Steve Spurrier plans to return to the Swamp September 2nd for a celebration honoring the 1996 National Championship team. Shortly after the ceremonies conclude, Spurrier has announced that he will put on the headset he wore for a decade as the Gators’ coach and resume his career as the head man at Florida, despite the fact that the position is currently not empty.

“Yeah, I’ve been doing some work at Carolina. Good work, good people, you know, coachin’ ‘em up and winning a few ball games. But the time’s come for me to return, and I think the Gator Nation’s ready for a little Fun ‘n Gun around here.”

Early? Ursula? Urban? I’ll be takin’ my headset now…[sounds of indescribable violence.]

The announcement, made on Wednesday afternoon at the Columbia Country Club in Columbia, South Carolina, came as the latest surprise in a career highlighted by the unpredictable.

“We’ve got a coach, and we’re quite happy with him,” said Florida AD Jeremy Foley. “Steve Spurrier gave us everything we now have, but Urban Meyer’s got the job. It’s not like he can just walk over and take the headset. He’s not going to do that, right?” Foley asked expectantly.

Spurrier, practicing his backswing on the tee of the eighth hole, sounded as if that was exactly what he intended to do.

“Yeah, just gonna walk over after the ceremony, grab a headset, and you know, call some ballplays. Pitchin. Catchin’. Gator football. We’re gonna score, we’re gonna play some defense. Make it real exciting for the fans who make it all possible. Get back to winning like champions do, right?” When reminded that Urban Meyer currently held the job, Spurrier simply commented that “It’s a business, and sometimes you try real hard and still come up short. He had a good run, but it’s time for us to take back the Swamp.”

Spurrier then hit a slicing tee shot into a patch of yucca bushes, and threw his visor to the ground in disgust.

Urban Meyer, currently the nominal head coach of the Florida Gators, seemed taken aback by the announcement.

“I’m still the head coach here, as far as I know guys. If he wants to shake hands or something, that’s fine. If he wants my headset he’s going to have to nut up and take it off my head. If he wants my Blackberry, (more…)

The case gets Joakim Noah ugly: not only was Fred Rouse allegedly in on the burglary of former teammate Lorenzo Booker, garnering a felony charge along the way, but Rouse allegedly decided to bring along accused rapist and Cincinnati Bengals linebacker A.J. Nicholson, too, earning him felony charges, as well. Lorenzo Booker reiterated his statement that a dedication to academics brought him to Florida State, and that he has no regrets.

The update which will appear in an hour will feature the following additional:

–Not only did Rouse and Nicholson steal the merchandise…they sexually assaulted it.

–With the help of Sebastian Janikowski and a thimbleful of GHB, of course.

–Curiously, the DVD players and PS3s in question have no memory of the incident.

–Tamarick Vanover offered to fence the goods.

–They hid the stolen items in the Doak Campbell endzone, knowing that offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden would never find them there.

The accuser, seen here with face blacked out to conceal her identity, had no comment.

Kyle’s had thoughts. Brian’s got thoughts. We try to avoid “thinking” around here–like Stephen Colbert, we let our gut think for us. A few basic rules prevail, though, when we start slinging pixels around here at EDSBS. Our editorial policies and general beliefs are as follows.

Prepare for a solid truth-ing, people.

1. No one “gets it.” This is a stupid piece of verbiage, unless Stephen Colbert uses it ironically, and should never apply to a sports discussion.

2. Writing in the first person plural is unacceptable and pompous. Unless we do it. Then it is sexy as hell.

3. Give credit where credit is due. Unless Heismanpundit said it, in which case you should steal it without attribution to fuel three-month long blogwar that, to outsiders, confirms the worst suspicions about bloggers being Aspberger’s Syndrome types working feverishly from their mothers’ basements. Otherwise, acknowledge all sources and link away when possible.

4. Be brief. If you simply can’t be brief, make sodomy jokes to make the meter run a little faster. Failing that, call Phil Fulmer fat every fucking chance you get.

5. Read other people’s blogs. Most of them are funnier, smarter, and just better than yours.

6. Talk to reporters if they’re willing to talk. They’ve been doing something similar to this a long time and generally know what they’re talking about–unless we’re talking about Peter Kerasotis. Fuck that guy in the ear.

7. Acknowledge biases. They affect everything and nothing at the same time, and make you appear to be something different than a pundit, who presumably knows what they’re talking about. That would not, is not, and will not be us.

8. Do not aspire to be a pundit, or say anything pundit-esque. These would include uncorrected statements of absolute certitude about the future, lack of self-deprecation, and any leanings toward a sense of authority, eminence, or status. Think less Corso; more Herbstreit. You are a fan; act like it or risk losing the enthusiasm forcing you to write in the first place.

