Did I just reference Bill Crystal's 1999 stand-up special Midnight Train to Moscow? You're God damn right I did.
With the first day of preseason practice behind us, it's a good reminder that we have stepped through the looking glass into Doug Marrone's world. No longer are Greg Robinson's lackadaisical ways the norm. In this world, we measure our players' off-season growth through a series of tests and record-keeping, have traditions befitting the 14th all-time winningest program in NCAA history and want our players to represent the University and the program to the best of their ability.
It's weird, I know. We've got all August to get used to it. We can start small though...as in with the recently-updated player profile photos. I noticed it the other day and just forgot to mention but thankfully ryanwk628 is on the job. Jackets and ties, folks. This is how we roll now.
So much to appreciate here, from Paulus' gee-whilikers grin to Cam Dantley's "You Benched Me For Who???" look of disgust to Ryan Nassib's 80's Wall Street investment banker look to Daniel Bailey's "That's Right, I'm Danile F***ing Bailey" grin to Dan Vaughan's Dan Vaughanishness to Shane Raupers "The Adventures of Young Jon Gosselin" look to Ollie Haney's ability to look exactly how you'd expect an "Ollie" to look to Mikhail Marinovich's "I could buy and sell you five times over" sneer to Zach Chibane's Chibanesque features to Van Chew's Most Likely To Be Mistaken For A Nine-Year-Old look to Jared Kimmel's I Will Smile When I'm Good And Ready vibe to Brandon Sharpe's Most Likely To Beat You In A Staring Contest look to Mike Williams' "Go On, Mother-F***er, Doubt Me" snicker. There's a lot going on.
(Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that Chandler Jones, the lone player not wearing a suit, slept in that day and will therefore be running laps until his legs are worn down into tiny nubs.)
Of course at the end of the day, we need to give special shout-outs to those who really stood out. I'm not talking about the ones who smiled, or didn't smile. Not the ones who wore and orange tie. No...if you want to stand out from the pack...you need to cooooordinate. And some serious khadooz go out to these gents:
Averin Collier. Cream jacket, salmon shirt, dark blue tie. P.I.M.P.
Earl Carter Jr. Silver suit, white shirt and the tie I wore to my Bar Mitzvah when I was 13. Retro.
Andrew Tiller. Brown suit with gold(?) pinstripes. Gold/brown shirt. 100% awesome.
