2009 Fulmer Cup Preview
Following a lackluster bowl season and recovering from our own 2-10 nightmare here in Oxford, the Skunkworks at MiamiHawkTalk has eagerly awaited the Fulmer Cup season. Brought to you by the unsurpassed brilliance of EveryDayShouldBeSaturday, the Fulmer Cup tracks the off-field shenanigans of Division I-A football programs, awarding points for both baseline criminality and style. The award is named for former Tennessee coach ("Phat") Phil Fulmer whose commitment to boys-will-be-boys discipline and depth-chart justice inspired the competition.
Last year, Alabama rode the strength of a spectacular drug arrest across the street from its practice facility to overtake West Virginia and Mizzou and win the 2008 Fulmer Cup. Who will prevail in 2009? Our fearless predictions:
1. West Virginia—Although the Mountaineers underperformed in "Coach Stew's" first regular season as head coach compared to their years under Rich Rod, they could seriously amp up their performance from last year's 3rd place performance in the Fulmer Cup. Last off-season's highlights included stolen credit cards, drug busts, and assaults. Noel Devine may follow up his rookie Fulmer season (one misdemeanor assault charge) with some spectacular work now that the rumors are hot and heavy in Morgantown that he is in academic trouble, something we didn't think was even possible at WVU.
2. Iowa -- We've whiffed on the Hawkeyes for a couple of years now. They play boring football, wear boring uniforms, live out in the middle of corn, and have a coach with a bright future behind him. But, boy howdy, has that program turned into thug central! Twenty-six arrests since April 2007 and the most embarrassing fan arrest in years will get even the MHT gnomes to notice. So, fool us two or three times; shame on us. But not this year. Iowa is going to be big in the Fulmer Cup.
3. Alabama—Bama presaged its return to on-field prominence by winning the 2008 Fulmer Cup, as we discovered that "making sure your players aren't dealing coke" is among the shit that Nick Saban doesn't have time for. We expect another strong performance this season but one that falls a bit short of back-to-back glory.
4. Texas Tech—The head coach is a pirate, and there's absolutely nothing to do in Lubbock that doesn't involve drinking, fighting, firearms, or, apparently, cocaine distribution. We look for the Red Raiders to make as big a splash in the Fulmer Cup as they did in the BCS standings this year—a fast start and maybe even an SI cover story before fading down the stretch in July and August.
5. UCLA—Take 100 college football players and plop them down in LA. Add in a decades-old inferiority complex about the football program on the other side of town. Then put noted disciplinarian Rick Neuheisel in charge. What could possibly go wrong?
6. Colorado—You know your program is a Fulmer Cup contender when the coach institutes a preemptive group guilt plan to deal with off-season incidents. But the CU football culture—as carefully nurtured by Bill McCartney, Gary Barnett, and Neuheisel—knows that the off-season isn't for intramurals, brother!
7. Virginia—Call us biased, but any program where the head coach is gangsta enough to fire his own kid while promoting Bob Pruett looks like a contender to us.
8. SMU—Our non-BCS darkhorse this year comes from the tony Highland Park neighborhood in Dallas. But close observers of the June Jones's teams at Hawaii, with their history of on-field fights and collecting players from the Land of Misfit Toys, might wonder what will happen now that he's getting his own recruits.
9. Wisconsin—After years of steady performances, the Badgers inexplicably failed to score a single point in the 2008 Fulmer Cup. However, as we've said before, we're keeping Wisconsin in our top ten until the Chad Alvarez microwaved parrot story stops being funny—in other words, until hell freezes over.
10. Michigan—Speaking of Rich Rod, we'll go on record today as saying that Michigan's road back to glory starts during this off-season. Always a little dirtier than its image would suggest, Michigan in Year Two of the Rodriguez regime finds the Wolverines primed to emulate Bama's path from Fulmer Cup to on-field success.
Teams we can't believe we left out of the Top Ten -- Florida State (how the mighty have fallen!), the other Miami (ditto), Florida Atlantic (one bowl win + some local recruiting = ridin' dirty on the beach?), Arizona State (just because we love Orson's Erickson-over-the-volcano photo to death).
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