9. Work your enthusiasms into your writing. Never hesitate to shoehorn a reference to a show, novel, ethnography, song, ditty, instruction manual, Turkish historical episode, abandoned federal labor policy, or otherwise obscure anecdote into a piece. It will keep you awake and unearth the three other people on the planet who a.) loved The Maxx, b.) played Illuminati, the Card Game, or c.) enjoyed something you did before you started having sex.

Someone else watched this? Roxxorz.

10. Fail. Try things that flop. It’s like skiing: if you’re not falling, you’re not trying hard enough.

11. Ethics? Don’t be Matt Hayes. In other words, don’t be a dick.
(more…)

Yes, they did, all the way back in the legwarmer era of 1987. (The eighties: before crack went corporate and sold out, man.) Rivals catches up with Don McPherson, the qb who led Syracuse to an undefeated 1987 season and finished with a 16-16 tie to Auburn in the Sugar Bowl.

Fred Rouse continues his ongoing “my life as performance art” bit by getting arrested in Leon County for burglary of dwelling while unarmed with no assault or battery, drug possession of a controlled substance without prescription, and grand theft. (HT: The Wiz.) Prior to his career as an urban prospector, Rouse’s on-sidelines, on-camera row with Florida State coaches summed up his brief career as a Seminole, excepting his trashing of Bobby Bowden following the 34-7 collapse to the Gators in the Swamp. (This almost made us like him. Almost.) Rouse then got the boot from Tallahassee, a feat accomplished by few since Randy Moss shot a nun in the face in the middle of campus and laughed about it while shooting cocaine into his eyeball to earn his exit. *

Rouse roused to robbery.

Scout had this to say about pre-felony Rouse:

Rouse could be the top receiver from the state of Florida over the past few seasons. The bottom line is that Fred Rouse is a difference maker and a potential franchise player at the receiver position.

Yep. So much for that .

* Moss did not do this. The victim in fact was former FSU coach Brad Scott, and Moss celebrated by having a teammate shoot yopo into his nose with a blowgun.

Reposting this from late yesterday…if only because it’s a little too perverse to let it go just yet.

As in off the top ropes in tight pants with mustache–that’s how bad Nathan gets us here in spying a curious pair of comments in the thread following Tony Barnhart’s puff piece on a speaking engagement featuring Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno.

Owned, Nacho Libre-style. Curiously, we look a lot like this.

The pair of curious comments came from someone identifying himself as “Chris Rix, Sr.” They read as follows, with no extraneous comments since sometimes life writes its own satire without the need for editing, sprucing, or even superflous setup. Roll:

By Chris Rix, Sr.

May 27, 2006 06:21 AM | Link to this

Watch out, TB!

Back away from the buffet table, Tony, and put down the Kool-Aid! Keep swallowing marshmellows and pretty soon you’ll wind up with a bad case of Lyme Disease. Coaches cutting academic corners? Let me tell you a story.

(more…)

What SEC coach…

…has already pissed off enough coaches to merit seven different complaints, all from different coaches? And not all from inside the conference? HMMMMmmm… [/gossipy news columnistspeak]

That’s what you’ll get in this week’s installment of Memphis Dry Ribs in the Commercial-Appeal, a tidbit lodged discreetly in the final paragraph covering a conversation with SEC Commish Mike Slive. The essentials:

The one thing that the conference needs to continue to work on is its image as a renegade league that doesn’t mind breaking a rule or two or 10 or 20…Slive remains steadfast in his goal. Here’s hoping he gets there, but erasing cheating in recruiting is hard. MDR has had a couple of football coaches tell him that one coach currently in the league was turned in by seven different schools (and not all in the SEC) for alleged recruiting violations.

Who could this be? (Legal department would like us to insert the following blanket “allegedly” falling across all that follows, to be followed by numerous redundant “alleged”s.) Given geography, reputation, and the source of the story, we’d have to allegedly suspect that this points an alleged unsubtle finger at The Orgeron, who Chris Scelfo of Tulane already called out for recruiting talent off the Green Wave after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Rumors swirl around the Orgeron already: his cutthroat recruiting tactics, his Cajun tirades involving him challenging his whole team to a fight, and his ability to mesmerize dogs and talk to snakes…however, this can’t be good for the 2nd year coach at Ole Miss, if only because Slive letting something like this slip in what he surely knew to be a public forum serves as a warning shot across the bow of the S.S. Crazyman currently docked in Oxford. An example could be made if Slive really does feel like the conference needs a good public polishing–mostly in terms of lost bowls and scholarships for an offender–and being one of the non-sacred cows of the conference would make a program like Ole Miss a ripe, tasty, batter-fried target for a commisioner looking for a scapegoat.

