Drinking with Boris Yeltsin: A&M game preview

You remember that time that you went to Russia on vacation, and your buddy made you go out to have some real authentic vodka and borscht immediately after getting off the 14 hour flight from LAX? Do you remember ambling into that little restaurant just around the corner from the Kremlin and quickly throwing back four shots of the smoothest vodka you'd ever tasted?

Do you remember when the rheumy-eyed, white haired old man made that smartass remark about Americans holding their liquor, and in a jet-lagged, two-thirds drunk daze, do you remember challenging the old fucker to a drinking contest?

Do you remember the evil glint that flashed across his suddenly crystal-clear eyes? Do you remember the smirk on his face that revealed jagged, cigar-stained teeth? Do you remember the flippant way the old man, who now resembled John Wayne more than George Burns, tossed his shapka to the barkeeper as he growled in a gruff voice, "Two vodkas here, one for me, one for my friend"? Do you remember way your buddy's voice cracked the same way it did that time you were riding shotgun with him after a night at the bars and you saw those flashing blue lights behind you as he muttered, "oh, shit"?

Do you remember the cold bomb that dropped in the pit of your stomach, and the oddly dizzy sobriety that rushed to your head as the old man turned around and said, "Hello. My name is Boris Yeltsin. Now, shall we drink?"

Well aggy, this week, you are the slack-jawed American tourist.

In the long period of Tech's dominance over A&M (9 of 12, but really, who's counting?), there has never been a matchup that would figure to favor Tech as much as this one. Even in the '03 and '05 beatdowns, A&M came into the game with an experienced quarterback that had won something (anything!). This year, all the Aggies have to hang their hat on is the running game that wasn't enough to beat a weak Tech defense last year at home. With the rejuvenated Tech defense, the purring-on-all-cylinders Tech offense that will be facing the 75th-ranked passing defense unit in the country, and the home field advantage, Tech will win going away.

But college football is about so much more than wins and losses.

Just like the 14 hours trapped in the window seat next to the transvestite and her sleazy photographer left you in a giddy, happy to be alive and off the plane mood that led to your ill-advised machismo-driven challenge to the rheumy-eyed old man, A&M's last minute race to the bottom victory last week over Oklahoma State and their surprising early division lead has left the Aggies in a state of deluded ecstasy. And for some reason, not only are they figuratively challenging the old Russian man's capacity for vodka, they're professing their admiration for Mikhail Gorbachev while humming the 'Viva Viagra' jingle!

Javorskie Lane, who has yet to play on three consecutive downs: "We're going to win in 2007. That's a guarantee. I promise you."

Danny Gorrer: "Crabtree's got to bring his A-game when he faces Danny Gorrer."

Mark Dodge: "Last year was just a fluke."

The fact that the team that hasn't won in Lubbock in 15 years has the gall to guarantee victory in a game where they're clearly overmatched is almost as infuriating as the fanbase that has the gall to brag about class when one of their dearest traditions is playing over the opposing school's alma mater during the postgame. Or the fanbase that has the gall to play the righteous indignation card about animal violence when their own fucking fight song promises bodily harm to another school's mascot. Or the students that have the gall to talk down about my education while using words like selftegrity.

Make no mistake, Aggie nation, you are stumbling happily into one grim ambush on Saturday. And just like Boris kept on happily pounding away at carafe after carafe of vodka long after you'd fallen under the table and your buddy was frantically trying to pull you out from under the booth and back to the hotel before you got hauled to the gulag, Mike Leach will enjoy like never before the absolute, total embarrassment of the cocky, condescending fake soldiers and their cherubic dates.

Enjoy your stay in Lubbock.

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