On the eve of spring football, the Crimson Tide have given Mike Shula a fat raise. Shula got a new 6 year deal that doubles his salary to a cool 1.8 Million. No word on whether he plans to share any with Tyrone Prothro after his comeback inevitably fails.

My Daddy never made 1.8 Million per year.

Marshall, always a strong contender in the race for the Fulmer Cup, scores some spectacular points with the arrest of signee Karon “Kirby” Watson for possession of both marijuana and crack cocaine this past Tuesday night. (Why’s the “Kirby” in quotes? Is that the alias he uses when getting a herpes test? Is he pink, spherical, and capable of swallowing objects equal to or larger than himself in single swallows? Can he fly for short distances? We have questions.)

Before we dole out base points and spicy modifiers, this choice quote:

When removed from the vehicle, Watson had a “strong, pungent odor of cannabis on and about his person,” police said.

Several small pieces of suspected crack cocaine and cannabis were found in Watson’s seat and on the floorboard beneath his seat.

I smell ‘dro all on you, homes.

We’ll use this opportunity to show how we’d give it a base score and then add modifiers. The base score doesn’t wiggle, thus eliminating a totally capricious system based on “whatever the hell we want.” We’ve got two charges: possession of pot and crack. Under the current system, we charge for both:

Crack: 3 points (the Biggums rule.)

Pot: 2 points

So you have a total of five points right there–but do they count with a recruit? Marshall as a school will exit this case with at least a point of association by guilt, the “taint rule,” since they recruited this kid in the first place and had to know he was an amateur biochemist or a fan thereof. The points would be awarded in full if Marshall plows ahead and takes the guy anyway, a rule known hereafter as the “Willie Williams Rule” for rowdy recruits who display atrocious behavior and get scholarship offers anyway. (HT: Devil Grad)

Ryno says we’re no longer the best blog on the internet. After looking at this, we couldn’t agree more.

Well, maybe we weren’t speaking of American Idol, but as the Fox ratings powerhouse is once again becoming ubiquitous in the “news” cycles we again want to point any of you who may secretly watch… and worse yet, vote… to a subversive concept that we whole heartedly support. Check out Vote for the Worst to see if it can’t be a fly in Fox’s ratings soup.

If only they could find a way to bring back Dunkelman.

In our favorite story of the offseason thus far–TURDGATE!!!–another shocking development: Ian Smith, the allegedly 21-year old UGA backup offensive lineman who fell asleep drunk on the toilet at an Athens restaurant, turns out to be just that: allegedly 21. Smith already had a public intoxication charge, and may now add giving false information and underage possession charge on top of that since Smith is actually 21 minus 2. Smith went from being full of shit to standing neck deep in it. (Whole offseason worth that sentence alone.)

Fulmer Cup scoring as follows:

Underage possession: 1 point.
Lying to cop: 1 point.
Police prodding you with nightstick as you slumber drunkenly on a toilet after passing O-ring destroying, eye-bulging turbo dump: 1 point (style counts.)
Second arrest: 1 point (A second arrest has to count for something, right?)

Total points awarded: 4. Appeals may be filed below.

The official universal logo of TURDGATE ‘06, courtesy of Georgia Sports, who’s squatting on this story like a pro.

Readers can send you emails that force you to rethink things. Sometimes those things are things like whether you should purchase a spare firearm from Dee Webb, and sometimes those things are far more benign, like reconsidering something you wrote that was so obviously half-assed you’re ashamed of even typing it.

The reader in this case, Mark, threw a brick of logic through the window of the crazy house we’ve been building called the Fulmer Cup.

You know, you may want to rethink the Fulmer Cup point system. A cup named after Fulmer should really be about quantity, not quality. Do 10 miscellaneous underage-drinking, speeding, DUI and campus fights outweigh one murder? Absolutely. Else we’d really think Navy was a thug program and FSU just middle of the road.

Methinks you ought to scale down the multiples a bit. 5 for Murder One is more balanced. Give the 7th Floor Crew a chance to catch up!

