Matt Hayes posts a few shreds of gossip here, including your all important UTEP note. Yes, your day would have been complete without it.

Bad week gets worse for Dirk Koetter. This time two lineman are kicked off the team following an incident involving taking naked photographs of a woman without her permission. Somebody should start the Koetter watch fifteen minutes ago.

Someone else hates the BCS as much as we do. Unfortunately, they wasted fifteen bucks worth of paper and ink on Texas taxpayers’ tab doing it.

Fifteen cups of coffee later, we’re awake and getting all jittery about the possibilities this coming season: upsets, collapses, new stars, a playoff system…well, you can’t get everything you want. But we do have the following ten games that make us even more jumpy than we already are just thinking about them.

(Note: these aren’t the most important games, mind you: we’re not putting Ohio State-Michigan on here, but we are commending Dan Hawkins’ huge testicles for putting Boise State on the line with a brutal schedule that opens in Athens playing UGA. And yes, that’s brutal for the WAC, but what isn’t relative in a system with no playoff? And yes, we’re unhealthily obsessed with the topic, no thanks to a thrilling weekend of basketball, a sport I care nothing about that becomes high drama thanks to way their season’s end is constructed. Point being: these games just look interesting, dammit.)

1. September 3: Boise State at UGA. With an undefeated season and a freeze out from the big bowl games, the message to Dan Hawkins and Boise was simple enough: fuck off until you get a big fish on the hook. Enter UGA, looking to solidify their BCS strength of schedule, and you have an inspired matchup for both schools. UGA gets a chance to bolster their rep without risking too much-it’s not like they invited So Cal-and Boise gets a shot at the big fish they need to emerge from the hinterlands of the WAC onto the national scene. Dan Hawkins is 40-6 since taking over, including an undefeated regular season last year before losing a shootout to the other premier offense in the country, Louisville. Boise has a chance to put a sizeable nail in the coffin of college football convention on September 3 with a game between the hedges. UGA just lost one of their starting RBs, graduated their all-timers in Davids Greene and Pollack, and lost their mad dog defensive coordinator to the NFL. Their offense has trouble getting six in the redzone in the best of conditions, and new starter D.J. Shockley has a knack for putting the ball in the wrong place at the wrong time in big games. Even though Dan Hawkins looks like a large, angry fetus most of the time, he could be smiling in Athens if UGA doesn’t come out of tunnel ready to play.

2. September 17: Alabama at South Carolina. We have already mentioned this one, but we think it bears repeating for a number of reasons, not the least of which we think is this: this will be the beginning of the end for Mike Shula and the first big win for Spurrier at South Carolina. There are a slew of games this year that could be interesting for Carolina-Spurrier at Florida? Or versus his old bete noire, Phil Fulmer?-but we pick this one for the far-reaching effects the outcome of the game will have for both teams. If Bama wins, Shula will get another year on the job, provided they fill out the rest of the schedule respectably. If they lose, Shula will be run out on a rail, literally, just like the guy in the final scene of O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Spurrier will either come out of this with a victory and inflate expectations going into a likely loss at Auburn, or lose and go into a likely loss at Auburn with lowered expectations. Either way we think Spurrier comes out the better for it. Poor Mikey can’t win either way with the lynch mob waiting at home for him in Tuscaloosa. Then again, we can’t feel that much pity for Shula, since he’s had to overcome so much in life to get where he is…especially that whole, “last name is Shula” thing he’s got going on there.

Mike Shula: Could have Cock Trouble in September.

3. September 17: Tennessee at Florida. September 17th, by the way, will be a very busy day in the SEC, as well as a banner day for the fried chicken and liquor industry. Oh, we may have picked this one for sentimental reasons, since after the UT-UF game someone always ends up drunk and crying on the floor, holding their ass and calling out to God “Why, why?” in a tear-choked scream. But enough about our childhoods: this game is a real nut breaker for either team. For Florida, this is the litmus test for year one of Urban Renewal: will the Gators be able to shake off the miasma of the Zook years and play the kind of disciplined ball Meyer demands from his teams, or will the ghost of Mr. Positivity hang around for another stultifying performance against their true rival? Our guess is that the cobwebs will hang around for a bit longer, with Meyer doing everything shy of physically assaulting players after the loss to reshape the program in his own image. That might very well include a change at qb if the loss is bad enough. For UT, a loss here would be much, much worse, though. Expectations, the great executioner of coaches and programs alike, are brimming in Knoxville. By law this means at one point UT is due for a letdown, which is just as likely in the Swamp as anywhere else (although we’ve picked UT’s more likely letdown a bit further down the page.) Eric Ainge throws picks under pressure, and it will cost them one game this season, either at Notre Dame or at Florida. A loss and UT’s season is shot/shit/shat. A loss for UF means Urban Meyer makes his players toss boulders in practice and fight unmuzzled bears for a starting spot. Either way, this is going to be a fight like The Story of Rikki-Oh, with the winner choking the loser to death with their own intestines.
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In a moment of temporary sanity, Jerry Glanville has decided not to take a job coaching a D-II team in Aberdeen, S.D. and instead has taken the defensive coordinator position at Hawaii with old Falcons buddy June Jones.

We think this is a remarkable story for a number of reasons. First, Jerry Glanville actually displayed remarkable sanity in deciding to coach in a tropical paradise over Aberdeen, S.D. He can throw nine players over the line of scrimmage as often as he likes, play eighteen any day of the week he chooses (except for Saturday, and who knows about that, really,) and he won’t have to plug his car into a socket to keep the engine from freezing dead in the subzero temperatures.

