decorum and discipline seems to be taking a back seat to having a good time and letting the boys be boys.

It ends now. If Mack Brown can’t, or won’t, end it, then the University of Texas needs to end him.

OK sports fans! Over on the forums you’ll see we have a separate board for each of the major conferences and most of the midmajors and independents. Over the next week or so, the Monsters will be adding our picks for conference champs on each board. Feel free to join in with your own predictions!

Monsters of the Midweek Forums

Late summer in Austin is truly an experience like none other. The population of the city swells as tens of thousands of college students return for another semester at one of the largest city campuses in the nation. With the students comes the bottlenecked traffic on the city’s under-built roads, the obnoxious coverage of how “extreme” and “awesome” and “awesomely extreme” 6th street partying is, and the incoherent political railings of these youngsters against such dangers as “corporationalism,” “eco-raping business tactics,” and anything non-organic. And have I mentioned the heat? We’ve only topped 100 degrees a couple of times this summer. It’s been unusually cool.

However, all of those unavoidable events are not only tolerable, they’re downright pleasant compared to the one phenomenon that overtakes the city every fall. I’ll gladly suffer the protests of 18 year old co-eds screaming at me as I walk out of the grocery store with a plastic bag instead of a canvas one. There’s only one thing that is truly intolerable about Austin in the fall: the orange-tinted glasses everyone here wears when looking at the UT football program. Like Doug Henning was famous for saying, “It’s the world of illusion” that has cast its spell on the entire town. Let me explain to you how it’s going to be a 7 and 5 season for you.

But first, let me get this off my chest– what is with the hero-worship of Mack Brown? I know that UT’s idolization of head coaches is not a new event. Since time immemorial, Texas fans have been obsessed with how dominating their program was even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If anyone doubts me, let’s jump into the wayback machine and recall how, even in the years of John Mackovic and David McWilliams, when Texas MIGHT have a more wins than loses, the orange-bloods would start their rallying cry of how “This was the year!”

But under Mack Brown this delusional frenzy has reached dizzying heights of absurdity. Ask any Texas fan about their opinions of Mack Brown and you will inevitably draw comparisons to some of the greatest– Bear Bryant, Darrell Royal, Bob Stoops… (Okay they won’t really compare him to Bob Stoops in that way, but seriously, Texas fans, you’re the only ones still in denial about Stoops.) In Austin, Mack Brown is credited as the mastermind of the 2005 national championship that Texas had been waiting decades for. They won’t credit Vince Young (and his ability to perform despite how poorly he was coached). They won’t credit a lucky schedule and the quirks of the BCS ranking system. No– it’s all due to their Lord and Savior, St. Brown. From listening to the exalted acclaim heaped on Brown, it’s a wonder they haven’t constructed memorials to him in the middle of campus showing how he healed the lepers, invented a cure for polio and helped coordinate the underground railroad. (Oh wait. I forgot that Mack’s not a coordinator.)

Texas fans are quick to forget that going into the 2005 championship season, Brown’s job was on the line. When he was originally brought to Texas, he was widely regarded as an excellent recruiter and a mediocre coach. He seemingly couldn’t beat Oklahoma and was perceived as not being able to win the big game. What changed in 2005? Was it his coaching? Was it his staffing? Was it his prowess to motivate his players? No, no and no. It was Vince Young. Vince Young carried that team on his shoulders and took them to the national championship. As Mack Brown said, “We just opened up the play calling and let Vince get the ball in his hands to see what he can make happen.” And after his junior year, Vince left (understandably) for the NFL. It seems Brown’s recruiting and player motivation skills couldn’t keep the star of the team for a repeat performance.

So let me bring you back to reality, Texas fans. You’ll get no more than seven wins this season. And that’s if you’re lucky. I’ll put it to you plain and simple because if I get too complicated, I know the big words will confuse you. Here are your definite wins: Arkansas State, Central Florida, Rice, Kansas State, and Baylor. That’s five wins you can bank on.

As I look at the schedule, I see three clear losses: Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas A&M. Oklahoma is the premier team in the Big 12 South and probably in the Big 12 overall. They are going to resume their old form and start ringing Texas’ bell. Nebraska may be seen as a surprise loss, and this isn’t just coming from me as a homer, but even in Austin, Callahan’s offense is going to put up points on UT, and Colt McCoy is not going to be able to respond. Finally, Stephen McGee, for reasons I don’t clearly understand, has proven to be an enigma to Texas’ defense. This will prove true again when A&M wins at Kyle Field.

The remaining games are: TCU, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. Who will Texas beat and who will they fall to? I’m not sure. But I do know this: Texas has an innate ability for failing against teams they should beat. Each of these games will be close and two losses will likely result from a deficiency in the kicking game– which shouldn’t be surprising considering that Mack Brown has passed on kickers such as Mason Crosby in lieu of relying on walk-ons. Each of these four teams has the potential to be surprising, and UT will split their games with them. If luck isn’t with you, Texas fans, you may lose 3 out of 4.

7 and 5. That must be depressing.

As an afterthought, let me make one thing clear– I understand what it’s like living in an area that eats, sleeps and drinks football. I grew up in the heart of Husker Nation and could (and still can) tell you the stats of ever prospective recruit that may be entering the program in the upcoming seasons. I know what it means to watch every game, attend every home game and half the road games. I’ve lived in a place where 97% of the population of the town can provide the first and last names of the starting offensive line. Nebraska IS football, much more so than Austin. But the difference is that we could objectively tell you when our program was going to stink. We don’t predict a national championship every year. And we don’t view our coaches as the pinnacles of perfection when in reality they are merely mediocre (Frank Solich, anyone?).

Take off your orange-tinted glasses, UT fans. You’re not winning the national championship this year. You’re not going to win the Big 12 championship this year. You’re not even going to win the Big 12 South. You’re a 7 and 5 team in a semi-weak conference. Reality may hurt, but you’re just making yourselves look stupid by refusing to face it.

-Johnny Crisco

Hi,

I’m Larry Bowden, or as a lot of people like to call me, the Lost Bowden.  Unlike my dad and brothers, I never went into coaching as a fulltime job.  Sure I did a little PeeWee league when the kids were younger, but I opted for the far more secure career of a high school history teacher.  I do put my coaching genes to work for the Model UN team, and the Academic Decathlon every year.

Even though coaching is not my job, college football is in my veins.  When the family gets together in the spring, I have opinions just like Dad or Terry or Tommy.  Hell, I think there are more plays that I drew up in dad’s playbook, than Jeff.

When I was asked to join the Monsters of the Midweek broadcast, I jumped at the chance.  Besides working with such a top rate team, I figure the one thing this world needs, is the opinion of one more Bowden when it comes to college football.  I’m look forward to sharing them with you.

Larry