Tanner: Tucker, I’m on hold. They uh, the wait times are longer than uh.
Tucker: I don’t give a shit! It’s been 45 minutes. I’m not paying for no fuckin’ pizza, dude. Tell ‘em it’s gotta be free.
Tanner: It’s already free.
Tucker: I don’t give a shit!
Juice: ok so here we’ve got Tucker and Tanner. Tucker is Georgia’s quarterback, he’s the rude idiot. Tanner is his center, he’s the nice idiot
Ten: Got it.
“Tucker” and “Tanner.” Jesus, I love the SEC.
Nine: This guy’s been on hold almost an hour. They’ve had 18,000 years to make the world better and they can’t even improve hold times.
Or won’t.
Ten: Yeah, it’s a “won’t” scenario. One of many.
Nine: I’ve asked it before and I’ve asked it again: why not? Why does their ideal existence involve sitting on hold with Pizza Barn?
Ten: The ideal world for an imperfect being is an imperfect world. It’s something they accepted a long time ago.
Someone down there put it very well once.
He talked about how he liked to sit on a bench at the park and feed the ducks. He didn’t try to get “better” at feeding the ducks. He didn’t try to feed more ducks. He wasn’t trying to optimize the nutritional quality of the bread. He wasn’t trying to get it over with. He realized that ultimately, he wasn’t even sure he experienced any benefit from it. He couldn’t explain to anyone why he went to the park and fed the ducks, least of all himself.
He was feeding the ducks because he was feeding the ducks because he was feeding the ducks,
Nine: Why?
Ten: Because he was feeding the ducks.
Juice: why
Ten: Because he was feeding the ducks!
Juice: why
Ten: Because
Hey fuck off
Juice: lol
Nine: lol
Ten: No no no. Uh-uh. No lower-casing. Not you too.
Nine: I’ll do what I feel like.
Ten: Juice can do it because he’s European. You and I are NASA, born and bred. We have standards.
Juice: wow, standards
sounds like fun lemme try
Hello, everyone! I am very important! I am here to lol fuck nevermind too much work
Nine: You do it sometimes, though. I’ve noticed. Some proper nouns you capitalize, others you don’t.
Juice: i have no style guide. you got style like this, you don’t guide it. you just blow it out your ass like yesterday’s yogurt
besides none of that matters or ever did
Tanner: Oh, hi! This is Tanner. What did you say your name was?
Tanner: Ha! My name’s Tanner too!
Tucker: What’d he say?
Tanner: He uh, he said he was going to put me on hold.
Tucker: Again?
Tanner: Well he said his name was Tanner, and I told him that that was funny because Tanner’s my name too, and then he said I was boring so he put me on hold some more.
Tucker: Gimme the fuckin’ phone. Gimme the phone.
I need a representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative!
Tanner: I don’t think that
Tucker: Representative!
Tanner: works with a recorded message. It’s only the automated
Tucker: Representative!
Tanner: robot computer thing it works with.
Juice: GOD you beautiful idiot
tucker is such an absolute fuckin dolt. he’s one of my favorite players in the country
what other quarterback is gonna stand in the pocket and order a pizza, i ask you
Ten: Well I mean, there’s no … pocket.
Juice: have you looked?
Ten: No.
Juice: well then look
Ten: He’s in the middle of a play?
Juice: yup
Ten: He’s a quarterback trying to order a pizza to the backfield in the middle of a play.
Juice: yup
Ten: Why?
Juice: well you’d imagine he’s hungry, wouldn’t you
Nine: Up until now this game has basically looked like a giant scavenger hunt. Now it looks like actual football all of a sudden.
What’s going on here? Can I read the rules of this game somewhere?
Juice: yeah i’ll drop em in, lemme find it
Ten: Did you write this rule book?
Juice: yeah but it received a pretty serious edit. wasn’t able to fully express myself in the final print
had to capitalize
treatise on microwavable snacks was cut entirely
wasn’t allowed to start every paragraph with “see ok the whole deal with this thing is this:”
hated the entire process. no one should ever edit anything. just write shit who cares
Nine: All right, this answers one of my questions.
4 – Standard players and defensive players
There are two classes of players. Each team is allowed 100 “standard” players, who are free to roam on any field they choose. The remaining 25 players are “defensive” players, who must remain on their home field and are not allowed to set foot on another field at any point.
Teams are permitted to reassign players from standard to defensive, and vice versa, every New Year’s Day.
Nine: 125 players, times 111 teams, means this is a football game with 13,875 players. And most of them can go anywhere on any field they want.
