The Player Hater's Ball: SEC Bowls Edition

Among the great canon of reference tomes and information repositories, none catalogue and give credence to the vernacular of the common man quite as well as The Urban Dictionary. A treasure trove of vulgar sexual idioms, ethnic slurs, and common slang, The Urban Dictionary chronicles those things which other, more haughty and out-of-touch volumes dare not, making it an invaluable resource to heathens and deviants such as those of us who write for Red Cup Rebellion.

So instead of using my likely poor definition of "player hater" as a lead-in to this post, allow me to defer to that wonderful reference of references:

Player Hater
1. An intelligent person who hates 'sluts' and 'players' because he or she views them as the scum of the earth. These types are not commonly 'jealous', just disgusted by stupidity. Will sometimes ruin their 'game' out of spite and/or distaste for pure idiocy. John is a 'player hater'. He thinks that 'players' are animalistic morons who should be rounded up and shot. He doesn't give a shit about screwing ten women.

2. A lowlife idiot who actually is jealous of players success. This is even more stupid than the 'players' themselves, because it involves coveting something utterly worthless. Joe is a 'player hater'. He whines all the time how he never gets chicks and desperately tries to screw 'players' over. He's probably just as stupid as them.

Consider us a combination of the two.

We may be embattled, weary-souled Ole Miss Rebel fans, but that doesn't at all mean we're at all humble. We're bitter, grouchy smartasses who hate you, hate you, and don't even know you (but we hate your guts) because you've got so much and we so little. As player haters, we're outspoken, vitriolic, and nowhere near polite because, with all of y'all bowling, we and Vanderbilt are just sorta sitting around and watching basketball while opening dumb presents that we don't even want and drinking cheap champagne at our neighbor's crappy New Year's Eve party.

It's not a fun life to live, and we're gonna hate someone else for it. After the jump, take in the player hater's guide to the SEC's bowl season - a collaborative effort from the Cup's three most diabolical haters: One Man to Beat, Whiskey Wednesday, and your's truly. Print it out and keep it handy. Forward it onto your friends who "went" to Alabama (that one summer to take that College Algebra course) or Auburn to let them know that, no, we aren't at all obliged to sit around and awe at your wins. Tape it to your neighbor who went to Mississippi State's face because a) his hands are occupied with a baloney sandwich and b) that just may suffocate him. And, of course, contribute some hatin' of your own.

BBVA Compass Bowl - Kentucky vs. Pittsburgh

This is what a mediocre season affords you - a trip to an ancient and crumbling Legion Field (literally crumbling, pieces of it have fallen on people during games), which is located in the most crime heavy portion of Birmingham - the Pittsburgh of the South. Hope y'all enjoy.

Oh, and look, a barely known bank is the sponsor, so maybe the gifts will be chained to your locker just like the really nice pens they put out in their lobbies. Maybe free checking accounts? A reusable grocery bag? Debt?

Mike Hartline was so disinterested in this game that he drank his way out of it. That's how shitty it is.

Pitt's coach resigned so he wouldn't have to coach in the game. That's how shitty it is.

The Big East will beat the SEC in this game. THAT'S HOW SHITTY IT IS.

Liberty Bowl - Georgia vs. Central Florida

UCF fans, you've reached your pinnacle - a C-USA championship and a game against a 6-6 SEC team who will absolutely beat you by 3 TDs.

Georgia fans a few years ago were wasted on Bourbon Street enjoying the fruits of sackingrapingpillaging Hawaii and Colt Brennan in the Sugar Bowl. Now, they'll be dodging drug deals, bullets, hookers (ok, maybe not dodging), in the Orange Mound Bowl sponsored by The First 48.

George "Sparkling Resume" O'Leary does have a history with UGA as the former coach at Georgia Tech, so I guess there's some kind of interesting angle there. I'm sure ESPN will completely miss that one and focus on some player at UCF who has a family member with a terminal illness or the team's visit to St. Jude where they awkwardly sign autographs for kids who have no idea who they are because, well, they play at UCF.

