The new arrangements for the fall:

Matt Millen’s Inexplicable Employment Continues. What Matt Millen has to offer to college football that Chris Spielman doesn’t is clear: the stigma of reeking, carrion-strong failure from being the worst GM in the history of the NFL. If the stench is real, his new broadcast partners Sean McDonough will have to wear a gas mask. This would probably be just as good as most in-game commentary, now that we think about it. Holly Rowe moves over from ESPN to join them for ABC Saturdays, and it will probably be a bit blander overall than the Spielman/McDonough combo since Millen’s not likely to say anything as cool as “hunt, dog, hunt!”

Spielman moves to work with Dave Pasch and Bob Griese, and they’ll be working the noon game on ESPN.

The Champagne Crew: Nessler, Blackledge, and Andrews keep the ESPN Saturday Prime Time slot, a.k.a. The Ron Franklin Suite. Musberger, Herbstreit, and Salters on Saturday’s Blue-Ribbon game stay strong, as well.

Caucasian Menudo: The trio of James, Fowler, and Palmer remain together, who for our buck were the most gregarious, entertaining, freewheeling, and surprising crew last year in how much fun they had in the booth together.

Palmer gets additional face time as an in-studio analyst on Saturdays, thus expanding the Gator Nation’s reach into even our most hallowed halls of power like College Football Live. The Jort Illuminati grows in power; we approve. Andrews remains with them, and should really just start brandishing a combat shotgun everywhere she goes.

James will also see a shuffle as he joins Mike Patrick and Heather Cox for Saturday broadcasts on ESPN. Thus ends Patrick’s endless bellyaching over Blackledge’s immortal rabbit metabolism during “Todd’s Taste of the Town,” and begins the ascendency of Cox in the rankings of “soon-to-be-ruthlessly-stalked.” Buy options now.

Most importantly: DAVE LIVES. One of them, anyway. The new agreement effectively turning Jefferson Pilot/Lincoln Financial/Nigerian Space Program Television into ESPN Regional brings along one Dave, Dave Neal, who was forced to fight the other Daves to the death with the broken end of a pool cue by Norby Williamson dressed as the Joker. Neal emerged, bloodied and wild-eyed, and could be visibly shaken as he works with Andre Ware and Cara Capuano on the regionals.

This requires revision: The reverse negative of Ole Miss fan Shepherd Smith–Brock Huard–will proved commentary for the new Saturday night SEC game on ESPNU along with Eric Collins. Ron White belongs in this booth as a third banana, and be promises he’ll keep his Scotch off-camera.

–Everson Griffen and Jordan Campbell of USC may have been arrested in Nanutucket over the weekend for disturbing the peace, which would net USC two points in the Fulmer Cup if the charges stand. Hopefully netting all that sweet Nantucket tail was worth it, brah, because you know that’s what they were doing up top! (retreats from the computer with high-five unreturned.)

-LSU decided to put a tiny LSU on the front of their jersey, presumably so climbers lost in summit attempts on Herman Johnson can have a landmark as a reference point for rescue attempts.

–This is yet another example of why the generalist columnist is a wounded springbok staggering under the gaze of a hundred hungry hyenas. Viva la niche!

–We’ve never come out of the SEC scotch-free, especially if you count whiskey.

I am more familiar with the conference that I am in and I will challenge anybody to go through the SEC and come out of there scotch free. I’m kind of dodging your question (laughing).

Nutt also credits Danny Nutt, his brother, with bringing the Wildcat formation to Arkansas in the interview and putting Darren McFadden instead of a qb for the snap. No mention of any other coaches. Gus Malzahn, if given the chance at any point, will score seventy on Houston Nutt. Laughter will be had.

I know that outside the borders of our fine state, this is not the case. Some people might say I’m too bland to be included in the discussion of great coaches. That is just fine with me. You know, doing all that winning could get kind of boring for those not fortunate enough to live here. Perhaps they’re right: hard work and planning aren’t always interesting. We as coaches do all the boring things you do. We do the fun things, too, though. We go to parties with friends.

We try not to forget our friends. We take the same corny photos you take, no matter who we are.

We try to help out in our community, just like everyone else does. Doing the little things to help.