Juice: most yeah. we set aside some players as purely defensive
the intent there was to add significance to a team’s home field. if every player could go everywhere, it doesn’t really feel like a team has ownership of its own field, it’s just another field
this way, a team has 25 players dedicated to defending their own turf. if you keep all your players on your home field, you have the theoretical ability to stack this 125-player absolute goliath of a squad
Ten: Look at you! That’s smart! That’s thoughtful game design, see?
Juice: thank you
Ten: You’re showing growth. You know you drive me crazy, but you’re showing growth.
Juice: THANK you.
Nine: Here it is. This is what I was looking for.
6a – Free play
By default, teams operate under “free play” rules. Most players (see below) are free to wander throughout any field they choose. A team need not move as an entire unit. For example, a team may opt to divide into several different units, or even send 125 players to 125 separate locations.
6b – Scrimmage play
Scrimmage play operates under conventional football rules, i.e. four downs allowed, and ten yards for a first down. However, both teams can line up as many or as few players as it chooses. For example, it is permitted for a 50-player offense to line up against a 50-player defense, or for a 20-player offense to line up against a 100-player defense.
A team enters scrimmage play if a team encounters, identifies, and issues a verbal challenge to an opposing team in possession of a football. The challenging party must be within 50 yards of their opponent.
If a team fails to achieve a first down, the ball is turned over on downs, and that team is then on defense.
The onus is on the offense to break through the defense with a big play. If the ball carrier eludes being tackled for a period of 24 hours, this team returns to “free play” mode, and can roam the field with the football until challenged again.
At times, two teams who each possess a football may encounter one another. In this circumstance, both teams will simultaneously play both offense and defense, with all above rules applying.
Nine: So there’s free play, and there’s scrimmage play. Free play is what we’ve been seeing with Nick and Manny, who are just sneaking around wherever.
Scrimmage play is “normal football,” which we get whenever two teams run into each other.
Juice: uhhhh mostly right yeah
i mean if two teams run into each other but neither team has a ball, there’s no line of scrimmage because there’s no ball. there’s nothing to fight over. so they usually just wave hello and go on their way
of course once in a while they’ll just put up their fists and beat the fuck out each other, sometimes for no real reason other than they don’t like each other. that’s always fun
now, if you look back at the field i can show you what’s goin on here
Tucker: Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative!
Nine: This guy is a dumbass.
Juice: yeah he rules
Tucker: Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative! Representative!
Tucker: Representative!
Tucker: Representative!
Tucker: Representative! Representative! Representative!
Tucker: Representative!
Tucker: Representative!
Tucker: What? Who are you?
Tucker: Y’all were supposed to have my pizzas delivered here an hour ago! And I’ve been hungry, and it’s been an hour, and y’all were supposed to deliver my pizza an hour ago!
Tucker: I don’t got no delivery address! It’s like I told y’all people. We’re on the Georgia field. I’m on the Georgia, I’m on Georgia’s football team. We’re right up here off Ball Ground Highway.
Tucker: You don’t like football? I’ll whoop your ass! I’ll fucking whoop your ass!
Juice: WHOOP HIS ASS
Nine: Over the phone?
Juice: UNSURE havent thought it through
Tucker: God damn it!
Juice: anyways
man i love sayin “anyways,” i feel like i say it all the time
anyways
suppose you’re georgia. you got two footballs to your name. the area’s gettin a little hot, lots of other teams around. you’re trying to keep them off your field. maybe it’s because you’re trying to protect your footballs. maybe it’s because you’ve made an agreement with another team, like “hey we heard vanderbilt’s gunnin’ for you but they’re not gonna use our field to get there.”
Ten: You can form alliances with other teams?
Juice: yup
Ten: That’s interesting.
Juice: yup
HOWEVER
the terms of any sort of alliance aren’t enforced by game officials such as myself. they could backstab you at any time and it’s completely legal to do so
of course, do that and your reputation goes to shit, you’ll never be able to call in favors with anybody
for now, Georgia is keeping opponents off their field as a favor to Georgia Southern, who feel like they got a target on their backs right now. the idea here being that they can ask Georgia Southern for a favor of some kind later
and that’s what’s up here. Georgia actually marched up their field to this intersection here to block everyone’s way
Nine: Oh, and that’s why they brought a football with them.
If Georgia just stationed a bunch of defenders up here, they couldn’t really stop anyone from moving through. They need to be able to set up a line of scrimmage so that they can force someone to actually beat them in four-down football. For that, they needed a ball.
Juice: that’s exactly it
Tanner: Hey, is that him? Is that the pizza guy?
Tucker: Where?
Tanner: There, he’s gonna drive by.
Tucker: Aw shit!
Hey!
HEY! STOP!
Hey flag him down!
Get the fuck out of my way! HEY!
