This series will run on MONDAYS this year. Again, consult the initial post if you'd like to help us out with this.

ONE:

Dear Daulerio.

I'm a Senior at the University of Arizona, which prohibits me from participating in failgate 09 for one reason; this story includes events from various games because we lost them all anyway and who the fuck can remember the difference when you're watching the U of A play football (our greatest achievement of the decade is the Vegas Bowl). Three quarters of the "zona zoo" leaves at half time ‘cus they start to sober up and realize what horseshit they're watching. Whatever, all this shit actually happened at a game we'll just call the Mike Stoops era.

Because we were playing ASU we decided to start drinking at 10 in the morning ‘cus we were freshman idiots and it was a good idea (after all, the fucking territorial cup was on the line). By the time the game rolls around our friend from ASU is drunk enough to not be making any sense yet pansy enough to wear a U of A shirt to the game. Halfway through the first quarter he starts pissing in a cup and fills it to the brim right in the middle of the "zoo". No one seems to notice and or give a shit. Five minutes later, the cup is inevitably spilled onto the row ahead of us. We apologize to the people it may have gotten on, who had luckily replaced the ones who were sitting there earlier and definitely got dip spit on. We wipe it up with pansy's ASU shirt, which gives him some sort of regenerative power. Puss-devil takes the piss soaked ASU shirt, tries to start a "Fuck the Devils" chant, and throws the shirt about ten rows ahead. The Zoo is fucking inspired by this. The guy who catches the shirt proceeds to tear the shirt in two, and toss both pieces in different directions starting an unstoppable piss-shirt-rippin'-rally. By the time all's said and done, the shirt is in about ten pieces all across the zoo, and the crowd is going nuts.

I go to take a piss and coming out of the bathroom, who do I see? David fucking Hasselhoff. He's walking towards me escorted by two security guards, but he's at least as trashed as I am, so I throw a hand in his direction and ask the Hoff for some love. Naturally, he obliges with a raucous "GO CATS" and a hardy high-five. I didn't J.O. with that hand for a week.

Wilbur (our mascot) then decides it's a good idea to crowd-surf up the zoo. When he gets to our section one friend starts tearing at his hat (which is attached to the costume) screaming, "gimme the sombrero you little fuck or I'm gonna rape Wilma", while another attempts to cornhole our beloved mascot. Come to think of it I'm pretty sure it was the same guy.

At this point, we're playing the UNM Lobos, a team that is theoretically a lot shittier. They're handing it to us with their second string QB. A bunch of our friends are from New Mexico, and we're tired of watching the Wildcats lose to terrible teams, so we join in on their "everyones a lobo, woof, woof, woof" chant. Everyone around is just generally confused as to why a bunch of people in Wildcat gear are doing this. Having seen enough, we walk out yelling, "leaving the game early, look at these guys", adding to people's general confusion as to just what the fuck we were doing there anyway. Just as I start wondering this myself, I see two girls dual-yacking in one trash can at the same time. Coincidentally, this dually justifies both my attendance of the game and decision to go to the U of A. And oh yeah, puss-devil now goes to U of A, and looks like this. (Up above)

TWO:

Hey Daulerio, I have a FAILgate story I'd like to share. Speaking of underage drinking (i.e. the Boy Scout story), when I was 15 (maybe 16), I dated this 18 year old loser and he decided to take me, my best friend & his buddy to a game at Three Rivers Stadium. The best part of said loser was that he could buy alcohol, so he bought the girls wine coolers and the guys beer. My friend and I drank the sh** out of those Bartles n Jaymes drinks, while shelling and eating peanuts. Since we were so young (!), our tolerance was non-existent, so we were wasted when we got to the game. I was sitting in my seat and I felt sick, so I urgently told my friend, "I have to go to the bathroom, come with me", to which her drunk a** responded, "in a minute!" Okay, fine. I then proceeded to barf all over the guy in front of me (on his jacket). I mean, he was COVERED in pink vomit mixed with chunks of peanuts. My bimbo friend was all "Uh, okay, let's go to the bathroom now" (gee thanks!), so we left to clean up. The kicker about all of this was that the dude that I puked on never turned around to notice I had ralphed on him. The people behind us were laughing so hard, but he never knew what was going on. Needless to say, we beat a hasty exit to the door and left before he realized he had someone else's puke on his jacket. To this day, I cannot stand the smell or sight of wine coolers; get me within 5 feet of those evil things and I start having flashbacks of this awful day.