There are moments of glory, sure. When you work hard with a good group of people, good things happen if you’re all on the same page. We won a pair of championships, and we’re definitely proud of that. That’s something no one else has done in modern history. I’m most proud that we helped some good boys become even better men.

But life goes on. You pay bills like everyone else. You get old. Death, taxes and the Oklahoma game. You can’t avoid any of them. Even coach has to do jury duty just like everyone else.

It’s life, and it goes on whether you like it or not. You have to be prepared. For anyone who’s considering retirement, I would tell you that you have to stay busy. I’ve kept busy with a career in politics. People ask me what the difference between football and politics is, and I tell ‘em this: in football, you get a helmet, and in politics, well you don’t. I’m proud of what I helped the people of Nebraska do, but I’m out of that game.

In the meantime, I’m just like you. I still try to help people out whenever I can, especially my friends. I did a bit of volunteer work for Katrina when my old friend Bo Pelini called. Felt good about that.

I’m also like you because I enjoy the odd movie from time to time. In fact, you may not know about my lifelong interest in theater. I did a bit of auditioning in my retirement, too. While I thought I nailed the part, Ms. Coppola went with someone else, and she made a fine decision. Bill did the job I couldn’t do, even if I have a much better singing voice.

So maybe what they’re saying is right: ol’ coach is a little too bland to be considered with greats like Woody Hayes. That’s probably true. I’m fine with that. We accomplished a lot, and I hope to help a great coach like Bo Pelini bring Nebraska back to that kind of success the Nebraska way. It’s a challenge I embrace, and I look forward to celebrating with you all with a Big 12 championship again in the near future.

Thanks again for coming. If you’d like to join me outside, Scarlett Johanssen will be posing nude and covered in pure 100% Nebraska-grown corn oil on my custom rocket sled with Lil’ Red in the parking lot. Pie and punch will be served, too. I look forward to shaking your hand and meeting you all face-to-face. God bless you, and Go Huskers.

Worry. Oh, worry worry worry. This whole commercial is much funnier if you imagine it with a human arm, handgun, or dildo as the dog’s prized possession.

Actual Youtube results for this: zero Ladies and gents, a day in the life of former Auburn linebacker Trey Blackmon:

2:11 Searched “Tray Blackmon is a terrifying and large mother fucker” on Youtube. 12, 345 hits.

2:22 Watched myself destroy Glenn Coffee. Full mast.

Little Ball of Hate won’t be terrifying at all, because he plays in the CFL. We should go back to bed.will be quite terrifying all day for Auburn this fall, just as he’s been since he got there. Big Ball of Hate is currently in the Alachua County Jail awaiting a hearing on cocaine possession charges after wrestling six cops during his arrest. (But can he play defensive tackle?)

HOOOOOWEEEEE. Got me a tv show! Me and Jevan Snead gonna do jokes in a cornfield! WOOOOOGIGGITY.

Secondary violations: They’re everywhere, and sometimes they involve Nickelback, and sometimes Brian Cook gets a hold of that pony and rides it ’till it dies and collapses in a heap. “Hawaii: guilty of “preposterous apostrophization”‘ That’s how a man gets the James Cook treatment at the hands of the natives, Brian, aka the “Kinetic Cranially Applied Mahalo.”

Reduced: Fulmer Cup points for Lavunce Askew of Arkansas, whose charges were dismissed this week. Four points come off the books for the Razorbacks, a move likely taking them off the big board.

RIP. Ja’Quavin Smalls of Western Carolina died during an offseason workout in Cullowhee, NC. The workout was his first as a Catamount after transferring from Georgia Military College. He complained of cramping, and was stretching on the side when he collapsed.

–Iowa, Notre Dame, 1939, Nile Kinnick goes off.

–No sound, but we’ll fill in for you: harumphharumphISAYTHEREGOODSHOWharumphharumphYAAAAAYYYY. Fill in any blanks with thumping oompa tubas and bass drums.

–It’s chilling to think how many people on the field were killed in World War II. One was Kinnick.

(HT: BHGP)

CONSUME. Now available in selected regional newsstands across America, Gator Gridiron profiles the 2009 Florida Gators football team as only we can: WITH HUNDREDS OF NUDE PHOTOS. That’s right, nude photos of beautiful celebrities performing despicable but riveting acts with all manner of implements and other beautiful celebrities.

