The next video I would like to show you is from the Signing Day Live festivities from way back in February. I had the opportunity to host the Player Panel portion of the evening, that that is what the video is of. I have actually been meaning to post it on here for a while, but I kept on forgetting. It is a little long, but so was Titanic, and you guys liked that just fine.

Lastly, I would like to make a Crib Call. This one goes out to an old teammate at “the” A.C. Reynolds High School. He is probably one of the smarter ones out of all my former teammates because after high school, he dropped the brain-damaging, collision sport of football and began a career as a professional lothario. What I mean by that is that he has been doing country music for a few years now, and his fan base has been building daily. I strongly encourage you guys to listen, and see what he is all about. This one goes out to you Luke Combs. You, my friend, are CRIB!

Until next time,

C

P.S. I also would like to inform the general public that I recently acquired an Instagram. Ratchet imagery shall ensue.

I have officially had it with ESPN. I think everyone knows that we have been in a heated, borderline-violent feud for a while now, but tonight they crossed the line.

It all dates back to a rainy afternoon in September when we took on a stout (LOL) Idaho Vandals team. About midway through the 4^th quarter, in an perfect example of absolutely egregious sportsmanship, our coaching staff added insult to Idaho’s injury by putting a player in the game who is known throughout the southland for producing more touchdowns than Harvard does lawyers and NC State does farmers. As I jogged out onto the field, the announcer explained to the ESPN3 television audience that Alex Dixon had just entered the game at quarterback. Wait, hold up… Alex Dixon? I realize that Crib Calls has stolen the majority of ESPN.com’s readers and fans, but that is a low blow. Here I am, trying to focus on handing the ball off in the proper manner, and some announcer from ESPN is trying to cruelly mock me in front of my family, friend(s), and a regional audience. Needless to say, I was outraged, and Alex Dixon probably was too.

As if that was not enough, about two months later ESPN slapped me in my figurative face again on a Thursday night in Charlottesville, Virginia. About mid-second quarter, I was taking a walk, collecting my thoughts on our sideline. That was when I saw Samantha Steele, ESPN College Football’s new sideline reporter, standing behind our bench in a banana yellow jacket. This season was her first trying to fill the shoes left by Erin Andrews—a well-known and well-liked journeyer of football sidelines. With this, and the truism that the only thing bigger than my courage is my heart, in mind, I felt for Samantha and went over to speak to her, you know, to offer a few words of encouragement. I told her that if she needed anything—a Gatorade, an interview, or a complete layout, play-by-play, of what we were planning on doing in the second half—just to let me know. She smiled, and gave the impression that she would definitely take me up on my kind offer. Well, when the game came to a close and she had still not approached me, I knew that something was wrong. So, I did the only thing a man can do: I tweeted at her multiple times on the bus ride home. It is not like I was trying to make some kind of inappropriate advance at her. I have a girlfriend, and that’s just not what I’m about anyway. I was just trying to make sure that she was, in fact, still breathing.

Hours past by, yet, there was no response. That is when I began to become truly infuriated. I was enraged for the following reason: I know she saw my Tweet, and wanted nothing more than to send an appreciative, thoughtful, serious-but-still-with-like-1-one-liner, 160-character response. However, her bosses over at ESPN told her that if she typed one more character in that reply tweet, that she could pack her bags as they called Dijana Kunovac out from the bullpen. Typical move on the behalf on the “worldwide leader in sports (LOL).”

This leads me to last night, when ESPN decided to relieve it’s exploding bowels on my figurative front porch. Long story long, last Wednesday I get a call on my cell phone from Bristol, Connecticut. At first I thought it was my friend Barack, who’s phone always displays a random city in the Caller ID. However, when I answered the phone, “What do you want,” I was surprised to hear an unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line. “Hello Caleb. This is John Skipper from ESPN. First and foremost, I want to apologize for our lack of respect for your figurative possessions over the last few months. What I am calling about today is something that we here at ESPN think could help mend our relationship.”

Naturally, I listened to his proposal. He told me that they wanted to send down Jeremy Schaap to do an intensive story about my life. I told them to send Samantha Steele and we had a deal.

A week later, ESPN arrived on campus and everything went as planned. I revealed some of my deepest, darkest secrets like a famous linebacker, and I said some motivational things while fake crying like another one. ESPN liked what it saw, and told me my interview would air in primetime instead of the UNC vs. Georgia Tech basketball game the next Wednesday night. They also mentioned it would be the topic of an Outside The Lines report, two 30-for-30 documentaries, and 4/5^ths of the questions on Pardon the Interruption. Obviously I was okay with this, because I am an attention-whore.