If Georgia loses, Mark Richt will be seen at Silky's after the game drinking a Diver...alone...and finishing it.

Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl - Tennessee vs. North Carolina

Thank you, Franklin American Mortgage for sponsoring this because, frankly, nobody else would.

Will the players' gifts be a 4 percent interest rate on a home? Maybe some property valued at less than the mortgage?

One of the many fantastic qualities of this game is that there will be approximately 80,000 members of the VOL NAVY (est. 1861) attending this game. The Adelphia Coliseum (oh wait, I think it's something else now? Verizon Stadium? Garth Brooks' spring home? Whatever) is located next to the Cumberland River, so the VAVY (Vol navy? /seewhatididthere'd?) will be in strong support.

North Carolina fans who show up will be the atypical non-basketball loving Carolina fans (see: an Ole Miss basketball fan) and will undoubtedly be dozens in number.

The overwhelming representation of Eastery pastel colors during this game will be enough for Americans to scramble to the contrast setting on their televisions. Pale orange and baby blue? Is this a fucking tea party? Baby shower? Nope, it's December college football.

And you're welcome, Tennessee. If it weren't for Tyrone Nix spending the better part of this last season coaching his players in the finer arts of XBox and milkshakes in lieu of football, the Vols would be spending their holiday season in Gatlinburg playing mini golf and eating pancakes or whatever it is you kooks do in your free time. And what's the deal with Tyler Bray's back tattoos and finger twirling? Did this guy go on a bender in Cabo a few years back, ending up in a permanent walking-douche-coma? What the fuck do he and Coach Dooley, as obviously very different people, even talk about?

"Tyler, you've really got to do a better job discerning the Cover 3 from the Cover 2. You're not finding seams as quickly as you should which just isn't gonna work against a good defense with a good rush. Plays don't last forever and you've really got to move more quickly in the pocket and through your progressions."

"Can I get $2.50 so I can cop a Four Loko."

"..."

I hope the best remaining players North Carolina can afford to keep around are able to stomp you in your own home state.

Chick-Fil-A Bowl - South Carolina vs. Florida State

Nothing about this game makes me happy about anything. Fuck you for winning the SEC East, South Carolina. Now Ole Miss has the pleasure of sharing the "guess who hasn't been to an SEC Championship Game" honor with Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Vaaannndeerrrbilllt. And you did it in the same fashion that Mississippi State did in 1998 - you lucked into having a good-but-not-great team in a horrible down year for your entire conference division. Beating Alabama was pretty awesome, I'll admit. But beating Florida in the Swamp was less awesome than you want to think it is, and watching you get pulverized at the hands of Cameron Newton in the SECCG was just sad. Normally, the opposing division winner to the BCS Title Game participant ends up somewhere like the Sugar or Capital One Bowl, not the fucking Chick Fil A Bowl... Shit.

Oh, and another thing, this bowl can die. For starters, it's the Peach Bowl, and always will be. And secondly, why does Chick Fil A insist upon torturing those of us who have tasted the sweet, succulent ambrosia that is a Chick Fil A sandwich, yet currently live in a city deprived of such beauty, by running all of your fucking ads here. You know how much of a pain in the ass it is to hike my ass out into the suburbs every other time I see your commercials because "fuck it, I want a milkshake?" It's a huge pain in the ass, Chick Fil A, and you need to either stop reminding me of that or open a damned store in DC (that insn't a part of a student union's food court - I'm too old and white to spend my lunch hours at Howard University looking all professional and shit while wolfing down polynesian sauce drenched french fries) already.

But I'm happy for you and your program and your frattastic coach, South Carolina. I am. And I'd really like it if you were to defeat Florida State just because anyone led by a man named "Jimbo" cannot be taken seriously, ever. It's one of society's unwritten rules, like "never neglect a high-five if offered" and "don't look homeless people in the eyes." Do it for the SEC and do it for America.

