Dusting off an old friend

It's time for another rendition of "Skip Bayless Says!"

All quotations come from this article.

Skip Bayless Says: Seeing Joe Paterno open one coach-of-the-year present after another is better than watching "It's a Wonderful Life" meets "A Christmas Carol."
Skip Bayless Means: Because I have enough trouble following the plot of one movie, much less two at the same time. I like simple things, especially when they are shiney.

SB says: What a rebirth for a terribly criticized, occasionally irascible, but ultimately good man who turned 79 on Wednesday.
SB means: The main reason the criticism was so terrible was because I wrote most of it, but that is neither here nor there.

SB says: Oh, come all ye unfaithful.
SB means: And for no reason, I felt like breaking out into song.

SB says: Surely many of the media members who gave Paterno 45 of the 65 votes in the Associated Press poll feel like modern-day Scrooges. How many times over the last three or four years have they spat out cold, heartless "Joe must go" sentiments? Now, they've been visited by the high-topped ghosts of Penn State past. Now they've seen the light: The game has not passed JoePa by after all!
SB means: Do you think I've beaten the Dickensian references to death, yet?

SB says: God bless them, every one.
SB means: Eh, just to be sure.

SB says: And forgive them for letting their yuletide emotions run away with them and for voting for the wrong coach of the year. Touchdown Jesus forgives them.
SB means: Yea, I now shall move from the writer of trash into the realm of a religious guru, like L. Ron Hubbard before me.

SB says: Many of the same media members who voted for Paterno believed Notre Doom wouldn't win more than a couple games under a first-year coach who hadn't been a head coach beyond high school.
SB means: Wasn't The Rock exceptional in Dame?

SB says: Quarterback Brady Quinn had turned into the next Ron Powlus-style overhyped bust.
SB means: My editor had me use Ron Powlus; I wanted to use "Teri Hatcher's overhyped bust." See what I mean? We're in fried eggs nailed to a wall territory here. "They're real, and they're spectaculur": yeah, spectacular failures.

SB says: Some receiver named Jeff Samardzija had been just another bench-warming Rudy under former coach Ty Willingham.
SB means: Yes, it's true, Ty Willingham used to sit on him on top of the bench to keep his rear end warm. Fortunately, Weis has not sat on any of his players. Have you seen him? He's huge! The results would be devastating.

SB says: The cupboard looked as bare as the Indiana plains in winter.
SB means: I swear this isn't a joke about how Weis ate all the food in the house. I'm just trying to give a shout out to my peeps in Indiana. French Lick, baby! Can I get a "whoop whoop"? Oh, I can't? Oh, well, whatever.

SB says: And Charlie Weis, who deserves to be named coach of the year, led the Fighting Irish to a 10-1 record, and in his game-of-the-year centerpiece, upset what some experts consider the greatest college team ever: USC.
SB means: I am a senile old man. USC beat them.

SB says: OK, USC survived, 34-31, and the Irish really went 9-2. But Notre Dame was robbed.
SB means: Ha Ha! I made you all go and double check their records on the ESPN college football site to see that they also lost to Michigan State! Advertisers pay by the click! Those fools! Everything is falling into place!

SB says: In fact, Weis' high-road reaction after that loss was one reason he received only three AP Coach of the Year votes, which tied him for third with USC's Pete Carroll behind Texas' Mack Brown, who finished second with eight.
SB means: The other reason was that people voted for other candidates.

SB says: Weis had every right to raise holy heck about a series of late officiating blunders that cost his team that game.
SB means: Which is much less creepy than raising the dead. You know, because holy heck isn't all gnarly and decomposed, and seldom tries to gain sustenence by feasting on the flesh of the living.

SB says: Yet Weis, bless him, believes in sportsmanship as much as he believes in his alma mater, his heaven on Earth, his Notre Dame.
SB means: His Purgatory on Earth? The DMV.

SB says: When Weis provided no irate ammo for reporters, the officiating dissolved into a non-issue.
SB means: If you act like a man instead of bitching, we have less to write about, so we won't vote for you. We're mature like that.

SB says: To me, that was as shocking as the season-saving pass USC's Matt Leinart completed on fourth-and-9 from his 26 to set up USC's game-winning, rule-breaking touchdown.
SB means: Ah, Matty -- not only is he a dream-boat, he's also a bad-boy rule breaker.

SB says: With time running out and USC at Notre Dame's 2-yard line, Leinart rolled left, decided to run for it and got blasted near the goal line.
SB means: He wasn't blasted quite as bad as the people in War of the Worlds, but it was still pretty dramatic.

SB says: That's when the eventual Heisman winner, Reggie Bush, went low for max leverage and power-shoved Leinart past tacklers into the end zone.
SB means: Though it does beg the question, was that power-shove run on AC or DC?

