Spread against the spread in Lafayette, and Roxbury Fleet Leaves Two Creeks High

Yes fans, Roxbury Fleet finished his season Thursday night in a special celebration of football genius. Much like homecoming, but better, was the response from the Two Creeks Sheriff, Jessup Rawlins, who also plays the roles of backup coach and ambulance driver.

"It were the best I’s ever seen", said Rawlins, "the phenom looked left, he looked right and stared at the heavens then he flung that dam ball... agane, agane, and agane... they- them clowns from Forestville never could figure out what were transpirin. Never. It was the best I’s scene ever."

Other’s praised the night, the moon, the harvest, and the caliber of our boy Roxbury...And then Roxbury Fleet's final high school game finished, and with it our lads time in Two Creeks.

But sadly for the Scourge and Ann Ann Arbor, the wooing of Roxbury goes on ( and we don't mean by Jenny Swindle) Ohio state is also in the hunt. The only thing we know for certain is Roxbury Fleet passed all his tests, and he is now a high school graduate. Hurrah. The town of Two Ann’s waits and so does the Scourge. And it does not seem that ‘snake oil will do the trick’ (see Joe Tiller’s reference to Rodriguez being a snake oil seller, charmer, last July)

Haunted hears from a local realtor buddy. The grape-vine is humming “It’s going to be tough to sell that house of his in December... if Michigan sends him on his way? It is unlikely that demand will be high, and who wants the house of a failed coach anyway... Especially an illiterate one....the interest rates are going up and the banks are not lending. It may be Feliz Navi Not for Rodriguez. I mean it would not be like selling Schembeckler's house!"

Ouch! But rumors don’t come from nothing, and most of the town has heard the coach’s interviews by now. No, without victories... it is not going to fly, this Michigan appointment... Michigan doesn’t need professors of football with phrases like ‘where we’re at” and “compete hard” , “progress bein made”...Sadly coach Rodriguez cannot speak any better than President Bush...Make that, not as well.

But, Rumors have it that Roxbury will be in Lafayette this weekend to watch the team. And if the Scourge wants to save his job, if he wants to say...'well, at least I got the phenom'. Then here is a bit of advice from Haunted... Win in Purdue or that’s it for you And to put the situation in the coach’s vernacular, ‘this ain’t likely to be happenin unless the boys compete hard, and forget where they’re at’.

What was The University of Michigan thinking?

Purdue 35
Michigan 10

Roxbury Fleet in Doubt

And why, because he watched the game last Saturday. Everything is up in the air except the ball on any sort of proper trajectory. Yes, up in the air, because, Roxbury is beginning to regard The scourge as clown, the mentor as moron, that and other schools are calling. And perhaps he saw what Haunted saw last weekend.

Watching the boys play , watching the scourge scream and shout.... “ you’ve got to have a thick skin to play for Rich Rodriguez. He’s a tough coach, that’s what he does.” Say the sycophant announcers.

Deeply remembers growing up in Ann Arbor and watching that angry man , Woody Hayes shout and scream.. Universally regarded as a boob and prick in Ann Arbor.

Well dam, observing this Rodriguez brings back memories, and he is even less a gentleman than Woody Hayes. What was Michigan thinking to pick this jerk for its coach. And they are always defending him “it’s a rebuilding year”.... They’re fightin,fightin!!”

Wait there goes coach again, roaring, ranting, slugging his fist at the air, a clod... coach clod. How dismal.

Halftime and Michigan has just scored and what does the idiot announcer say... “it’s all about the surge” I thought that was John McCain’s line. Surge of Bush, Surge of war, surge of football.... surge, surge,surge...ridiculous!!

And now the coach is speaking... he needs to go back and take that remedial English class Roxbury Fleet just passed...What an embarrassment for a once great University.

Haunted made these observation in the last Big Game, you know the one- The Championship of Michigan... Sparty eats the Wolverines for supper, must have tasted terrible but oh how filling.

None of this is working... Michigan Football is like the Republican economy, a disaster, and like the good old USA what is needed is new leadership...


SACK THE COACH... AND SURGE HIM ON HIS WAY!!!—It was never a good fit, a Southern Spanish illiterate and Michigan.

