"Foe"Rensics: Tulsa

Hello. You may have heard, Virginia Tech is playing in a bowl game. You may have also heard that the game is in Shreveport, which is NOT on the Gulf of Mexico, something I'm...still getting over. But did you also know the Hokies have an opponent in this game? They do! And they are the singular Golden Hurricane from the University of Tulsa!

And that was the best camera angle to snap...whatever the hell that is? EXTREME CROTCH SHOT.

1. What happened last time out?

A. Two days after Thanksgiving, the Hokies and the Hoos spent most of three quarters doing their best impression of the VT-Wake game from last year. Then, like the defensive ratings in Madden got reset to 0, things started happening uncomfortably fast, LOLUVA looked like they actually WANTED to win and it was TENSE. Then reality asserted itself and once again, Frank got to drink the sweet, sweet Hoo tears out of the Commonwealth Cup.

Silly Hoos, football is for Hokies (AP \ Steve Helber)

2. Anything else interesting happen since then?

A. Good news and bad news. The bad news (for us) is, Kendall Fuller wants to get paid lots of money to be awesome, and if you forgot, Tech's not allowed to pay him, so Kendall's turning pro. Thus, what will come in time to be known as the First Fuller Era in Blacksburg comes to a close. If you, like me, would like to hasten the beginning of the Second Fuller Era, start shipping oysters to the Fuller brothers and their lady friends, and we should get there in about 18 years and 9 months.

The GOOD news is, Whit Babcock went out and did Whit Babcock things and turned our offense all the way up to Fuente¹. And the king of Fosterball is staying, as well as the Dean of DBU, which combined with an actual offense, has the potential for us to start a NEW streak of 10+ win seasons, although I'd honestly prefer to just start a streak of 15 win seasons. No pressure, Coach Fuente.

3. So tell me about this Tulsa.

A. Surely. Sort of a weird tale, starting way back in 1894 when a young fella named Henry Kendall had a crush on a girl named Meg Roberts. He ended up following her across the country when she went away to school in Muskogee, OK at the Presbyterian School for Girls. Since his parents told him he could only leave home if he was going to college, he "founded" a college and named it after himself². While Henry THOUGHT he was in love with Meg, and he certainly was in love with PARTS of her, he completely disregarded her repeated statements that she'd only marry him if he matured and started acting like a grown up. When she finally broke up with him, he proved that he had NOT matured and moved his university away to a nearby town, renaming to what he thought Meg was spelled backwards, tuls a. To drive his point home in a completely unsubtle way, he founded a SECOND university in the same town and named it Oral Roberts. Meg was not impressed.

Eventually, he DID mature and tried to win Meg back by actually implementing a curriculum at Tulsa, with books and everything. It almost worked; but then the football craze swept Oklahoma and he threw all of the school's money into being good at football. The academic side continues to suffer to this day, which can be illustrated perfectly by the fact that they abbreviate the University of Tulsa as TU.

4. Wait. That's like us abbreviating Virginia Tech as TV.

A. Sometimes, we sort of do!

YOU DON'T NEED TO SPELL TO BE AN ENGINEER, OKAY?

5. Back to the football. So they have a team? And it's something they put money into?

A. Yes. They were actually pretty good back in the day, and by that, I mean when Downton Abbey was a current event and not pop culture. They had a coach named Francis "Close the Gates of Mercy" Schmidt, who...I mean, that's a helluva nickname. Seemingly hell bent on proving that a guy named Francis was tough, they threw down on EVERYONE, winning a couple of games 151-0 and 152-0, as well as dumping the Arkansas Razorbacks 63-7 in 1919. They lost a couple of Sugar Bowls in the 40s and won an Orange Bowl against Georgia Tech, which is moderately more impressive than owning an Orange Bowl victory over Cincinnati.

6. Well...Tech ALMOST beat Kansas. And...let's just not talk about the rest.

A. Great idea! Back to Tulsa, they are led by Philip Montgomery, who I think has the shortest Wikipedia page on earth, at a whopping four sentences. I mean, there ain't even a compound sentence on that page. He used to be the offensive coordinator at Baylor, who you may recall are good at offense. He'd been there long enough that he can take SOME credit for their success, and he clearly QB-whispered Robert Griffin III enough to prepare him for a career in the pros.

7. Ouch. Don't get cocky, though, RG3 was a pretty good college QB.

A. Fair enough. And now he's got QB Dane Evans, who has led the 'Cane to a 6-6 record in the Nu-Conference USA, aka the American. This includes a 66-42 loss to the Memphis Tigers, showing that Montgomery already has some good experience losing to a program employing Justin Fuente.

8. Oooooooooooh, snap. Anything else we should know?

A. Yes, Tulsa is known as the Golden Hurricane, which would be much better for Tech if it meant they were only allowed to have one player on the field at a time. That would really hamper potential coverage calls. It turns out they just picked it because they WERE the Golden Tornadoes, but that was apparently Georgia Tech's mascot. So, logically, the school in the South, right off the Eastern Seaboard, kept Tornado, and the school in Oklahoma went with Hurricane.

Meet Huffy, a hurricane drawn by people from Oklahoma who have never seen a hurricane.

They kept it singular because before every game, the players would form a giant circle and play Ring Around the Rosey which, to someone in the press box, looked like a giant spinning hurricane.

