Here's the deal:

Me + Beer + a Madden version of this week's match-up = As accurate a score as AccuScore could score

We all know the story lines, the ‘facts’, outside looking in we’ve got real barn-burner, a hum-dinger, a down right pickle-slicer on our hands. This game is going to be cutting onions after a funeral: No one knows why you are crying but, gosh darn it, it isn’t because House is no longer on the air.

Since we don’t why, I am going to step into the beyond and hope to come back with a better understanding of the word and perhaps a bit of insight on the upcoming game.*

*Note: Joe Person probably knows more about this coming game from his in depth knowledge of the Panther’s dining habits than I do from playing Madden.**

**Note on the Note: No, you know, he probably doesn’t.

On to the game, after the jump...

Football is, by its very nature, a sport of strategery. I understand this enough to know that I can’t walk cold Hokie into a game against another Madden NFL team. That would be tossing a coin into a wishing well at your local shopping mall. In a word, common, and we can’t have that.

My plan for the game was instituted in a set of rules my roommate forced me to adhere to during the game.

Rule 1: 4th down is a passing down.

Rule 2: Every defensive play requires at least 6 men rushing the passer in case of shenanigans. My overall rule #1 is no shenanigans allowed.

Rule 3: The combination of Cam and Tolbert is a new bike on Christmas Day: You do not want to break your new bike on Christmas Day. I must limit both of their attempts at both rushing and receiving the football.

Rule 4: No play-action passes. We can’t risk jumping off our bikes into a nearby pile of leaves if that bike then stands a chance of running into traffic. If we can’t convince Mom and Dad that we are responsible enough to handle an investment like this bike, how are we going to convince them that we are worthy of a puppy?

Rule 5: We run a variable offensive scheme, therefore I could not run consecutive plays out of the same formation.

Rule 6: In a division rivalry game every possession and every point matters, therefore 2 pt conversions are required.

Rule 7a: Ignore how much I hate that the roster is not up to date.

Rule 7b: Never kick a field goal. I cannot in good conscience put Mare on the field more than is absolutely necessary. Mare.

I didn’t run Cam till late in the game, I only gave Tolbert two touches in the game. I treated them like that new bike, the first one you ever got with gears and hand brakes. You don’t run it down the neighborhood hill and into your parent’s friend’s garage immediately, that’s for later in the season. Today is for testing it out. Stopping and starting every ten feet. It wasn’t until the end of the game, with pride on the line that I realized that this team isn’t a shiny new bike at all, it is a truck. So I drove through their wall on 4th down like Cam Newton running past a linebacker. And it was good.

I followed my rules, my plan. I strategerized the heck out of this game. Here are the results, a certifiably accurate prediction of Sunday’s festivities:

Score: 30 – 13

Total Yards: 341 – 160

Rushing Yards: 241 – 26

Passing Yards: Do math you lazy bastards.

3rd Down Conv.: 6/10 – 1/7

4th Down Conv.: 0/3 – 0/1

This is what is going to happen. When a bike tries to merge on the interstate everybody tries to get out of the way so as to avoid crashing their own car because they are laughing so hard at such a ridiculous thing as a bike being ridden down a highway. When a truck merges onto the interstate everybody gets out of the way because OMG ITZ A TRUCK. This season we are that truck.

We are watching Kill Bill. Somebody is trying to walk into our hospital room, saying their name is Buck and they like to F@ck. But we are going to wiggle our big toe all up in their stadium. Right?