Sure, you like Dan Shanoff, but you’ll like him better when we take his piece Tebow: Great… Or Greatest? and pair it with a picture of Kristen Bell from her Veronica Mars days in a bikini soaping up a tranquilized American alligator! HEY-YAH!!! She’s a wiry one! Just wait until you get until the pieces by Chrison Charlie Strong’s defense and the evolution of Tim Tebow. They’re 100% genius, but wait until you see his brilliant analysis matched up against ACTUAL PICTURES OF NAKED ERIN ANDREWS NAKED ERIN ANDREWS.*

Order here: Holly, Joel, Scott, Ryan, T. Kyle, and some random anarchist named Spencer Hall are all included, and at 124 pages it is certainly more information than one might require about the 2009 Florida Gators.

*”NAKED ERIN ANDREWS” is Polish for “accurate diagrams of spread formations lining up against a standard 4-3 defense.” We apologize for any inconvenience. Also there are no other nude photos in the guide except for the author’s photo. You pay 12 bucks, you get exactly 12 bucks worth.

Left with the sad crop of mortals we have, here are the SEC’s quarterbacks ranked by their ability to perform well in a barfight.

12. Jonathan Crompton, Tennessee. Too slow to even compete here. What kind of slow? That kind, really. Which kind, you ask again? Oh, take the whole spice rack of whatever slow means to you. It’s all there.

11. Tim Tebow. Too pacifist by far, though he can certainly take punishment. Also, though you’d think bolts of divine lightning would probably level everyone arrayed against him, you’d be surprised at how far out on a limb the Lord will leave you no matter how much he loves you. Best to avoid getting caught in a gory Biblical plotline and pick someone else for a wingman in case a Kentucky Hailstorm breaks out one boozy night. Also: probability of Tebow being in a bar, much less one your ass is sitting in? Low.

10. Ryan Mallett, Arkansas. The good news: he will at least be comfortable in a bar. The bad news: he’s a big slow former Michigan qb once described as “a brain-damaged heron,” so a solid kick to the nuts could send him scurrying fast. Or threaten him with a transition to a running spread offense. That could do it, too.

9. Mike Hartline, Kentucky. A Kentucky quarterback, so automatically granted three spots due to surgically reinforced ribs required to play the position. A one trick pony fightwise, though: avoid the 6′6″ers haymakers, and pretty soon you’re whipping him around the place like a fun noodle at a pool party.

8. Jordan Jefferson, LSU. From Louisiana, so at least you know he’s an experienced bar fighter. (It’s taught in lieu of Civics as part of state curriculum.) Still a bit inexperienced, but elusive, and at 6′4″ definitely possesses the reach needed to keep opponents at bay. Also has the number of Herman Johnson in his phone, and if he gets to it quickly enough, The Biggest Baby Ever Born In Louisiana will just come there and stare at everyone until they get frightened enough to act right.

7. Greg McElroy, Alabama. Still a relatively unknown quantity, but at least he’s been training.

John Parker Wilson punched that same machine, and it failed to register anything, preferring instead to sprout roses and cooing noises. We quote: “DAMN THESE BEAUTIFUL BANGS OF MINE!!!!”–John Parker Wilson, every day of his life.

6. Larry Smith, Vanderbilt. Another selection based on his ability to take punishment as the quarterback behind an offensive line with an occasionally gracious style of blocking. He’s also named “Larry,” and it’s surprising how many guys named “Larry” from the South fight like pissed-off Huns when cornered.

5. Steven Garcia, South Carolina. Garcia is huge, and thus capable of imparting great force behind his punches and kicks. He has no idea where they’re going to do problems with accuracy, but that’s why he’s at five and not higher. Also prone to dropping things he’s supposed to hang onto, like footballs, or in a fight something like brass knuckles or a knife. Besides those things, he’s a solid choice, and one of our bets to withstand a chair broken across his back with ease.

