BREAKING NEWS: Joe Tiller Falls Asleep at Table Trying to Read Morning Paper Again

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN -- Sources have confirmed that at approximately 7:28 AM this morning, retiring Purdue football coach Joe Tiller collapsed at his breakfast table in West Lafayette, into what doctors are calling a "very brisk slumber". Tiller, 65, was reported to be in "good health and high spirits" only moments before the dreadful incident by his wife, Arnette, who observed him gingerly sipping a half a cup of decaffeinated coffee and leafing through the front section of the Lafayette Journal and Courier.

"He seemed perfectly fine to me," a frazzled Arnette remarked to reporters on the scene. "I went into the living room to answer the phone, and five minutes later, I came back and found him... like this."

Paramedics on the scene conducted a thorough examination on Tiller. His face was still pressed firmly against page three of the newspaper and his hand was still gripping the half-full mug of decaffeinated coffee. After observing the warm, expanding puddle of drool pooling over the advertisements in the right column of the Journal and Courier and his gentle, steady stream of snoring punctuated by occasional snorts and loud, wet lip-smacks, they diagnosed him as "asleep" and determined his condition to be "stable".

When asked if this scare would jeopardize the rest of the season, the doctor on scene was optimistic. "You'd be surprised how often I see this condition, particularly in people Joe [Tiller]'s age. About ninety percent of the time, the whole thing blows over within thirty minutes. After emerging from the condition, the recovery is very rapid, and he should be back to full speed within hours. The prognosis is very positive."

This hasn't been the first such health scare for Tiller. In fact, just yesterday, he collapsed in a strikingly similar incident, again at his breakfast table, and again fewer than five pages into that morning's Journal and Courier. Tiller was roused from his condition after only fifteen minutes, and reported that he was having a "lovely dream about reading the newspaper and then taking a nap."

Charlie Weis Needs New Transportation. The House Rock Built to the Rescue!

There were a lot of embarrassing things that happened on Saturday in East Lansing, but easily the most preventable one was Charlie Weis' humorous inability to, you know, like move more than five feet in any direction. Several times, the broadcast feed cut over to Weis after a punt to show him hobbling torturously inch by inch toward the new line of scrimmage on a busted knee. About three plays later, he would make it over to where the action was, just in time to see another Irish punt and embark on another lengthy journey. It was sort of like watching a salmon struggling to the point of near-death in their Sisyphean swim against a brutally harsh current... heartbreaking, in its pure hopeless fatalism, but nonetheless part of nature's way.

While The House Rock Built can't really offer any advice to helping the on-field problems with the Irish, our crack scientists have come up with a wide range of solutions for Weis' motility problem that are cost-effective, easy to implement, and immediately effective. When was the last time you saw a Notre Dame coach do anything that would be described that way?

Solution One: Segway

By far our most intuitive and straightforward solution. For a few grand, you can get all the functionality of a personal motility device without any of the embarrassment that might come from tooling around the sidelines in a Rascal scooter. Plus, I know for a fact that Indiana Excise police has dozens of these things, since their storm troopers patrol pre-game tailgating to squash out any underage recreation with their shoot-first ask-questions-later brand of vigilante justice. I'm sure they can spare one, particularly since the Irish football team are their most valuable customers.

Admittedly, there might be some problems with this. For example, the high-powered gyroscope processor in the Segway might violate some archaic anti-laptop rules. Similarly, Weis' largesse might exceed the weight rating for a Segway, to which I offer this simple solution: A chariot pulled by two eunuchs on Segways.


Ha Ha! Problem Solving!

Solution Two: Hannibal Lecter-Style Gurney Thing

If practicality is your game, then the Segway makes sense, but something tells me that the Irish need a little extra boost in motivation after last week's flat performance. To whit, I recommend the Hannibal Lecter Gurney Thing. One sight of Weis being wheeled around in this thing by two orderlies in all white and opposing teams will run and hide. It's motivational gold.


Adding some frothing at the mouth would help, too

Solution Three: Exotic Contraptions

If the University is really serious about getting Weis up and down the field in a hurry, though, it will invest a little bit of money in an elaborate machine of my design. So far, I have two prototypes worked out. First is an elaborate horizontal dumb-waiter, which can be wheeled manually or (my personal recommendation), cranked by a steam-powered turbine and ultra-high speeds. Not only will this solve the problem of getting Weis up and down the field, but it will also help to prevent any future collisions, as he'll be able to get downfield before the punted ball even arrives there. Now that's progress!



