Bucking a trend that really irritates Heismanpundit, the Georgia Bulldogs have used the NCAA’s hypocritically approved 12th game to travel out of the geographic south and play the Colorado Buffalos in a home and away starting next year (although Georgia doesn’t do the away half until 2010). Perhaps they are gambling on complete chaos at CU by 2010 after 5 more years under Gary Barnett.

We’ll be damned if we’ll pay ten bucks a month to get scuttlebutt about college football-we can troll team message boards for free for gossip in the meantime. The news of Gamecocks linebacker Dustin Lindsay’s DUI arrest in Alabama over the weekend comes to us secondhand through the Mobile Register. Current offseason arrest score: South Carolina 12, Tennessee 11. (Take that, Scout.com.)

Since it is the off season and we here at EDSBS.com are married and have previously admitted to sometimes having to watch something other than sports, we would like to sound a shout out to our friendly neighbors to the north and congratulate them for having this years’ most beautiful woman… not just in the world, but in the universe.

Almost enough to make us all hockey fans, eh.
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Dennis Dodd continues his three-part series on the intricacies of scheduling with a piece on road openers. A couple of notes:

-Heismanpundit, take note: your belief that SEC schools rarely wander far from the roost is…well, totally validated in the piece. Only two SEC schools will open on the road to open the season: Ole Miss and Vandy, not exactly the cream of the crop. By comparison, USC will open at Hawaii, Va. Tech will open up at NC State in a rematch of Tech’s only conference loss last year, and Texas A&M goes into Death Valley in the second part of a home and home series with Clemson. Hell, even stodgy Georgia Tech is taking a trip to Auburn to get its whooping out of the way. Looks like you’re right for another year.

Not fond of travel, and not alone in his conference.

-Dodd gives his “No Shame” award to Texas Tech, who lines up a row of non-conference patsies unparalleled in their mediocrity: Florida International, Sam Houston State and Indiana State. FIU, who’s just barely a 1A team, just got a little weaker when they were hit with three years’ probation for conducting improper offseason workouts. On the upside, we might just get to see the record for greatest loss ever broken in one of the three games, eclipsing poor Cumberland College’s 222-0 loss to Georgia Tech in 1916.
(Note: Georgia Tech did not throw the ball once. Rushing totals for Tech: 978 yards. First downs: none, since they never needed more than four downs to score. Check out more bellyaching over Cumberland and the other worst teams ever: here, for the writers’ choices, and here, for the readers’.)

We’re pleased to be able to post something involving two college athletes and a car wreck that a.) doesn’t involve alcohol, and b.) turns out well for all concerned. See Fanblogs for a bit of good news, for once.

Notre Dame received its seventh verbal commitment for next years’ recruiting class as Charlie Weiss and the Fighting Irish continue what Tom Lemming has called their best start ever. Five star fullback recruit Luke Schmidt gave a verbal committment to the golden domers, choosing Notre Dame over Purdue and Michigan. The Charlie Weiss era continues its good start, but he’ll have to beat Michigan and USC to cement his job security. Oh yeah, did I mention they play Tennessee this year too. In the immortal words of Jerry Seinfeld to a newly open and emotional George Costanza…”Good luck with all that.”

No, not this J Lo, but how can we possibly do a story about Lorenzen without a gratuitous posting of sexy Jennifer Lopez pictures????

For those loyal and long time readers of EDSBS.com, you know that we have a feature that we do semi-regularly… or at least that’s the plan…. on people we love. Those players who were great in college but who don’t fit the mold of an NFL player, even though some try. One of the archetypical prototypes is Jared Lorenzen, who we discussed here. Well, today I am pleased to say we have an update. J. Lo is not content to let his career go gently into that good night and live forever as a legend in the EDSB.com Guy’s We Love Hall of Fame. Rather, he is continuing his sometimes strange quest to become Eli Manning’s back-up quarterback. Coughlin looks for Lorenzen to show up to the July mini-camp in better shape…. we hope he remains the immortal Pillsbury Throw-Boy.

Click away to hear the dulcet tones of Orson Swindle in all its digital glory. And yes, we think we sound weird, too.

Heismanpundit gives the lowdown on Heisman campaigns. We invite everyone now to begin the guessing game to his real identity, since he’s only seen in public wearing his eyemask and leather helmet.

Have you seen this man?

