The Fighting Illini football received one year of probation thanks to an over zealous booster providing improper benefits to a recruit. Given Illinois’ football prowess over the last few years, I’d say it was a waste of money.

Skip Bayless is on your side.

LD of Gunslingers forces us to dig deep and pull out a Turok, Dinosaur Hunter reference in order to adequately describe the devastation he lays on the forced narratives imposed by the national media on college football. The best post we’ve read all week .

LD gets Jurassic on the media. We watch with glee.

Congratulations Chicago! The White Sox have won the World Series…. not that there is anything wrong with that.

…which really isn’t a podcast just yet thanks to our technical bumbling. However, you may enjoy the finest fifteen minutes of audio ever featured on this website by clicking the audioblog tag below, where we fumble through our Weis/Meyer conspiracy theory, the games of the weekend to come, and a Karl Wallenda death reference. Enjoy, since we’re going to be busy as hell in the real world today. Oh, and turn it up, especially at the beginning where we felt the need to sit across the room from the mike and whisper.

It would be better, but…well, you know.

The man, the myth…the terror-buster? Hal Mumme, running out of feet to shoot himself in, finds a new way to sabotage his career: interrogating Muslim players about terrorism.

Hal Mumme: watching little too much 24?

Paul from Georgia Sports gets on the stick and finds some quality satire here. Turn your speakers up, and imagine Karl Orff rolling in his grave as his masterpiece Carmina Burana gets the white trash treatment.

And, yes we wear jean shorts…while we’re fucking your mother. Like we’ve said before, she really likes them.

Prepped and ready to rip Vegas a new one this weekend, Solon gets all analytical and looks at which conferences have been kind to the campus gambler this weekend and which ones have been kneecapping punters in the parking lot.

Seeing as how we have just passed the halfway point of the season, I think it’s a good time to look back on the season as it has been so far from a gambling standpoint. Keep in mind that pointspread records reflect actual performance of a team relative to expectation, i.e., you operate under the assumption those risking money have some idea regarding how good the teams are. This is largely a safe assumption, relatively speaking; while they are by no means omnipotent, I would certainly trust the bettors more than I would trust the talking heads or columnists.

For the first order of business, I want to look at the pointspread performance of each of the major conferences thus far. Please note that games against 1-AA opponents are unlined, therefore performances such as Cincinnati’s close win over Western Carolina or Stanford’s inexplicable loss to UC-Davis are not considered.

Big 10: 17-12-2 (58%)
Pac-10: 12-9-2 (57%)
Big East: 13-11 (54%)
Big 12: 15-13 (54%)
SEC: 10-12 (45%)
ACC: 11-16 (41%)

Once again, just to be clear, if these records tell us anything it is how the conferences have done relative to expectation levels. It does NOT tell us the best conference.

Solid performance from the Big 10, which in my estimation is probably the best conference in the nation top-to-bottom. Even bottom feeders Illinois and Indiana have put together solid non-conference pointspread slates, even against non-conference BCS opponents.

On the other hand, the ACC has been a disappointment. This is probably more down to the expectation level surrounding the conference than anything else; it is difficult to assess, but I think the consensus during the offseason was that the ACC was the strongest conference in the nation. Few would argue that they have matched expectations.

As for teams, here are the overachievers:
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You ain’t, unless you are willing to play ACC football a mere six weeks after having your spleen rupture during a game. That is exactly what Clemson’s Cole Downer intends to do this week. Downer lost 4 pints of blood, endured a week long hospital stay and lost 20 pounds. Why you ask is Downer so intent on playing? In his words:

“This is my last year playing. I want to get in as many games as I could.”

Sounds reasonable enough to me.

A little known secret about the UGA logo: it has a set of rules and restrictions surrounding it tighter than Sean Connery’s man-girdle. The Dawgs happen to be extremely picky about where and when one should see the famous red and black G. To wit:

The University’s logo is not allowed on a toilet seat cover; a picture of Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad; a pale ale beverage; or a coffin.

As soon as we read this, we sought to find a way to profane the sacred G as quickly as we could, being the fans of lovely cursive script that we are. Our solution was to challenge Mr. 2Cents, Gator fan and resident Farkmaster, to create a single image accomplishing copyright violations on all four counts simultaneously. He came through with flying colors.

Enjoy some of Mr. 2 Cents and other Farkmasters’ work at the Gator Farkatorium or the legendary Soonersfans Fark Board.

A yard sale that would make a UGA copyright lawyer have a stroke.