Orson’s earlier post on who has the most to lose was interesting, but I had some thoughts. So on to my counter points to his thesis:

Daddy, are you going to fire me??
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If you’re looking for an example of a program that didn’t try to look the other way following the arrest of its football players, take a look at Murray State. Murray State’s running back and former wide receiver were arrested for trafficing in a controlled substance and possessing drug paraphenalia. Both men were banned from the campus. Following the arrests, Murray State put football coach Joe Pannunzio on administrative leave. Allen Ward, the althetic director said “Charges of this severity and magnitude demand stepped-up review of our football program.” Now that is kicking things up a notch.

Two banned from campus and BAM! the coach is suspended.

In case you missed it, Heismanpundit wrote a nice response to our second Heisman post. (more…)

Heismanpundit has his own set of rules for the Heisman here.

Ruf/Neks? Shotguns? Alcohol? At a college football game? Again, we say fuck, yeah…

Welcome to all the people dropping in today from tiderinsider.com and tidefans.com. We love you all, but still think your coach is hopelessly outmatched by his competition and got the job because his last name is Shula.

We love the input on our Heisman rules, and were happily corrected by visitors on several points. Heismanpundit-he tends to care about this stuff, obviously-had a couple of particulary pointed questions, so off we go.
The main thrust of our argument-heh, he just typed “thrust”-was that politics and arbitrary historical rules judge so much of the Heisman race, especially when it comes to the media divining the winner before the season ever starts.

Sashaying? Farting? Dancing backup for J. Lo? Wearing a scooter helmet? Just what the fuck is he doing, besides a really strange stiff arm move?

We put down our first vodka tonic of the day-it is Friday, people-and looked around for a few Heisman 2004 lists and found some surprising results.
Luke Winn of CNNSI? Leinart.
Todd Helmick, one of the 870 Heisman media voters and pundit? Leinart.
Richard Cirminiello of Fox’s CFN? Leinart.
Sportwriters, the largest voting bloc in the Heisman race, had Leinart pegged from the start, and he didn’t disappoint. Most guys this time around have Peterson, which makes us think the only thing stopping the Tasmanian Devil-like frenzy from winning the sashaying statue is injury. This is true of everyone, from Chris Leak to Datwan Hemingway. (Never heard of him? U of Buffalo’s freshman backup qb. If you want to make a really off-the-radar pick, Vegas and Datwan are ready when you are.)

As for the sophomore rule, it didn’t seem to trouble voters too much last year when Peterson was a freshman: he finished second to Leinart and earned more first place votes than Reggie Bush or Cedric Benson did. We propose that having at least a single year of solid performance is more important than your class status.

Dennis Dodd argues that the new revisions to the BCS actually reflect Notre Dame’s acceptance of its second-tier status.

Yup, Jeff Hostetler closes a bagel shop in West Virginia. That would so make a great name for a “we’re not pretentious but we’re not a bar band so we’re pretentious” indie band, one that sounds like Matchbox 20 without the high production value. (Full disclosure: we’re writing this to the sounds of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” And no, we’re not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…)

We were going to post a Big East spring practice roundup, but we had so many other things to do, like searching the web for naked pics of Adrienne Barbeau, watching Melrose Place on the treadmill at the gym, clipping our Great Dane’s toenails…fortunately ESPN beat us to it.