Remember the final scene in Saving Private Ryan, where the old Ryan looks at his wife and asks her to “tell me I’ve been a good man.” We ask ourselves that question every single day, often over inane things like overuse of office paperclips, interactions with total strangers in traffic (was that a yield? And for me, or them?), and our treatment of animals. (“Definitely neglected the dog by walking them for only twenty minutes today.)

Most days, we’re pretty sure we come out on the high side of decent. However, once we saw this on Have You Met Tony? today, the ledger for February 28th, 2007 must lean into the “nay” category for our own daily Private Ryan rating. We blame society, and are entering rehab for finding glee in the following sports-related name.

Here goes:

Yourhighness Morgan is fortunate. Others…not.

Jerry Glanville is in the building! And Jerry Glanville is excited, so to hell with Jim Grobe getting a ten-year conference extension at Wake Forest. They suck so much they only get one A in their division.

Jerry’s grabbing hisself a job coaching the 1-double A football at Portland State, baby. That’s Portland State, people, and twice as many A’s. Learn it, know it, and love it because it’s gonna have you all shook up when we put the college football world in a ring of fire!

What victory looks like: Jerry’s got hisself a job.

Things were looking pretty dim for Jerry there for a hot minute. First, Ol’ Jerry was walking the line not for some hotshot car dealer who bought an NFL team on a lark–no, The Man in Black was walking the sidelines in some shithole called Hawaii and working for my old flunky June Jones. He’s the guy who screwed up the best quarterback this ol’ coach ever saw, Jeff George. God, he was beautiful…like a young James Dean, except not bisexual, with a weaker chin, not blond, and most definitely not with the same eyes. But except that and George’s rocket of an arm, they were essentially the same person, right? Hey!

Jerry’s working for June Jones, right, and June’s changed, like, majorly. With Coach Jerry in Atlanta he was always fun and easy-going and down, you know? I’d say something like, “Hey, June, nice dress,” or “Have dinner ready at six and your pants down at eight, June!” Because he’s got a woman’s name, right? A real lady of a man, that’s what Jerry called him. And it killed every time. When he worked for Jerry he thought it was funny, anyway.

In Hawaii, it was like Jerry had some kind of charisma leprosy. (more…)

The Fulmer Cup is supposed to be fun–dark fun, sure, but fun nonetheless. However, Duke makes their entrance into the Fulmer Cup in what is arguably the worst way imaginable with misdemeanor charges of death by vehicle and driving left of the center line for wide receiver Raphael Chestnut, and in no way resembles fun, funny, or even titter-worthy.

Chestnut was involved in a collision on a curve during a heavy rainstorm in Stokesdale, North Carolina with a car driven by Douglas Smith, 50. It’s bad enough that the impact killed Smith; it dives into gutpain awful with this sentence:

His wife and infant in his car weren’t injured, and Chestnut wasn’t seriously injured.

A rare and horrible strike of ill fortune just rent one family asunder, made a wife a widow, and took one college student’s psyche and put a guilt dent in it he may never fully recover from in this lifetime. HA ha…um, ha. Yes. No mention of DUI, either. This is just life striking in horrid and inexplicable fashion as an instant of carelessness, inattention, a freak gust of wind, fiddling with the radio, whatever it was metastasized into major personal tragedy.

Duke is awarded two points if the charges stand. But Jesus, we’re queasy about awarding points for something that seems far less “boys will be boys” misbehavior and far more “why oh why cruel fate” in our ledger.

Much thanks to everyone who turned out last night for EDSBS Radio’s inaugural broadcast. It’s crap your pants bad for the first fifteen minutes or so, and we’re using a mike that makes us sound like we have a speech defect. (Corrected next week–sounding disorganized is one thing, but speech defective? Egads…) Once Peter gets on as co-host, things settle down somewhat.

We’d like to thank one caller in particular: Ragin’ Cajun Rebel. Find his call in the last third of the show to see the real potential in online radio. If you don’t find Sherilyn Fenn minus her arms and legs sexy, then fuck you. The next edition will be on Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. We promise to actually have a plan this time.

The SI Swimsuit Party this year came with a very special extra parting gift: a possible exposure to Hep A. We realized there were going to be cuts at CNNSI…but really, there’s far easier ways to do it. Like Sarin gas, for example. That shit works. (HT: RCR.)

Commenter Ragin Cajun Rebel points out the connection between Jenn Sterger being hired to write for SI On Campus and the Hep A exposure, but we actually think Sterger’s blameless here. She’s too busy giving thinly veiled public glimpses into her fractured psyche motivational speeches to thrilled on-campus audiences nationwide.

