Tennessee lost, the board is delighted, and Matt4RockyTop has disappeared.

The doomers have their proof, the miserable are finally happy, and everybody seems downright refreshed by defeat. Everybody except, presumably, Matt—who after a week of political detours, locked threads and general message-board arson is nowhere to be found.

If you missed the wreckage that made everybody so cheerful, start with Saturday’s Texas postgame report.

Somewhere on Signal Mountain, there is a very real chance a man is glaring at an iPad and shaking his fat fist at the Tennessee Valley right now.

Matt4RockyTop really stepped in it this time. He stepped in it so badly that the board started doing wellness checks. An entirely separate multi-page message-board banger appeared with Matt4RockyTop as the subject, with posters essentially asking one question:

What the fuck, Matt?

And they had reason to ask.

It started when word hit the board that Donald Trump was coming to Tennessee–Texas. For Matt, this wasn’t football news. It was a bat signal for every grievance he’d been storing in the attic.

Matt landed on Signal Mountain, high above Chattanooga, overlooking downtown, the Tennessee River and Moccasin Bend. He unpacked the boxes, looked down at the city below, and went straight to work worrying about everybody else.

First came the Subarus.

In Matt’s world, a Subaru isn’t just a car. It’s a progressive merit badge.

Then he came for the Toyota 4Runner.

Apparently the progressive motor pool had expanded.

Then Matt got to Signal Mountain.

In Matt’s caricature, it’s nice houses, transplants, and people who fled whatever blue hellscape they came from, made it safely to Tennessee, and then forgot to leave the politics they were escaping in the U-Haul.

Never mind that Signal Mountain keeps going.

Farms. Rural communities. The Sequatchie County side.

Hilljacks.

Lots of hilljacks.

Matt painted them all with the same blue brush anyway.

Charting Matt’s Descent Into Madness

Hopes03 was among the first to say it out loud:

“WTF is wrong with Matt? I think he just posted a few minutes ago.”

Then Pantone showed up.

Heavy equipment operator from Dade County, Georgia. Board back channels put him somewhere in Matt’s orbit. Pantone wasn’t there to calm anybody down. He was bristling for a fight.

“He ain’t wrong. Some of y’all just don’t like hearing it.”

That helped.

ErectVol:

“This is still going on? lol.”

Then NashVol98 arrived with the coroner’s report:

“I can’t imagine living my life where politics were on my mind so much that I argued with strangers on a football message board constantly.”

Right on cue came the old rule nobody apparently taught Matt.

DaleRod, retired history professor at Lee University in Cleveland, though he still calls it Lee College. Thirty years at a Church of God school left him with very firm ideas about what belonged in polite conversation.

Politics and money did not.

“I was raised that talking about politics and money in polite company was considered poor manners.”

At that point, it sounded less like etiquette and more like a plea for Matt to shut the hell up.

And still Matt kept posting.

The funniest part was that none of this started in a political thread.

It was Muschamp versus Heupel. Defensive output versus offensive output.

Then Matt got hold of it.

By the time he finished, Muschamp was gone. Heupel was gone. The stats were on the floor. And the fight was about Trump, Subarus, 4Runners and Signal Mountain.

Then Hubbs locked the post.

Nobody could post.

Matt wrecked the damn thing.

One thread locked, and board back channels scrambled to put Matt back in his box.

Didn’t work.

Different thread. Same board.

Matt surfaced in the Arch Manning septum-ring thread.

That one didn’t get locked.

That one got nuked.

One locked.

One erased.

Then Matt disappeared.

Banned. Shadow banned. Timeout. Self-exile.

Nobody really knows.

For now, Matt4RockyTop is off the grid, which, given that 24-hour heater, was probably good for everybody.

Including Matt.

User Profile: Matt4RockyTop

• Hometown: Signal Mountain, Tennessee
• Occupation: Regional sales manager, commercial HVAC distribution
• Education: University of Tennessee
• Board tenure: Long enough for roughly 40,000 posts and a graveyard of grudges
• Background: Tennessee grad who went to Colorado, got tired of being taxed to the living dogshit, and moved back home the first chance he got
• Residence: Signal Mountain — Chattanooga’s almost got money mountain. Lookout has the real money. Signal has the fleece vest and an opinion.
• Posting habits: Football until politics becomes available. Politics until Brent Hubbs becomes available.
• Known associate: Pantone — Dade County, Georgia; heavy equipment operator; perpetually bristling for a fight
• Current status: Unconfirmed. Banned, shadow banned, timed out or self-exiled
• Reliability: Strong on Tennessee football. Rapidly deteriorates when national politics enters the room.
• Known weakness: An unattended political thread and a fully charged phone

LWS Assessment

Matt went to Colorado, escaped Colorado, moved to Signal Mountain and then spent 40,000 posts making sure Colorado never found him again.

Colorado may have found him anyway.