Juice: wow outstanding pocket mobility on display here
Ten: The defense … really doesn’t seem to give a shit, do they?
Juice: not really! actually that’s a Georgia Tech defense. they locked horns with this Georgia offense around a month ago.
Nine: What down is it?
Juice: oh it’s first down. first play of the drive
Nine: This play has been going on for a month?
Juice: yeah about. a couple of things make this possible. first, they strategically set it up so that the line of scrimmage falls right along the highway. classic pain in the ass move. real tough to blitz a team through traffic
Nine: The nanotechnology would keep them out of danger, though.
Ten: Well yeah, but it still hurts. Even if you were guaranteed that you wouldn’t be injured, you still wouldn’t want to get hit by a truck, right?
Juice: yeah that’s absolutely still an issue. human beings don’t like getting hit by stuff no matter how immortal they are
that’s a big deal on some of the fields up north. there’s bison up there and they’ll charge you soon as look at you. bad news
so the second and more obvious reason is that Georgia Tech is comically outnumbered, 38 players to 5.
Nine: Why does Tech even bother?
Juice: probably just to see if they can catch em napping at any point. even if you have a huge personnel advantage, securing the ball for a month straight might be harder than you think
Tanner: You want me to take the ball, boss?
Tucker: Nah I got it.
Tanner: What kinda pizza you get?
Tucker: I don’t know.
Tanner: You know, there was a thing I was reading on the Internet, it was like a list of best uh, of like the, peoples’ favorite pizza toppings. Like a ranking of the pizza toppings.
And I remember it talked about pineapples on pizza. I don’t remember what it said, what rank it had. But it was uh
It was like a list of the pizza toppings and
Tucker: Fuck off!
Tryin’ to eat.
Ten: I’d just assumed he was ordering pizza for everybody. Look at him! He just ordered one pizza and he’s gonna eat it all himself?
Nine: This reminds me of Don Muraco.
Juice: who
Nine: Don Muraco. The “Magnificent Muraco.” He wrestled in the WWF for a while in the 1980s. One time he was up against some jobber and he ate a meatball sub during the match. He beat him easily, too. When he pinned him for the three-count he was still chewing on his sandwich.
You guys didn’t know about this?
Juice: no, which i deeply regret. how did you find that
Nine: I don’t know, I just like to dig through stuff.
Both of you have been out of hibernation way longer than I have. How is this news to you and not me?
Ten: Nine, I think you found a talent.
God, look. He’s getting pizza sauce all over the football.
Juice: absolute slob
horrendous leadership. once the game is a couple thousand years old you start to see people like this. players leave the game and some of the ones who take their place aren’t exactly world class competitors
see this right here is why Tech’s bothering to stick around. Georgia’s got numbers but they got zero discipline
Juice: up there on the shoulder of the road you got 11 players taking shifts as linemen and seven more in the immediate backfield, but they’re all pretty checked out at the moment
19 more a little further back, just kinda sittin around
Nine: That adds up to 37 players. You said they had 38 here.
Juice: huh
weird. y’all check my math
Ten: One, two, three, four, five, six, tsh tsh tsshhhhh …
I got 37 for sure.
Juice: same
what the hell
i mean game data says there are definitely 38 players here
hmm
Juice: WHOOPS
Ten: WHOAAA OKAY
Juice: CUT IT OFF CUT IT OFF
I DIDN’T SEE SHIT
I DIDN’T SEE NOTHIN
Y’ALL HAVE UH
HAVE FUN
Ten: In the middle of a play? That’s bold.
Juice: this isn’t the first time that’s happened
i try to respect peoples’ privacy, i really do, but goddamn
but i mean this is the culture with this program. a few hundred years ago they shifted their approach. less actually going after footballs, more brokering strategic partnerships with other teams. they’re playing the long game, but in the process you’ve got players who don’t really, truly get to play
Ten: It looks like they might in a minute, though.
Juice: hmm?
Ten: Look! Over to the west.
Juice: oh HELLO old friends
Ten: Those are the Georgia Tech players we saw. The ones who left Tech’s campus the other night. This is where they were heading.
Juice: yeah they’re layin low just behind the tree line there
yeah okay we might see some shit any minute here
if you’re outnumbered 38 to 5 your odds of prying the ball loose are pretty slim. generally if the numbers improve to 38-15 your odds are a little better but not a lot
but if 10 of those are hidden players georgia doesn’t see coming? yeah this is gonna get grody
Nine: I’d blitz right now if I were them.
Juice: i dunno i think i’d let the quarterback eat more of his pizza first. make him run around with a full tummy
Ten: I’m trying to game this out and I think I’ve got it.