4. Tyson Lee, Mississippi State. We know little about him, but we’ll take a flyer on him at four because if he’s willing to step up and play behind that offensive line, he must be able to take at least a few solid haymakers without falling down and throwing up blood. (If he were still around, we’d take Michael Henig here, because he really did come as close as anyone we’ve seen to bleeding internally out his mouth as anyone we’ve ever seen play football without dying.)

3. Joe Cox, Georgia. You never see the Ginger Ninja coming, unless it’s at night, when his red hair sticks out and his translucent skin practically luminesces, or during the day when he’ll ask you for some sunscreen before attempting to kill you, because it’s really bright out here and that’s not good for me, so could you sit still while I throw this throwing star at you from the shade, m’kay?

2. Jevan Snead. There’s a dash of danger to Snead, a quarterback capable of beating Florida on their own field while coughing up losses to Wake Forest and Vanderbilt. He’s wily like a fox, meaning he can sneak eggs unbroken out of a chicken coop, but will also sometimes put his foot into a bear trap lit with floodlights and big signs written in fox-language reading “DON’T STICK YOUR PAW IN HERE.” For fightin’ purposes, this means he’s all roundhouse, knocking out three opponents before falling for the “tap-on-the-shoulder, turn, and get punched by smiling opponent” move you see in old Elvis movies. Personally, he’d be our favorite pick, if only because he’d also be dashing enough to do the trick where you punch someone, take a swig of beer, duck, and then punch someone and finish the beer.

1. Kodi Burns/Neal Caudle, Auburn. Because you get two bodies in one fell swoop by taking the platoon, even if it is cheating. (Since when has anyone had a problem with “creative advantage seeking” in our fair conference.) Admittedly, neither has any proven ability to knock anyone out, but Burns is elusive, and if all else fails you can throw one of them at the opposition Mongo-style. Especially Cauldle, who is still young, lanky, and thin enough to hurl like a bolo in a pinch. Pulling him from around the neck of an incapacitated opponent will be like untangling a yo-yo, but the look on the guy’s face will totally be worth it. A case where the two-headed beast at quarterback really could help you, if only to use as a distraction on your way out of town. (It worked for Tuberville!)

Whew! That Wuerffelmas hangover is rotten. After too much Christ Nog and Wuerffel Cakes last night, the old central nervous system feels like someone poured drain cleaner through it. What better to shake off the hangover from a Florida fan’s favorite holiday than high-school football players running sumo drills? Besides a rum drip for the morning?

If you don’t think this would be a stellar idea, just imagine the fun of putting Ndamukong Suh in a suit of innertubes and letting him do this on the field. NOW you’re seeing it.

“It’s called ‘Lick My Love Pump’” Orrin Hatch has a beautiful number he’d like to play for you, and then he’d like you to answer one question:

Hatch said. “What more could they have done to play their way into a national championship game?”

Perlman offered pity for the spurned Utes. “That’s the way the world is, I’m afraid,” he said.

In a perfect world, at this point in the hearings a troop of chimpanzees comes in and rips everyone’s arms off and beats them with them. In case you wonder just what a one-person donkey show these hearings are, note that only two other senators even appeared at the hearing. FARK wins, as usual: “With all other problems in the country solved, Utah Senator Hatch wants an anti-trust investigation of the BCS.”

Setting up their eventual upset of USC in even more dramatic fashion. In the preseason Pac-10 meetings, someone drew the straw in the lottery deciding to beat USC in a stunner this year. If the winner was Washington, the win will be even more dramatic than it might have been yesterday, as they’ve lost two running backs to unspecified off-field issues. As with all things football-related, we blame Ty Willingham for this.

You’ll know he’s working again because receivers are being treated for holes in their abdomen. Oregon State Lyle Moevao is throwing again–at one brutally fast speed, yes, but throwing again. Moevao is eminently likable for two reasons: 1. He’s beefy and tatted up, and 2. He hammers screen passes like a hot read slant off a blitz.

No, this won’t get old.has a similar pitch to Arizona State’s interactive bid to get your season tickets, and you can have the same kind of fun one might have had with ASU’s if one were extremely immature. Which one is:

Spaziani kills his lines, though, exceeding Dennis Erickson’s performance in ASU’s by leaps and bounds.

Evil Richt……he lives.

