Isn’t this not a nonstory?

Asked if he could be enticed by big money and a long-term contract, Tressel said, “I’ve got money and I’ve got a contract.”

Asked if he could imagine anything that would lead him to the NFL, Tressel said, “Don’t know. Can’t think of a thing.”

If you quantify what you might think of as “NFL Compatibility Rating,” Tressel’s down there scraping the barrel with Urban Meyer as far as obvious pro compatibility, though for different reasons: Meyer for his system relying on a running quarterback, and Tressel for bad fashion sense. (Though if Bill Parcells can swan about looking fifteen pounds shy of pleading surrender and just put on a muu-muu, Tressel’s disqualifier may be invalid here.)

Stay put, Jim. Stay put.

With the coaching carousel–America’s Least Favorite Thrill Ride–gets cranked up in earnest, we’re fascinated by the concept of “pro compatibility.” What does this mean? A tendency towards running bland, uniform offenses? Dave Rader, come on down! A fondness for torturing staff to the point of ensuring that on your retirement, not one would consider coming back to “the old school” to coach, forcing your administration to hire–gasp!–Ron Prince? Bill Snyder, your retirement is over! Coaching in such a leveraged, cowardly fashion that every team you face may book a stunning second half reversal of whatever was working against them in the first half? [NAME REDACTED], your ticket has been written–pick it up at Al Davis’ office.

This seems like less of a story and more like standard Tressel boilerplate. After all, Tressel speaks in loops anyway, as if every word were being listened to by a prosecutor, or worse yet, the Israeli Mafia. He can’t even decide whether to wear a sweater or short sleeves, instead combining them in a single mystifying outfit with the requisite tie.

This all equals a cheap segue to what we think Ohio State fans would feel like without Senor Sweatervest patrolling the sidelines and instead working his way toward being fired at the end of year two of a three year contract in the pros. Warning: this is the worst video ever, and whatever you do, do not watch it. With that said, Alexander O’Neal makes us cry. With his bad acting. And his jacket.

Feel the pining, as Ohio State fans would if Tressel left.

We thought about accompanying these with words or names painful to the ears of Georgia fans each time we posted them. For this installment, the password is…(shhh!)…

Eric Kresser.

A flea-flicker to score fifty will make you do that.

So what if we were too lazy to do a new shirt each day for too weeks.  Haven’t you ever been lied to before?  Anyway, here is my favorite suggestion for a new Florida/Georgia T-Shirt.

Get em while they’re relevant.

This week’s sad mess is brought to you courtesy of our sponsor, the city of Jacksonville, who is happy to sponsor the “Sideline Safety Zone” for students who feel even the eeninesiest bit unsafe at any point in Saturday’s proceedings. Their appeal to the drunk, underage student is something for us all to remember:

Will I be arrested if I show up drunk?

The Zone is about helping people, not punishing people. Students who request assistance at the Zone for themselves or their friends will not be subject to legal action on alcohol issues.

If only our HR manual said the same thing. Our ballot follows. It is, as always, a fiasco wrapped in a blueberry pancake deep-fried in the rich, boiling oil of delusional guesswork served in a commemorative tote bag of speculation.

The ballot:

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

Remember, we’re trying to do relational polling based on our best estimates of absolute value. Meaning: we use the evidence we’ve got and plot it out just a few fathoms out before recalibrating the next week. Polling is like navigation without a compass; either you intuit your way across the water and just admit it a la Polynesian navigation, or you stay close to the shore, tack, and write “THERE BE DRAGONS” on the unknowns. Like any voter should, we’ll just admit where the dragons are on our map. Our biggest one is currently in the number two slot.

The ancien regime sees no beheadings this week. Stasis rules, mostly because we get little data forcing wiggles in the top ranks. Tennessee/Bama was close, yes, but it usually is. Cal gets screwed by a freak Hail Mary that would have sunk lesser teams, but recovers like Nobel Prize winners do. Everyone else coasts or sleepwalks through their games.

Auburn bumps, Clemson trumps. Clemson flattened Tech. Just paved them. The amount of talent they have in the backfield and the fact that Gaines Adams was a one man force multiplier caving in the Tech line on defense culminated in a fourth quarter of truly Gailey-esque futility. Right now they’d beat Auburn or Florida, and mostly on account of the very simple and effective ways they work two backfield demons into the gameplan at once. To compare their overall team profile to Auburn ‘04 would not be a stretch at this point.

