Hell2DaNaw.com

Sports are both a great uniter and a great divider. It is a uniter in that it can give complete strangers who happen to be wearing the same cap an immediate connection, and make friends out of people who might never have said a word to each other otherwise. However, that’s boring. So this article will be focusing on the dividing aspects of college football, and how you can improve your trash talking on your rivals’ message boards.

1) Name changes: Many teams have names that can easily be modified into derogatory comments. For example, the Virginia Tech Hokies become the Virginia Tech Chokies, or the Florida State Seminoles become the Florida State Criminoles. However, that can take some effort to really find a rhyming nickname that captures the essence of the team. So go with the tried-and-true method of using homosexual or scatological references about your opponents instead. Hate West Virginia? They’re now the Mountainqueers. Sick of losing to Baylor (and if you are, really, your team has bigger problems than message board trash talking)? Baylor becomes Gaylor. Still too hard? Not a problem. Don’t make it rhyme. The Auburn Tigers become the Auburn Losers. The Oklahoma Sooners become the Oklahoma Turds. You are guarenteed instant respect wherever you go by coming up with names like these.

2) Criminal records: Sure, it’s easy to pick on teams that are known to have felonious members. But every team has criminals in their past. Remember that second-string running back 20 years ago who stole a car? Bring him up every chance you get to prove why your rivals run a dirty program that should be disbanded as soon as humanly possible. Blame the offensive lineman who got caught smoking pot at a frat party for all of the problems with not just college football, but every sport in the history of the world. And if you’re having problems finding criminal records on past players, just make something up. It’s the Internet. Who’s going to know that your friend’s cousin’s uncle’s dentist’s maid’s daughter didn’t get raped by half of the Kentucky football team? Nobody, that’s who.

3) Coaches: It’s hard to accuse your rival’s head coach of sucking if they beat you on a regular basis. But don’t worry! There’s always something you can make fun of a coach for. Charlie Weis is a gigantic fatass. Joe Paterno is a walking zombie. Ed Orgeron sounds like he has a mouth full of peanut butter. Rich Rodriguez is probably an illegal alien. Nick Saban flip-flops like John Kerry on speed. If it’s not true, it doesn’t matter. Repeat it enough and people are sure to believe it. And the best part is that you don’t have to actually know anything about the person or their football program, all you have to do is happen to grab the halftime interview on your Tivo and study it closely for flaws.

4) Recruiting: Did your rivals cherrypick a prime recruit out of your state? Well, what in the hell were they doing there? Don’t they know the rules of recruiting? You don’t go into a team’s state and grab their best players! You’re only supposed to recruit out of your own state, and if you can’t find anyone there, try Alaska or Maine (two highly underrated football states). Now, you might be saying “But what if my rival is also in my state?” Ah, but why were they in YOUR part of the state? Don’t they know that <insert area here> is traditionally <insert your school here>’s recruiting grounds? That’s dirty and they know it. And if all this fails, claim that they only got the player because of their widespread recruiting violations. The best part of this strategy is that it’s undoubtedly true, because every school breaks recruiting rules in some way.

5) Officiating: Everyone knows that the officials hate your team. Oh, it’s true. It goes all the way back to that year that you had the game won, but that bullshit offensive pass interference (it’s always OPI. Always.) in the fourth quarter cost you the game that you had rightfully won. Ever since that moment, your eyes have been opened, and you’ve been able to see the vast officiating conspiracy that’s 100% directed against your team. Even in out-of-conference games, the officials were obviously paid off/blind/cheating/gambling on the other team/pissed off/literally a bunch of retarded monkeys who couldn’t call a game if their life depended on it. Make sure that you emphasize that EVERY penalty called against your team is bullshit, even if your cornerback grabbed the wide receiver’s mask and slung him 25 yards downfield like an Olympic discus thrower.

6) Scheduling: Your rivals just won the conference, and now they’re going to a big-name bowl game, while your team will be travelling to the 2000 Flushes Bowl in beautiful downtown Helena, Montana. In no possible way could this be because your team wasn’t as good as the other team. No, this was because your team played a much much harder schedule than your rival did. Look at the big-name teams that you had to play away, while they filled their out of conference schedule with cupcakes and played all of their hard games at home. Even if your rival had OOC games against USC, Florida, and Ohio State, ignore those and focus on that OOC game that they had against Grambling State. Point out that the awful teams that you played away are “deceptively good at home” and that “their record doesn’t really tell the whole story”. These are always safe phrases that are completely unproveable and make that 62 point loss to Syracuse look acceptable. Meanwhile, your opponents “didn’t play shit” and any good team that they played was obviously overrated and don’t deserve their high ranking.

7) Random claims: If none of these work, then the only thing left to do is to start throwing out random claims that nobody can prove at all. Things like “We would have won on a neutral field” or “We just had an off day, we’re still a better program” or “We’d have a tougher schedule, but people are afraid to play us.” Things like this make you look like you know what you’re talking about, despite the fact that you could easily say any of these things without having watched a second of either your team or your rival’s team.

Anyone interested in seeing any of these things in action, simply go over to www.rivals.com and click on pretty much any message board thread.