Why wouldn’t this be Urban Meyer, you ask? Probably because, outside of the very, very sketchy claims that C.J. Spiller’s recruitment broke some rules, he’s not had anyone go on the record against him. That and the source being the Memphis paper are enough to point us away from the admittedly very, very aggressive recruiting of Meyer.

A Southern specialty: tasty, batter-fried recruiting complaints.

Give him credit: Mark Bradley doesn’t just go Christopher Nolan, jumpy-plot weird on us in his annual long-range prediction column looking at the upcoming college football season. He flat-out channels Fellini here, which we appreciate for both the undistilled wackiness of the column and for the fact that an extreme stimulus like saying that “Georgia Tech will beat Notre Dame” forces you to react in one fashion or another. Reading the column’s a little like being carjacked or going into battle–it forces you to think fast about what you really believe, son.

Felliniesque. Not always a bad thing.

Going from that dire comparison, here’s some of Bradley’s 120 proof predictions and our gut responses:

The Jackets will beat Notre Dame on Sept. 2 and will beat Georgia — finally! — in Athens on Nov. 25.

Both of these happening seems physically impossible. Yet does it seem all that moonshot improbable for Georgia Tech to roll out of the gates and stun Notre Dame in Atlanta in one of those games you’ll dimly recall over your third beer during Notre Dame’s post Jan. 1 bowl game? (more…)

Blame the BBQ hangover–we’ll be doing light posting today due to the lingering effects of this weekend, one of which is being completely behind at work. Be back in the p.m.

One does not make a trend. Mike Cooper, the library spanker in an OSU sweatshirt featured on this site, Deadspin, and many, many others, was that one. Two is a run, but not necessarily a trend, with number two being this guy:

…who was caught in one of Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” series IMing someone posing as a teenager on the internet. Alert tOSU public relations; find pic of tOSU alum feeding orphans, saving puppies, or feeding orphaned puppies stat.

Who knows whether he’s actually writing the site or not, but USC fullback Brandon Hancock’s site has been worth a check-in from time to time, if only to marvel at the sheer amount of food required to keep up his boulderish physique. One detail does concern us, though, nested among all the egg whites and lean proteins in meal one of seven for the day:

Multi-Vitamin & 2 tablespoons Flaxseed Oil

Flaxseed oil? We’ve heard that before. Not saying that Brandon’s been ‘roiding out–we know what that looks like thanks to a viewing of TLC’s “The Man Whose Arms Exploded”, and Brandon’s discipline, lifting, and genetics explain his ability to block out the sun more than any Tijuana supplements. But you do raise an eyebrow when you see “flaxseed oil,” despite the fact that the stuff is great for you and goes through you like a bullet train. You may want to clarify that in light of Bonds’ own weasel-assing around the topic of “flaxseed oil” use. Just some pr advice for someone who’s the size of Rwandan Mountain Gorilla and fond of taking his shirt off to show it.

Gregg Valentino, the man whose arms exploded: took some “flaxseed oil” once.

We’re already on fumes going into the holiday weekend here, so in that spirit here’s your recharge and refill (as in your cocktail glass) reading list.

–UMichedMe’s got a haunting piece on former UM running back Tony Boles. Long, but worth it.

–Michigan=geek school. Why? It’s number two on the list of schools logging the most time in World of Warcraft play, surpassed only by the University of Washington. (If we were a Husky fan, we’d seek solace in virtual worlds, too.)

–Tony Barnhart’s got a piece on watching Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden speak at the National Football Foundation. According to Barnhart: Paterno = wootest because he’s given boatloads of money to the university and become a part of Penn State’s life as an institution, and Bowden =wootest because…he got rheumatic fever once and he won’t quit his job. We’ve always found both of those to be inspiring.

–Bob Davie talk footbaw. Bob Davie talk footbaw pretty round spread offense. If you don’t know what the spread offense is yet, cushion all the corners in your house with foam rubber and packing tape, wear a bike helmet 24/7, and considering switching from gas to electric lest you become the Sim that sets themselves on fire while trying to make dinner.

–Burnt Orange Nation talks with Kirk Bohls of the Austin Statesman, America’s most upright and respectable-sounding daily. He’s–prepare yourself–scared of blogs, though he makes an exception for Peter and the boys.

–Someone thinks Charlie Weis is “arrogant.” Judging by the comments thread, that someone probably “looks a lot like Wilford Brimley.”

–SMQ continues his impressive death slog through all 117 D-1 teams. If he’s still typing at the beginning of the season, we’ll buy him a bundt cake.

–If none of the above amuses you, the laughing yogi should.

Have a superb holiday weekend–we’ll be out Monday, so just watch that laughing yogi thing if you want to know what we’re thinking.