Authorities arrest the man responsible for shooting Clemson lineman Cory Groover at a Clemson, SC area Waffle House. It’s safe to eat waffles again, people. Rejoice.

The Link-o-rama rolls on into the weekend here at EDSBS.com, this time trying to cover all four corners of this great land of ours with our hyperlinked tastiness.
–Setting the pace is the inimitable Paul Finebaum, shooting the shit with Spurrier while trying to goad him into a couple of fat Phil jokes. He does get Spurrier to say this at a pro-am tournament in Birmingham:

Spurrier, who was in Birmingham last week to play in a celebrity pro-am, couldn’t resist pulling out the needle, even for a nanosecond.

“I know coach Fulmer would love to be here in Birmingham,” said Spurrier, an avid golfer. “But he felt like his golf game probably isn’t quite up to par. I know he’s not too fond of coming to Alabama right now.”

Here’s hoping Phil doesn’t catch that super-creepy episode of the X-Files, “Home,” on tv anytime soon. He won’t sleep for days thinking about the deranged Bama fans who spend their days detailing cars and plotting his demise.

Phil, this guy’s waiting for you in Tuscaloosa.
–David Climer warns Urban Meyer about his tongue in the Tennessean. Considering that the guys over at the Gator Country forums really do seem to know what he had for dinner last night, we’d second that advice. Notable achievement: mentioning Gerry DiNardo and Meyer in the same column, which is kind of like comparing Downtown Julie Brown with King Kong Bundy in a wrestling column.
–Football program misery does have negative economic side effects, as this Post-Intelligencer article makes all too clear.

–John Rohde of the Oklahoman gives the lowdown on the costs of collegiate officiating. Pricier than you’d think.
–Joey Johnston profiles Bobby Bowden in The Tampa Tribune, still making the rounds at 75. Choice quote:

Bowden thought a little more about Urban Meyer, then smiled.

“I just call him Number 7,” he said.

Doug Dickey, Charley Pell, Galen Hall, Gary Darnell, Steve Spurrier, Ron Zook and … Urban Meyer.

Number 7.

Bowden: still sassy after all these years.

–Ryan Perriloux, golden boy freshman qb for the LSU Tigers, takes some advice from someone in LSU’s sports information department and backtracks on some old quotes in this article in the Times-Picayune.
–Further Meyer mayhem in Florida, courtesy of the Tampa Trib via Florida Fan.

College Football News keeps bringing the hotness with more unsubstantiated, specious, and kickass predictions looking ahead to the 2005 season. Our favorite description?

For Texas, guess what? Somewhere, somehow they need to step up from the pimp slapping that they got from Adrian Peterson and company last year and slow him down.

Ahh, when beating prostitutes has become a part of the vernacular, you know you’ve arrived as a civilization.

For a mere $50, the women of the Champagne-Urbana community can spend a day with Ron Zook and the Illini coaching staff learning about the game of football. Caveat Emptor ladies… we’ve seen what a little Zook schooling can do to a football team as we watched the University of Florida go from the #3 team in the country with a returning Heisman runner up at quarterback (who should have won but for those Heismandments) to a team with great talent that lost twice to Ole Miss and once to an abysmal Mississippi State team. Or perhaps the Zooker is just looking to broaden his recruiting base.

A familiar sight to Florida fans: Ron Zook looking unsure of what to do.

Stanford is bucking the trend of teams like Michigan and Tennessee, which have sought to top each other for supremacy as the largest stadiums in the country, in their new plans for a stadium redesign. Stanford, which does not routinely fill its 85,000 person stadium, is planning an overhaul with the aim of helping the game day atmosphere. The plans include removing some 35,000 seats and the track that surrounds the field, bringing the fans that are present closer to the action and each other. There is nothing worse than empty seats in an arena to kill that wonderful college football atmosphere (yes, we are looking at you Miami fans!) so we here at EDSBS.com salute those smart and savy Cardinals. A rowdy 50,000 fans right on top of the action will create a much better home field advantage than a sparsely populated and distant crowd…. of course that only works if the 50,000 seats fill up.

If the Stanford mascot doesn’t instill fear in their opponents, perhaps the new stadium will.

Check out Boi From Troy for the next week or so-we’re playing the role of substitute teacher for his 2000 or so daily readers, which means we can show up drunk and grumpy just as our public school subs did.