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!

Dr. George O’Leary, one time football coach at Notre Dame and prominent philosopher, mathematician and theologian (according to his CV), has been granted a major contract extension to continue coaching the Golden Knights of Central Florida. O’Leary is due to make a cool million next season which will escalate up to 1.55 million by 2015.

After a successful second season, O’Leary upped the ante by employing Urban Meyers patented pointing techniques.

The Big 12’s holding their annual meeting at the Broadmoor in Colorado. Strangely, at a luxury hotel with yard-long beers, the commissioners have gotten very little done.

Beer: not conducive to productivity.

Okay, we promise: after much abuse of the Motivational Poster tool this week, this is our final batch of EDSBS Motivationals. Enjoy.

(more…)

We read this bit of news totally and completely the wrong way in great haste. We could pull it, but we whiffed in grand fashion and put it there anyway. We’ll leave it as is as a testament to our own ign’unce. but almost all of what you may read below is wrong.-ed.

The Golden Age of College GameDay–should you wonder, after “We’re comin–and we’re shittayyyy!!!” rang through your ears all season long–ended officially this week. Kirk Herbstreit will move to Saturday night football to work with the odd couple of Bob “Footbaw” Davie and Brent “Red Blooded Male” Musberger. (Gay men, according to Musberger, have green blood. So do guys who don’t find Jenn Sterger attractive, which includes us in the Martian blood category, we suppose. It’s the price we’ll pay to avoid being covered in bronzer each time we have sex with someone.)

Why your wife/girlfriend will suddenly lose interest in Gameday and make no plans for Saturday night this fall.

Doug Flutie will take over the Herbstreit studio spot, tragically sans mullet. Completely untrue–he’ll remain in the studio, with Flutie taking over his spot on Saturday ESPN games. The gives and takes are obvious: Herbstreit will bring his chipper moxie to a potentially disastrous Musberger-Davie blabomination, cutting through much of Davie’s footbaw talk while bringing a spontaneous human side to the broadcast, since Davie can be awfully wooden and Musberger always sounds like he’s announcing, even when he gets in chat mode with his cohorts. (After almost forty years in the booth, we imagine even Brent’s interactions with Indian IT support hotlines sounds like a game-breaking interception return. If this audiotape exists, we will gladly sell our souls to get it.)

It also means GameDay’s dead.Or doesn’t, actually. Though we’re sure they’ll find another way to monkey around with a good thing. At least Mark Shapiro won’t be around to give us more Sportstainment! Corso can only slide further into squinty obtuseness from this point, while Flutie will take at least a season to ease into the groove of things. That leaves prissy Fowler to carry the show, which he’s not capable of doing unless they allow him to leap into crowds and attack offensive sign holders on camera. Toss in your Lacheys, what will undoubtedly be the worst choice for a theme song you can think of (Taylor Hicks? Black Eyed Peas? SOUL PATROL!), and more cocked-up human interest stories like the one about how Matt Leinart overcame myopia (the HORROR!), and we’ll officially declare the program DOA for at least the next year.

Go get ‘em, Chris!

The only song we’d use for the theme song? Ace of Spades by Motorhead, accompanied by nothing but clips of massive hits. If it doesn’t sound badass beyond comprehension to you, we’ll just say that it killed when we showed a video just like it at our wedding. This part may be the only part still true after editing.

Someone impound Mudcat Elmore’s goddamned car and save UGA some serious trouble. The cursed car–which has not, thus far, grown attached to Mudcat and killed all rivals for his affections–has claimed another victim, this time Daniel Ellerbe, whose case wound up yesterday in Athens. The linebacker was given two days in jail and two years probation for a drunk driving incident where Ellerbe crashed Elmore’s car into a tree. Originally there was a charge of auto theft against Ellerbe, but Elmore helped clarify the confusion regarding exactly why his friend Ellerbe was behind the wheel in the first place:

Ellerbe was accused by police of taking Elmore’s 1988 Chevrolet Caprice without his permission, but Elmore said there was a “general practice among the circle of friends to share vehicles,” Mauldin said.

Good to know that Richt’s players, though driving drunk around Athens, aren’t doing in luxury vehicles in Mama’s name. An ‘88 Caprice isn’t exactly Escaladery, no matter how many rims you put on it. Still, when was the last time you agreed to share something as big as a car? It’s yet another chapter in UGA’s long history of petty but bothersome trouble with athletes and cars.

Fortunately, we have just the solution: the UGA Athletic Department Horse Pool. Save on gas, foster ecological awareness on campus, and give the Ag Department a chance to show off some of their fine animal husbandry work. Considering the near-deified status of athletes at UGA anyway, riding around on Arabians would only enhance their rank as a breed apart at the University. Plus: awarding Fulmer Cup points for RUI and trampling geeks on the quad would be far more entertaining than boring old DUI cases.

Total: two points, one for the dui charge, and one for being involved with Mudcat Elmore’s santeria-stricken car.

Mudcat Elmore’s car: not a 1958 Plymouth Fury.