Three:

A series of events contributed to this particular FAILgate, events in which the principals go unpunished, except for a relatively innocent bystander.

The morning after Halloween in East Lansing was a perfect day for the UM-MSU tailgate, and my crew embarked upon it in costumed grandeur. Having little ambition due to being drunk the night before, my costume consited of a hockey mask. My hearty companions dressed up as Uncle Sam, a sperm, and a penis.

Our journey to the tailgating area inexplicably was without interference from law enforcement. As large crowds, including several police officers, passed in front of our prime partying spot on Grand River Ave, I proceeded to chug several beers through my hockey mask. This was much to the amusement of passing crowds, especially when I proceded to barf with my hockey mask still in place, creating an odd "sieving" effect. Despite gross distrubance of the peace, the police seemed preoccupied with crowd control.

We soon starting walking toward the tailgate, at one point passing a homeless fellow who happened to have a perfectly functional, albeit soiled, paper towel. Having puke all over my person, I made a fairly large deal out of purchasing this paper towel for $3, which got a cheer from the younger members of the crowd (older members who I assume were alumni, were not as amused).

Which brings us to the penis and sperm. In the meantime, sperm (dressed in all white with white extension cord hanging out of the ass to signify "motility") had to take a piss, right on the MSU student union. The penis, sensing a prime burn opportunity, speared the peeing sperm into the building and bushes, getting much attention and cheering from the crowd. The sperm, having richocheted off the brick facade, was bloodied in several places. This led to many people to believe that sperm was actually dressed as a used tampon the rest of the day. However, this assault still did not get the attention of police, still preoccupied with crowd control.

The "piss spearing" had a profound effect on Uncle Sam, and he refused to piss the rest of the walk. Having recently been busted for minor in possession of alcohol, he wished to maintain a low profile and avoid law enforcement as much as possible.

When we finally got to the tailgate, much attention was given to our entrance thanks to being accompanied by a 5 and a half foot bloody playtex plug. Uncle Sam seized the opportunity and ran into the woods to relieve himself. However, he somehow pissed no less than 20 feet from a sheriff's deputy, causing him to be detained for urination in public. Due to his recent legal troubles, he was detained at the county lockup.

Having no sober friends or relatives within 100 miles, Uncle Sam had to wait until the next day to be picked up from jail, still in full costume. Coincidentially, me and the penis scored student section tickets for $20, and penis pissed in the middle of the student section in the 2nd quarter.

FOUR:

Yes, I suppose I have now been outed as a FAILgater myself. As I long ago lost whatever dignity I may have had, much of it on this very website, I suppose there's no harm in sharing the story with the world.

Kansas (of course) was playing at Missouri for the final game of the 2004 season. Both teams were suffering through sub-.500 seasons as was their wont at the time. A bunch of my college friends and I decided to meet up in Columbia - some friends now lived in St. Louis, others in Kansas City, and Columbia was a good midpoint -for the game to see our Jayhawks. We parked outside the stadium on some sort of frontage road...Columbia's tailgate setup isn't exactly charming, but it gets the job done. One of our friends brought along a big bottle of Crown Royal, of which I drank the majority. There may have been other booze involved, but all I can really remember is Hallas' bigass bottle of Crown. Or hell, maybe it was something else. In any case, it got me drunk.