This bitch is a sellout. Apply sedatives, put in deep hibernation, kill us so we can be reincarnated, put us in Arkham…this needs to start now.

It’s July, when most people hit the beach for a week and give up on doing anything put picking sand out of sandwiches on the beach and collecting future melanomas. Except for brave football columnists like Paul Finebaum, who soldier through the heat, looking to start fires with the most inflammatory of column fuel. We’d call it stirring the pot, but stirring implies some training and skill. This is more akin to a crackhead slapping the side of a burning oil drum in an alley with an oar until someone notices.

We know. This is what Finebaum does, and it makes him lots of money. Like Nicholas Cage’s hair or watching a highly paid coach botch time management at the end of a half, It doesn’t make it any less point/laughworthy.

Sampled only as needed, with helpful elision provided to eliminate chaff (i.e. the sensible and factual parts of the column.) Also, consider the following things totally accepted as possible:

1. Urban Meyer could totally leave Florida at any instant.

2. Paul Finebaum has done fine work as a columnist in the past.

3. Paul Finebaum could really now be writing his columns by Mad-Lib.

The rest, vivisected as follows:

Lead: Easy plug and play political reference with link to college football, followed by:

Urban Meyer is probably leaving Florida after the season to go to Notre Dame. Meyer says he’s not going. He insists he loves it in Gainesville and has no intention of taking a position he once described as “my dream job.”

So how do I know Meyer is not telling the truth? Easy. Meyer’s lips moved when he denied the story.

Be sure to put that in its own line, because that one kills! He lies! There’s an edited version where he also says the same thing about Bobby Petrino, Lane Kiffin, and even Nick Saban. He’s just saving that for when the time is right, and he can put another Mad Lib column up accusing a coach of leering at another job. Seriously, you will see this paragraph in a Finebaum column in the next two years:

COACH is probably leaving after the season to go to NOTRE DAME/NFL/FULFILLING BUT SCANDALOUS CAREER IN GAY PORN. COACH says he’s not going. He insists that he loves it in COLLEGE TOWN and has no intention BLAH BLAH BLAH.

We’d do the same with columns, but when it comes to “Coach’s Name” we always fill in “FART” just like we did in third grade. Moving on:

Perhaps there was a time when Meyer was about what’s right in college football. They say he was just a normal guy out in Utah. Maybe he was even a decent cat for about 24 hours in Gainesville. Since then, Meyer has become obsessed with success and power…

Same guy so obsessive he used to do full-throated motivational speeches to nearly empty rooms at Bowling Green. Sure, it was exposure to the ambient creeping evil in the 352 that did it. That’s a much more logical explanation. Some twaddling on about how obsessed Meyer is with Notre Dame follows, and then some obvious notes about roster losses post-Tebow, and then the requisite manual genital manipulation of his audience:

Don’t think Meyer isn’t just a tad concerned about Nick Saban stockpiling warehouses loaded with blue-chip talent in Tuscaloosa. Meyer knows he dodged a bullet in the fourth quarter of the SEC title game last year.

“That’s raight, Paul. Grip it closer to the base. Yeah, don’t be afraid of hurtin’ it. Just don’t block my view of the Bear Bryant shrine over there. I can’t get where I want to go without it.” We just watched this game last week on CSS, and it was close, well-fought, and came down to Florida having a quarterback, and Alabama almost having a quarterback. The only bullets we saw in the fourth came off the arm of Tim Tebow to Louis Murphy against spectacular Cover 2 defense by Alabama. That wasn’t dodging a bullet: it was beating the second best opponent we played all year, and a fine, fine football team.

Next: INSANE CONSPIRACY THEORY ABOUT THE UTAH GAME. Not even worth discussing, unless to note that if the prior statement was blatant ball-strokage of the Alabama fanbase, this is the prostate tickle for Hoover-area conspiracy theorists. Meyer had a national title game to prepare for, his offensive coordinator to replace, a new OC to move in, and a pile of recruiting. Also, Utah needed little help against an Alabama team playing without its starting left tackle and a Utah defense all too aware of what pressure points to hit.