Charlie can’t run. Notre Dame can’t run. We saw it in person. On television it’s easy to be dazzled by the skill play of QuinnmarxdkijaMcKnight, but whenever ND’s faced a competent d-line and a decent pass defense they’ve plotzed around in a muddle of bad blocking and ineffectual running, just as we saw them do in South Bend on Saturday. (more…)

Yes, it’s been fifteen years since this match was consistently competitive. But take a look at the positives: this year, it’s like it always was, just with a powerful sponsor emphasis on sobriety! In Jacksonville! YOU’LL ALL BE SOBER…AND IN JACKSONVILLE!!! WOO!!!

President Flair’s comment: WOO!!!

To cheer up the glum Georgia fans who believe that a decade and a half of pain will turn 16 years old on Saturday, get its driver’s license, and then run over them with mom’s SUV, we present these reasons why Georgia, even in defeat, still owns Florida. Never say we didn’t give you anything, Georgia, besides our income tax, of course.

10. Governor with redneck name actually resembles redneck, unlike Jeb!, who resembles you your sophomore year in college once the beer weight kicked in.

More Gravy please! Advantage: Georgia.

9. UGA’s big trick: rolling on back, looking adorable. Albert the Alligator’s big trick: eating your niece. Advantage: Georgia. (Unless your niece happened to deserve it. You never know.)

8. UGA has a definite advantage in zazzy qb names. Use the trio test to illustrate:

Zeier, Bobo, and Shockley: badass progressive rock trio that once made rock opera about an android army that couldn’t defeat one enemy: love.

Wuerffel, Bell, and Grossman: a law firm in Palm Beach specializing in motorcycle-on-motorcycle accidents and panther-related law. Advantage: Georgia.

7. Red and Black goes with just about anything, and can be worn in many seasons and situations. Orange and Blue only matches skin tones associated with severe parasitic infections, cholera, or with dementia praecox. Tim Gunn Fashion Points: Georgia.

6. Firing an AR-15 in an apartment complex might, just might earn someone a suspension at the University of Georgia. Advantage: Georgia.

5. Athens contains the highest concentration of bars in a single urban area for a town of its size in the nation. Gainesville has the Top and…the Top and…TGI Friday’s.

4. Atlanta is the city too busy too hate. Miami is the city that just fucking hates you and wants you to die, cabron, die die die. Advantage: Georgia.

3. Georgia is to Ludacris as Florida is to…Creed. Chicken ‘n Beer, Georgia.

2. Georgia: largely illiterate population preys on local grouse, deer, and squirrels.

Florida: largely illiterate population preys on gullible, senile retirees and tourists.

There’s your cheesecake for the day, bitches.Advantage: Georgia.

1. Mark Richt: adopts two Ukranian orphans out of the kindness of his heart.

Urban Meyer: would likely eat two Ukranian orphans to win an SEC championship.

Advantage: Richt, but barely.

While Georgia Sports would like you to support their overmade cheeleader–”She is a Chechnyan prostitute and you will refer to her as such.”–we would like to point you in the underdog’s direction and ask that in the great race known as the Athlon Sideline Spirit contest, you support Anna, the University of Florida’s representative in round three.

Anna, who’s a bit down in the chips with just under ten thousand votes, not only needs your support-nay! She deserves it. We pitch to thee these reasons three why you should vote for Florida’s lighter-than-a-feather sideline tossing dwarf.

1. She’s got outstanding pudendal confidence. Nothing’s more important to a cheerleader than the belief that those who encounter near-eye level exposure to everything between the anatomical tropics will come away unoffended, perhaps even pleased, and ready to cheer for another crucial down. Clearly, Anna’s got Pudendal confidence in spades.

2. She’s an accounting major. If that doesn’t strike fear into your heart, nothing will. Do you think Liz Southall’s going to do anything with that Latin American Studies major besides pick up hot Latinos and sign up for the GRE like, now? Of course not. Anna, on the other hand, could be making six figures while doing handstands on your company’s rock solid books thanks to her degree. Spanish teacher or ninja accountant who can buy you a nice dinner: take your pick, reader.