News Alert From Boom Boom Banghart

Haunted received this news alert from Boom Boom Banghart:

Dateline: The Big House: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Terrorist Scare at Michigan

The Michigan football practice was delayed nearly two hours
yesterday after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery
substance on the practice field. Head coach, Rich Rodriguez, immediately suspended practice while police and federal agents were called to investigate.
After a complete analysis, FBI forensic experts determined
that the white substance, unknown to the players, was the goal line.
Practice was resumed this morning after special agents decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.

The State Championship

The State Championship

That's what they're calling it. Why, because you've got to dress up the mediocre, somehow. And yes, you can put lipstick on a pig. ( Just ask Sarah Palin about her spending spree at Saks). Still, unless a million angels start dancing on that pinhead, it’s the only championship Michigan or Michigan State will play in this year. This may be enough to produce a good game, but don't count on it!

The big question for this big game is who will show up, the boys in blue, or the boys in yellow? Will it be the team that did in Wisconsin while eeking out a victory, or will Michigan State trounce our Boys as did Toledo? Probably Toledo... And what will this mean for the future, and what will it mean for the Spanish Scourge who grows more confused and tongue tied every week?

Haunted has learned the Coach was so shocked to hear of Jenny Swindle's version of his very own spread offense that he was left sputtering and spewing gibberish.

When asked about the failures of his system...Well just read his comments.

"We've got to be gap sound," said Rodriquez "You can peek inside, but you can't go inside your gap. You've got to make sure you rally to the ball."

Maybe the coach knows more about Swindle's version of his offense then he is letting on.

And when asked what he knew about the famous game...showing what a deep thinker he is, The Scourge replied

"Well, I know a little bit. Obviously I know about the rivalry because if you coach here or you coach there, you understand it. The big Paul Bunyan trophy -- that sucker's pretty big -- has been sitting in our hallway...I think it's been going on since '53, I believe. The first year we weren't going to take it. After that we accepted it or something if we won, so that's a nice little deal they've got going on."Even besides that, with the proximity of the two schools, the long standing rivalry is pretty neat."

Swell... the Scourge uses the word Neat.

It's amazing this character got Roxbury Fleet through English at all, and sadly... back to Roxbury. The week finds him buried in depression. Jenny Swindle's offense, the kid on the way... his choice of a team (Michigan) looking like a mistake, and his mentor turning into Bart Simpson before his eyes... And now Michigan State is calling and Roxbury has decided it will be a good weekend to forget about football and shoot rabbits.

It's possible the Scourge may blow this yet, and without Roxbury... Even those bags of Kruggerands may not be enough to send him safely on his way, away from the town of Two Anns... Before the natives get him. Before they want their money back.

Michigan State 31
Michigan 13

HAUNTED

The Truth Comes Out

Did you wonder what transpired last weekend? Did you have the feeling that something was stinky in Denmark, not to mention Happy Valley? I mean what happened? The Boys in blue came out charging, the first quarter belonged to them and then they slumped like a spent boxer. And this is where it gets interesting.

Because Haunted has heard what really happened. Roxbury Fleet's best gal, the young Miss Swindle, was in town to see the game. Worried about her Roxbury's choice of Michigan, and wooed by that old Coach Paterno, Swindle brought her team of Two Creeks cheerleaders to town, and with them her own spread offense.

Yep, by Saturday the Boys in Blue were just tuckered out...Their precious bodily fluids sapped, their bodies drained. Oh yes, the spirit was willing and this accounts for that first quarter, but the Team, your team, my team, Roxbury's maybe- someday-team, had been unwittingly or purposely wasted by Swindle's charge.

So it goes. Hearing of this the Scourge bemoaned his fate, his spread offense so much less than love, so much less than passion.... so much less.

Rumors have it that for the rest of the season the boys in blue are quarantined, just like little children.

Keeping you posted The Haunted Wolverine.

Help Me Haunted- I'm Bored

Help me Haunted.

I can sense the sentiment. The economy rotting like a late summer peach, the stock market leaping about like a surging, speeding, hyped up junky of despair.
The Boys in Blue gone yellow and no respite, yet and probably. What’s a reader to do.

And more to the point... What’s a Michigan fan to do... Hope!