Nevermind the disservice this pays to Andy Ludwig, former Utah OC and current Cal assistant, who allegedly took issue with Saban’s insistence that Alabama should have won by three TDs in the game an off-season clinic. You could say, “Hey, that’s a message board.” Given the source text we’re looking at here, even wacky message board hearsay is just as admissible in this kangaroo court as a Finebaum column.

Former Utah OC Andy Ludwig was in attendance for Saban’s lecture. Ludwig, who is now the OC at Cal, presented Thursday morning and took a little offense to Saban’s remarks. Ludwig opened the lecture by saying “I try to keep everything simple. You know, I sat here last night and listened to a man say how he had 30 different ways to run cover 2, and I’m just sitting there thinking to myself, ‘geez, I only have one way to run a dig route’. But you know what? That one way was more than enough to beat him.” (he was talking about Saban)

Later, towards the end of his speech he said, “You know, I’m sitting in the audience and I hear ‘We should have beat Utah by two TDs’ and I almost stood up and said, ‘yeah, but you didn’t.’ It’s kind of hard to win by two tds when you’re down 21 points in the first half.”

It was easy enough to figure out how to beat a somewhat depleted Alabama team: play precise ball, pressure the left side and John Parker Wilson, and you stood a good chance. Also not to be overlooked: Utah 2008=really freaking good. So now that we’ve painted this as inaccurate in three different directions, let’s move on. Ninja says lazy streetfighter always follows with slow roundhouse. Ninja is right:

In case you don’t own a police blotter — or have the DVD collection of the television series “COPS” — the Gators recently celebrated their 24th arrest since Meyer’s arrival.

We recommend the 3-pack with “Bad Girls” for the seasoned viewer. For the novice, the third season offers a particularly moving episode involving a meth head stuck shoeless on an metal roof in Las Vegas. For the college football fan, we’d point out that everyone else got done spluttering about Florida’s arrest about two months ago, and that after that Finebaum probably edited out a reference to a Sarah Palin joke, because even he realized they’re played out, and that his primary readership would elect her and Elizabeth Hasselbeck to the White House, but only if they promised to make out at the inauguration ceremony topless. (Rich Lowry just shot off in his pants thinking about this. If you did, too, well…we don’t judge. You have that happy moment.)

Blah, Machen sucks…and blatant misleading factual presentation:

Meyer has four years left on a contract that pays him well north of $3 million a year. He works at a school that recently cut $40 million from its general budget.

UAA pays Meyer’s salary in full and runs a surplus. The budgets are only connected semantically, and UAA is in fact giving six million back to the school this year in a recession. But please: take the offramp to hackeneyedconclusionville in the name of your column. You’re losing the grip there, and may need more lube.

Then a bit more stroking of the Meyer-to-ND rumor, and calling Machen “megalomaniacal,” (irony! it never dies,) and then the coup de grace:

It is unlikely Meyer has to worry about falling as far as Donovan (who is no longer even considered the best coach in his division). However, for all of the beatings Meyer has put on and will likely continue to put on schools this fall, he will become the hunted next year. His arrogance (see Ole Miss debacle last year) won’t be able to handle that.

BECAUSE HE’S FRAGILE LIKE A FLOWER!!! Meyer plans on coaching next year wearing black and with his nose in a copy of Twilight, because he wishes his skin sparkled in the sun like a sexy but sensitive teen vampire, too! He may just go someplace where he can win all of his games easily, like…um…Notre Dame. Yes, that all makes perfect sense.

Jamie the Waiter: Anything for you, sir?

Steve Spurrier: Just a little more cocoa butter and five lineman who can block their way out of Gymboree. That would be nice. Oh, and a Bud Light.

Jamie: Sir, you know you can’t have those. This is the S.S. Gallo. Quality linemen are expressly forbidden by ship rules. Also, you may want to know about ice ahead.

Spurrier: Ice? What the hell? We’re twenty miles outta Charleston!

Jamie: Well, he is a talented one.

Stephen Garcia: Let’s show that freaky frozen water who’s boss, bitches!

Jamie: Sir, would you like to abandon ship?

Spurrier: No, no. We still got the defense to keep things tight. Ten returning starters.

Jamie: [pauses. looks around]

Spurrier: What? What is it?

Jamie: That was last year, sir. We have six returning starters, and lost 100 career starts in the secondary.

