Joe Pa, at the Big Ten roundtable this week, took up for Fisher DeBerry in a discussion about the increased scoring in the Big Ten. Is it scheme? Is it better practice facilities? Or, in the words of Joe Pa might it be the influence of the Black Athlete?

“You have to be careful the way you say things sometimes. Poor [Air Force coach] Fisher DeBerry got in trouble, but the black athlete has made a big difference. They have changed the whole tempo of the game. Black athletes have just done a great job as athletes and as people in turning the game around.”

Bill has a fascinating piece on Boston College’s trend of recruiting the first and second generation African immigrants here.

The food that fuels fans of the newly resurgent Rutgers football program? The Fat Darrell, a sandwich made of “two chicken fingers, two mozzarella sticks, french fries and marinara sauce,” all stuffed into an eight-inch hoagie roll. The caloric total is as staggering as one might expect: 1,718 calories, 78 grams of fat, and 143 grams of carbohydrates.

No word on a Knoxville franchise opening, but it’s only a matter of time, really, before it happens.

A sandwich that big? Really? I’ll take ten and make it snappy, homeslice.

T. Kyle King writes about the most notorious college football blogger you’ve never heard of, the infamous Maxwellpundit. He’s controversial! He’s bold! He’s Maxwellpundit, bitches.

A very funny piece.

The architect of Nebraska’s renaissance and resident Genius Watch regular, Bill Callahan has been reprimanded by the Big XII following his throat slashing gesture made toward an official after whining about not getting a holding call. The Husker nation must be proud.

We fell asleep in our underground meth lab on Wednesday–you know, Mustache Wednesday really takes it out of a body–and totally forgot to post Solon’s oh-so-accurate pick on the UConn/WVU game, which he got right right right. Considering the streak he’s been on, you’d best pay attention to the rest of his picks this week, including the one where he says Barry Alvarez looks like Colonel Kurtz.

I am back from a vacation to one of my favorite American cities, Las Vegas, which is where I go every year to watch the Gator victory over the Dawgs. For those who have never been, I can tell you that while college gets a lot of attention, it’s nothing like what happens on Sunday. While sitting there on Sunday going over Saturday’s stats (I couldn’t give two shits about the NFL, so I wasn’t watching the games), I observed the scene, and was reminded of what has to be some of the craziest shit I’ve ever seen in a Vegas sportsbook.

It was November 7th, 1993–I know because I looked it up somewhere–and the then-LA Raiders were playing in Chicago against the Bears. Early in the day (the book fills up around 6 AM or so for the NFL games, so it’s full long before the games start), I noticed some joker in the front of the sportsbook in full Raider gear. That in and of itself wasn’t noteworthy–but the fact that he kept yelling “RAIDERS!” at the top of his lungs was. I mean, the games hadn’t even started yet, and this clown was going nuts, every 5 minutes or so, just yelling “RAIDERS!”, over and over again.

Frequent visitors to Vegas Sportsbooks, evidently.
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Sports Bloggers Live had us on their Thursday podcast. We repeated ourselves, used French filler phrases, and managed to all but guarantee that Frank Beamer will kick our ass should we ever cross his path. Other than that, we sounded great. Oh, and when SBL asked us to do Paul Westerdawg’s bit on drinking with coaches, we forgot to attribute the bit to Georgia Sports. Click here to listen or use the autoplay on SBL’s home page. We’re about 30 minutes in.