While the NC State athletic department attempts to disinfect several sections of the stadim and simulataneously decline the offer of R. Kelly to write “Wolfpack Mackin’”, a new theme for the team featuring a rap by MC Red Shoes…we bring you this morning’s edition of Blogtoberfest.

–Michigan hypermegamecha-tackle Alan Branch is the next Big Man Dance Challenge champion in training, according to Brian.

–Alabama players have gently suggested that Mike Shula should pass more. Or perhaps we can just say to hell with the gently bit:

“We can throw it on anybody if we want to,” receiver Keith Brown said. “Make the play call.”

At this point Joe Kines broke up the interview and alpha-rolled receiver Brown while Shula returned to a demanding game of World Of Warcraft, where his guild is both unstoppable and merciless.

–Coach Dennis Franchione and the Aggies are getting motivated for their upcoming first game against a real, live, non-quadraplegic opponent, Texas Tech. See, they do this activity to build trust where everyone lines up and falls into the outstretched arms of their co-workers. Then they visit a prison for motivation. Then they wear buttons that say “winner” or something like that. Then they all do a Polynesian dance.

Then they lose by thirty to Texas Tech.

–Gay tailgating. We bet the food and drink rock, though the continuous thumping disco does get a bit repetitive.

–Will Collier of In The Bleachers makes “ha ha funny old man look like corpse” jokes about Lou Holtz. We still laughed.

–Nestor has his predictably measured response to UCLA losing last weekend to Washington. Shockingly, his plan involves a coach getting fired.

***Late addition, but a necessary one: Peter runs down the whole dang ol’ Big 12 in every way imaginable this week. And he’s got an intern? Dude, you’ve got to hit that shit. Interns are eeeaaaaasy pickins’–it’s like, you know, he who holds the key to the supply closet gets the tail, right? Wait–it’s a dude? You hired a male intern? Well, you know, maybe you’re experimenting. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We’ve seen Kinsey; sexuality is a spectrum, after all…***

Real life did intervene with bloggery today, but we’ll be back in force tomorrow. Before we leave, though, please accept the humble apology of this YouTube find, which ironically does not convince you of its thesis that “Alabama’s Great.”

Real life intervenes, so light posting until 3ish. Enjoy THRB’s nice setup of the best on-air meltdown you will ever hear.

By the way, did anyone else ever put an NWA or 2 Live Crew tape into a Teddy Ruxpin for fun? If you haven’t, do it immediately. You may die from the laughter.

I’m like a freak in heat, a dog without warning…

In case you don’t know it, Lou Holtz is very, very old. He’s not quite Joe Paterno old–for example, Lou Holtz doesn’t have his discarded Manchu topknot from Boxer Rebellion in a shoebox underneath his bed for memory’s sake–but he is old enough to be the kind of guy who leaves his car open because, well, fuck it, it’s just an old man car.

North Carolina State fans have had plenty to celebrate over the past year: Chuck Amato’s red shoes (the angels want to wear them, Chuck!), local newspapers posting highly amusing flash animations about the coach, and the infamous Mexi-cam (which can’t possibly compete with Ole Miss’s beloved “Negro-scope.”

Now NC State can reach out to a whole new audience of fans by becoming the first football program to openly sanction public urination during games. Le quote:

“We are going to fix this before the Florida State game if we have to do it ourselves,” Will Quick, student body president, said.

“I know people were urinating in their sections,” Quick said. “I have heard reports of individuals being splashed by urine.” (HT: Kyle)

Seriously…fighting…obvious joke…will not…post…

We lose. Here your newest Chuck Amato fan.

Cause he’s trapped in the bleachers! Gonna piss in the bleachers! Now I pee in the BLEEEACHAAS!

Another thing you’re bound to see this week: this video of Chris Leak and the Florida Gators getting a generous earful of the “Rammer Jammer” cheer, where everyone not wearing Orange and Blue screams along to the tune of a song written by Gary Glitter. The video leaves out several Alabama postgame traditions, too, like getting a fifteen dollar angioplasty from a street vendor before spending another twenty bucks for an actual deep-fried slice of Freddie Kitchen’s buttocks served to you by the man himself. (Ahhh, tastes like…interceptions, most likely.)

As bad as it may get for Florida historically–our lack of tradition, our smartass fan base, and we can say this about our recent history, at least: we don’t sing a song composed by an English pedophile to celebrate victory, and we haven’t lost to Louisiana Tech recently.

