I regrettably direct your attention to this post on the blog, “Temple Football Forever.” It was brought to my attention earlier this week, and at the time I didn’t give it much thought. Dumb stuff posted on the internet is hardly a new phenomenon, after all, and I’m not one for blog-on-blog e-beef. That changed, though, when the guy edited his original post to include a link to a comment made here after last year’s game. If he’s going to involve my site as part of his spectacle of stupid, then it warrants a response. Contrary to the loquacious nature of most of my posts here, I’ll keep it short. (Crap, I’m failing already.)

If you’re anything like me, then your general appearance after reading such profound literature looked something like this:

I mean, it’s understandable that a Temple fan might be a tad bitter about his team’s collapse in last year’s game. But this? This is a manifesto for the maladjusted. I’m not sure what the best part is. We have:

1. The complete lack of understanding of the nature of college football scheduling, leading to tin foil hat-worthy conspiracy theories. Buyout terms are included as part of a contract, not paid when terms are violated, and are exercised fairly often. That’s no help in the quest for victimhood, though.
2. The idea that Navy, who needed the scheduling change in part to be able to play in front of 100,000 Ohio State fans, sought to change the schedule so as to avoid playing in front of 17,000 Temple fans.
3. The e-hit he puts out on some random Navy fan he apparently thinks is a fixture in Annapolis.

The Middies have a fan who blows whistles when Navy ballcarriers are seemingly stopped, yet the fan never gets kicked out of the stadium and game officials feign deafness around him.

Seriously? This is a regular occurrence? This fan sits at Navy games, looks for Navy players in distress, and blows whistles when they’re in trouble? Really? I mean, that would be awesome if it was true. That’s sort of like a superhero. That would mean that there’s a Navy fan that actually cares about the outcome of the game more than the length of TV timeouts. I hope one day to meet this person.

The pièce de résistance of the post is the author’s description of the effect this mythical superfan had on the game. Here is the play in question… Be sure to watch the whole thing, because you need to hear the ref explain the penalty flag:

OK, so let’s break down what our Lone Gunman said, and compare it to reality:

He’s the guy who blew a whistle three times while Temple defenders stopped a ballcarrier on fourth and goal, only to see the guy get off the ground and run into the end zone with the officials signaling touchdown and Temple coaches yelling, “what the fu*k?”

Let’s say there was a whistle from someone in the stands. I’m not sure if there was or not, let alone one blown three times, but we’ll go ahead and assume that there was. So who is it that got up off the ground, exactly? Eric Kettani is the fullback that received the pitch and ran it into the end zone. He was never on the ground, and was hardly even touched. Ricky Dobbs is the quarterback, but he isn’t who scored. He didn’t touch the ground either, at least not while he had the ball (more on that in a sec). This was the only 4th & goal of the game, so our esteemed blogger isn’t referring to another play. If you think he might’ve simply mixed up the down & distance, he didn’t. Here’s every play Navy ran in regulation, so you can see for yourself if you’re so inclined.

Then, we have this gem:

Temple players stopped tackling the Navy guy for fear of being called for a penalty, only to see the Navy guy score after the whistle.

I don’t get it. Did the guy get up off the ground? Or was he never down in the first place, since the Temple players stopped tackling him? Clearly the first description of this play was just made up in the dude’s head, so we’ll press on with the second. According to this guy, Temple players stopped tackling Ricky Dobbs after hearing a whistle, “for fear of being called for a penalty.” In reality, not only did they not stop, but they actually were called for a penalty! And for throwing Ricky to the ground!

Watch the video again. Can you point to anyone that looks like he heard a whistle to you? Anyone who stopped playing? Hell, Navy players have good hearing, what with all the DOD medical requirements and such. Do any Navy players looked like they stopped playing, or is it a special whistle only Temple players can hear?

To recap: nobody was ever on the ground, and not only did Temple defenders not lay off the quarterback, but they were flagged for throwing him down. Reality bites. Don’t drink and blog, kids.