Spurrier: Well, shit.

Garcia: FULL SPEED AHEAD, BRAH!!! [attempts to press throttle down, misses, drops anchor and sounds horn at the same time, falls over.)

Spurrier: Yeah, get the lifeboats.

Happy Wuerffelmas. It being 7/7 on the calendar, we’ll let you in on a secret Gator fan holiday, and one we don’t share lightly: Wuerffelmas!

There’s prayer sessions, shotput competitions in honor of Wuerffel’s unorthodox throwing motion, and the ceremonial wearing of multiple knee braces, flak jackets, and extra helmet padding to honor our Lord and Savior’s suffering under center before Spurrier decided he’d suffered enough for our sins, and moved him under shotgun for the salvation of Gator Nation. The one thing that sucks about Wuerffelmas: repeated random assaults by Peter Boulware. Other than that, it’s all good, especially because Lutherans drink beer quietly but steadily, meaning if you get started around noon you can land a solid buzz on the runway sometime around 3:30 p.m. The holiday concludes by wearing a Saints helmet backwards and throwing footballs blindly until someone breaks the pinata full of chocolate Ditkas.

Negative Grohmentum: It’s real, it’s spectacular, and you need to prepare for it. Michael’s piece does a nifty job packaging the otherwise drab, depression notion of “regression to the mean” in shinier clothing, particularly in regards to the Coach of the Year Award. Rhetoric that makes chingy cash noises:

So which teams are the lucky ones who have a four-in-five chance of seeing their records get worse this year? Alabama, Ole Miss, Vandy, Penn State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Georgia Tech, Oregon State, and Cincinnati.

With Alabama and Ole Miss on that list working against an 80% probability of backslide, it’s time to buy LSU futures like mad. (Though we suspect Ole Miss to be a subtle disappointment, as its schedule is a bit backloaded and features two D-1AA opponents. Like Texas Tech every year, but with less coherent quotes from the head coach.)

It’s not an emergency until they lose three running backs. Iowa doesn’t really panic until they lose 1,000 pounds worth of running back, but the potential injury to projected starter Jewel Hampton did rattle already meth-jogged nerves in Iowa a bit. Remember, though, it’s not news UNTIL BLACKHEARTGOLDPANTS.COM SAYS IT IS:

If there was any chance Hampton’s ACL was torn (as was initially rumored), he would almost certainly be in a brace, and would likely be unable to move, let alone run up the stairs of his house, a mere 3-4 days after the injury. This might be just a minor tweak of Hampton’s springtime injury blown up into RUNNINGBACKPOCALYPSE by, well, people like us (you have to admit, we tried to limit the rumormongering here).

So they’re waiting. Oh, and the regional drug of choice for Florida, should you be chapped about an Iowa meth joke, is freon tapped from an air conditioner mixed with weed shake smoked out of an emptied Busch Light can. We all have our variations on glory.

We hate everything orange and white……but even we look to the west and think of glory when we hear John Ward say “It’s football time in Tennessee!!!” Then we swing a broadaxe at a cardboard cutout of Casey Clausen.

She’d be better than Crompton. The Wall Street Journal on today’s hearings on the BCS, artfully trumped into something resembling legislative discussion by Orrin Hatch:

College football would be better off if those who run the BCS could recognize that the calls for playoffs are being fed by the precision their system implicitly promises but can never deliver. And Americans would be better off if Republican legislators devoted their energies to reforming our antiquated antitrust laws instead of looking for silly new ways to apply them.

Nonsense. Some of them are so devoted to reforming college football, they’re joining the Tennessee football team.

But the third? That would be East Carolina, a team we sometimes refer to as “Eastern Carolina” here on the blog because we are dumb, and fond of screwing up proper nouns whenever and wherever possible thanks to our creeping Alzheinstein’s disease. Hey, these are probably the real lyrics to the fight song!

ECU is 6-10 against BCS teams since 2005, but with five of those wins coming against ACC teams. This lends further credence to what we’ll call “Groh’s Law”:

Groh’s Law: The theory stating that against all laws of math and reality, all teams playing in the ACC shall go 7-5 or 5-7 every year without variation, even if playing weak out-of-conference slates.