Capital One Bowl - Alabama vs. Michigan State

Oh, good, this is a great chance for a sappy re-connection story via Tom Rinaldi and that sad fucking piano that plays through every story he does for ESPN.

cue sad fucking piano

Nick Saban started his coaching career in East Lansing. Where the Spartans are more than a group of 300. They are a family of thousands of green and white clad students, teachers and alumni.

"Well, there's some pretty good fans there, I guess, considering the mediocrity of the program," Saban says. "I really appreciated them starting my career off though."

But Saban couldn't stay forever and was soon gone to LSU/Miami/Alabama and now an unlikely pairing in the Capital One Bowl.

"You know, I've never cried," Saban says. "And I sure as fuck won't do it when we beat the everylivingbatshit out of those guys."

Spartan. Tiger. Dolphin. Tide. Saban.

Fin

Cotton Bowl - LSU vs. Texas A&M

Fucking stellar. The Mississippi State of Texas meets up with LSU in the #1 metro area for "people who mistakenly think their hometown is a cool place" in the annual Cotton Bowl Classic. I'd rather spend a week in North Korea scraping barnacles off of Kim Jong Il's Seadoos than thirty minutes amongst a bunch of LSU and TAMU fans in the Metroplex. You're gonna have a bunch of central and east Texas wackos making their semi-annual pilgrimage to Dallas from Kilgore or Brenham, spitting chaw out of their truck windows while playing some shitty Pat Green song and getting all amped to hang out in the lobby of the Embassy Suites by DFW or buy overpriced shit in the Galleria, mingling amongst a bunch of gravel-mouthed "people" wearing purple windbreakers and looking for the next dead thing to fry and cover in remoulade.

Then afterwards, everybody's gonna go to Quarters but it's gonna take two hours to get there because it's fucking Dallas and everything is fucking 20 miles bumper-to-bumper from everything in Dallas because, hey, it's Texas and 'round here, everything is bigger - our swaths of land, our hats, and our hemorrhoids - and public transportation is for the gays and the illegals.

I just hope that Jerry Jones and company decide to show mercy and continue to let the SEC participate in 2012's Cotton Bowl after they find bay leaves and piss in Jerryworld's cupholders.

Outback Bowl - Florida vs. Penn State

Two soon-to-be-dead coaches square off in another pre-decided SEC/Big Ten match-up which will be the first game of 2011. Apology letters have already been sent out by ESPN and the two school's respective athletic departments. They know that we as fans deserve better than watching a bunch of players trying to shake off months and months worth of Addazio match up against a Penn State team - any Penn State team - to kick off the new year but that's just how these things happen sometimes.

Since they've won two BCS titles in the past five seasons, I can't say I feel "bad" for them, but I do wonder what sort of mental and emotional stability Florida Gators fans are wrought with right now.

"Fuck you, Steve Addazio! Wait, Urbzies is gone?! NO URBS HOW COULD YOU?! But that means Addazio's gone, right!? Wait, Muschamp?! THAT LOUDMOUTHED FUCK!? He's a Georgia fan! Hold the phone, he talks shit about Georgia now?! HA YEAH WHOOOOOOOOOOO /chompchompchomp IT'S GREAT, TO BE, A FLAWDUH GATAH! Oh wait we still lost to Mississippi State this year..."

Gator Bowl - Mississippi State vs. Michigan

This is what Sylvester Croom worked countless hours for - a January 1 bowl game. Oh what? This is all Dan Mullen's doing? But didn't Croom recruit like half of this team? Oh, I guess that logic doesn't work when the shoe is on the other foot. Dan Mullen invented football, as Miami officials can confirm.

Look, State, we get that y'all are thrilled to go to the fifteenth bowl in your school's history. That's a great milestone for a program. Or so I hear... Ole Miss reached that "pinnacle" twenty years before I was born so, I'll just use your collective enthusiasm as the basis of that assessment. So, congratulations and all that, yadda yadda, but y'all do realize that you were still fifth in your division, right?