When I was younger (i.e., five years ago), I had an annoying habit of wandering when drunk. This game was no exception. I left our seats near the endzone and spent a good majority of the game wandering around the stadium, making slurred small talk with anyone who could put up with me. In my drunken travels, I stumbled upon the section reserved for friends and family of KU's players. As there were some open spots, I invited myself in, sat down, and started talking with a very nice middle-aged woman who were kind enough to not punch me in the face. As it turns out, it was the mother of KU (and former Minnesota Vikings) cornerback Charles Gordon. We chatted about her son, California (where she lived) and any number of other pointless topics. We discussed meeting up after the game for drinks and celebrating the Kansas season, and somehow I ended up with the cellphone number of KU's star player written on the back of my ticket stub.

I was pretty pleased with myself so I continued my wandering, thrilled that Kansas was running away with the game and that I had made a new friend. Beaming with pride, I started back towards my actual section, and promptly lost my balance, fell down about 10 rows of stadium stairs in full view of thousands of Missouri fans, and knocked out a tooth. Bruised, bloody, but drunk enough that embarrassment didn't even enter the picture, I managed to make it back to my friends. That's the last thing I remember until I woke up in my bed the next morning. Charles Gordon's mom was nowhere to be found.— Pete Gaines

Attention tailgaters. It's a long season so please help us with this project and send along any and all shady stories, ridiculous videos, and photos from your tailgating experiences from this season. Or last season. Or 1952. Just make it funny/sad/gross/shocking. Email to tips@deadspin.com. Subject: FAILgate

This unknown child wins the universal costume contest from now to the end of time. Unless he continues to be the spitting image of the Kansas head football coach even after he reaches full maturity, in which case his therapy bill will be the only thing that's out of this world.

8. UVa at UConn (-12.5)- Remember how Al Groh was supposed to revitalize Cavs football? Yeah, those dreams have long since passed. Now dontfirealgroh.com gets more and more frustrating each week. Already Cavs fans are rooting for the good ole days when their players were being arrested at gay bars to return. But has it really gotten to the point where a UConn team that scored 12 points on Temple, Temple!, opens as a favorite by more than 12 over Virginia? Yep, that time has come. UVa beat UConn last year 17-16. But you have to take UVa with that spread, right?

7. Oregon (-8) at Purdue- This game will take 5 hours to play and end with a score of something like 56-49. The new college football rules designed to shorten the game have no prayer of helping here. Joe Tiller is the most reliably average of all Big Ten coaches. He's good for 7 or 8 wins a year (10 bowl games in 11 seasons) and will inevitably have at least a single game in September that makes you think Purdue might be a factor. Then, they aren't. Unless it's sleeting and his mustache freezes. Then, you have to watch.

Oregon is probably USC's most legit challenger in the Pac-10 and no one has mentioned them all season. Why? Because as much as the Pac-10 complains about a lack of media attention on the East Coast, the only Pac-10 teams that get any West Coast media attention are in major markets in California.

The most interesting thing about this game? Both teams had a bye coming in. Why? (Note, evidently this is not true. Both teams actually played games; Purdue-Northern Colorado and Oregon-Utah State. Even still, I stand by my bye week statement.) The second most interesting thing about this game, Oregon is traveling to Indiana for a football game. Again, why? This is one of those cross-regional games that makes no sense. Does Purdue bring in northwest recruits? No. Does Oregon hit up Indiana for players? No. Have Purdue and Oregon fans been clamoring for this match-up? No. So, why play? Just so the Pac-10 and the Big 10 can play another game on the same day as USC-Ohio State that no one on earth will remember? Brilliant.

But look at all the pretty touchdowns.

6. Auburn (-10.5) at Miss. State- Last year Miss. State and Sylvestor Croom found a way to beat Auburn at Auburn. Now, Auburn has a new quarterback, a new offensive coordinator, a new defensive coordinator, has looked mediocre in two wins thus far and they are favored by two scores in a road game. This makes zero sense to me. Granted State has looked horrible, but even when State wins they look horrible. How could you not take MSU here? I'll tell you, if Croom makes the mistake of scheduling the team fieldtrip to the only escalator in Starkville on the Friday before this game. Last year three starters were injured trying to walk the "magic stairs."