3. Her favorite memory with her squad:”…when the coed boys attacked her squad in an underground tunnel at the South Carolina game last fall.” Anna’s clearly a berserker who lives only for the thrill of blood and the fury of a good melee. The coed squad lost a lot of good men in the tunnel that day…

I am the Invincible Sword Goddess, armed with the incredible Green Destiny. And a pom-pom.

We have five simple rules to life. They are based upon observation, experiment, and peer reviewed statements made in numerous bars across the world between the hours of seven p.m. and 4 a.m. They are:

1. Things will go wrong.
2. People never change, and never will.
3. People continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.
4. When your favorite uncle is eaten by a tiger, don’t ask “Why?”, ask “Why not?”
5. Attempt to ignore rules 1-4 at all times.

Given that, we bring up the rumor of Norm Chow, the Greatest College Offensive Coordinator Ever â„¢ and the currently a mediocre NFL OC for the talent-rupt Titans. This rumor comes to us courtesy of Horseface, who thinks a job-hungry Chow would find an ideal transitional job in the situation at Florida State. Chow comes in as an assistant, gives Bowden one last “dadgum,”, and then takes over for Bowden when he leaves.

Chow: no scheme, no system. Just hot, nasty, badass scoring. We think Eleanor Roosevelt said that first.

We’re not going to think about Hayes’ penchant for turning fever-dream fan-fiction into “interesting official speculation,” or about him writing college football fan fiction at all. (See: Yahoo Groups “Holly Rowe BDSM Tales,” chapter six for some of that.) In fact, if you’re looking for tasty reliable speculation, it’s in there: Chow to North Carolina or Miami, which makes sense even taking into account a set of rules about humanity so skeptical only someone raised in the hardknock life surroundings of..um…the suburban sun belt could come up with them. Yeah.

Chow wouldn’t engage in Matt3576HorseyNeigh@yahoo.com’s fevered scenario because it violates several of Orson’s Sad But Reliable Rules for humanity. The indictment, point by point:

1. Something will go wrong. Chow’s from the West Coast, and enjoyed his greatest success there. Why wouldn’t he go back? Arizona State’s football program will likely have an opening, and Oregon State and UCLA are also up there for potential jobs. All of these are more likely than Norm Chow to Tallahassee, where he’d be replacing a legend in an area of the country he’s never really worked before.

2. People never change, and never will. Bowden won’t admit mistakes, and has no reason to: in a single person, he represents the successful heritage of Florida State football. He’s also got that history of rank nepotism, which won’t change. Get Jeff Bowden a shiny new brass nameplate and fasten it into the door with the big screws, because his biggest resume line is never going away.

3. People continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. See number two. Jeff’s just learning. He’s young. The other boys turned out okay, except for the embezzler, right? Sick with dolor as Seminole fans are right now, we have to ask an even more sickening question: what makes anyone in the fanbase think that Bowden doesn’t have fantasies of putting Jeffy in charge once he’s gone? What in his behavior has shown an inclination that he wouldn’t do this?

4. When your favorite uncle is eaten by a tiger, don’t ask “Why?”, ask “Why not?”

The second greatest coach of all time wins-wise (we refuse to count the Samford wins in that total, and just like JoePa better anyway, especially after his “Run For Two” earlier this year) becomes a laughing stock of a country sheriff by promoting his inept son to a position of responsibility. Why not? Why can’t a formerly brilliant coach be completely anti-brilliant towards the end of his career? It happens all the time. Woody Hayes punches Charlie Bauman. Dennis Erickson goes from coaching Miami in the national championship to play-calling in an airplane hangar in Moscow, Idaho. Smart people do dumb things, like trust someone simply because they have half the same genes as they do. Ask King Birendra–not always the soundest thinking. Don’t ask “Why would FSU make a bad decision on the next coach?” Instead, ask “Why not?”

King Birendra of Nepal: ask him how mixing family and upper management worked out.

Supplemental evidence: [NAME REDACTED]’s entire hiring and tenure. Why not?

5. Attempt to ignore rules 1-4 at all times. The only ray of hope here for Seminole fans: rules 1-4 collapse, and someone makes sound decisions in hiring the next coach. Of course, this implies betting on people being competent, which is a big, big risk. Perhaps we need a rule six…