Fun with Yucky Chucky Landon

I grew up outside of Charleston the first 12 years of my life, my family had a subscription to the Charleston Daily Mail… around the age of 10, I started becoming more and more interested in sports, and as such, read the Daily Mail Sports Page. Back then, Chuck Landon had a prominent place on the Daily Mail’s sports page…

Fast forward many years later, Landon now writes for the Huntington Herald-Dispatch. Didn’t like him when I was 10, don’t like him 15 years later. I have been waiting all week to FJM-style a Landon column. Without further adieu… here we go. My response in bold after the jump.

Chuck Landon: For Smith and the Herd, this game is it

CHUCK LANDON

The Herald-Dispatch

Lee Smith is not a student of Marshall football history.
No, but he IS a student of Marshall University!!

But the Tennessee native knows enough.
With a banjo on his knee? Rocky Top? Memphis Beat? WHAT DOES HE NOT KNOW!? TELL US, LANDON!!!

Marshall’s senior tight end knows he wants to leave the Herd football program better in 2010 than he found it in 2006. He knows he wants to help Marshall become a consistent winner again like it was in the 1990s.
Yeah, a consistent winner in Division I-AA!

And, most of all, Smith knows he is about to play the most important game of his collegiate career.
Against an opponent they’ve NEVER beaten!?

It is game day.
Thanks for that filler sentence, Chuck!

That means Smith and his Herd teammates will square off against arch-rival West Virginia University at 7 p.m., Friday, in the annual Friends of Coal Bowl in front of a national television audience (ESPN) at sold-out Edwards Stadium.
WVU is NOT Marshall’s arch-rival. PITT is WVU’s arch-rival, you idiot!

“It doesn’t matter who we play any year,” said Smith, “this is the game everybody talks about. And it’s fun. I remember the last time we played them here. Our stadium was unbelievable.
Yeah, unbelievably sold out BECAUSE OF WVU FANS!!!

“And I want to encourage our fans around Huntington and all Marshall fans, it’s worth putting 40,000 in that stadium every Saturday because we’re going to win, we’re going to play hard, we’re going to be nasty and we’re going to give them something to be excited about.”
Too bad it takes a lot of WVU fans to fill that 40,000 seat stadium!

The key is winning.
Yeah, actually WINNING against a superior opponent.

It doesn’t take a guest appearance by actor Kevin Costner tonight at “The Joan,” telling us “If you beat them, they will come,” to underscore the importance of winning.
No Matthew McConaughey reference, Chuck!? WHAT KIND OF HERDIE ARE YOU!?

“The fact of the matter is you have to win,” said Smith. “And that’s what we’re going to do. If we keep winning, people will keep coming and we’ll lift this program back to where it used to be.
Yeah, you all got off to a REALLY GOOD START at winning last weekend!

“I was looking at a picture from a 1996 game the other day. You couldn’t even see the grass in the back of the end zone. That’s how many people come when you are winning.
The grass is GREENER, because it’s Marshall green, right!?

“I’m not saying the fans aren’t fans, win or lose. I’m just saying, you have to win. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
Yeah, usually if teams win, they get fans that hop on the bandwagon? You follow me, Smith?

If it sounds like Smith is revved up to play the Mountaineers tonight, it’s only because he is.
VRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

More amped than he was for Ohio State last week?
Revved up or amped up? Make up your mind, Chuckie!

Well, yes.
Well, yes to amped or revved?

“People can say they play the same all the time and that’s my big thing — play the same all the time,” admitted Smith. “But when you know the community that supports you is that fired up about it and that they take it that personal, then it’s fun.
Yeah, when you got a ghetto town behind you, that’s a LOT of fun!

“We’re going to go out there and have fun.”
Girls… just wanna have fuuu-uuuun!!! Geez I hate Cyndi Lauper… she was AWFUL on Celebrity Apprentice!

He won’t be the only one. There simply is no better atmosphere at a Marshall home game than when the arch-rival Mountaineers and their fans come to Huntington.
Invasion of the Gold and Blue that is NOT an arch-rival of Marshall! If Marshall would have stayed in the MAC, they would have Ohio U as an arch-rival!

“Oh, bar none,” agreed Smith. “It’s not even close. Nothing compares to that West Virginia home game. In my opinion, it is the best game a Marshall player gets to play.
What about last year’s Pizza Butt Bowl against Ohio U?

“In my opinion, that’s better than getting to go in front of 105,000 people at Ohio State. That was 105,000 red people. This is 40,000 green people.
Not everyone is going to be wearing green in that stadium, you douche!

“It is the funnest football game these kids will ever play in college. … West Virginia home game.”
Is funnest a word?

There, he said it.
OMG! HE SAID IT!!!

Somebody needed to because it was the green elephant in the room.
Good Lord, Chuck… you really gotta paint this article in different colors, don’t ya?

No offense to Ohio State, Conference USA or the Mid-American Conference, but this contest — Marshall vs. WVU — played for only the second time in Edwards Stadium, is the game of the year.
Man, Chuck, not much has changed…

And no one knows that better than Lee Smith.
LANDON STILL DIDN’T TELL US WHAT LEE SMITH DOESN’T KNOW!?