Or, my personal favorite, the gigantic catapult! Accurately calibrated, this 15-foot trebuchet will use centripetal force to launch its payload to the exact spot of the line of scrimmage, where there will presumably be a large pile of mattresses or a net to brace Charlie's fall. Or, hell, if we lose a few more games like this, forget the mattresses. Two problems solved at once.

It's Saturday!!!!

Hey... Go Irish.

And Now, Your Inevitable Yakety Sax Video

Take your medicine, Wolverines. Take your medicine:

It's crunchy and delicious.

Blogjammin': Gallows Humor Abounds With mgoblog

In the unlikely experiment that has been my last few years of blogging, I've got to do some pretty cool things, like hug a man in a singlet, break Orson Swindle's clavicle in a game of touch football, and survive the rain-drenched miracle that was the 2006 Michigan State game. But one of my favorite days of the year is when I go toe to toe with the other Brian at mgoblog and duke it out over the upcoming Michigan game.

Verily, we've come a long way since our first blogjam in 2006, when our beloved football teams both had championship aspirations. Each year since our inaugural chat, our teams have circled further and further down the toilet of college football, and it's quite possible we're responsible for it. Nevertheless, we must storm on, even though this upcoming tilt is reaching the paramount of absurd irrelevance. By God, the world needs laughter, or at least that kind of hysterical laughter that squeezes its way out of you between body-wracking sobs and unnecessarily large bites of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.

In 2006, we donned Mexican wrestling uniforms. In 2007, we opted for tapioca wrestling. This year, to commemorate this upcoming game, we put on powdered wigs and breeches and just slapped the ever-loving Christ out of each other. I'm in bold, Brian's in blue. Part two is available over at mgoblog. Spoiler alert, we talk about jamming footballs in people's butts. I've said too much.

fightinamish:Shall we tussle?

mgoblog: Okay, as per usual Proper Grammar and Punctuation will help.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

Sounds good to me.

Allright, (cracks knuckles)....

First things first. During the Utah game, they showed a sign in the Michigan weight room that said, "In a time of crisis you will not rise to the occasion, you will default to your level of preparation". Question: did Rich Rodriguez find that in a fortune cookie? Follow up: isn't it funnier if you add "in bed" to the end?

The answer to the second half of the question provides the answer to the second: "in bed" doesn't really go at the end of this sentence humorously, so it couldn't have come from a fortune cookie. My vote goes to "real estate seminar pamphlet."

Respect the cock!

Possibly... although I think it was originally written in Japanese and hastily translated.

But that's not even the best sign in the weight room. There's one that has a subject-verb agreement error that I'm sure someone pointed out to Barwis once.

Parts of that unfortunate soul's brain are still landing in former Soviet republics.

Times must be hard at the Athletic Department... with all the money they're spending on the stadium and practice facilities, it seems like they're outsourcing everything else.

Did you know you can hire Indian or Eastern European coders for like 10 bucks an hour? I'm looking into this. I plan on introducing MGoStatisticsWhatACountry! next year.

Document the offensive and defensive formations faster! Do you want to see your family again?

Gotta love child labor

It'll be an online version of "Coming to America" except with True Punting Rate and stuff.

I don't even know what that is. I just made it up. BUT UKRANIANS WILL MAKE IT FOR ME.

But I digress.

Indeed you do. So, to gradually guide this to vaguely relevant discussion, what's the quarterback situation going to be this week? It's been a mix and match job so far... will Rodriguez outsource that, too? Are we looking at Sareep Neheedamajet's first start at QB? Or perhaps, dare I say, an adorable golden retriever?

Given the way things have been going they should see if Carlos Brown can throw a bubble screen, but it will be Threet. Threet actually made a ton of good decisions against Miami (Not That Miami) and would have moved the team down the field consistently if he hadn't overthrown every downfield route by 10 yards. Dude needs to relax. Nick Sherdian will probably see time after Threet overthrows Tacopants on third and seven.

As a side note, I'm rooting for the big guy to win the job, as I thought of a really cool nickname for him... "Picabo Threet"

I like "Dual Threet," but that threatens to be *really* sarcastic against teams outside of the MAC.

Yeah... one of the commentators during the Miami game actually used the phrase "Pat White" on that first touchdown. Flabbergasting.

For whatever reason Miami (Not That Miami) was leaving those zone read keepers wide open. You or I could have scored on that play. Steven Threet could have scored on it.

So what, do you suppose, will be the offensive gameplan for Michigan. I can't imagine the Threet keeper is going to be a permanent staple... are you going to try to establish the short passing from the spread that SDSU showed some relative success at doing against the Irish last week?