SB says: That, of course, is against the rules. No flag.
SB means: You know, I'm such a good reporter that I bet I could recap a game that was played months ago and nobody would even notice.

SB says: Only blind-eyed chaos.
SB means: Like the bathroom in a men's bathouse when they switch off the lights.

SB says: But the point is, Charlie Weis outcoached Pete Carroll.
SB means: So, judging from Carroll's NFL tenure, Weis is at least as talented as a dyslexic six-year-old gril. And yes, I misspelled "girl" for the irony. THoughI mispelled "mispelled" by accident. Typing is hardd.

SB says: Notre Dame did so by controlling the clock, posting a 38:40 to 21:20 advantage in time of possession, and keeping Leinart and Bush off the runway.
SB means: Apparently, the game was played on the tarmac of the South Bend Airport.

SB says: The Bills had the ball for almost two minutes less than USC did at Notre Dame.
SB means: And also, it seems it was a three-way conest between the Buffalo Bills, USC, and Notre Dame.

SB says: Weis could be every bit the head coach Parcells has been.
SB means: And how. Hell, Weis may be even fatter than the tuna.

SB says: ESPN's Michael Smith reported that Weis, the Patriots' ex-coordinator, visited the New England coaches' booth during Saturday's game at Gillette Stadium and made a few suggestions. During his visit, Tom Brady's offense scored two touchdowns.
SB means: Also, several hot dogs that were lying around the booth mysteriously disappeared.

SB says: So is it any surprise that Weis turned Brady Quinn into a collegiate Tom Brady?
SB means: The answer, of course, is no, because Brady Quinn already was a collegian, and his name was already halfway there. Still, nice job.

SB says: The point is, Weis did more with much less than Paterno.
SB means: I wholeheartedly believe that if you replaced every Notre Dame player with Joe Paternos, they would have won the national title.

SB says: Weis immediately turned a bunch of kids who had learned to lose back into winners.
SB means: Ah, yes, I remember I got an "A" in my "losing" class when I attended Notre Dame.

SB says: Weis repeatedly coached rings -- New England championship rings -- around college opposition.
SB means: And he repeatedly cleaned rings -- scummy bathtub rings -- around his shower.

SB says: This clearly is Notre Dame's best hire since Ara.
SB means: Who, of course, was the best hire since Ra, the Egyptian god of the sun.

SB says: Yes, the 9-2 Irish lost a home overtime game to Michigan State -- which Penn State beat, 31-22. Yes, the same day Notre Dame was robbed against USC, Paterno's team came within one second of an undefeated season. At Michigan, quarterback Chad Henne threw a final-play touchdown pass to stun the Nittany Lions.
SB means: So, actually, I guess Penn State is a better team, isn't it? Wait, what was my point again?

SB says: Still, Weis had the higher degree of difficulty. Paterno's cupboard was not bare.
SB means: Must... resist... making... another... fat joke...

SB says: Recruiting hasn't been nearly as big a problem as coaching.
SB means: Or termite infestations, for that matter.

SB says: But for the first time under Paterno, two stud freshmen were allowed to play.
SB means: As compared to their usual role of being put to pasture to impregnate other freshman. They only do that at Colorado now.

SB says: Derrick Williams and Justin King gave this team some new life and wow factor.
SB means: Ah, yes, "wow"- the most dominant of all factors.

SB says: So did Paterno really coach that much better this season?
SB means: Yes, because I admitted that he did a few paragraphs ago. Oh, wait, or did I mean he coached better than Weis? That's pretty ambiguous. Man, I am a terrible writer...

SB says: Did he coach 45-votes-to-3 better than Weis?
SB means: Shouldn't it have been more like 44.86-votes-to-pi better than Weis?

SB says: Sorry, this Scrooge says.
SB means: Oh, right, I had been doing a "Christmas Carol" theme at the beginning. Well, if I wedge this in here, maybe no one will notice I abandoned it halfway through the article because it was really annoying and tedious.

SB says: God bless JoePa, who was a wonderful coach-of-the-year choice.
SB means: And Satan bless YoMa, who was a wonderful harlot-of-the-year choice. That's right. I went to the mother jokes. Count it.

SB says: But Weis was a better one.
SB means: Yeah, I know that the last line is meant to leave you with a poignant and hard-driven-home point that makes you go, "Wow! What a great article", and I know this is a horribly piss-poor line in that capacity, but I'm tired. I've been writing this damn article for nearly two hours, it's about three times longer than it needs to be, the arthritis in my hands is killing me, I've had seven egg-nogs and bourbon, and I didn't really make any strong arguments one way or the other, so I say fuck it. This is the last line. It isn't Oscar Wilde worthy. It isn't even Danielle Steele worthy. But, you know what, you read all the way to the end of the article to get to it, so I guess the joke is on you.