We were around twelve years old when the video came in the mail: NFL’s “Crunch Course,” the freebie a subscription to Sports Illustrated got you in the football phone giveaway days. (”Yeah, honey–it’s a football…and a phone! I’M NOT KIDDING!”) In pre-internet, pre-126 channel cable days, an effective strategy for whiling the afternoon away when you didn’t want to be climbing trees, learning something, or otherwise expending precious effort was watching videotapes repeatedly until the tape broke. The only provision was that the movie in question be so irredeemably entertaining that 382 consecutive viewings would only enhance the beauty of the images strobing out of the electron gun and onto the screen. This sounds like a problem until you remember that 12 year olds have very, very low standards of entertainment, and will do anything to avoid productive behavior.

It’s a football…and a phone!

Crunch Course had addiction written all over it–it elicited oohs and aahs we didn’t even know were coming from our mouth. (When we had insomnia we’d watch it, which combined with the noises probably convinced Mom that we’d started masturbating, and that knocking would be a prerequisite from that point on. )

The video represented NFL films attempt to capture all of the mid-80s badasses of football in one slow motion paean to XYY males: Howie Long, Lawrence Taylor, and most movingly, Walter Payton. His segment of the film portrayed him as the dimunitive, devastating right hand of an angry Jehovah bent on jacking linebackers in the jaw until the world was free of sin. It also burned a blueprint of his absolute invincibility on our hard drive; when we watched his press conference years later, the one where Payton announced he was dying, a reporter asked him if he was scared. He started crying in response, and we couldn’t help but weep on sight, too. Reconciling the image of the emaciated man wearing sunglasses and crying his eyes dry on national television with the shots of Payton clad in a tank top and his trademark ‘Roos doing wind sprints up a hill shredded by years of workouts–we couldn’t ever really make the two cohere. In fact, we’re still not totally convinced he’s not going to come in the door, stiff arm us in the face, and hitch-step his way out the door.

Still not dead.

The film, though, brought one thing home powerfully to our young brain. Sport, more than theater, more than film, more than any other form of what you might call visual entertainment, was truly random and unpredictable. (more…)

Michael Hiestand’s sports television column in USA Today manages to top out the maximum score for “most informative column written about least informative medium” on a monthly basis, making his predecessor Rudy Martzke look like the dog-track dwelling underbeing he is in comparison. (Martzke was best known for cracking on Pam Oliver’s clothes, which is a bad idea since Pam could beat him bloody with hand tied behind her back.)

Hiestand’s latest–playing catch-up here–Keith Jackson really does wield Godlike powers, since his rec of Dan Fouts–his color guy on ABC in the era prior to his retirement–got Fouts the job for the fall as the play-by-play announcer for ABC’s afternoon games this fall. Tim Brant will join him as color analyst. Fouts’ mighty beard will take over telestrator duties and provide occasional sideline support.

Mmmm. Beardy.

Paul MacGuire Maguire, part of the Sunday Night NFL crew generally regarded as a smug blight on the cable dial, will be divorced from his tumultous marriage with neurotic wife Joe Theismann at last and sent to work with the Nessler and Bob Griese on Saturday afternoons. Look up avuncular, and you will find Maguire’s picture; look up “cranky,” and you will find Bob Greise. Which brings up the obvious question: what angry god did Nessler spite to deserve this degree of punishment? We’re giving odds on when Griese drops an audible “please just shut the fuck up” to Maguire’s chipper patter: email us to place your bets. (We’re betting third week of October.)

See the full scoreboard, including a picture of Mr. Butterworth himself, here.

A few notes and clarifications:

–Alabama will likely be bumped down to two points pending the ongoing events in the Juwan Simpson case. Or be given eight points when it turns out to be some outlandish conspiracy involving Nazi gold, Mike Shula, bootleg Kazakh uranium, and the Shroud of Turin. We’re still not sure at this point.

–Indiana makes a strong debut with four points thanks to a wide receiver allegedly slapping his girlfriend and their baby. Should this turn out to just be your regular, run-of-the-mill baby-slapping incident without charges, the Hoosiers will do exactly what they do during the season: put up a donut in the scoring department.

–If we’re counting on anyone to make a late push for significant points, it’s Marshall. Herdistan hasn’t let us down before, and with Joe Tiller cracking down at Purdue it’s unlikely the Boilermakers will see anything more in the way of substantial points. Two or three more Playstation thefts and this thing could be theirs for the taking.

–Tennessee, who finally got on the board with a single point for Marvin Mitchell’s disorderly conduct arrest, still lags well behind in the standings. Also, we still haven’t seen a single point from FSU or Miami, phenomenal streaks for two very “spirited” teams. While the 7th Floor Crew just doesn’t seem to have the chemistry of past years, we still hold out hope for a substantial score from FSU–after all, Bonnaroo is just a few weeks away!