However as diversion: you may have wondered about the early life of Roxbury fleet, how that golf ball found his eye and squashed it, how his mother left his father, how his father married down, how his mother moved to Branson Missouri to work first with Debbie, and then to schlep at Dollies Dixie Stampede. How and the hell did this kid survive?

Well, about the eye, no Roxbury was not playing golf, he was caddying, carrying the clubs of a bloviated sansabelt clad slob of a member of the Two Creeks Country Club. Just trying to make some money, in the spirit he was always hearing about.... Hard-hard-work.

Long story short. Huffington Billings, Huff of the fifty four inch waste, and the Klan background. Huff Billings the former Wallace campaign chief had hired Roxbury for eighteen, and finally as his game grew lame then lamer. On that fateful day as his consumption of those mint juleps stashed in that giant silver flask increased, Huff began to stagger, and by the seventeenth hole he could hardly stand up.

Roxbury positioned him before the ball stepped back and Huff stumbled, swung wildly, and that was all she wrote for our boy’s left eye. Squashed. And with no health care, and no lawsuit ( Huff was the judge, there was no money even for an ambulance) Roxbury’s family was bought off.... The reason for mother leaving father and father sliding down the slippery slope and Roxbury having trouble with his reading....it happens in America.

But our boy was a natural, and the lost eye a blessing as we described, at least for football, because no one knows where the kid will throw... and the rest is history... Until The Scourge of Michigan found our boy, and tutored him, and all was set. Then, of course, you know of Jenny Swindle....she saw money in the future, but instead she got his kid growing in her belly, and lately... Last week, she’s been pushing Jesus hard... And Roxbury may be sliding down that hopeless Christian slope....We wait...

More to come on Friday before the Big game.

When The Hammer Falls

When the hammer falls, it falls hard- yep that’s the theme in the little town on the river as reality sinks in. The economy a bust, banks raising student’s loan rates, families going into despair as those lumps of stock just wash away. Yikes, it’s sad, terribly, terribly, sad.

But still, in a normal year there would be that great Ann Arbor soporific, The Team, The Men, The Boys in Blue.. the Big Game, yes, hope would lie with the big game. But not this year, nope, a shabby hiring, a scurrilous, scoundrel coach, a bad program, and deep hubris- that great flaunting... This and the market crashing all at once. The Mud grows deep, and the wagon’s wheels are sinking.

But wait, you say! Roxbury Fleet may still arrive. Could there be hope? Well, there should be, because Roxbury has done it. It appears he is going to make it through that last class, and as much as Jenny Swindle wants him, and as great a gal as swiving Jenny is, Roxbury sees the future, kid or not. Sure, he may drag young Jenny with him to the town of two Anns, at least this was what was up until two days ago.

But wait and woe, because Joe Paterno has come calling, or so Haunted has learned. Yes, the old coach, that clever old fellow with that big nose, and that old age slouch, and that old-world charm. We hear that possibly as goes Saturday so goes Roxbury. Saturday in that gloomy valley is not just another game, it may be the game which defines the boys in blue and turns them yellow for the next ten years. Because, if Paterno pulls this off, and Roxbury renounces Michigan, than the dominoes will start to tumble. The word will be out “don’t go there. They’re losers there, and that coach, a has been all too young...”

Needless to say, The Spanish Scourge, is looking for those Krugarrands, because, because... a bribe...no we won’t go there.

Penn State 45
Michigan 3

They be Drivin against the Mighty Toledo

Yes haunted watches, engrossed..five minutes to play and the boys of yellow are behind...13-10 Toledo. Even a come back will mean little...but it will be a win. The Scourge is troubled, his head set askew, his split offense sputtered, his image tumbling, his feet blistered and belly bulging.. a wreck.

And there it is the throw..and.. and ...and...F**K and Yikes and intercepted by Toledo with 3:44 to go. What ho What hey they'll be drinking like fish in Mudville today... Hemlock that is.

But Wait the crowd begins to chant...Roxbury, Roxbury, Roxbury..Fleet, and through the stadium a roar arises, a shout of One Hundred Thousand little men... And all eyes look... Roxbury...Roxbury...Can it be, will it happen, victory snatched from defeat... Roxbury, Roxbury...but wait, it is only the WIND and a bit of tattered blue bunting rising, then drifting, trying to soar then falling with one last flutter...trampled to the turf.

