CFBA Awards: The Tyrone Prothro

(late late late! Sorry!)

The Tyrone Prothro

FOR: The finest individual post of the college football year.

RUNNER-UP: Not one but four posts from Blue-Gray Sky on how the wheels came off against Ohio State in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl. As a whole, "Four Plays." As constituent atoms: the Bomb, the Reverse, the Play Action, and the Conclusion. Each dissects one of the Buckeyes' field-spanning touchdowns in exquisitely horrible detail for Irish fans, taking them moment-by-moment with a series of screencaps, explaining in the utmost detail just where it all went so very wrong. It works as both a coping mechanism for Notre Dame fans and a schadenfreude popsicle for, well, me, but most importantly it's the single most detailed and impressive bit of analysis produced by the blogosphere this year, and I say that as a man who reviews every play of Michigan's season not against teams named Ball State.

WINNAH: Orson Swindle award bukkake... III! It's got an unwieldy name but it's also well worth it: YOUR SCHOOL’S PROMOTIONAL AD IS TEH SUX0RZ! GRAND CRU: APPALACHIAN IS HOT HOT HOT! The only blog post of the year to inspire a spot on VH1's Webjunk 2.0 (probably), Orson's deconstruction of "Appalachian is HOT HOT HOT" permanently terminated EDSBS's semi-ongoing series on university commercials because what would the point be, really?

The post itself is a meander through the two minutes and seventeen seconds of pure horror that is "Appalachian" and sorely tests even Orson's ability to describe something as complete crap. There is a simple WARNING LABEL:

this video is the opposite of sex, and may induce erectile dysfunction for life.

There are (probable) references to Rosie O'Donnell:

The original intended effect was, we imagine, supposed to be an energetic, homespun feel simultaneously highlighting the “high” side of ASU’s countryfied image while showing off some of the less well-known “HOT” angles of life in the Harvard of Western Carolina. (ASU, for the uninitiated, has a reputation as a school where many students display keen interest in recreational agronomy. By this, we mean they like to smoke well-cultivated, brain-crashing marijuana in their free time.) At least that’s what they started from before this ad burst from its fetid, ill-begotten womb and clawed its deformed, hairy, many-legged self into existence.

(I mean... right?)There's... uh... this:

The song—oh God, our ass is starting to hurt just thinking about it–oh, the song. The song is a pounding, rolling shitstorm of horrors, from the opening horn flair to the halfassed guitar solo played by the guy in your dorm who was forever working on the opening riff of Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy.” The guitar solo in particular roils our guts, since it sounds like something straight off the soundtrack of Saved By the Bell; you may as well have Screech in the commercial jamming to the song on an unplugged guitar, faking the solo badly while wearing a pair of ray-bans and a white sport coat.

There are references to central African countries:

The graphics…well, there’s all the sparkle and pizazz you expect from a professional production. In Chad. In 1995. The spinning, flipping images are trumped on every chorus by the flaming letters HOT HOT HOT! The words appear at least four times in the video, which if you strapped us into a chair, pried our eyelids open, and played Beethoven non-stop for hours on end still wouldn’t make us associate those words with anything remotely Appalachian State-ish.

Finally, Orson just collapses in the deranged wonder of it all:

None. A disaster and a blessing. A kiss and a slap. A beautiful woman and the herpes she gives you.

Just like this post, which simultaneously gave us "HOT HOT HOT" and something with which to grapple its beastly wonder. Truly an accomplishment.