I paid for these boobs. Me. Not dad. Well, there’s one to grow on.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT AS HELL ANNOUNCEMENT!!! GIMME A FUCKIN’ SIREN!!!

Dorking out to unacceptable degrees on the fact that tonight we’ll be launching our career as a 456-pound sports talk host tonight. (We’ve got the show thing down–now time to start pounding the cheesecake to build ourselves a proper gunt.)

The particulars:

How to listen:: EDSBS Radio. Like you’ve got anything better to do, so click on this link to listen.

When: 8:00 EST–9:00 EST.

How to participate in a thrillingly interactive online community: To call in, you mean? But of course. Live calling is a feature on BlogTalkRadio, and you should call in. In fact, we’ll be having a contest to see who can make the most cliched sports talk radio call-in tomorrow night.

The number: (718) 664-6532

We’ll hopefully have a few surprise guests along the way. Click the banner below to go to our channel.

Ripping off our favorite radio show of all time, we’re taking The Bottom Line’s “Five Questions segment and making it…well, quality stolen property. Our five questions for the geeks who like time to prepare:

1. Make one prediction about next season pulled straight from the deepest recesses of your ass.

2. Who’s your shameshag? Someone keeps telling us that, for example, Christiane Amanpour is not hot. They are wrong, of course, but this would for a normal person constitute a “shameshag,” the celebrity only you find irresistable.

There’s something about a woman in a safari jacket who speaks Arabic.

3. Tweak one thing about college football. Prohibiting the wearing of pants on Erin Andrews does not count. Okay, it might.

4. Hire one coach, fire one coach. Simple enough.

5. Sweaters with ties: yes or no? It was our new year’s resolution to wear more sweaters with ties. What are your feelings here?

We’ll hear from all fifteen of you tonight. ‘Till then, we’re off the grid.

Last week, if you missed it, a huge asteroid of stupidity sailed by the planet, narrowly avoiding contact with the planet that would have extinguished life as we know it forever. This particular asteroid of imbecility only missed placing a large and well-defined period on the sentence of human existence because it appeared on CBS Sportsline without a Clay Travis byline, and therefore whiffed past most of us without a sound.

Only brave men and online status keep us safe from the menace of asteroids.

Dennis Dodd authored the piece entitled “Smoke but no fire: Banished Barnett blackballed.” Its topic: shocking enough, the alleged (we’re using that word as hard as we can) “conspiracy” against the rehiring of Gary Barnett, former coach at Northwestern and Colorado.

SMQ responded (pre-vacay/oasis/sabbatical to do “real life stuff” whatever) by first gimpifying, then bullwhipping the case into the corner with logic, and then forbidding it from speaking for a year in conclusion before renaming it “Howie.” His demolition–and we mean complete, total, laying waste to-age of the piece--is all you’ll need to read regarding the monumental, colossal, Lawrence Of Arabia style epicness of the piece. Dodd should have exited the Barnett interview with a twenty in his pocket for his troubles, or at least a crisp Alexander Hamilton and some Teriyaki Flavored Coach Barnett Buffalo Jerky.

The least Barnett could have done: a Hamilton.

What we didn’t expect following this, though: the fountain of support for Barnett following the piece. It’s been an outpouring, really, of testimonials and advocacy from a diverse group of professionals, world leaders, cultural figures, and celebrities we didn’t even know watched college football, much less knew who Barnett was. They’ve been emailing us and calling non-stop, and we thought that in the interest of fairness, we’d let them talk.

Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia.

“Gary is obviously an exceptional leader, a gifted communicator, and just the kind of individual with a proven track record of success to lead a Division-1 football team to success. I would not hesitate to cut off this man sitting next to me’s arms to prove my deep and abiding respect for him. (more…)

Blogtoberfest: Much like the movie Babel, though sadly without deaf naked Japanese ladies. Random tourist killings? Being a Florida blog, you’re damn right we’ve got those.

Bound for Tallahassee from birth. No program has put the announcers of this earth through more hell than the Florida State Seminoles, fielding the Craphonsos and De’Cody Faggs of the universe without even offering the saving grace of a quality nickname.

Another recruit who, despite the possible ebbs and flows of recruiting over the next year, is destined to wear garnet and gold:

Yourhighness Morgan. Outside linebacker, Bushnell (FL) South Sumter

Yourhighness? The only queen we worship never put on pads. Well, maybe kneepads.

Steven Dubner of Freakonomics fame unearthed it back in August, of course. But we’ll take this opportunity to say that if Yourhighness does not play for the Florida State Seminoles, then nail your furniture to the wall, because gravity’s going sideways most fastly.