Teams don’t have any means of precisely looking up where their opponents are, but they do collect intelligence, right? And it’s not unreasonable to assume that Georgia had Georgia Tech’s players pretty well pegged. They knew that Tech had almost all their players up north, with a few hanging back in Atlanta to defend.
What they were wrong to assume was that those players in Atlanta were defensive players … therefore, they aren’t allowed to leave their home field … therefore, Georgia doesn’t have to worry about them.
But they’re standard players, not defensive players. They can roam wherever, including right here. Big fake-out by Tech.
Juice: that checks out
Ten: Yeah, that’s good. That’s crafty.
Nine: Or at least, it would be if Tech didn’t abandon their footballs back in Atlanta. Does Tech know their footballs have been stolen yet?
Juice: nope
and that’s another thing i’ll explain in a minute
Ten: Jeez, lots of dominoes here.
Georgia Southern asks Georgia to form a roadblock, which baits Georgia Tech into emptying their backfield to try to make a play on the ball, which lets San Diego State clean them out.
Juice: it’s very personally gratifying for me to see you coming around on this game
Ten: NO. I’m not coming around on anything. This is all stupid. It’s just stupid in such a labyrinthine fashion that once in a while it’ll produce something cool by accident.
Nine: Whoa, Tech’s moving. They’re moving!
Juice: uh ohhhhhh
Tucker: Fuck is going on up there?
Oh ffffffuck
Fuck. Fuck!
Block ‘em!
Tanner: Where’d they come from?
Tucker: Shit they’re not gonna hold. Fuck.
Hey go long.
Tanner: I’m a center! I’m uh, the thing where your’re not eligible. Ineligible.
Tucker: I don’t fucking care! Run an out route and I’ll hit you.
Tanner: We’re gonna get a penalty!
Tucker: Go!
Juice: thiiiink we’re gonna have to throw a flag on this one
Nine: They didn’t have ANYTHING drawn up?
Juice: they did a month ago when the play started, but nobody’s in position
the wideouts were supposed to run post routes in case of emergency but they’re hangin out in the parking lot
the tight end and the running back were supposed to run mesh but we just caught em bonin
etc
what we’re seeing here is pure panic. tucker’s not in game shape at all. even in top form he’s never proven himself
Ten: Oh, he’s so fucked.
Just get down! Take the sack!
Ten: What’s he doing?
Juice: this is what we call Tucker Time
he’s gonna lose his shit and just airmail it. it’s what he does. bet he throws an INT here
fuckin bum
Nine: Oh no. Don’t do it.
Juice: THROW IT
Nine: Don’t throw it!
Juice: CHUCK IT YOU LOSER
DESTROY YOURSELF
I LOVE YOU
Nine: …
Huh?
Ten: Uhhhhh
Tucker: Uhh
Tanner: Hey the, uh
Tucker: Huh.
Tanner: It just the uh, in the
Like it went in the truck and uh
Tucker: I know, I saw it, I was here. I saw it.
Nine: I thought it wasn’t legal to leave the field.
Juice: it’s not!
Nine: Then how was the driver of the truck allowed to
Juice: he’s not!
Tanner: He’s not turning around.
Tucker: FUCK!!!
GOD DAMN IT
I’m fucked
I’m so fucked
Juice: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAA
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Ten: I can run the plates.
What do you do in this situation?
Juice: ahahaha fuck lol
man
ok
this has happened before. the answer is we do nothing
he’ll probably find it in the bed of his truck when he gets home, or in a couple days or something. at that point, hopefully he gives it back
Nine: To who?
Juice: yeah that’s the big question right? maybe he’s a big georgia fan and he gives it back to them. or maybe he’s a nebraska transplant and a big husker fan, and he decides to take a road trip to give it to them. or maybe he thinks football is stupid and throws it in the garbage. or maybe this is a rental car and one of the rental agents finds it when he returns it next week
Nine: You don’t even want to reach out to him?
Juice: as a game official that’s not really my place. if you’re watching a normal game of football and everyone thinks the ball is dead, but the ref doesn’t blow the whistle, would you expect him to yell out “hey the ball’s still live”?
let’s look at the big board
Juice: georgia’s lost its #8 ranking. end of an era, damn
down to a 28-way tie for 13th
Nine: Ohhhh I think I get it.
I was wondering why Georgia Tech still has a 9 on the board. Is that because Nick and Manny are still on the Georgia Tech field?
Juice: yep you got it
that’s how possession is defined. it’s not about who’s actually holding the ball, it’s about whose field it’s on at the moment. which is great for Nick and Manny, who can go a pretty good distance without anyone even knowing the balls are gone
all the footballs have geolocation sensors on them, so all this is tracked automatically
tell you what, our friend in the pickup truck here is about to give us a useful little demonstration
let’s take a ride