Among the unfortunate by-products spawned by the justified firing of Randy Shannon is that fans actually suffering from Mad COW [Coaching Obsessed Whiners] disease will now go undetected for a longer period of time. Far from a victim-less disease, these volume-rich, content-poor purveyors of sports ignorance in Miami have actually been emboldened. The horror. In their heart of hearts, COWers think … no, they KNOW … that Kurtz should have switched to a pro set once Marlow was dispatched.

See the type of people who have been calling for Shannon’s firing have been doing so since 09/08/07. So God help us, these maggots of misinformation have actually been proven to be prescient for once. Sadly, various clinical experiments have confirmed that Mad COWers don’t — not unlike some of the college football programs they obsess over — regroup, they reload.

What can uninfected fans do? To paraphrase Jerry McGuire, we can help them by helping ourselves. Identifying the COWers is the first step. Fortunately this will be easy. Any mention of the word Heat, even from a meteorological perspective, will elicit a Dionysian spewing of invectives towards a Mr. Spoelstra [the Filipino-American NBA head coach, not the folk and blues guitarist].

If you are a liberal and feel a need to confirm the obvious before ‘Baker-acting’ the poor bastard, go ahead and ask a follow-up question. See some sample questions below. Warning – questioner should be prepared to respond with a Zombieland[Rule #2 double tap] lack of emotion should the specimen have a violent reaction:

• Did the U wait too long to fire Shannon?
• Could Jimmy Johnson [pronounced as one word] have done a better job?
• Name any player [ever] Butch Davis could not have recruited? Trick question, does not exist.

Here’s what I think about the firing. UM players who have gotten to know Shannon will never forget that their besieged coach acted with class throughout his time here. That he didn’t seem to turn on them or throw others under the bus for the failures in his program. They will remember that the guy they most respected in the game, was dismissed with three years left on a guaranteed contract.

So among the lessons Shannon’s players could draw from their experience is to use your skills in the game to eventually get paid and never confuse the people who casually state that “it’s all about the U” with someone who has lived it by example. There are people who we have to deal with in life and people we respect. They are not mutually exclusive by rule, but overlap only if we are fortunate. If they learn that, that’s a pretty good education. Maybe not the type of education they discussed when being recruited, but no less useful. Godspeed with that guaranteed contract Randy Shannon.