Mark makes one mistake here: he assumes that anything on this blog has anything to do with logic. Forgiving that, he’s totally right: giving Navy an insurmountable eight while UGA rolls through their annual cycle of suspended license charges and drinking-related follies makes very little sense, even with Red Queen Orson presiding over this particular court. (Not that sailors can’t or necessarily won’t make up ground, as well. You know them, those filthy beggars, going from port to port…)

Who’s in charge of this thing? Oh, yeah. Off with his head.

We know revise the scoring system down to a max 5 point system, with Loren Wade-style “shooting someone in the face while screaming RIVERSIDE MOTHERFUCKER!” first degree murder earning you a stout five points. Other crimes, misdemeanors, and various stank point modifiers are located in the list below:

Rape: 4 points. Downgraded to one if either participant is wearing a clown mask.

Bestiality: 4 points. It’s a form of rape, really, no matter how much the goat has had to drink. High point value justified further by the fact that it involves having sex with an animal, which you would say was unthinkable if we hadn’t had in the past year alone two stories involving college athletes and at least the association with barnyard bonhomie of a most intimate degree, including the EDSBS Official GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, the arrest of Oregon State player Ben Siegert for stealing a sheep used in a study on homosexuality in sheep.

Grand Larceny: 4 points. We use this as a catchall for players being involved in crime so outrageous and well-planned it can only be described as “nefarious,” “professional,” or “legislation.” Applies to large drug rings, chop shop operations, and the Haitian human trafficking ring that’s been run out of the Miami locker room since ‘93. (We kid! They didn’t get that thing humming ’til ‘95 at the earliest.)

Hitting Girls, a.k.a. the Ernie Sims School of Easy Lovin’ Level: 3 points. We’ll downgrade this to 2 if the girl can hold her weight and requires daily medication to prevent her from gouging her own eyes out–since those were the ones we always ended up dating, and we understand–or upgrade to 4 if the damage includes intensive care. But Dad always said never hit girls, so we take this one seriously. Dad also said always double down with split aces, too, but we’ll be damned if we didn’t end up selling bone marrow in Macau the last time we followed that bit of advice.

Car theft/Assault/Driving through houses drunk/Drug possession of the Tyrone Biggums variety: 3 points. “Drug possession” never sounds all that bad until you add in “crack cocaine,” which is society’s signifier that your life has gone from that of high functioning simian in a complex society to that of a rat with electrodes in your brain’s pleasure centers hitting a pedal in a glass box in a lab. Weed? Par for the course, especially if you’re NFL-bound. Crack? Break out the Sportscentury “Weepy Sonata” music, because the story of your descent from boundless potential has just begun, and they haven’t even begun to show the grainy shots of 130-lb you huddled in a shelter on Skid Row.

Fightin’ in ‘da Club/Weed Possession/Standard DUI: 2 points. Any scenario involving group fighting of a thugged-out, “we run this place” variety, and marijuana possession of the nickel bag level. Possession of 100 pounds of marijuana is a totally different thing, and takes you right back up to the 4 point “nefarious” level.

Drankin’/Suspended License/Assorted petty misdemeanors: 1 point.

In case you can’t tell, we’re posting light today due to the demands of the real world. (Damn probation hearings. Restraining orders are just the BEGINNING of a relationship.)

We’re cooking up a project for tomorrow, and you may have your say now: who are the most likeable people in college football? We feel obligated to do this after putting together a slam list of ten least likeable people in cfb, so help us balance our karma by seeing if we’re anywhere close to reality on this. By likeable, we do not mean any of the following:

1. Your coach. (WE ROOL U SUX GO [insert team here])
2. Jill Arrington’s nipples.
3. A polarizing figure who you like because their success benefits you directly.

We’re thinking of the funny, the uncommonly decent, the humane, the innovative, the joyous, and anyone else who cuts a striking pose on the positive side of the college game.

