Turkey beckons, so we’re off to Birmingham to visit family. To quell any potential rumors, we would like to announce right here and now that we are staying put at EDSBS, and will not be considering any offers to coach the University of Alabama football team.

Posting will be very, very light. We’ll hold off on the rest of the Michael Lewis interview, since transcribing the thing is like ten bitches in a bitch boat, so expect that on Monday. We may post some FSU-inspired invective, but after watching them lose to Wake by 30 points and getting shutout at home, the wattage for this game is going to be very, very dim indeed. Even we’re almost tired of watching Drew Weatherford get collar-tackled in the back of the pocket every other down (almost.)

Coaching deaths may rain down upon us quickly in the next week or so. Expect updates in that case. Paper maelstroms are already likely flying between lawyers, and should turn into blizzards following the final gun on Saturday. A few predictions:

–Larry Coker may just walk into the stands and leave via the visitor parking lot on Saturday. He could, since he’s going to be fired most mercilessly by Donna Shalalalalalala on Sunday.

–Amato: say goodbye to those sweet, sweet gazongas.

–Dirk Koetter: Norm Chow is taking your job, and leaving behind the flaming garbage scow that is the Titans franchise. Why not send your resume to Tallahassee?

–Shula: for all we know, Papa Smurf may well be a legitimate candidate. Like many Alabama fans he too eschews the wearing of shirt and shoes, a bonus in his compatibility rating for the job.

Enjoy the weekend. Remember, a frozen turkey placed into a deep-fryer will kill anything in a fifteen-foot radius. Whether this is preferable to spending another second with your family is your decision, but try not to take any innocents with you.

On that note, we are thankful for our readers, who remind us that you when you are sick, you are never alone. Oh, and for Reggie Fuckin’ Nelson, who worked his ass off through the boondocks of the college football world to get to Florida and play with unparalleled passion and joy. Here’s hoping he becomes the first man to intercept two passes at the same time Saturday. The way Weatherford and Lee are bleeding picks, it may happen.

Leave your own thanks below if you wish.

–O.

No, no, don’t thaw it, it’ll “seal the juices in.” Yeah, stand right over it. You’ll be fine. I need to go get a drink–be right back!

It’s been a very, very rough patch for our resident gamblord lately. Hopefully Thanksgiving break will find him going from turkey eaten to turkey eatin’ against the spread. Enjoy.

Another pathetic performance last week; that’s two weeks out of three going 2-8, after I hadn’t had a single week that bad since 1992. This one was much better than the last one, for what it is worth; whereas half of my games a few weeks ago weren’t even competitive, only the Mizzou and LSU games weren’t competitive this week.

Sometimes you’re the turkey. Sometimes you’re the deep-fryer.

And it doesn’t help when you have wankers like Petrino running it up to get a meaningless TD with 1.28 left in the game, sticking it to my action (of course, when he does it and I’ve bet on him, he’s totally cool).

To recap for those just joining us, here is my winning percentage this season by month:

September: 26-19 (58%)
October: 29-16 (64%)
November: 9-20 (31%)

At this point, I suppose I should just be thankful that my September and October were good enough to overcome the November that I am having.

I really have no excuses; I’m certainly not spending the time on this that I should–certainly, nowhere near as much as I did last year–but at this point my GUT of CFB is so off that I can’t imagine spending every waking second on it would change things too much. I did spend this Sunday away from the office and not working at home; my belief is that this cannot hurt things any if at all.

I have tried to adjust my assumptions a little bit this week, so hopefully I can get back on track. Still, it is clear that anyone who does anything other than bet against my picks at this point should have their head examined. My season record is 64-55, a winning percentage of 54%. Here are this week’s selections:

THURSDAY:

Boston College (-4) v. MIAMI (FLORIDA)

I used to often joke about how the last several seasons, Miami’s motivation for every big game, it seemed, was acting like they were being disrespected by the media and the public; unfortunately for them, they are so bad this season that they are unable to credibly make that argument it at this point. (more…)

Blogpoll week 12: kind of like week 11, just less interesting. A week of epochal action did little to shuffle the rankings. In fact, we could not in clear conscience bump Michigan from the two spot, so valiant was their fight against this year’s football Galactus, Ohio State. (If the skies turn to flame above you, Troy Smith is just down the block. He may just be getting a latte at Starbucks or something, though, so just chill and see what happens.)