5. Oklahoma (-20) at Washington- Can you imagine what will happen if the officials, feeling sorry for Washington's excessive celebration penalty last week, blow another call on the west coast in favor of a Pac-10 school against Oklahoma. I'm rooting for this to happen just to see Bob Stoops storm the field and choke the head ref to death with his headset cord. Otherwise the Ty Willingham death march is likely to continue.

4. Michigan (-2) at Notre Dame- The fact that Michigan is favored in this game speaks volumes about Jimmy Clausen's hair. Because if you've watched Michigan's offense thus far they look like Australian aboriginees being instructed in how to build websites without first learning to read. Yet, amazingly, the over/under on this game is 37. How? The score of this game is going to be 13-10 Michigan and after it's over, Charlie Weis's amazingly invisible crotch is going to be soiled. But not for long. Immediately after he soils himself, Notre Dame fans will arrive to lick up his mess. All the while exclaiming, "Oh, yeah, Ty Willingham's the one who really blows. This isn't a blow job, this is just a European crotch cleaning."

3. Kansas at South Florida (-3.5)- This game is actually being played on Friday which means 99% of college football fans are going to think, man that sounds like a good game. Only the game will already have been played before we realize it's going on. Which is a shame because Kansas's Mark Mangino and USF's Jim Leavitt are the two angriest coaches on the sideline not named Mike Gundy. Kansas hasn't lost since John Brown's Raid but South Florida is favored at home. Anyone who tells you they have any idea what's going to happen in this game is a fool. USF is the moderately attractive girl of college football. Except she's bipolar. One party she's ski-polling two guys while sitting on the drier, the next weekend she's worn a navy pantsuit to the party and is crying into her Cranberry Diet Mike's Hard Lemonade. I'm sure this is tough to take for USF fans.

Hopefully for Mark Mangino's sake he'll avoid having his picture taken alongside oranges this time.

2. Georgia (-7.5) at South Carolina- Steve Spurrier is reverting to 1994 and plans on alternating between his two quarterbacks, Smelley and Beecher. Neither of them is any good and they're probably not going to be able to throw bubble screens to wide receiver Kenny McKinley, who has an injured hamstring. Meanwhile, Georgia comes into town incensed because Mark May didn't invite Knowshon Moreno onto the set and let him demonstrate his great leaping ability by tea-bagging Lou Holtz. Also, former Georgia defensive end David Pollack is now a member of the CBS announcing team. In what capacity, I'm not sure. There's a strong part of me that wants his only role to be high-skipping into the press box while barking with Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson walking calmly behind him.

This game may be the last chance Steve Spurrier has to prove he's still relevant. Otherwise he sinks to 1-7 in his last 8. It's also one of two early SEC East games (the other is Florida-UT) where every other SEC East fanbase needs to be rooting for the underdog to win so chaos rules in the SEC East.

1. Ohio State (-11.5) at USC- Too much has been said about this game already. And the most interesting question, hasn't even been answered. How much does USC have to beat Ohio State (sans Beanie) by to guarantee that Ohio State has no chance to play in the BCS title game? 30? 40? I'm interested in the number because I really have no idea.

We're rolling through the college football top 25. Today we get things started with a photoshopped Mark Mangino. Can things get any better for Kansans? The season countdown has entered single digits. We're just nine days away from the glory that is Vanderbilt @ Miami-Ohio. Today's Kansas preview is brought to us by Ryan Patton of the very solid Kansas blog linked here.

Don’t Fuck with the Mangenius

I know what you're thinking and the answer is a resounding, "yes!" Of course I would give anything to see the Big Man trade spots with John Turturro and don the Jesus' pedderass purple bowling suit. And no, I probably wouldn't ever recover. But it would totally be worth it. Unfortunately, I'll likely have to settle for black velour suits. What? That's not what you were thinking?

