After you head over to AL.com and listen to our extremely caffeineated appearance on their Alabama Conversations. Todd and Kenny attempt to sort some facts out of the out of the Alabama coaching situation while we make more Kim Jong-Il jokes.

It’s been an undeclared holiday for Bama media types, whose festivity has us feeling Christmas-y well ahead of schedule. Therefore, we ring in the EDSBS Christmas season with our mustache of the day: Sam the Snowman/Burl Ives.

So holly! So jolly! Despite being legless.

Stewart Mandel claims Chan Gailey sux. Stewart Mandel gets screwed by the broken clock rule stating that even a mediocre coach can succeed by not firing his defensive coordinator, recruiting decently, and installing an irritable wee man at quarterback. Stewart writes:

“(he’s) still not convinced (Gailey) won’t find a way to screw it up, but if Tech wins its division, he’s off the list and a round of hot dogs are on me.”

On Saturday, Stewart’s buying hot dogs at the Varsity. He really could just wait and double down, going for the onion ring and frosted orange combo for everyone in ‘07 that Gailey will go 3-9 next year. Everyone knows that over time, Chan Gailey Equilibrium will win out.

Nonetheless, kudos and plaudits on being a man of your word, Stewart, in more than one way.

First you nut up to your bet, which we’ll make sure you do by being there on Saturday Friday ourselves. (HT: The 5.0 Guy)

Second, you identify yourself as being 30 on MySpace. This could mean two things:

1. You’re actually thirty, or…

2. Using MySpace mathematics, you’re really 90 years old cruising for ladies in their seventies who haven’t drained the 401-Ks yet and gotten into the catfood-eating stage of retirement. Either way, bravo on the integrity scale.

Mandel: has integrity, and potentially a thing for Bea Arthur types, too. This, btw, is not the Mustache of the Day.

The latest in the folderol race to establish who’s going to be coach and who won’t where:

A strange flight from Tempe to Pyongyang? Rumors of the baddest man between the Yalu River and the 38th parallel–or at least the roneriest man jacked up on cognac and uppers between the two–coming to Tempe to beef up the perpetually sanctioned Arizona State defense?

Per flightpath traffic records yesterday, a most curious flight left Tempe yesterday.

Only one coaching prospect lives in the downtown Pyongyang area: Kim Jong-Il, a leader noted for his defense and ability to leave supporters starving for more. As odd as the idea may seem to outsiders, NFL and college insiders say the Dear Leader has long been on the wish lists of both ADs and NFL owners for a head slot.

“We almost had him back in ‘86,” said Raiders owner Al Davis from his home on Tuesday. “Everyone says he’s all defense, but let me tell you this: (more…)

We like the top ten, at least. The rest, as usual, is a sad mess.

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

Notes, Clarifications, and Mistakes We Made. Again.

–The hardest thing about hybrid polling–where you blend the results of matchups in the HYPOTHETICAL DEATH THEATER in your head plus a vague notion of a team’s absolute value at that point in the year–is settling on which factor to lean on for moving a team up or down.

Keeping USC at three instead of four makes the brain quake a little after watching Notre Dame blasted into teeny pieces by a team clearly intent on giving them a 10 point handicap. (The sign of a true predator: toying with its prey cruelly! The comment brought to you by David Attenborough.)

Playing with your food–something David Attenborough would approve of. Seen here vacationing with Ed Orgeron.

But yet…without a head to head or conference foes, we have to go on absolute valuation and their one shared opponent. (more…)

Bring out the EDSBS wagering stick, ’cause we’re a-swingin’: the next football coach at Alabama will be Rich Rodriguez, a blind guess made after hours of talking with people who know slightly more about ‘Bama football than we do as well as a few trips down the rabbit hole of Alabama/South Carolina/West Virginia/National Security Agency message boards. (If you’ve never been there, they’re great; the cryptography department’s recipe boards are to die for, especially their pastry suggestions.)

It’s Rodriguez by triangulation, which means you prove it’s him more by saying why it’s not going to be everyone else. The rationale, laid out in just as shaky a fashion as everyone else’s:

Hey! There’s a limb! Let’s walk out on it.

1. Spurrier said he’s not taking the job. Therefore, he’s not taking the job. He’s only left one job abruptly, and is generally a pretty ethical and fair guy. (And when boy tyrant Daniel Snyder is that guy, you’re looking for any excuse to gnaw your arm off, slip the million dollar chains, and skedaddle–which Spurrier did.) It’s a matter of public record, and he’d be caught in a lie, which doesn’t jibe with his past track record.

2. Saban’s not a failure as a head coach. His team is marginally in the playoff hunt, he’s being paid five jillion dollars a year–which Alabama could not match without scandalous spending–and Saban won’t leave until he’s fired. And don’t proffer the “college is easier and the pros are burning him out” argument; Saban’s happiest when he’s drinking a glass of his assistants’ tears in a four a.m. film breakdown session before grabbing a catnap and then reducing 300 lb. men to more tears.

3. Paul Johnson has a lingering steroid issue, which will keep him off Alabama’s list. (Though a wag would suggest that a faint whiff of scandal would attract Bama boosters.)

4. Jim Grobe is avowedely not interested, and would in truth have lifetime job security at Wake. Plus: he’s approaching geezerhood, something which might cloud ten-year contract negotiations. Alabama’s looking for stability, as evidenced by their clinging to the worst NFL offensive coordinator we’ve ever seen for four years.

5. Rodriguez has something like a million dollar buyout. He’s never going to have a higher stock than he has right now, barring an undefeated season in the near future, and that’s fool’s betting.
He’s young, he’s in a smallish market, and has succeeded at each stop he’s made in the Takeshi’s Castle obstacle course of a coaching career. The money he makes as one of the most ill-paid coaches in the Big East would be at least doubled by Alabama, a financial deal he may not be able to refuse. The only rumored sticking point in negotiations is keeping Joe Kines as DC, and he may be headed to Texas, anyway.

He has not disavowed the job, either: he’s said that Alabama has not contacted him, which may be superficially true. (Then again, a lawyer or the search agency or a booster may have, which is legalistically different, right?)

He’s the only public candidate whose all thumbs up in the resume department who has not publically said that he isn’t leaving his current job. Therefore: Rodriguez announces on Sunday after the Rutgers game and becomes the next coach at Alabama.

QEDMF! We’re sure this will look great when Alabama announces the hiring of John L. Smith as their new head coach after everyone else bugs out, thus setting the stage for mass suicides by the Crimson Tide faithful as they slap themselves to death.