Your Terrapin Football Forecast

2 September
Opponent: Billybob and MaryKaySueEllenGirl (The Virginia State Technical Institute of Roadkill Science Edjoocayshun)
Opponent Nickname(s): Possums; Swishy Historical Interpretation Travesties; Ivy Rejects

Hurricane Ernesto inexplicably re-energizes over the Blue Ridge, then stalls over Manassas, dumping 427 inches of rain over the area from North Carolina to New Jersey. Terps leverage advantage of having flippers into a narrow victory over guys who were waiting tables and playing the fucking lute at Christiana Campbell's Tavern two nights ago. Confused Murlyn student body chants "State School" at opposing team, then changes chant to "Duke Sucks" when Possum punter caves in Testudo's giant mangy head. Landru and Ilse either get very, very wet, having chosen this game to attend as a romantic Saturday evening away from the Satanic Peckerwoods, or stay home in unbearably humid dark, after babysitter calls in drowned.

Terps' Record: 1-0.

Fun Facts: It's true that Ilse flunked out of William and Mary, but at least she took twice as long as Landru took to flunk out of a different (and non-Division 1A) haven for Ivy rejects.

9 September
Opponent: Middle Tennessee
Opponent Nickname(s): Not Those Raiders; Tennessee's Blue Man Group; Those Guys

Since the game is not televised and no one feels like risking an injury, University of Maryland "scientists" contrive a fake-moon-landing-style scenario, concocting a completely credible holographic facsimile of a football game on Chevy Chase National Lampoon Field at Curley Byrd Stadium at the Miller Genuine Draft Campus of the Sprint University of Maryland. Johnny the Zombie Holiday cooperates, broadcasting a complete phony game on the Terrapin Radio Network, assisted by henchmen Tim Strachan and Whatever Drunk Doofus They Hired To Talk To Johnny This year. The 25,000 drunks and hardcores who show up for the sponsored tailgate party are completely fooled, along with the fourteen people (including Landru and Ilse) listening on the radio. MTSU banks its cool half-mill show-up payment and saves on its travel budget as well.

Terps' Record: 2-0

Fun Facts: Next week, while the Terps butt heads with the 'Billies up on Puke Hill in 'Billytown, MTSU will be playing Tennessee Tech on "Faith and Family Day" at Grover Norquist Park in Murfreesboro. Okay, fine, I made up the part about Grover Norquist. But the rest is true.


14 September
Opponent: at West ByGod Virginia (Morgantown, West ByGod Virginia) (ESPN)
Opponent Nickname(s): Hillbillies; 'Billies; 'Eers; We Dare You To Come Down Here And Say That; Was You Married Your Sister, Not Me, You Dumb Hick; Sure, It Looks Nice When It Burns, But It Was Your Couch, Dumbass; You Go To Hell and You Die; We'd Beat Yew Up But Your Mother/Sister/Aunt Already Done

The Dumb Fucking Hicks, who bill themselves as the 2005 Big East Champions, as if that's overmuch of a college football accomplishment any more, and led by Roboman QB Patrick White, plaster our silly turtle asses all over the beer-and-vomit-covered hill atop which sits the goddam Temple of Hell that these reprehensible mud farmers use as a football stadium. Thousands of couches burn. East Coast beer distributorships experience temporary pipeline dryups. Millions across this great continent laugh as My Beloved Terrapins choke on other peoples' vomit on national fucking primetime television. Landru and Ilse stay up well past bedtime to wallow in every humiliating moment, regretting this decision profoundly when younger son Bam-Bam wakes up screaming at 3:30 AM and refuses to go back to bed, ever.

Terps' Record: 2-1, although in truth, this one should count triple.

Fun Facts: Who the fuck are you kidding? There's absolutely nothing fun here. Remember that whole "I'm not about the hatin', except for Dook and the Cowboys" thing? I lied. I lied like a rug, a really dirty, scummy, out-in-the-rain rug. A rug that lies. A lot. When it comes to college football, there is nothing I hate more than the West ByGod Virginia University and its gorram hillbilly football team. Remember this when we're discussing the Florida State Penitentiary a few graphs down, because as much as I'm gonna hate them? I hate WVU more.