Second, we look forward to Glanville’s inevitable embrace of the Magnum P.I look, hopefully sans short shorts. We predict he shows up to the first day of practice in a Ferrari wearing a mustache, floral shirt, and Tigers baseball cap.

Third, this means Hawaii gets more tv exposure than usual, since they’ll be throwing the ball 55 times a game and blitzing the hell out of their opponents all day long. While it might make the football fundies reach for the remote, we’ll savor the late night ESPN2 game where Hawaii scores 72 and loses in a game where the wideouts start to collapse in mid-run due to dehydration in the late second quarter.

Fourth, it’s our first link to the great Len Pasquarelli, the second greatest football writer on the planet. Really. We’re just blushing as we type this.

Magnum: a huge Warriors fan, I’m sure.

Hat tip to Paul Finebaum, who in addition to being a superb beat writer for the Mobile Register also pulls off-season filler from his ass with the ease of a savvy pro. Finebaum, who we’d take in a death match pit fight over the AJC’s Tony Barnhart any day, rolls out Alabama’s schedule and picks each game right down to the scores. His call? 7-4, with wins at South Carolina and Miss. State. We’re thinking Finebaum’s playing a little home ball here-wouldn’t the timing of an SC upset by Spurrier’s reprobate reconstruction project be perfect? Wouldn’t the babyfaced Shula play the perfect patsy for the Evil Genius? Isn’t this just the kind of shit Spurrier excels at? No one wants to play SC this year, if only because no one wants to be the first “gotcha!” game for the Gamecocks. Bama would be a perfect first scalp for a resurgent program, and we’re betting they give theirs up at Columbia.
Oh, and Bama will lose to Arkansas, if only because of the Houston Nutt principle: win the games you’re supposed to lose, lose the games you’re supposed to win. At Alabama just a week after playing USC in Cali sounds like a triple-overtime Houston Nutt special, complete with a connected Hail Mary, blocked punt, and fluky-ass turnovers. Here’s calling Bama at 6-5, with one very threatened Mike Shula exiting at season’s end despite winning one he shouldn’t along the way.

Can Bama defeat this madman and his hexes? We think not…

-ASU running back Loren Wade arrested on suspicion of killing a man outside a nightclub in Tempe. Wade allegedly shot Brandon Falkner, 25, in the head after seeing Falkner talking to his girlfriend. “We have more than enough witnesses,” said Sam Bailey, Scottdale police investigator on the case.
-USC starting corner Eric Wright arrested on investigation of sexual assault. We really prefer posting stories about players stealing gay sheep to this…
-In what constitutes comic relief to the stories mentioned above, two Central Arkansas players plead in a counterfeiting case.

An unlikely comparison, for sure, but ever since we’ve been reading Gatorsports, we’re warming to the idea. Since UF landed Meyer it’s turned itself into one long love note to the new head Gator, with articles like “Meyer’s New Attitude,” “Meyer’s new way impresses those around him,” and “Urban Meyer’s pretty legs make ladies swoon.” It’s become like Tiger Beat for the University of Florida football fan. Thus far we like Meyer, too-especially him threatening to kick an unknown player off the team for loafing on a single drill-but one more day and we’re expecting an interview where Meyer describes his ideal date as a long walk on the beach at sunset after dinner…with you.

Urban Meyer et al in a very Backstreet Boys-like pose

Since we’re posting from Atlanta, we could try to excuse this as regional news. Ladies, be not afraid…

We first became aware of Bill Callahan’s existence as we watched the Tampa Bay Bucs call out the plays of Oakland’s offense before the snap in Super Bowl XXXVII. (Really, if you’ve never seen it, it’s astonishing. John Lynch is almost laughing as he calls out the routes to Dwight Smith in the secondary. So were we.) Despite the subsequent implosion of the Raiders the following season and Callahan’s firing, Nebraska went bold and hired him anyway, flabbergasting the option crowd in spring practices with exotic shifts, strange formations, and other esoteric features like “the forward pass” and “play action.”

So we weren’t very surprised last year to watch Joe Dailey play pitch and catch with the other team’s secondary for most of the season, even though Nebraska clearly still retained the capability to run the ball over many of its opponents and win a few more games to finish with a winning record. It was agony watching their drives: a dropped pass, a six yard run, then a quick slant on third and four right into the hands of a DB. (From memory I would swear I saw this happen every time I watched the Huskers play, but I’m sure they threw an incompletion every now and then on third down, too.)

So Callahan got stubborn, they finished with a losing record for the first time since the Kennedy administration, and Callahan is caught on tape after a 30-3 loss to the Sooners calling Oklahoma fans “fucking hillbillies.” (Normally we’d like a coach that did this, but we reserve the term “hillbillies” for those who actually qualify, like Tennessee and West Virginia fans. Sooners would be “rednecks,” “hicks,” or perhaps most accurately, “shitkickers.” Usage matters, people.)

Bill Callahan: On the Genius Watch

So the Genius Watch for the Midwest this year falls squarely on the shlumpy shoulders of Bill Callahan, who despite bringing in a bushel of corn-fed blue chippers this year will be very much under scrutiny in Lincoln. He’s already taunting the Sooners in spring practice, which Bob Stoops will no doubt have noticed. The first time his QB throws a pick on 1st and goal at the opponent’s one, we’ll bet the grumbling will get awfully loud in Lincoln.

Genius Watch Status for Callahan: ODD, WITH A HINT OF PLAIN WEIRD.