But they were good that year! Sure they were….

Via The Wizard of Odds and pointed out to us by SMQ…Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach, doing the weather this past April on Lubbock local television.

Quotes, unencumbered by framing from lesser minds:

“My favorite weather pattern is when it rains mud.”

“Now on Monday, it says bad stuff, serious storms, but you’re gonna be dead in a hundred years anyway. Live dangerously. I would go opposite of that. That’s just too strong, too much bad weather, that thing on the screen there is just too sure of it for my tastes. Me personally? Expect sun. Don’t be a coward, stay out in it and enjoy it, and if you run into the bad stuff don’t let it ruin your day.”

“I actually look forward to hail.”

Somehow, we knew all of this was true before he ever said it.

We recommend the playing of the following YouTube clip during your perusal of the BlogPoll. Midnight Star never got enough play. Plus our dad’s in the clip in the white outfit. Or at least we wish our dad had that kind of fashion sense.

And now, our latest stab at a Blogpoll. Notes and clarifications follow:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	—
2	Auburn	—
3	Southern Cal	—
4	Michigan	—
5	Louisville	—
6	Florida	—
7	Iowa	—
8	West Virginia	—
9	Oregon	—
10	Texas	—
11	Louisiana State	—
12	Virginia Tech	1
13	Tennessee	6
14	Cal	10
15	TCU	1
16	Notre Dame	1
17	Georgia	5
18	Nebraska	8
19	Clemson	2
20	Rutgers	—
21	Oklahoma	5
22	Georgia Tech	4
23	Wake Forest	3
24	Boston College	6
25	Washington	1

Notes, clarifications, and errata:

1. No games of shocking upset, clear emergence from mediocrity, or serious entry into decline resulted from this week’s competition. Thus, we have complete and total parking on the dancefloor this week in the upper ranks. Therefore there’s zero movement in spots 1-11. What’s cracked there remains cracked this week.

2. New foolishness lurks below the once, however. Cal, after weeks of mistrust, earns their way back into the fold by shattering the remaining fragments of Rudy Carpenter’s ego and beating Arizona State, who appears well on their way to another bowl game with an improbably sponsor.

3. Virginia Tech goes up a spot because Jenkins told us to put them up a spot.

4. Tennessee, apparently the second best team in the east, appears to be in form. Bacon-flavored donuts for all!

5. Notre Dame goes down one spot simply for being close to the contagion that is the Michigan State football program. Panic not, for their succulent mid-year schedule promises an upward trajectory in the polls.

6. TCU jumps just because, as we keep repeating, their real mascot can fire blood from his eyeballs. Has “www.givesuperfrogeyesthatsquirtblood” been claimed yet? If not, that bitch is ours.

7. Georgia falls because they’re plummeting into qb controversy and Colorado knocked them around stank-nasty last Saturday. Their O-line and their WRs may be more of a problem in the long run, since neither seems to have a proper understanding of what they’re supposed to be doing on the field. We’ll be happy to hoist them high with a sound Orgeron-ning of the Orgeron this weekend, but until then their turmoil on the offensive side of the ball scares us off them.

8. Rutgers over Oklahoma. Why, you ask? Well, I got me a movie, wah ha ha ha, slicing up eyeballs, wa ha ha ha….

Every poll needs a little surrealism. Well, there you go.

9. Wake Forest: run for cover, motherfuckers!

10. Clemson’s just stupid fast on the ground, and should–should–pave their way through the majority of the ACC schedule. This being a Tommy Bowden team, they will fail to do this, and drop one to three dumb games they should not lose for reasons that film study and hours of quiet contemplation will not elucidate.

11. In conclusion: everything after 11 is fiction backed up with whimsy, an occasional reference to a stat, and pure bullshitting guesswork. Please contribute outrage, questions, concerns, and well-crafted emoticons below.

The rare pleasure of a Tuesday night game comes to us this week in the form of Southern Miss at Central Florida, a Conference-USA matchup of two teams that have both already played Florida this season. Solon, somehow missing that 12-step program meeting yet again, brings us his take on rare opportunity to tempt fate on a Tuesday night NOT involving eight shots of tequila, a unicycle, and a taser. Enjoy–O.