23 September
Opponent: Florida International University
Opponent Nickname(s): Why bother?

Another completely faked game, because there's no such thing as the Florida International University, and it damn sure doesn't have a football team.

Terps' Record: 3-1

Fun Fact: FIU's Web site doesn't work, except for a front page that suggests that its student body might wish to stop robbing and pillaging each other in time to let Hurricane Ernesto pass on through.

Bonus Fun Lie: MTSU, Florida International, and Maryland are competing this year for the coveted Air-Filled Cup. The team with the best record in competition among the three schools will win a styrofoam cup. The air within the cup will be pumped into the heads of the winning school's cheerleaders, making them dramatically smarter.


7 October
Opponent: at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, Georgia)
Opponent Nickname(s): Tech; Hello Kitties; Cursed Annoyances

Eighth-year senior Reggie Ball throws for 600 yards and 12 touchdowns as the battle-hardened Wreck, fresh off its total destruction of Notre Dame and VTech, dresses grown Terrapins in pinafores, mary janes, and studded collars and leads them by the leash on a promenade around Historic Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field. Landru and Ilse, free of children for the first time in three weeks, ignore the game completely.

Terps' Record: 3-2

Fun Fact: Tech was admitted to the ACC as a football school, making it doubly delicious for Bobby Cremins when his Tech basketball teams started mopping the floor with our asses.


14 October
Opponent: at Virginia (Charlottesville, Virginia, aka Hooville)
Opponent Nickname(s): Hoos, Trite Jeffersonian Frog-Loving Hypocrites

Hoos demonstrate conclusively that Maryland is not, in fact, the second-worst football team in the conference, showing off their lack of a quarterback, their dearth of receivers, and their pansy-ass defense, avenging last year's humiliating Homecoming Day loss in College Park by giving up even more yardage and more points in their own damn stadium against their second-biggest football rival. Landru and Ilse call Ilse's parents (huge Hoos fans) and gloat. At length.

Terps' Record: 4-2

Fun Fact: Thomas Jefferson not only loved to plant babies in the women slaves, he also had a penchant for being buggered by his male slaves. At length.

Bonus Fun Fact: Charlottesville is a fucking dump.

Bonus Fun Fact Redux: Last year, I sprung for tix to the Homecoming game against the Hoos. We invited Ilse's parents, knowing full well that the one game during the entire season that the Terps would manage not to fuck up was Homecoming. The in-laws were very gracious about getting housed. We will not be accepting their invitation to Charlottesville for the weekend of October 14.

Additional Bonus Fun Fact Redux: Oh yeah. I lied about hatin' on this one, too. Sorry, m'bad.


21 October
Opponent: North Carolina State
Opponent Nickname(s): State; Pack; Shut the Fuck Up Julius, You Punkass Bitch Thug (Basketball Only)

Late-season category 5 Hurricane Zelda centers over Fairfax and pounds metro DC with torrential, biblical rains and tornado force winds, as State embarrasses the pee out of the Terps on Chevy Chase National Lampoon Field at Curley Byrd Stadium at the Miller Genuine Draft Campus of the Sprint University of Maryland, avenging those four years when that bitch Phil Rivers was State's quarterback and didn't beat us, ever, not even once. Landru and Ilse, accompanied by dear friends William Wallace and his wife, the alluring Ellen the Hon, weep in their 50-yard line seats, then go back to William and Ellen's house and get completely wrecked.

Terps' Record: 4-3

Fun Fact: Phil Rivers and State caused my first heart attack. This is actually true.


28 October
Opponent: The Florida State Penitentiary at Tallahassee
Opponent Nickname(s): Semenholes; Felonholes; DIE! JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY!