BONUS! He has a brother named Handsome, but does not in fact have siblings named Frito, President Camacho, or Beef Supreme.

Wanted: short, scatter-armed qb with bad tats. Georgia Tech’s Jonathan Garner has announced his intention to transfer, clearing the way for Taylor Bennett to claim the number one slot on the qb depth chart for the Yellow Jackets. Gailey, when reached for comment, said that he was:

“…sad to see him go, but it’ll work out. We’re still looking for a scatter-armed, converted third-string running back no taller than 5′ 9″ to really make this offense work, though. Then we’ll dump Taylor and let this pony run like it should.”

His pancakes are immaculate, too. Calvin Johnson, in addition to being a legendarily nice guy, water sanitation engineer for impoverished Peruvian villages, and the most underserved wide receiver in the nation, added another line to his resume this week: 4.35 in the 40 at the combine. Johnson ran the 40 against the advice of his agent, Jeremy Sanshuevos.

The quote from the AJC on Sunday: “He’s been working out like he’s going to be Mr. Irrelevant.”

Calvin Johnson: Like Randy Moss, but faster and undumb.

Bathrooms are a privilege no more in Texas. The Cotton Bowl will follow the Cowboys to their new home in Arlington, according to ESPN.com. This means that both the reasonable complaints (like, three bathrooms in the whole stadium) and the unreasonable (the “too-narrow” seating at the Cotton Bowl–lay off the Funyuns, supersize) will all be made irrelevant as the last remaining attraction vacates the Legion Field of the Lone Star State. When reached for comment, the Cotton Bowl said “Creak, drip, crumble.”

Michigan’s wide receivers just bought you an ice cream cake. WHAT! Ice Cream cake, y’all. Though he’s busy preparing for his second professional fight, Tom Zbikowski–and yes, we just realized this–is indeed returning next year to play out his string with Notre Dame in the defensive secondary.

Zbikowski, seen here against LSU, Ohio State, USC, or Michigan.

Alley Broussard, in his seventeenth year of eligibility. Alley Broussard, despite playing more seasons of college football than Hayden Fox ever coached, is still devouring goodwill at LSU. He’s in Les Miles doghouse for “team rules violations,” which means one of three things:

1. Skipped class.
2. Smoked weed and tested positive.
3. Tackled, upended, and then devoured a Geo Metro whole after a raucous off-campus party.

Money’s on #3 here.

Pete Carroll is scarily focused, chapter 346. Conquest Chronicles has further evidence that Pete Carroll is the Genghis Khan of recruiting, minus the horsestink and thousands-large harem.

Reggie Nelson Mancrush Update. Our favorite safety ever to play at Florida is keeping busy with preparations for the combine. Mohammed Massaquoi just dove to the ground after reading Nelson’s name. We’re sorry if it caused him any trauma.

ANNOUNCEMENT!!! GIMME A FUCKIN’ SIREN!!!

We’ll be boldly testing the theory of whether doing sports radio causes instantaneous weight gain tomorrow night as EDSBS Radio on BlogTalkRadio gets underway.

It promises to be a trainwreck, so tune in as we run through survival techniques of the offseason and also discuss anything and everything leaping into our minds at any given moment.

Who: Us, of course. Peter Bean of Burnt Orange Nation has been intrepid enough to join us for the trainwreck of an inaugural broadcast, as well. Both of us are on prescription medication. Be afraid.

The particulars:

What: EDSBS Radio. Like you’ve got anything better to do.

When: 8:00 EST–9:00 EST.

How: To call in, you mean? But of course. Live calling is a feature on BlogTalkRadio, and you should call in. In fact, we’ll be having a contest to see who can make the most cliched sports talk radio call-in tomorrow night.

The number: (718) 664-6532

You won’t be able to call in until showtime. Until then, feel free to submit topics for discussion in the comments, or click the BlogTalkRadio Button to visit our channel’s site.

It will probably sound a lot like this looks:

Riding the wave of what USA Today calls “college football’s growing popularity,” ESPN will debut College Football Live on July 23rd. Why now?

“College football fans want more content,” Berson says. “This has been a long time coming. It’s a natural extension for us. We expect it to become a staple of our programming, like NFL Live and Baseball Tonight.”

Our reaction:

WHAAAAA?

It’s coming on at 3:30 p.m. EST, which means ESPN may have misstepped already by assuming you’re on the couch clearing a bong in between classes. (more…)

A short but sweet entry from the mighty MAC, who with Ohio’s frenetic work have already made a huge impact in the 2007 Fulmer Cup: Bowling Green’s Nate Waldron is picked up for bar brawlin’ outside a North Street Bar, earning Bowling Green a point for fightin’ in a drunken state. (HT:Devil Grad.)