Such are the dreams of Michigan fans everywhere...there will be no final field goal... there will be no victory. There will be no... Can you believe it?
Now it's overtime? But no.. THE KICK IS NO GOOD

UNABLE TO BEAT OHIO STATE - TRY TOLEDO

If you cannot beat Ohio State- try Toledo

Mighty Toledo against the Boy’s in Blue. What you say, Toledo, you mean that crummy town just over the boarder where you use to go and Drink 3-2 beer and try to run amok after drinking eighteen pitchers? Yep, that place. Ug... how the mighty have fallen.

This Saturday may be Michigan’s last chance for a victory this season. Because rumors are spreading, like the offense, that without Roxbury Fleet to pull his fat from the fire, Rodriguez may be lurching on to another program. Fraud in the contract or some such thing.... It appears he had agreed to win some games.

And the Scourge is on top of this one. Without Roxbury Fleet to finish off Ohio State he senses it may be his bacon.

Yes, last week, economic crisis and all, with confusion on the home front when his wife burned up the Krugerrand chart, and with the team running out of time and money... With the banks saying maybe it had not been a good time to add on to the Big House since Michigan was unlikely to fill the place in a couple of years at the rate things are going...Amid this carnage and despair... Where was the Scourge? You guessed it, in Two Creeks trying to help Roxbury out with proportions, equations, and chance.

And it appears he is going to pass Algebra. Then if he can keep his words about him, and his sentence structure under control on that final English test, he might just make it to the Town of Two Anns..Yet. But only if... he can escape the clutches of Jenny Swindle....if she does not find him in the arms of the homecoming queen...if he manages to resist the tugs of Jesus...and if the trains still run on time.

Keeping you Posted- Haunted



Toledo 21
Michigan 20

Rodriguez The Bum

The Scourge did stomp
The Scourge did shout
He ranted, raved
And walked about

But it did not matter
one we bit
The Rodriguez Plan
Was a piece of sh**

The Wolverine against the Red Skin

Illinois against the Boys in Blue, the fighting Illini against the beast. Arrows against aggressive teeth. All of these might fit this game if Michigan had talent, or if Illinois was not mediocre. And perhaps both teams will pull a popper and the game will be fantastic. Haunted doubts this.

However; with Michigan still chortling over its fortunate rebound against Wisconsin, and with Roxbury Fleet still trapped in Two Creeks Tennessee. This ones a tough one. The Freshman Threat may play Ok... but nothing like what we could expect or receive if our man Roxbury, the one eyed quarterback phenom in waiting, would suddenly arrive. He won't. He is still trying to pass algebra.

But the good news is, he's passed American history, and they gave him a by on his understanding of the Reagan years, when he sensibly asked, "Well, did this supply-side trickle down shit work, seems logical if you're rich, but my Dad just lost his job."

And this gets us to the point. With Roxbury's family soon to be descending into poverty and with the under the table offers certainly surfacing from other university programs. Maybe now is the time to use our new coach's real talents...persuasion of a different color, and by that we mean good old Maize and Blue.

The Jury's still out on this one, but Rodriguez left West Virginia in the lurch, perhaps a lack of ethics will be a forte in the coming difficult days ahead... at this moment in time...in the great tradition of Michigan Football. Go Yellow ( It appears the stands are full of this color these days, or hadn't you noticed)

Illinois 27
Michigan 20

Haunted

So, You Think You'll Attend The Big Game?

Ok, Haunted has to admit it. Even without Roxbury fleet, and even with the unprincipled overpaid coach Rodriguez(who he would like to see shipped out of town on a rail) Even with it all. It was still swell to Watch the Boys in Blue (they're not men yet), win the Big Game, with the Big Comeback, During the Big Financial Meltdown. Wa hoo... and a Rooty- Toot- Toot.

So, I suppose this means you will be attending some more big games? Well, Haunted has just the thing to keep your lazy buns comfy on those hard old plastic benches of the Big House. TA DA... The Bench Buddy. You've goota have one. All the cool Asses do!!