Terps suffer second consecutive loss at Chevy Chase National Lampoon Field at Curley Byrd Stadium at the Miller Genuine Draft Campus of the Sprint University of Maryland, but make things interesting by staying within four points until the 7:00 mark of the fourth quarter before giving up four consecutive touchdowns and 63 Class I felonies. Landru and Ilse are smart enough to listen to this one on the radio, but Landru infarcts anyway. Student body burns down goalposts, most of downtown College Park, just because Terps were only down by 2 at the half.

Terps' Record: 4-4

Fun Fact: Every single former FSU football player has been convicted of a felony.

Bonus Fun Lie: Bobby Bowden is actually Marty Schottenheimer and Dick Cheney bundled up together into the same outfit.


4 November
Opponent: at Klimpsun (Klimpsun, Sout' Cayrlahnah)
Opponent Nickname(s): Klimpsun; Hasn't That Fucker Used Up His Eligibility Yet?; Fuck You

Terps pull gigantic upset in Death Valley (all Klimpsun sports venues are, for some reason, called Death Valley), avenging last year's humiliation by zebras on the not-yet Chevy Chase National Lampoon Field at Curley Byrd Stadium at the Miller Genuine Draft Campus of the Sprint University of Maryland. Landru and Ilse pout and listen on the radio, because by now not even the incredibly shitty Jefferson-Pilot regional sports network will show games involving the Terps. Ralph Friedgen savors his last win as Terps coach. Ever.

Terps' Record: 5-4

Fun Fact: Klimpsun has the fastest-growing felony rate in the ACC, because FSU is maxed out and there are no other schools in the conference coached by Bowdens.


11 November
Opponent: The U
Opponent Nickname(s): The U; Who the Fuck Let These Cocksuckers Into Our League?; Sebastian the Poofter

Miami pounds the exhausted Terps into the very turf of Chevy Chase National Lampoon Field at Curley Byrd Stadium at the Miller Genuine Draft Campus of the Sprint University of Maryland, then fucks our women and steals our insurance money. Landru and Ilse pack for their upcoming honeymoon.

Terps' Record: 5-5

Fun Fact: The U was admitted to the conference because ACC Commissioner John Swofford is a megalomaniacal fuckwit with delusions of humanity.

Bonus Fun Fact: I will see John Fucking Swofford in Hell, and he will not enjoy the experience. I mean, like, even more than he's already not enjoying HELL.


18 November
Opponent: at Boston College (Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts)
Opponent Nickname(s): Jesuit Motherfuckers; Preppy Bitches; Yankee Fucktards; Who the Fuck Let These Yankee Preppy Bitch Fucktards Into Our League?

BC brooms the Terps out of bowl contention, smacking them around Boston like a fishwife beating on her drunk husband with a dead cod. Landru and Ilse fly to the Bahamas and don't worry about the score for a whole fucking week.

Fun Fact: BC is very nearly as obnoxious as the other East Coast Jesuit shitheel school, Georgetown.

Bonus Fun Fact: But not quite.

Bonus Fun Fact Redux: I really mean it about Swofford. In HELL, bitch.


25 November
Opponent: Wake
Opponent Nickname(s): Brawlin' Baptists; Demon Dickweeds; You Lost To WHO?

Wake gets the Fridge fired by grinding the Terps into the by-now ruined turf of Chevy Chase National Lampoon Field at Curley Byrd Stadium at the Miller Genuine Draft Campus of the Sprint University of Maryland, causing gratuitous goalpost and frathouse fires all over Prince Georges County. Landru and Ilse fly home from their honeymoon.

Terps' Record: 5-7

Fun Fact: Wake Forest got thrown out of the town of Wake Forest and moved to Winston-Salem in the middle of the 20th Century.

Bonus Fun Fact: Wake Forest was the venue for the famous Winston-Salem Witch Trials and Tobacco-Curing Jamboree.

Bonus Fun Fact Redux: Nobody loses to Wake Forest, ever. Except Dook.

Puff Pastry Teams Maryland Doesn't Get To Play This Season: Dook, North Carolina, VTech in a down year

ACC Commissioners I'm Going To See In Hell And I'm Really Not Going To Behave Very Nicely: John Fucking Swofford