Early suspects for us include:

–Kirk Herbstreit
–Mark Richt (we know, but there’s very good reasons behind this one, and a few of them are Ukrainian.)
–Charlie Weis
–Steve Spurrier (the only person we can think of who makes both the likeable and not-likeable list)
–Bobby Johnson
–Dan Hawkins
–Joe Glenn

Just some early nominees, but get your two cents in before we have a couple of Harvey Wallbangers and get down to business later tonight.

Who’s College Football’s Mr. Nice Guy?

Trickles of information…frightening injury rumors…players posting astonishing numbers who will no doubt fade and linger on the bench for the real season…it’s spring agaiiinnn, as Biz Markie would sing (sic) and Alabama’s back on the grind as of Friday. We’re paying attention for two obvious reasons:

1. They beat the scales off our team 30-3, and we’re anticipating revenge months ahead of time.

2. How the Tide when 10-2 with Mike Shula at head coach and Joe Kines calling the shots on defense still mystifies. Really, try to wipe what you remember about last season’s Alabama team from your head: in 2000, would either of these men even pique your interest as potential candidates for either position at San Jose State? Mike Shula attempted to end Warrick Dunn’s life for two years before Tony Dungy fired him, and Joe Kines was coming off a tumultuous and often disappointing stay as DC at Georgia…neither one made you leap up and say, “Fine work, sir! Help yourself to any one of my teenage daughters,” as we said to the television image of Steve Spurrier following the 1997 Sugar Bowl. (We actually don’t have any, but we’d certainly let him take one of yours.) Just further evidence of the kismet and complexities of putting together the right coaching staff at the right time; this group of former losers and myeahh-ish guys put together a tightrope act that nearly had Alabama in the BCS. Simultaneously, Dennis Franchione flails around at 5-6 in College Station and wonders what world he’s entered. No one knows anything.

Meanwhile, while toodling around MikeShula.com, we found this offseason gem: a picture of Joe Kines on his bio looking for love in all the wrong places. Try NOT to lick the screen.

Joe Kines’ After Seven: a fragrance you’ll never forget.

Florida WR Kenneth Tookes won’t be charged in the accidental discharge of an AR-15 at Dee Webb’s Gainesville apartment, and neither will anyone else, evidently. GPD has dropped the case citing insufficient evidence of intentional wrongdoing. If we were total homers here, we’d be dancing on the ceiling in our Lionel Richie sweaters, but it’s hard to get too excited about someone on your football team NOT being charged with something for messing around with an AR-15.

(We just had a thought, though: most accusations of accidental discharge in Gainesville do happen in apartments, though most don’t result in a hole in the wall, unless you’ve got some serious prostate problems we’d like you to see a physician about immediately. In this instance Tooke’s accidental discharge of Webb’s toy scared three women simultaneously. Innuendo just scuttled this paragraph completely, so we’ll move on…)

The other burning–and they’re always burning–question in this case is Meyer’s handling of it. The incident doesn’t merit a complete removal from the team, but a lack of action undermines UM’s mad bastard stance on discipline. What he does sets tone on a team not too far removed from Zookdom and rampant FnDC. Meyer needs to come down in dramatic fashion here, or risk a slip in players’ fear of his wrath.

Navy makes a potentially nasty plunge into the Fulmer Cup races with the arrest of their star qb Lamar Owens for allegedly raping a female cadet at Annapolis last month. Rape is a notoriously difficult charge to prove, but with things taking as long as they did to surface from the closed ranks of the military academy, the case has to have something resembling substance. Things look even worse for Owens given that his trial will not be a civilian trial, but rather a military court; if our multiple viewings of subpar military thrillers hold up, the burden of proof is on the defense in those cases.

The lesser question of where this lands in the Fulmer Cup standings remains: how bad, quantitatively, is rape on a scale of 1-10 in terms of program offenses? Murder–the Loren Wade, walk-right-up-and-shoot-someone-in-the-face-variety–is a straight ten, though manslaughter could earn a 9. Rape’s got to be at least an eight, which would bolt Navy right to the lead for the Fulmer Cup, especially if “star player commits felony” points apply (which they definitely do here.)