"BEST DIVISION IN FOOTBALL!" Perhaps, but you're still fifth in it.

"BUT OLE MISS IS LAST HA!" Ah, and now we reach the true root of your enthusiasm.

Congrats on the Egg Bowl win. Your team played harder and your coaches gave more of a damn. For that loss (and many, many others) I want Houston Nutt flogged in public and Tyrone Nix stuffed into a rocket destined for Mars but, in Starkville, all's seemingly well if you can win the Egg Bowl, even if your coach does have an overall losing SEC record and a whopping goose egg against the rest of the SEC West. Last season, Ole Miss goes 4-4 and is bummed out about it. This season, State goes 4-4 and is elated over it. But, hey, beating Ole Miss your raison d'etre, your modus operandi - even if you vehemently stuff your head in the clay and deny it - so good for you. Your purpose has been fulfilled. Just don't bullshit us and everybody else by pretending that things like Dan Mullen's failed flirting with Miami and a squeaked out win over the weakest Florida team in a generation are what give you cause to proclaim the establishment of a new college football dynasty in Starkville and purchase interstate billboards which brag about some sort of "ownership" of the Magnolia State. We all know you're just beating your own dicks because you've beaten Ole Miss two years in a row. You judge your program by where it stands in relation to Ole Miss.

Going to the Gator Bowl is nice and all,but, c'mon, had we won the Egg Bowl, you'd probably be in the fucking Gator Bowl anyway. We hate that we've given you this bizarre sense of self-satisfaction but, what-the-fuck-ever. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Cheers for those of y'all headed to Jacksonville. Have fun. I still hope all you fat fucking rednecks go to the Landing on New Year's Eve and it breaks off into the ocean for you never to be seen again, a la  polar bears on a wayward ice floe, but that's what you expect out of us anyway. If you can somehow stop Denard "Shoelaces" Robinson and win this game, I'm sure there will be another ridiculous billboard put up in Batesville or Meridian or some damn place in Mississippi which reads something like "Guess who just beat the ORIGINAL TSUN!!!1" (Yes, a misplaced numeral will likely be featured on this billboard) with a picture of Dan Mullen  fiercely grinning at any and all who brave Mississippi's roadways, which I'm sure is something y'all are really looking forward to.

As for Michigan, Rich Rodriguez is a slimy son of a bitch which, to their due credit, most of the Wolverine faithful have very easily caught on to. He left West Virginia and the Big East to come to the Big Ten and one of the most prestigious jobs in college football and has done nothing but either act very ungrateful of his fantastic circumstance or cry to Josh Groban tunes while blathering on about how awesome Michigan is. He has turned the already crippled Wolverines program into mostly a laughing stock throughout the Great Lakes by doing things like running some sort of newfangled "spread" (The Big Ten, for all the grief they give the SEC, is the most old-fashioned, traditional football conference in America, for better and for worse) and neglecting entirely to recruit and coach a defense. Also, he kept Greg Robinson employed which, come on, is a fireable offense in its own right. Still, a win over Mississippi State still has to be the assumption of most in Maize and Blue, regardless of how disgruntled folks in Ann Arbor may be.

But, sheesh, should State win, those of us who live in the Magnolia State and don't rattle antiquated farm equipment around every Saturday would have a tough offseason to live through. "We're going to JACKSON-ville," "Wanna join our BOWLING league," or "Mullen to Miami? More like, Jacksonville! GATORBOWLCHAMPS2011 F U LAWYERS/PC/LIBERAL OLE PISS WEEBULSZS!!!!!111"

Sugar Bowl - Arkansas vs. Ohio State

Hey Arkansas fans, you know how the rest of the SEC makes fun of you by saying things like "you're not a real SEC school" and shit like that? Well, if you lose to Ohio State, that'll only give cause for such to continue. Just make sure Mallett keeps his head screwed on tight for the next week-and-a-half and stays focused on the game. I'd hate for something like a heroin arrest or a crippling herpes flare-up keep him from going toe-to-toe with Terrelle "Everybody Kills People" Pryor.