That was the last I heard from ESPN until I tuned in for my special at 9:00 PM last night. Lo and behold, they had duped me once again; this time with absolutely no regard for my American rights or personal feelings. Not only did they not play my special in primetime, but they rubbed it in by showing a short clip from my interview after a TV timeout during the basketball game. Heck, they even went as far as to show the part they showed completely out of context. My quote, “They have enough talent, but they are definitely going to have to start playing better,” was not about Carolina basketball at all. In reality, I was answering Samantha’s question, “Do The Lumineers have a chance to move into your top three bands in 2013?”

ESPN, I truly do not even know what to say right now. Time and time again, you have disrespected me in front of millions of people. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Crib Calls has single handedly collapsed your online following, but still, this time you have taken it too far.

This is a call to arms for all of the Crib Callers out there. I am only one man. I can only do so much to a worldwide corporation. Please assist me in defeating ESPN by writing a letter to your local congressman. Play me out to be the victim, and feel free to make up a heinous crime that ESPN perpetrated against me. Also, about every four or five minutes, send profanity-filled hate tweets to employees at ESPN. They are all guilty by association. Because I know that since Crib Calls came out, nobody visits ESPN’s website, or even knows its URL anymore, I have taken the proactive measure of confirming that their employees do, in fact, have Twitters. Please harass them as you see fit. DO NOT think about the fact that everything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law.

Until next time,

C

P.S. Buddy Blackjack is getting hungry.

Remembering good times with Councell and Pagan

Until next time,

C

Over those six months, your response has been nothing short of incredible. The site has garnered over 35 thousand hits, including views from over 46 different countries (The number was 47, but I prefer “over 46”).

However, I am here today to tell you that this was only the beginning. In spite of my normally passive lifestyle, I plan to dominate the World Wide Web with inexplicably interesting posts throughout the entirety of 2013.

Unfortunately, in the spirit of confidentiality, I cannot tell you exactly when these posts will come out; I can only promise you that they will.

Still, if you really want to stay on top of things going forward, I can tell you that the best way to stay updated with all things Crib Calls is through my Twitter page. I realize that none of you in your right mind will want to follow me because it very well may hurt your following to follower’s ratio. Yet, do not fear. My world domination plan contains a move of strategery that will make all of my Twitter content publicly available; so following me is not necessary.

This year, the only thing that is necessary is that you guys continue to be awesome. I promise that I will do everything I can to help you along the way, including filling this website with the things that you want and need to see. If you have enjoyed the past six months, trust me when I tell you that you haven’t seen nothin yet.

This post is the screaming woman in dubstep. You know what comes next.

Until next time,

C

When we went back into the locker room after the first half of play, we were down 21-28. We were one half away from letting one of the worst teams in the ACC crush our goal of becoming Coastal Division Champions. Like so many times before, adversity had found a way to infiltrate our locker room. But fortunately for us, we were a team led by our seniors; seniors who went through an NCAA investigation; seniors who persevered through transitions to three different head coaches; seniors who marched through the storm that has been Carolina football for the last four years. Fortunately for us, we were a team led by a group of seniors who knew how to deal with adversity.

As halftime came to a close, we ran back out of the tunnel into a stadium whose crowd was ebbed by Thanksgiving break and cold weather. Like a microcosm of their careers, our seniors were faced with a challenge, and had no one to help them overcome it besides themselves, and their team. For one last time, they had to pick themselves up out of dirt and fight to take what was theirs.

It should come as no surprise that we dominated the second half of the game. There was a zero percent chance that Maryland was going to steal something from us that our seniors had come so far to achieve.

Even though we did not have the opportunity to play the next week in the ACC Championship Game, we won our division. Quietly, but surely, our seniors brought Carolina its first divisional championship since the conference was split, and its first share of any football championship since 1980. A shot heard nowhere around the world.

The 2012 Carolina football season was by no means perfect. When history looks back at this team, it may not be in the top five, ten, or even twenty best to have played football at UNC. The team lost four games; three of which to teams at, or below the .500 mark, two of those being in-state rivals. The team was ineligible for postseason play, a factor that pushed most of its games to only regional television coverage. The team was not a topic of discussion by national media, and its accomplishments were hardly recognized by anyone. Nonetheless, I know without a fathom of a doubt that this team was the turning point for Carolina football. Our seniors led a transformation in attitude, approach, and work ethic that will take our program to the next level in the coming years. When history looks back at this team, it may not see one of the best teams to ever play; but I do believe it will see the team that unassumingly changed it all.

Reflecting on the 2012 football season, I already know that I have made memories that will be with me until I die. In the last year, I have worked harder than I have ever worked, and laughed harder than I have ever laughed—all at the side of some wonderful teammates. The people on this team were absolutely incredible; I imagine I will be friends with most of them for the rest of my life. I am going to miss the seniors a lot, they were great leaders and are even better people. What they went through in their time at UNC is nothing short of amazing, and I am convinced that their resolute perseverance has changed the culture of Carolina Football.

It is always a great day to be a Tar Heel, even if our football team is not on the rise. However, you’ve gotta admit that the day is just a little bit greater knowing that we are.