Apologies and outright equivocations follow. Hey, at least we’re relying on the magnificently flawed machine that sits between our two ears–whatever you may think of it, at least it doesn’t run on FORTRAN.

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

Apologies and equivocations

Michigan goes nowhere. Did nothing to suggest they aren’t the second best team in the country, while USC made a very tiny case to move up. Thus, they stay at the two spot after losing by three to the clearly supreme team in the land.

USC plays defense. Cal’s offensive line is a nightmare, or at least had some nightmarish moments against USC. They allowed Carroll to get savage with the blitz and keep coming with it. This will not happen against Notre Dame–Weis made sandwiches out of the slant all game last year, taming the freely blitzing linebackers and forcing USC to adjust. Given ND’s passive blocking, though, Carroll may just alternate coverages and let the front four do the scary work. Either way, they don’t play Chowball anymore. If the defense doesn’t run rabid, that team don’t work right, Cletus.

Rutgers gets sent to purgatory for losing to Cincinnati. On the verge of clusterfucking the whole system in one move, and they lose to the Red Pandas. For not sating our lust for anarchy, you take a dive, Rutgers.

Ditto for Cal. Their o-line buckled, warped, and finally splintered under the pressure of reckless blitzing. Longshore, not an unshakeable sort to begin with, got football tremors early and often, and poor Marshawn Lynch was left making Jet Li backflips just to get back to the line. We’d like to be the first to get on the Cal breakthrough year bandwagon ‘07–the year of the Golden Bear for the fourth year in a row! Unless they wait until next year!

Other notes:The ACC continues to clump, with Wake taking a bit of a downer, VT edging up slightly, and Maryland finally ending its marginal dominance. Georgia Tech? Sure, why not. They’ll likely lose and thus complete our season long preference for listing five ACC schools in a row from 14-19.

–West Virginia shaves the Wannstache, earns elevation for rushing badness and Pat White’s meowing.

–LSU and Oklahoma hang around, salvaging seasons nicely.

–Boise and BYU? The Mountain West and WAC affirmative action picks. Don’t tell Michael Richards!

One of the most fascinating microsystem meltdowns in college football ‘06 has come from the University of North Texas, a program that has in the short span of four years gone from the elite of the Sun Belt (pause, gentle wash of irony spills over) to a banana republic of a program bullied by a mattress salesman and in dire need of some serious intervention by HR.

Outgoing coach Darrell Dickey–already fired and coaching out the string–is doing the coaching equivalent of stealing every paper clip he can on the way out the door before mailing one last “fuck you” letter round the server. To wit:

According to parents of current players, right before Saturday’s game Coach Dickey snuck new black uniforms onto the team without the school’s permission. The rec-league quality jerseys, pictured here, didn’t contain the names of players or the school and conference logos. They weren’t cleared with Athletic Director Rick Villareal or announced to the press before the game and might violate agreements with the school’s uniform supplier.

During halftime of the game, offensive coordinator Ramon Flanagan allegedly started a physical fight with wide receivers Coach Chip Garber after being told he should play seniors because it was their final home game. The incident got so out of hand the offense received no instruction before going back out to start the third quarter.

Jeff Bowden, of course, has been a real visionary by doing just that in the first quarter. Viva hate! (HT: Ben Maller.)

University of North Texas football: feel the dysfunction!

They haven’t fixed it yet on the site, but just in case we’ll refer to a screen capture: unless the actual cause of the rash of injuries plaguing the Memphis Tigers is a dysentery outbreak, a copy editor just got beheaded at the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Holy shit.

HT: Ben