East Carolina has also played the most games against BCS opponents since 2005, with a mansome total of 16 games equalled only by the Ass-rippin’ Schnellenbergers of Florida Atlantic University (the ass-rippin’ being passive and offered, as they are 1-15 in games against BCS opponents.) Take ECU out of the sum total for Conference USA, though, and we’re plating up Fugly Salad: C-USA is 11-91 overall against BCS teams, a record bested–er, worsted only by the Sun Belt Conference, who has a 6-84 record against the BCS overall. Did you know that one anagram for the Sun Belt is “Feeblest Unconcern?” It’s not as good as “Enfeebles Corn Cunt,” but it certainly makes more sense.

Oh, and East Carolina is helping smooth out the fight against the insurgency in Iraq. Suck on that, Schnellenberger.

Director: …and we’re rolling in 3…2…

Lou Holtz: Wait, wait. This feels…wrong.

Director: Okay, Lou. We’re cut for time here, so make it quick.

Holtz: Don’t tell me we’re in a rush. I taught Sam Peckinpah everything he knows about movies. The rape scene in Straw Dogs? My idea from the start, though mine involved an octopus, a pinata full of bees, and Shelley Winters with a bullwhip.

Director: I’m sorry, but I can’t believe you–

Holtz: Listen up! I know movies, and this film lacks something. A spark. A little pizzazz. You got nothin’! A big poor kid, Sandra Bullock with a bad Mississippi accent, and not a pirate, hot dame, or gunfight in sight. What’s a movie without these? I’ll tell you what it is. A vagina for the eyes.

Director: I don’t even know what that means.

Holtz: ‘Course you don’t.

Sandra Bullock: Hey, I have a dialect coach from Steel Magnolias, I’ll have you know–

Holtz: And a dancing coach from the Pegleg Olympics and Amelia Earhart for flying lessons. Neither one will get over the Pacific or onstage with an Emmy, sweetie.

Sandra Bullock: Oscar.

Holtz: No, it’s Lou, but thanks. Listen, amateurs. I did all my pitching to recruits with my best foot forward. And by foot, I mean 12 inches. So that’s how it should be done.

Director: Um, if you could just put your pants back on, Lou, we’d really like to–

Holtz: This won me the bar bets that got me the Arkansas job, my wife, and my own private island off the cost of Bimini. It’s how I pitched recruits in real life, it scared Tony Rice into signing an X on that scholarship agreement, and I’ll be damned if it’s not going in a movie that’s supposedly about real life and me and football.

Sandra Bullock: [stares, mouth agape.]

Director: …and we’re rolling.

Lou Holtz: Hi, Michael. I’m Lou Holtz, and I’m here to get you play football for the University of Phoenix.

Sandra Bullock: [makes 'call me' sign with hand]

Director: …and cut.

Photo source: here. And Freek, of course. Holtzian translation provided by Holly, who speaks lisp fluently.

It’s very noble that you think you’re trying to save lives. Really, it is. We admire that. Every day, we see people run over by careless drivers, shot by hooligans, and barbecued by roving cannibals on our streets and do nothing about it. In fact, sometimes the thought of “Why don’t I stop and do anything about it?” pops into our head as we’re enjoying a well-cooked slice of one of the unfortunate victims slathered in a rich, tangy barbecue sauce. Where is our Dark Knight, we ask?

Answer: you, Bernie Machen, who sees what other people don’t see in two Florida students falling down stairs and off a parking garage: a plague! A trend, a connection between your curious distaste for demon rum and another University of Florida-related event, another chance to protect people from themselves. Kudos to you for stepping in again to protect people from themselves.

What we’re asking is that you take care of the most serious threat at Florida games:The Bastard Sun.

Are you aware that there’s something on fire right up there? And that this thing can give you cancer? Now what if I told you that it was going to appear at every single day game Florida plays this year. You’d do something, right? Especially with that many lives at risk? WHY AREN’T YOU DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, BERNIE MACHEN??? Did you not hear that it’s on fire RIGHT NOW?

Wait, let’s try this: sometimes the sun, which is on fire all the time, makes people hot, and then they get thirsty, and…wait for it….wait….they start drinking alcohol.

Look at him run! That’s one nimble dentist there.