Playing “Not So Nice” with And The Valley Shook

There are many annual traditions in college football: Saban getting coaches fired, Oklahoma Clemsoning and Clemson Choklahomaing, and the trading of friendly barbs between Roll Bama Roll and And The Valley Shook.

Please enjoy this year’s installment of “Playing Not So Nice,” with ATVS Top Chef Billy Gomila. (For historical perspective, also see here and here and here and here.)

1. Space/time is curved, and warps like a rubber sheet in the presence of heft. In your best phonetic rendering, please share Coach Orgeron's explanation of this phenomenon.

I dunno, I'd say time is more of a flat circle. Everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again. And that little Tiger and that little Tider, they're gonna be in that room again and again and again forever.

There are broader ideas at work, mainly what is owed between us as a society for our mutual illusions. Fourteen straight hours of staring at DB's, these are the things ya think of. You ever done that? You look in their eyes, even in a picture, doesn't matter if they're dead or alive, you can still read 'em. You know what you see? They welcomed it... Not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an unmistakable relief. See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to just... let go. Yeah, they saw, in that last nanosecond, they saw... what they were. You, yourself, this whole big drama, it was never more than a jerry-rig of presumption and dumb will, and you could just let go. To finally know that you didn't have to hold on so tight. To realize that all your life - you know, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain - it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person. And like a lot of dreams, there's a monster at the end of it.

2. New Orleans is hosting Wrestlemania next year. Which current WWE star best embodies the current state of the LSU football program? And which one best embodies your nemesis, Perennially Underperforming Expectations?

Well, we're a talented performer with a flair for the dramatic, still trying to overcome a horrible loss that has left us rudderless and somewhat neutered. That's gotta be Bray Wyatt, right? He's been perennially stuck in neutral ever since John Cena pinned him in the Superdome, and not much of a threat despite consistently being positioned as a top performer. But you can see the talent in the ring and on the stick, if he could just get some momentum he has all the tools to be a tremendous draw. He just needs to get things going.

As for Perennially Underperforming Expectations, that's a phrase for Dolph Ziggler if I've ever heard one.

3. What is the secret to a great Andouille sausage?

Honestly, a very course grind and a strong casing. A lot of places just pass a basic smoked sausage for andouille -- and sure, it'll get you by in a pinch. But real andouille should be chunky and thick, almost more of a dice than a grind.

4. If Dave Aranda and Matt Canada started a cover band, what would be on the set list?

Definitely wall-to-wall Rush. Aranda is *this* close to getting YYZ down.

5. Can you show us on the doll where Neal Brown touched you?

I suppose some detail on Coach Brown and the Troy Trojans would be educational. After all, we all know Alabama will never schedule them, right?