I really doubt it, actually. Michigan has two types of passes in the arsenal so far: screens and downfield bombs. Throwing across the middle when your quarterback tends to overthrow guys by five yards is asking for a safety to go "look what I found" and intercept your wildly inaccurate pass. I assume the gameplan will be similar to what it was in the first couple games just because that's about all Michigan can do right now. That does include the keeper if Notre Dame chooses to disrespect it like Miami(NTM) did. Michigan is big on respect, capo.

Respect the... aw, dammit. I already used this joke.

I wasn't aware there was an offensive strategy in the last two games... although I didn't see all of the Miami game. My Tivo switched over to that "Hole in the Wall" gameshow about halfway through and I didn't even notice it for 25 minutes.

Actually, in the UFR's I've discovered I really, really like the offensive strategy. There's a half-dozen core plays that all play off each other and create a simple framework in which it's really easy to gash the defense for big chunks of yards. Michigan just sucks at executing it. Really, really sucks.

Really.

I only realized it wasn't the Michigan game when I noticed the pants weren't shiny enough.

Really. So, do you think it can take advantage of a Tenuta "Blitz By God Blitz Everybody" defense?

There are opportunities to do so. When that OLB nominally tasked with covering the little bastard in the slot blitzes and Michigan goes to the bubble screen they're one good block and one missed tackle away from a big chunk of yards. Same with the little flare route that shoots a really fast guy out to the backside of a play that looks like the standard zone read. The opportunites are horizontal, not vertical, and I think the spread sort of limits how exotic your blitzes can get unless you've got the opponent in an unfavorable down and distance. Michigan DC Scott Shafer is a tweed jacket version of Tenuta and he hasn't done much unleashing of the dogs except in obvious passing situations.

Copy that. Allright, serious question. What's the biggest thing you've ever seen Sam McGuffie jump over?

Charlie Weis's....

...ego!

ba DUM ching!

Hi-yo!

No, seriously: Canada.

I saw him jump over Knowshon Moreno while he was jumping over that CMU safety.

I loled.

Allright, you're officially off the Budweiser Hot Seat. Pepper me with your dastardliest questions.

---

Like I said, part two is available at mgoblog. It's a doozy.

Knowshon Moreno Has Been Upstaged, Again

It's a tough year for Heisman hopeful Knowshon Moreno. We at The House Rock Built can sympathize with his beleaguered Heisman campaign as he struggles against all odds to break through the crippling anonymity that comes with playing in the oft-overlooked SEC.

Picture the scene: you've just made an outstanding, career-making play by hurdling over a sprawled defender, electrifying the crowd and catapulting yourself into the hearts of football fans and Heisman voters everywhere. You take off your athletic tape and pads and plop down on your sofa, eager to watch the talking heads on ESPN fawn over you for hours on end, and see: absolutely nothing. Devastation.

But you persevere, and gradually a grassroots movement develops on the internet to make a big deal about your spectacular achievement. Things are going pretty well... that is, until disaster strikes. You see, now that we've been able to re-watch the play, it turns out Moreno's accomplishment wasn't even the most impressive thing that happened on that play. If you watch in super-slow motion, you can see Michigan running back Sam McGuffie catapulting over both Moreno and the CMU tackler.

A legend falls from grace.

A Brief Treatise on Jimmy Clausen's New Hairdo

Allright, we've all seen it. Somehow, deep under the radar, the golden boy at Notre Dame decided to grow a profoundly absurd new hairdo for all the world to see. Now before anyone gets hasty and mislabels the new 'do, it's important to get it straight that it is not a mullet. It clearly violates the "business in front, party in the back" ethos of the mullet, as it is "party everywhere". So, what do you call the new look for 2008?

Simple: hockey hair. The wild, stringy locks and flowing mane protruding from the helmet has been an iconic look in hockey for nearly 80 years, and has graced the domes of athletic legends like Dennis Potvin, Guy LaFleur, Brian Engblom, and yes, even The Great One Himself. So while people may laugh at his absurd hair, if you slap a Canadiens jersey and a handlebar mustache on him and change his name to Jacques Clauseneaux, it all looks perfectly natural.

Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, Il sait porter la croix!

The Hangover: SDSU

We're really starting to empathize with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish this morning. Gradually bringing ourselves to a normal level of hydration, wandering around the city like some silent monk to restore our voice for Monday, we have to think that the players are feeling the same way right now. Saturday afternoon was like waking up from the bender that was 2007 and immediately trying to do long division. And even though we aren't exactly physically prepared to make the necessary critiques of the game itself, we're not in the most optimistic of places. In preparation for next week's Michigan game, we are heading to the local liquor castle for the following in massive quantities: Rum. Ice.

Just when we thought we were out... They pull us back IN.

Off to South Bend!

Go fuck yourself, San Diego!