9. Are we sure we're not talking about LOLUVA?

A. Yep. This seems a good time to break out...

Aw, they're so cute and nonthreatening

10. What about rivalries?

A. Tulsa has been a bit of a conference nomad since the Missouri Valley Conference basically folded up shop on football, which impedes your ability to create rivalries. They do sorta have one with Houston, playing 40 times in the last 65 years, fairly evenly as well, except for that one time Houston won 100-6 in 1968. That's not a misprint, ONE HUNDRED to six. It's also known as the "Battle for the Best City", which I guess was named by someone who'd never been anywhere outside of Houston or Tulsa. I mean, I don't know if Houston cracks the top five cities in its own STATE. So, pretty weak sauce there.

11. What about their players? Anyone good?

A. They've got a solid recruiting pipeline into what must be the extended Kardashian family, with a Keyarris, Keevan, Kerwin, Khari, and Kolton on the roster. One of their backup quarterbacks was accidentally named Jabe because his parents didn't know the difference between a lowercase 'D' and 'B', insisting ever since that it was intentional³. You'll also see His Eminence Bishop Louie out returning kicks, as well as, perhaps, running back Rowdy Simon. That is his GIVEN name. Rowdy⁴.

12. Any Fullers?

A. Nope. They have a Kyle, which is not even close to comparable. And good ol' Rowdy. He makes me giggle.

13. Let's say I'm hungry. And in Tulsa. Should I eat?

A. Interesting hypothetical. I'm going to be up front and admit I've never been to Tulsa. I have spent a LOT of time in Oklahoma City, which is also in Oklahoma. Fortunately, an amazing restaurant in OKC that has since expanded to Tulsa is Ted's Escondido Cafe. While I can expound at length on their amazing food, the free queso and how it was so good I continued to eat AFTER I was painfully full because I physically could not stop myself, let's go to the reviews! First up, Misty McCall:

I'm not always keen to the service but they have good food and its a very clean establishment.

Including this only because "keen to the service" seems like such a midwest way of phrasing it. I feel like people in OKC always said "I'm not for sure" instead of just "I'm not sure", also. People that are different from me are weird. On to Mary Connelly:

Amazing. Our first time for our anniversary.

Dude. This place is so good that someone went here, a Mexican restaurant, for their ANNIVERSARY. Suck it, Ruth's Chris.

14. Do they barbecue?

A. As we've covered before, the midwest has this obsession with calling smoked beef barbecue. No need to go into that all again, but if you are looking for some type of barbecue in Tulsa, it appears Burn BBQ is where it's at, but as always, we'll take recommendations from the crowd. I'm going to use a review from Conner Phillips, which might be one of the best unintentionally positive reviews I've ever read:

If you look online and notice that Burn Co. closes at 2:30, don't believe them. I took my wife for her birthday today (and my family, my parents, my brother and his family). We heard there could be a long line, so we decided to go after the lunch rush and arrived at 1:15pm, believing that they closed at 2:30pm as advertised. We arrived to find a sign that said "Out of BBQ". Very irritated, I called and asked to speak to the manager. The girl who answered the phone (girl was the nicest word I can come up with right now) REFUSED to let me speak to the manager, and then condescended to me while she explained that they sold out and they "sell out everyday". She then hung up on me after I told her I wanted to speak to someone who cared. Go get some elitist, unapologetic, let the customer beware bbq at Burn Co., but you'd better come early because they don't give a flying flip about you and they didn't make enough for everyone. BBQ Nazis. I'm not going back.

This is the best. What do you MEAN you closed early? So WHAT if you ran out of food that takes over half a day to prepare properly? I want food NOW so I expect it. NOW. I ALSO need you to put me on the phone with someone ELSE I can complain to who can also do nothing to solve my immediate problem except listen to me vent. And I don't understand...is girl not a nice thing to call someone? And oh, by the way, on top of the fact that I invoked Godwin's Law by comparing you to Nazis, thereby immediately proving myself wrong, I highlighted the fact that a place is good enough to sell out of their barbecue EVERY DAY. Kind of a great sales pitch. Actually sounds like a place I'd like to try.

15. Tell me about the FAINT count.

A. I'm going to need some feedback here. There won't be any more Fuller Adjusted INTs for a very long time. We've established that Brandon Facyson is a distant cousin and his picks count. What about the rest of DBU? Should we just rename this section DBUAINT? Or, D'BUAINT⁵, so it's pronounceable? HELP.

16. What WOULD be the D'BUAINT count, actually?

A. Negative three, led by a strong showing from Adonis Alexander and not much from anyone else. Next year, I'm expecting a positive 15 D'BUAINT count.

17. What should we be watching for on Saturday?

A. If you're a glutton for punishment, enjoy a British tradition of soccer on Boxing Day and watch the team holding up the standings in the Premier League! Aston Villa can't score, can't really defend that well and they've got the wrong bald, American keeper. Then, for seconds, watch Virginia Tech's offense! Hopefully it will be the last time it's bad! Also...

• Moto has turned into a heat seeking turnover and tackle machine with a knack for scoring touchdowns. I would like to see him do both more.
• Continuing to NOT see much of Brandon Facyson, because it doesn't seem like anyone throws at him anymore. Must be boring not having Kendall Fuller scaring QBs into looking your way.
• Sideline shots of the Kardashians showing up to support their cousins.
• Travon McMillian to break 1,000 yards on the season. Early.
• Frank to get carried off the field to his locker room dance, once last time. Sniff.

Enjoy Shreveport! Take pictures of the Great Raft!

¹From here on out, I declare that Fuente will be a word with more flexibility in usage than everyone's other favorite F word.
²The standards of the Oklahoma Board of Education were less than stringent at the time
³He is, perhaps not surprisingly, from Arkansas. Also, Jade is a completely inappropriate yet Arkansasian name for a boy.
⁴Also born in Arkansas. Just sayin.
⁵I just want to point out that D'BUAINT is a name I'd probably highlight in a roster review.