After the game though, untether that bad boy and let him show y'all shitheads how a real party is thrown. (If Arkansas wins, I fully expect to read reports of Ryan Mallett snatching hand grenades out of folks hands at Tropical Aisle before bursting into Cochon and demanding a "fucking damn pork chop right fucking now because Ryan Mallett and his mystique said so." This is all before he's found in a gutter somewhere up Magazine Street by Frankie, the crazy, wheelchair-bound man who hangs out at Tracy's (what up, Frankie).)

BCS National Championship Game - Auburn vs. Oregon

Auburn, people hate you for the same reason they hate Justin Bieber. Just look at that little asshole, jumping around on stage, grabbing his crotch, and blasting out canned lyrics with a trembling falsetto while the armies of prepubescent girls who continue to buy anything he so much as looks at cheer him on like a horde of shrill, exuberant zombies. He's like, what, fifteen years old, already has more money than most of you (or us), and spends all day hanging out with famous people and dumb, plastic-breasted bimbos - but he still tries to pass off as some regular ol' everyday youngun who is just so like, you know, star struck and amazed at his sudden fame and junk.

Fuck. That. Bieber.

If wish he'd just come out and say "I don't give a good God damn what you haters think because, you know what, I can dance better than you, I can sing better than you, and I get to hang out with Usher all fucking day so kiss my little Canadian asshole." If he did that, then I'd probably think "you know, that Justin Bieber ain't so horrible after all. Get money, J-Biebz."

But nope, he's just giving goofy interviews with Barbara Walters, teaching Ellen Degneres how to Dougie (because it's cute and all, and also kinda funny because lesbians don't have any rhythm), and bouncing all over the place with that goofy smirk on his face.

And that, my friends, is exactly how Auburn fans have behaved regarding this season. Tigers fans, look, just come to fucking grips with everything. We all know y'all paid for Cameron Newton. We all know that Nick Fairley is a dirty, horrible man-monster of a player. We all know that Gene Chizik and Trooper Taylor don't do shit, opting out of actual coaching in favor of "letting Gus Malzhan do fancy shit while we run around flailing our arms about like electrocuted lab monkeys." And all of this, in and of itself, is totally fine. It's how y'all have handled all of the speculation and criticism that makes me want to wring your collective neck.

"Ugh, there's like no evidence and stuff that Cam Newton knew anything about what was going on and Gene Chizik is better than Saban y'all did you see the Arn Bow and the NCAA is SO out to get us I mean come on it's a conspiracy and stuff y'all WAR DAMN EAGLE."

Fuck you. For real. Just come clean with all of us. We're not stupid, and neither are you. Stop this cat-and-mouse, "Auburn is so innocent and the victim of a Bama-controlled SEC" shtick and just come right out in the open with everything. Just say this: "Fuck yeah we paid Cam Newton $200,000 to play here and we don't give a damn that Nick Fairley's helmet just so happens to clash with opposing players knees on the reg and we know that Gene Chizik is an oaf of a coach who got lucky by inheriting a talented offensive line and buying the best college quarterback since Michael Vick - if not ever - to play behind them and we are well aware that our dumb asses almost got caught cheating but, guess what, nOtHiNg HaPpEnEd motherfuckers! HA HA! Joke's on y'all! We told the rules to kiss our asses and the rules said 'oh, sure thing Auburn, anything for that fine Cam Newton fella you've got there'! And you know why we don't give a damn? Because we're in the BCS National Championship game with a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback. If a few-hundred-thousand dollars and some intense media scrutiny is what it takes to win a championship, then so be it. This is football, and all we want to do is win, no matter what the cost."

If you'd just do that, I'd be War Eaglin' all over the place this January. Instead, I'm gonna be a West Coast douche with cargo shorts and spiky hair, screaming "O" and wearing a bunch of green. I hate you for that, Auburn. I hate you so very much.

And you too, Justin Bieber, you turd.

Open up your hearts and let the hate out!