On Dana’s past and future

Photo Attribution: USATSI

So…I talked @nolancox into doing an email exchange about Dana Holgorsen in front of Saturdays’s game. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t that difficult. It was, however, way too much fun…

Kyle: Any interest in doing an email exchange today and tomorrow for the WVU game?

Nolan: Duh. You know I’m in! I’m always down to discuss Dana. I mean, the tangent we went on regarding the Mountaineer Mantrip was one of the funniest things ever.

Kyle: What’s your favorite Dana memory at OSU?

Nolan: My favorite Dana memory at OSU, without question, came in the third quarter against the Bob Griffin-led Baylor Bears in 2010.

OSU dominated throughout and the game was never as close as the final score indicated. With about six minutes left in the third quarter, the score was 34-0 before Baylor finally put their first TD on the board.

41 seconds later I looked it up and, still leading by 27, a pissed off Dana immediately dialed up a flea flicker bomb (we’ll call it an “f-bomb”) that Weeden completed for a 62 yard TD.

Dana watched calmly with a smug look on his face before taking off his headset and sipping his Red Bull. He might as well have just walked out to midfield and given RGIII the “suck it” sign before flipping off Art Briles and walking back to the OSU sideline.

After that play I remember thinking “Wow, that guy is a complete a-hole, but thank God he’s on our side.”

I miss him as an offensive coordinator. I feel like that was more his element because he wasn’t in the public eye as much. It allowed him to live in hotels and take riverboat gambling trips, and left us wondering what he does when he’s not wandering the sideline like an 8-year-old all hopped up on Mountain Dew.

Kyle: Ugh, you stole my moment. I remember exactly where I was when that happened. I’ll never forget it.

Did you see him scoff at the fact that OSU is “trying to be as fast as Oregon” in his press conference earlier this week? It’s like, Dana, your team completed one pass to a wide receiver last week, settle down a little bit.

Also, his quote about his QBs was all time: It would be nice to get the receivers the ball. That’s why they’re called receivers, so they can catch the ball every now and then.

Spectacular.

You know what I just thought of after your offensive coordinator comment (because I miss him as this, too). What if somehow A&M ends up with an open OC spot (I know they have a 27-year-old co-running the show right now, but whatever) and Sumlin calls Holgy in 15 months after Oliver Luck has a Hampton Inn maid deliver his pink slip and says “come to College Station, Dana, let’s get the band back together”?

Would the relationship between Holgorsen and all those uptight A&M former students (DON’T CALL THEM ALUMNI!) be the funniest of all time or am I just getting loopy here? The first time Holgs lit into some poor WR who ran the wrong route by seven inches and received a profanity-laced berating the size of John Foots’ ego, all the fightin’ Texas Aggies would be like “ohh, who is this man?”

Nolo: I never even thought about the possibility of him re-uniting with Sumlin. College Station is one place Dana could do literally anything and get away with it (as long as Craig James doesn’t have any more sons).

If you’re winning football games while wearing an aTm on your helmet, no matter how much of an egotistical lunatic you are, the fightin’ Texas Aggies will not only support your performance but they will also try to rationalize your actions off the field and snap at anyone who questions them.

If he were to win over the Texas A&M fan base, he could do anything in College Station short of killing someone who wasn’t homeless and the fightin’ Texas Aggies would just laugh it off saying “Nothing to see here, he’s just having a little fun! That’s just Dana being Dana!”

You know what scares me even more than them re-uniting at A&M though? Seeing them re-unite at Texas.

If you don’t think the Texas alumni are going to march into Waco and C-Stat with a blank check sometime in the next six months, you’re crazy. The only thing that would stop them from challenging Lord Saban for intergalactic domination is the city of Austin itself.

Can you imagine Dana trying to survive SXSW where they literally hand out free Red Bull on the streets? I can already picture him head bobbing along to an P Diddy performance on 6th street wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt in a sea of UT co-eds thinking “Screw football, this is the life for me.”

What are the odds any of this happens? I’d say pretty good given last year’s collapse, the year’s shaky start, and the fact that Dana is about as stable as an aforementioned UT co-ed during rush week. Everyone knows he can run an offense, but I never really thought he would be a good fit to run a program.

Kyle: Oh goodness, I never thought of that.

Given his, uh, penchant for vindictiveness wouldn’t be the kind of guy who would somehow blackmail convince a rich Texas booster to hire Bradford and Weeden after their careers were over to come be “QB coaches” at Texas and pay them more than Charlie Weis makes and just let them hit up all the sick golf courses in Austin all day as a big “eff you” to OU and OSU?

Oh, the humanity, I can’t even think about it. He’s like the AJ Pierzynski of college football. 55 million people hate him with a KG-like intensity and one fan base loves him the same way the Tri Delt house in Lubbock loves Kliffy.

My biggest question for you is how all of this ends in Morgantown, because I feel like it could be kind of epic..

Nolo: If Dana gets kicked out of Morgantown, I’m just praying it’s off the field issues that get him there. If/when he gets fired, I hope he admits that he’s been bear hunting and moonshining with the WVU mascot in the Appalachian mountains for the last 18 months.

I could easily see the Weeden thing happening, though. Let’s say you’re a 37-year-old Brandon Weeden and you have two choices. You can live in Austin, TX playing golf and hanging out with Dana every day while coaching UT to the National Title game every year, or can get pulverized night in and night out by guys like Jadeveon Clowney in the 20 degree Ohio cold. I know what I’d choose.

Speaking of the Browns, I’ve never seen a picture of Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, but I picture him to be a lot like Comodus in Gladiator. It seems like he essentially looks down from his box at Browns games watching his guys get slaughtered, then if they are the least bit successful he takes away their best assets just to see what will happen. It’s like he’s a sadistic dictator trying to find fun ways to get them killed for his own personal entertainment.

At the end of the day, no matter how crazy and egotistical they can be, I’m glad there’s guys like Dana Holgerson in college football. Besides, if Dana wasn’t a college football coach, what on earth would he be?