Southern Mississippi (-5) v. CENTRAL FLORIDA
Central Florida “shocked the (college football) world” last season with their run to the Conference USA title game. The one regular season loss they suffered was a drubbing at the hands of Southern Miss by the score of 52-31. That scoreline was a little deceptive; UCF suffered 4 fumbles and the game was out of reach by halftime, 45-7. Despite this, even if one throws that game out and assumes the teams were close to even last season, the season’s results thus far suggest that the gap between the two teams is presently fairly substantial. Both teams have played Florida, and while neither was competitive, Southern Miss was much more so. Perhaps most troubling from a UCF perspective was that they were an amazing +4 in turnovers but still lost to the Gators 42-0. UCF has also lost to USF at home by the score of 24-17; USF is an odd team offensively, one with no real strategy on O other than having the QB either run or pass, and their D will likely struggle against a much more balanced (this season relative to last) Southern Miss O. As for Southern Miss, while NC State is regarded as a bit of a joke, their defeat at the hands of Southern Miss was fairly comprehensive, and I think other teams this season will be hard-pressed to match Southern Miss’ offensive output of 442 yards against what is still a decent NC State D. Southern Miss freshman RB Fletcher is legit and gives them some balance on O that last year’s team lacked; given that the Southern Miss D resembles the units they have put on the field in season’s past ( e.g., holding the powerful Florida O to under 400 yards), I think they hold a substantial edge here and should have little trouble getting ahead of this number on the road.

Bower, a superb golfer, should hit the fairways nicely tonight with the Golden Eagles.

EAST LANSING, MI–Michigan State Coach John L. Smith was unable to finish a pastrami on rye sandwich at Side Streets Deli today, citing the overly generous portions of lunchmeat on the sandwich and the “really thick bread” it was served on.

“It was just too much for me,” said Smith, packing the remaining half of the sandwich into wax paper sheepishly. “All that meat and bread. I felt pretty confident going into the second piece, but one bite and I was finished. They really pile on the meat at that place, I tell you.”

John L. Smith, habitual sandwich surrrenderer.

Smith’s inability to finish the second half of a sandwich did not surprise deli manager Spiro Kandalakos. He says he’s watched the Michigan State coach come in for years, and that his failure to conquer the pastrami and rye represents classic John L. Smith performance.

“Every day that man walks in here, I tell him ‘You know, we do half a sandwich and soup for $5.99,” but he just won’t listen,” says the burly deli manager. “He goes right over there, reads about half of the paper, and eats the first half of the thing like he’s Kobayashi or something.”

“Then he just loses interest, puts it in the bag, and walks out.”

Smith stared at the sandwich. “It’s just…so bready, you know? That’s bad for your digestion, anyway. Yeah.”

Smith’s frustrating day continued when he returned to the office to watch tape and call recruits, common routine for Smith on Tuesdays. Smith began to watch gametape on Illinois, but then suddenly lost interest when the third quarter tape of their loss to Iowa began.

“I don’t know, maybe it was the lights, the sound…something just broke my concentration, I guess,” said Smith, glumly holding his hand in his hands at his desk. He fiddled with a half-completed jigsaw puzzle as he spoke; exactly half of the visage of a kitten stared back up at him from the desk. “I just couldn’t focus. Illinois just kept running the same plays, and Iowa kept stopping them, so I figured I’d get up and do something else.”

Smith then walked outside, a Sudoku puzzle book in his hand. Smith, an avowed Sudoku fan, took a seat on the bleachers with pen in hand, the autumn sunshine warming his body.

“I was feeling pretty good, actually. The numbers were clicking, the sun was out, I was really getting my focus back. Thought about calling some recruits, maybe drawing up a few plays…you know, really getting back to being what John L. Smith is all about: finishing the drill.”

But then, about halfway through the puzzle, Smith put the book down, stunned by the complexity of the scheme.

“Those damned Japanese are some crafty, crafty people, I tell ya. I just can’t get this block right here….” he said, his voice trailing off.

Spartan assistant trainer Melvin Hodgson said the Sudoku collapse was pure John L. Smith.

“That man hasn’t finished a damn one of those things yet. He just rips right into it, like he’s some kind of…you know, Sudoku genius. Then this fog just rolls in–you can see it on his face–and the man just drops it halfway through. I go in and finish them later so he can look back and pretend he did ‘em. I get absolutely no credit around here.”

The Sudoku setback, though failed to Smith put the book away, announcing that he planned on “going to the gym to run a half mile, do somewhere between one and three sets of bench press, and maybe finish that sandwich if I can.”