Until next time,

C

One of the most important parts of any election is assuring that there is an informed constituency. As you can see, coming to the Tar Pit this afternoon is the Georgia Tech Ramblin’ Wreck. Personally, I feel like it is my civic duty to give you—the concerned fan—the cold, hard facts about our opponent so that you can come to your own conclusions.

Here is what you need to know:

Georgia Institute of Technology is a public university located in Atlanta, Georgia. Its abbreviation “GT” moonlights as Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in the New York Stock Exchange. Believe it or not, Georgia Tech is actually one of the best schools in the nation academically. It is even ranked number seven in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of the nation’s best public schools. You know you have a good school when you are only two spots behind the University of North Carolina.

A Yellow Jacket is pretty self-explanatory.

Paul Johnson is an American house DJ. Although born in 1971 as Paul Leighton Johnson, over the course of his illustrious career he has also become known as “The P.J. Project”, “Pilly P.”, “Smooth Stan Smith”, and “Yonkapin.” You probably know him from his Billboard chart-topping club mix, “Get Get Down.”

If you actually do know him from that,  you just gave yourself away. You like to party.

The triple option offense is… well… okay I am not going to lie; I have no idea. But let me make an educated guess. I do know that “triple threat” is a position in basketball. There is a guard, a center, a forward, a white role player, and then a triple threat. Contrarily, I also know that an “option” is the thing that you do not have when you are deciding whether or not to go to 6:30 lift on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Between those two pieces of background knowledge, it should be clear that I still have no way of making an educating guess. I suppose the only thing left to do is to do what I do on multiple choice questions in school that I don’t know the answer to: fill in all the bubbles but then lightly erase them so it is hard to distinguish which answer I really gave.

Vad Lee is just another redshirt freshman quarterback from North Carolina looking for an opportunity to make his presence felt in this world. I feel your struggle Vad.

Well that will do it for this weeks scouting report. Obviously, we have our hands full this afternoon. Before I go, I would like to introduce all of you Crib Callers to a new website. This site is like nothing you have ever seen before. Okay, not quite. Actually, it is very much like something that you have seen before. The site I am sharing with you is actually made in honor of the website you are on right now. Your wildest dream come true, I know. I don’t want to give everything about it away, but just know that it is pretty freakin sweet. I realize that another site in honor of this site seems like one of my frequent ploys to make myself seem more awesome than I really am. Have no doubt about it, that is something that I would definitely do. However, this time someone else beat me to the punch. I have never met the creator of this site, but I do know they are Crib Callers just like the rest of us here, so they have my respect.

World, I give you http://whatcalebsaid.wordpress.com/

Lastly, for those of you who did not see it, Crib Calls was featured on the front page of the sports section of the Daily Tar Heel the Friday before we played State. The article is now up for every serious journalism award that there is from the European Press Prize to the Pultizer; however, none of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for its author—Marilyn Payne. Marilyn just happens to come from a little place called Asheville, North Carolina. She has been running unopposed for this week’s Crib Call since the article was published. It was only a matter of time. Marilyn Payne, you are CRIB!!

You can check out the article here: http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2012/10/5089ec872b72e

Until next time,

C

P.S. For all of you who were asking about my Halloween costume, I did not forget about you.

Homecoming at Greensboro A&T is obviously a big deal. However, I just hope some of you will delay your travels to the 336 this Saturday long enough to take in our game against NC State at 12:30. I know what you are thinking. “Caleb, past performers at the Aggie Homecoming include Rick Ross, Wale, Gucci Mane, J Cole, and Drake. And that is just in the last two years. Who knows who might be there this time around? There is absolutely no way I will miss it.”

Even Drake would want you to watch the game before Homecoming.

After a lot of thinking, I realized that I couldn’t really come up with a sound case to dispute your point; at least not in writing. But then one night in a dream it hit me. The only way that I could possibly convince you to hold off your travels to Greensboro until later in the afternoon would be to really excite you about our game. When I woke up, I immediately took action. I understood that there was only one thing for me to do: film myself doing something extremely dangerous that would raise your level of interest in our game. Following this plan, this week I took my normal pregame scouting report to the next level by journeying into the heart of the NC State campus and interrogating Wolfpack insiders about our rivalry game. The following video is the result, and nothing would make me happier than to share it with you. Enjoy.

Crib Call of the Week: The first step in successfully competing in a rivalry game is having a healthy respect for your opponent. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize a former NC State great, Russell Wilson. Russell is in the midst of a great rookie campaign in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks, and although some of you might remember him as a Wisconsin Badger, he actually was a part of the NC State Wolfpack the majority of his college career. His stint in Raleigh came to an end when he decided to go play professional baseball with a Colorado Rockies farm team. As destiny would have it, this farm team was none other than the Asheville Tourists in Asheville, North Carolina. Russell, this one goes out to you brother.

CRIB!!!

Until next time,

C