Expectations

Very well, instead we’ll talk about the Jayhawks and their very rare lofty preseason ranking. In fact it's so rare that it's only happened five times in the history of the AP poll. Yet still, many (even Mark May!) are saying that they are likely to be this year's disappointment. Yeah, the team has been ranked a grand total of five times in the preseason and you think they're going to disappoint?

Mangino Eats Expectations for Breakfast

And probably a few other high calorie treats as well, but that’s neither here nor there. Hell, the fact that anyone outside of the Big XII now knows Kansas has a football team is a shit ton of progress for us that witnessed the Terry Allen years ('97-'01). And no, you shouldn't feel bad for not knowing who Terry Allen is. In fact, you should feel blessed. When Mangino took over for said dipshit he brought along Bob Stoops to one of the first team workouts and Stoops informed him that he had at most three legitimate Division I athletes on his roster. So there's that. And sadly there are many more similar stories.

Yet in just his sixth season he managed to notch a BCS victory. Kansas now has exactly the same amount of BCS wins as: Nebraska, Florida State, Tennessee and Michigan. They have now exceeded the number of BCS wins by Frank Beamer and his football sized goiter. They also have more than that booger munching team from the east (Methzouri, for the lay person), who has never seen a BCS game (or Final Four). But I digress.

The truth of the matter is that until recently I was extremely worried about this season. For one thing, as the old adage goes, it’s tough to get to the top, but it’s a lot tougher to stay there. And frankly, I figured the team was likely to get a little complacent after last season’s success. And when you combine that with the loss of some seniors, some talent and a much more difficult schedule things could get ugly. Especially at a school that has never gone to bowls in back-to-back seasons in its storied history. Enter Mangino.

For a guy that obviously exercises zero discipline in regards to his physical appearance, he is a notorious bastard when it comes to his football team. To be sure, Kansas is quite a ways away from fielding a team with comparable talent to OU, Texas, even Nebraska, and probably over half of the teams in the SEC. In short, without a similar attention to detail (first in TO margin, 3rd in penalties, etc.) they probably won’t be nearly as successful. But with the rotund dictator at the helm I’m not expecting a huge drop-off.

Offense

As for the personnel, they won’t look like LSU when they walk off the bus. But that’s the beauty of college football. And the spread offense. As long as you can keep them guessing there is no reason that a quarterback who looks more like a frat guy than a football player can’t throw for 3500 yards, 33 touchdowns and only 7 interceptions. In the interest of keeping things succinct, if he does that again, you’re going to be hearing about Kansas a lot later in the season than you’re used to.

Offensively they have to replace their tackles (Collins and Rodriguez), their TE (Fine), a WR (Henry) and a RB (McAnderson). The latter two are very replaceable. I have my doubts for the others, but I’m under the impression that while the newbies may not be quite as good as their predecessors we shouldn’t expect a huge plummet either. They’re set at the skill positions and if the tackles come along as they’re supposed to, there is no reason this offense shouldn’t be every bit as good as the one we saw last year. The stats may not be same, but the offense should be.

Defense

On this side of the ball they return 20 of 22 from their two-deep. Unfortunately, the two they lost were All Americans in CB Aqib Talib (1st) and DT James McClinton (2nd). Their replacements fall into the worry category as both were perennial starters and we haven’t known a defense without them for quite some time. But when you bring back nearly every starter and all of their backups from a defense that finished 12th nationally you’re not too worried about that side of the ball.

Throw in the fact that their “best in the Big XII” linebacking unit is led by Crazy Joe Davola (or Mortensen) and I really start to get giddy about watching this defense. Mortensen and Mike Rivera are known to prepare for games by slapping the shit out of each other repeatedly. And Mortensen wants to kill you. Like, seriously. As soon as he’s done with football he wants to join the Marines. To kill people. This is exactly what I’m looking for in a linebacker. And that’s why I’m expecting big things from the Kansas defense.

