By E.B. Phillips:

As our pal Bob ‘Palindrome’ Lee chews his cud over at the Cow College hoping the mush in his craw might actually become something other than the fertilizer he’s dropped so far, anxiety mounts among the Canine Crowd that the unbiased and thorough investigation they howled for might just send their dreams packing. Poor things. Still clinging to the 80’s when the blind pig found an acorn, what in the world will they talk about?

Here are some suggestions to get them off their haunches:

The 2015 U.S. News & World Report Top Universities issue might offer a good topic. They can scroll down past Carolina’s Top Five ranking in Top Public Schools to find their beloved moo-niversity tied for 43rd with FSU (Felony State University).

Forbes magazine’s 2015 look at the Top Colleges offers another choice, if they don’t tire of searching for NC State at #180, right behind Juniata College and just ahead of Calvin College.

Kiplinger’s 2015 Best College Values rankings will provide Our Pal Lee (aka The Red Whine) a bumper sticker for his red Dodge Dart: “NCSU. We’re Number 12!” Alas, poor B-O-B. Carolina has been ranked #1 every year since 1998.

But, “Oh,” says The Red Whine. “This is about athletics!” If Our Pal Lee will remove his rosacea-colored glasses from his rump roast, he need research no further than the Capital One Cup that “recognizes the best in college sports” nationally. In 2011, when UNC ranked 11th in the nation, NCSU didn’t make the top 75-Team cut-off. In 2012, Carolina ranked 5th. State?  Another no show. 2013 saw The Woofs achieve their highest ranking ever (44th) while the Tar Heels dropped to 9th. 2014 saw another no-show for State. While the 2015 Cup standings saw Carolina drop to 26th – their lowest ranking since the inaugural award – the Wolfslack finally made the field, but only after the rankings expanded to 85 teams, where The Slack tied for 84th with Miami (Ohio) and New Mexico.

Perhaps a review of the 2015 Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup standings will provide Ol’ Whine with some relief? Well, unsnap those overalls, Bob, and breathe. While North Carolina ranked in the Top Five (along with Stanford, UCLA, Michigan and UCLA), the sports-challenged Slack didn’t make the field.

Another topic for The Red Whine faithful might be Cheated. But they had better hurry. Mary and Jay are sure to wrap-up their book signing at Wolfpack Outfitters for the twenty-three Woofers who actually purchase one, proving again that no one really cares to listen very long to howling at the moon. Poor things. Where in the world will they find work after this?

Of course, Wolfslack Nation will howl about academic integrity and student academic performance, but why shouldn’t they? They have some experience in that area. Led by Jim ‘They Gave Me A Lifetime Contract And Then They Declared Me Dead’ Valvano, the academic standards at State became the talk of the athletic community nationwide.

While a Wolfslack student athlete and under oath at his felony trial, Chris ‘Lifetime NBA Ban’ Washburn testified about those stringent standards when questioned about his SAT scores, which were below 500 (out of 1600, with 400 being the starting score).

“The coaches over there told me, ‘You already signed, you’re already in school, you just have to take the test just to get into college,’” Washburn said. When they told me it didn’t matter what score I was getting, I went in for about 22 minutes. I just marked down [answers] … mark, mark, mark.”

Rounding out Chris ‘Marky Mark’ Washburn’s funky bunch at State was another scholar, Charles ‘I Am Amphibious’ Shackleford.  The Webbed Wonder’s path toward a career in biology was cut short when he was inexplicably suspended in the fall of 1986 because of poor grades, being reinstated for the spring semester after an appeal and a contractual agreement to attend all classes, following the ‘unusual involvement’ of chancellor Bruce ‘The Ruse’ Poulton.

Former head of the NC State physical education department Richard Lauffer described Shackleford as a poor student, without “any interest in trying to get an education” and who “should never have been in school”.

None other than University of North Carolina System President C.D. Spangler went on record stating “academic processes & standards of NCSU have been misused a number of times to benefit basketball players,” while the NCAA stated that NCSU “academic improprieties ranged from attempts at grade changes to players not attending classes.”

When reminded of this example of their stellar academic commitment, Wolfslack Nation ties a leash around it by saying, “the only thing they charged N.C. State with was our players gave shoes and tickets. We took responsibility for our actions.” Well, e-i-e-i-Oh!  They weren’t in it for academic reasons. They were in it for the money. Shazam! Guess you got us there.