By Yellow Fever.
California Golden Blogs Writer / November 12, 2008
A well sheared lawn, or a well watered one: a showdown is set. Chase Daniel and the Lawnmower will try to complete a storybook season Nov. 15 against hydro_tech and his minions of water bottles and hoses.
"We'll try to elevate our game for one last performance," said Daniel, the squat record-setting quarterback whose performance this year pushed Juice Williams off the squad - and right onto hydro_tech's.
Get the Lawnmower! (8-3-0) will attempt to win the inaugural College Fantasy Football championship for the California Golden Blogs. Standing in the Lawnmower's way is hydro_tech (8-2-1) and Terrelle Pryor -- though Hydro's choice to use his own handle as his team name should certainly be questioned.
"I don't know why he did it either," Pryor said of hydro_tech, which squeaked by The Bear Necessities last week. "Wait a minute, are we talking about the manager, or the team?"
Las Vegas oddsmakers have installed hydro_tech as the early favorite. The line stands at 2, though that's not a prediction of actual points and rather a rough and wholly useless estimate on the part of CBS Sportsline to quantify the advantage, position by position, each team has over the other.
hydro_tech thumped the Lawnmower 137-85 in week 8 of the regular season, behind 37 points from Juice Williams and 33 from Dez Bryant.
"That was a total fluke," Daniel said. "I didn't get any help from any of the skill guys on our team - Cameron Morrah scored the only other touchdown for the team and Javon Ringer and Kendall Hunter both had their lowest outputs of the season. That really got us pissed off - you remember what we did the next week? We crushed the Maharg 197-107. Man, that guy is useless."
Last week, Get the Lawnmower! beat Golden_Zigers 119-111, while hydro_tech edged The Bear Necessities 142-138, despite 54 points from Graham Harrell.
"Frankly, I'm not sure how we lost," Harrell said. "I know I did my share - 6 touchdowns and 456 yards. Oh, you know who didn't? Ryan Moya. 17 yards? F*** UCLA and Rick Neuheisel."
Daniel and the Lawnmower will be ready by the time they face hydro_tech in the finals. A win in this one, coupled with a victory in the Yahoo Pick'Em league would rank Yellow Fever as perhaps the greatest fantasy sports player in history -- the Seattle Plan a long-forgotten speedbump.
In that fiasco in 2002, Yellow Fever tore down his underachieving fantasy baseball team halfway through the year and rebuilt it by systemically collecting every single member of the Seattle Mariners. The team failed miserably in no large part because the plan involved trading Barry Bonds, not to mention the sheer stupidity of the idea, but the team stood by its coach.
"That was a moronic idea, but no less inane than some of the taglines that the Maharg suggested," Daniel said.
Not to mention how the Maharg managed to get himself banned for posting those taglines too quickly.
Daniel recorded a total 28 touchdown passes to date, with 3264 yards and a 76.1% completion percentage. Javon Ringer had 20 touchdowns and 1548 yards on 353 carries, for a 4.4 ypa - but will miss the final showdown because Michigan State is on a bye.
"This is really #$)$_($ed up," Ringer said. "They scheduled the championship week during my bye?"
Replacement P.J. Hill quickly answered that rhetorical question: "Without that bye, the only thing I'd be seeing this weekend is the buffet line."
Now the Lawnmower is on the verge of making CGB history.
"Now we can look ahead," Yellow Fever said.
They sure can. And they'll see a familiar foe in hydro_tech, whose run through the playoffs was jump-started by that smackdown they laid on the Lawnmower during week 8 of the regular season.
This is the same team that lost to the Maharg in week 3 102-61 when it started Curtis Painter, which led to jeering from the denizens of CGB wondering if hydro_tech really knows what the hell he's talking about in those fancy posts of his. Those same denizens also wondered whether Juice Williams, acquired off the waiver wire halfway through the year, would ever become a franchise-type quarterback like Chase Daniel.
It's a moot point because Terrelle Pryor now leads the team.
"It's exciting, but it's not about me," Williams said. "I think Hydro should be more worried about the Lawnmower headed our way. As they say, our ass is grass, and you know the rest."
Williams has had a big hand in hydro_tech's success, but has been benched because of this week's head-to-head matchup with Pryor and the Ohio State defense.
"I don't like it," Williams said. "But I already lost to Chase Daniel once in real life to open the year, and once for the starting job with the Lawnmower. I'll just kinda hang out and see how things turn out, I guess."
Next up is the biggest game of them all and a chance to make history by ending The Lawnmower's attempt at CGB immortality.
"F#($@ hydro," Williams said. "I'm taking a nap on the sidelines during the game."