Special Teams

As optimistic as it sounds, my biggest worry with this team is its place kicker. Despite being a four year starter Scott Webb was never exactly Adam Vinatieri, but aside from that one game at Arrowhead (blurg) last year he was pretty dependable. As of yesterday it was a three man race, though none of them were considered very capable. As of today, that race could be down to one as presumed incumbent Stephen Hoge has left the team to pursue medical school and the slightly more capable Jacob Branstetter was informed that he may be academically ineligible. Not to pile on the guy when he’s down, but how in the shit can someone not qualify to play athletics for a state school?! That leaves Butler County Community College transfer Grady Fowler as the lone ranger. The extent of what I know about him is this: he was an honorable mention All American kicking for the 2007 JUCO national champion and he made 53/55 PATs and 8/12 FGs. Does Kathy Ireland still have any eligibility? She owes us…

Predictions

Since I've already made a short story long, let's just say that the fact that Kansas is even being analyzed means there is no way for this season to disappoint, despite the schedule strength increasingly greatly.

Almost Sure Wins (6): FIU, Louisiana Tech, Sam Houston St., @ Iowa State, Colorado, KSU
Almost Sure Losses (1): @ Oklahoma
Almost Sure Toss-ups (5): @ South Florida, Texas Tech, @ Nebraska, Texas, Methzouri (@ Arrowhead)

It's pretty easy to write off last year's success as a product of the schedule. And I’ll be the first to admit that it wasn’t all that tough. But lest we forget that with the exact same schedule the prior year they went 6-6 and were not invited to a bowl game. So obviously the team got better. And there were only two real changes, the offensive coordinator and the quarterback. Would they have gone 12-1 with this year's schedule? Unlikely. Will they do it this year? Almost assuredly not. In fact, I've gone on record as predicting 10-3 + a bowl game. And since I'm never right, I'll all but guarantee you that doesn't happen either. But shit, I know you wouldn’t have believed me if I’d try to predict a 12-1 season last year. And though you might not believe this one either, the fact that you’re even entertaining the thought is enough progress to keep me fat and giggly for the time being. Anything beyond that is just gravy.

Do I even need to say it?

Ditto for 'Our Coach Beat Anorexia.' Kansas football players are so sensitive. They wouldn't last a day in the Iowa Athletic Department. Mark Mangino is svelte in their loving eyes.

"I guess everyone has a different sense of humor," said KU linebacker Mike Rivera..."Some things are funny to some people. But sometime you have to think about what other people feel."

Everyone knows making fun of fat people is one of the last things available to make fun of people for without being considered offensive. And now Kansas' football players want to take that joy away from us? Shame on you, Kansas football players, shame on you.

KU players stand by their coach [Kansas City Star]

Smith Center forced six turnovers in the first quarter as it racked up what is believed to be a record for points in a quarter by a high school team, the paper reported. The previous record was 66 by Prescott, Ariz., in 1925. The defending state champion has outscored its opponents 640-0 so far this season, including a 69-0 win over Plainville earlier this year.

Of course, this is also the area of the nation that recently gave us this story. Kansas! When did you get interesting?

Prep Football Team Tallies 72-Point Quarter [MSNBC]
45 Straight Wins: Something's Going Right At Smith Center [KSN.com]
Two Pair Not A Winning Hand In Kansas [Deadspin]

In the lawsuit he filed Monday, he claims it's unfair for the NCAA to grant an extra year of eligibility to pregnant female athletes, and not to male athletes who father children. Butler took a year off after the birth of his daughter in 2001, and he wants a pregnancy waiver. I think he should have it.

Of course, if the NCAA were to establish such a precedent, it wouldn't be long until some programs started abusing it. Would guys be able to keep getting extra years, the more kids they had? I can envision some SEC schools instructing their quarterback recruits to keep fathering children, and keep getting extra years of eligibility, until we're eventually seeing 33-year-old quarterbacks with 9 children.

And hey, those 9 children come with athletic genes and a built-in recruiting advantage. Everyone wins.

Butler's eligibility saga continues [LJWorld.com]