Update: In Which We Get NSFW

RAWRCATZRAWR! hopes that you all had a solid weekend. Me, I spent the weekend looking for a place to live and clawing the jugulars out of criminals. The streets are safer with RAWRCATZ! around.

So, a bit of news popping up on the interwebz on another happy Sunday in the land of RAWRnia. It seems our RAWRCATZ! are experiencing a bit of a QB duel, to which RAWRCATZRAWR! says: Good.

This seems like it might be a bit of a media hype job, seeing as how Phil Bates is trying to out duel Man Amongst Boys Boo Jackson (MABBJ? RAWRCATZ! love acronyms) for the starting position. However, we enjoy the spirit of competition. That is why we watch football, is it not? You see, Frank Solich hands nothing to no one. And while prying something out of the cold dead hands of someone who will never die is impossible, if you work hard, and practice hard, we believe in rewarding the guy who earns it the most. Or the guy who makes us the best (NSFW or children) spaghetti.

The nitty gritty about the QB race is that Boo Jackson is an amazing talent that is coming off of a gruesome injury that let Phil Bates get a lot of important reps in the spring. That being said, RAWRCATZRAWR! fully expects to see Boo get his reps this year. Bates is a solid player, and a solid option, but there's only one MABBJ (yeah that doesn't work) and if he's ready to go, we see a lot of good things on the horizon. You know, MACtacular things. And in a MAC that promises to be wide open, the best team in the state of Ohio knows that good things on the horizon are top notch.

RAWRCATZ RAWRcap: Marshall

Stabbed in the back by the daggers of Loki we stumble home like a ragged hoard of punch-drunk vagrants. We, the destined RAWRCATZ! fall prey to the mightiest of pranksters, and find that magical first bowl win eludes us once more. The theory now becomes: The first bowl victory is the toughest, but after the first they come whenever called. USC got their 32nd bowl victory yesterday. I figure we can match that in the next 35 years. A legacy is hard to build, but once you lay that first layer of Legos the rest comes easy.

Notes:

The offense has looked brilliant in spots all year, but this sort of output was unforeseen. 12 yards rushing? Marshall's defense looked fast and effortless for much of the night. Kudos to an outgoing coaching staff for putting in the time to stifle the might RAWRCATZIAN attack.

Penalties make me want to take a nail gun to my sternum. Just brutal.

Now we turn to the recruiting trail where hopefully this year's success will produce the next batch of MAC East champion RAWRCATZ!

Chances of Oregon not beating OSU by more than Marshall beat us? Slim. We'll still be the best team in all of Ohio.

And now, to stop the bleeding - A musical interlude:

Big Business - Ayes Have It

Goddammit, it's not how we planned it.

RAWRcap Looks To The Future

And so, it is with great honor that we accept an invitation to make a return trip to Detroit. The jewel of the Midwest shines brightly before our RAWRCATZian eyes, blinding us with its luster. We take on the Marshall Thunderlolling Herd, and we will beat them. We will stand triumphant on their carcass and let Rufus beat them with his meaty paws.

Not to dwell on past transgressions, but one thing to bring up from Friday's game. Did anyone catch Butch Jones's halftime interview? Rufus just rocketed up the cool scale. The only way he could have been any cooler is if he had given him a dutch rub and taken his hat.

In the following weeks you'll see some new types of content here on RAWRCATZRAWR. We are a new blog, so we'll be working out the kinks a bit. Any suggestions for content can be left in comments section, or emailed to us. We plan on taking a look at recruiting already, but outside of that we're in the dark.

Sidenote: Today is the last day of my semester, so with grad school quieting down for a month I'll be posting some seasonal panoramas of what was 2009, and what lies ahead.

As always, keep RAWRING!

RAWRCATZ vs Central Michigan

Bobcats are beautiful, noble creatures. They are one of the few big cats unique to North America, where they control a vast domain that stretches from Central Mexico to the upper reaches of British Columbia. And right in the middle of this, for a small stretch in the Appalachian foothills north of the Ohio River, these magnificent creatures hold court in Ohio.

Tonight, for the second time in 4 seasons, our Bobcats will play for the MAC title. This is truly one of the great turnarounds in college football history... I do not have to tell anyone who followed this team through the Brian Knorr era what a massive change Solich has brought to us. In some sense, this game is meaningless. If we lose, we go to our second bowl game in the past 40 years. Butch Jones will leave Central Michigan for some middling BCS school and we'll still be poised to contend in the MAC for years.

But, we cannot allow that feeling to prevail. Our RAWRCATZ have not tasted conference title glory in 41 years. Well before I, and I suspect most of you reading this, were born. Winning tonight would be an important step forward, not just for the team but for the program. I'm tired of going to Peden and seeing people clad in their Scarlet and Gray. There is no reason that we can't do what Cincinnati has done and throw off the shackles of being considered a second class program in our own fanbase. Solich is the man to bring us there, and a win tonight would greatly accelerate the process.

I'm not going to talk about "facts" or "stats" or "injuries". The truth is, they don't mean much. We come into tonight's game 13 point underdogs with two of our best players supposedly "questionable". We face off with a team with a dark horse Heisman candidate at quarterback and a coach who's currently the second hottest in the country, only slightly behind the man he succeeded at Central. None of that matters. We will win for the same reason we've won 9 of our games this season: We want it more. We need it. And we are not leaving Detroit empty handed.

Sorry, Central but you can get fucked.

Score prediction:

RAWRCATZ - 35
CHIPS - 27

Husky Hate Week

This week the RAWRCATZ! play the loathsome Huskies of Northern Illinois University. Which is in DeKalb, Illinois. If you are not familiar with DeKalb it looks something like this:


Down on the bottom right you can see the campus of Northern Illinois University. Sadly the original campus was deserted after the nearby Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 contaminated much of the area with high levels of toxic radiation. DeKalb has never recovered, although it is reported that stalks of corn the size of sequoias grow near the teams former football practice facility. These stalks of corn could end the world hunger crisis and spur on a golden age of agricultural renaissance. Unfortunately, nuclear corn tastes like crap.

Since the disaster has rendered the city unsafe for human habitation the university was forced to close its ancestral doors and relocate. Instead of setting up at a new, more expansive and desirous location, they decided to become a nomadic campus. Much like a virus they'll latch onto a city or town, using up all of their natural resources and consuming all of the tastiness at the local KFC, until the city dies a horrible death. Here is a picture of the last town that they "relocated" to.


That used to be a charming outdoor garden. Not anymore. Rumor has it that these Huskies have set their eyes on fair Athens. THIS SHALL NOT COME TO PASS! The RAWRCATZ! are well aware of their nefarious schemes, and will use every tactical and schematic advantage in an effort to expel the visitors from our city streets paved with gold. Athens, by the name of Solich, shall not, must not fall.

So remember fair citizens of Athens and RAWRCATZ! alike. This weekend when you see a husky in your midst, he is not there as a friend. He and/or she is there on a recon mission. They are looking for what stores to swallow up, where they can get the newest Jonas Brother's bootlegs and most importantly who's homes they want to steal.

Stand tall RAWRCATZ! Stand tall.