Upgrades available should felony-grade details emerge, or if he threw someone through a plate glass window, something we’ll call the “80s Brawling Finish,” since every action movie for ten years or so had to have a scene where someone got tossed through a plate glass window onto the pavement. They have to emerge unmussed and without a spot of blood on them, of course, and be completely fine after a few vigorous shakes of head. Otherwise, no dice.

Like sax solos, crashing through windows only lives on in Walker, Texas Ranger reruns.

Via Losers with Socks and the Wizard of Odds: this year’s Wonderlic wunderkind hits a bit close to home, if rumor is to be believed. Chris Leak, walking under Jamarcus Russell and and under Brady Quinn’s huuuuuge pectoral muscles to get to the classroom, allegedly racked up a whopping ocho on the Wonderlic test, the professional football equivalent to an IQ test. (For those not in the know, ocho is Finnish for ‘not good.’)

Is Chris Leak Like Cameron Diaz in ‘In Her Shoes’? Pretty and literacy-problematic?

Remember that last year agents were having kittens over Vince Young scoring a six? This story is like that, but instead of a first-rounder, it’s over Chris Leak, a prospect whose most optimistic supporters would be thrilled at a solid NFL Europe run followed by a steady Arena Ball career. Leak clocked a 4.7 instead of his vaunted 4.5 (a number no one believed anyway,) measured up at sub six feet, and now racked up a number that, while still above this year’s low of 4 (some poor Iowa State running back, presumably caught in a revolving door at this very moment coming out of his hotel in Indianapolis,) reeks of “literacy problems.”

Could it be true? Sure. Leak had trouble reading defenses, didn’t blow doors on the SAT, and majored in the subject that gives Auburn Academic All-Americans: sociology. It’s entirely possible he got that score, as anyone who saw the pick at the 2:00 mark in the video below can attest.

Antwain Robinson can believe it, sure. But the test itself might have been a bit unfair to Leak, as the Wonderlic famously preys on its takers’ insecurities. It can be a veritable psychological torture run for players, and for a player known to shudder under pressure, it may have been too much for Leak. Just take a look at the EDSBS exclusive copy of the Wonderlic Leak took:
(more…)

Yeah, it’s early…but how can one sleep after looking at Eva Green’s dress at the Oscars, which didn’t resemble a dress so much as a dress that had, after suffering grievous injury, been covered in several rolls of cheap gauze after suffering severe burns. Either that, or the oft-naked Green appeared naked at the Oscars sporting one wicked fungal skin condition.

Eva Green, seen here wearing the sewn-together corpse of three disparate dresses, is often naked in her movies.

We’re pounding Two Buck Chuck right now (curiously sold for three dollars at our local Green’s Liquor) trying to get the vision out of our head. Call it alcoholism, but at least we have bad Oscar dresses to blame. Poor University of Georgia naif Akeem Hebron has no such excuse–he was arrested for underage possession of alcohol at 7:59 a.m. Sunday morning in Athens.

Hebron may additionally claim in his debut rap jam that his party indeed does not stop ’til eight in the mownin’.

The score gives the Bulldogs their entry in the Fulmer Cup with one point,, and is indicative of the down-home variety misdemeanors cuddly Georgia tends to rack up in college football’s second most dubious award. (The first? Troy Smith, Gino Torretta, and, um…Danny Wuerffel.) Bulldog fans take solace in the fact that this did not involve the perennial bugbear of UGA football players, the suspended license charge, and that Mudcat Elmore’s cursed car was not involved.

We’re spent. In between watching the Reno:911 movie tonight and working up next week’s bushel of “content” for you, we’ll be busier than a weasel with five asses.

However, we would like to remind what you’re missing by not watching every installment of Univision’s Republica Deportiva. Watch the clip below; why Fox isn’t already doing this for every sport is inexplicable. What’s keeping them from doing it: dignity?

Por favor.

And now, blogAmerica’s fourth favorite minigame within a larger game show…

Brian has part one up at MGoBlog, where we discovered that the 6995 listed in the logo equals the approximate number of signed letters of intent collected by Oregon State over the past five years. That’s the entire point of the exercise, really: to find out which schools are tossing out the most promises they can’t keep, or via a less cynical line of thinking, taking the most chances on recruits with a high probability of spraining their cerebrums and not qualifying for their scholarship.

Notes:

All numbers come from Rivals.com. Scout’s numbers differ by degrees and are a bit lower, so in an effort to be comprehensive, we went with Rivals’ numbers.

Transfers and JUCOs are not included. Doesn’t show up in Rivals, but the omission has a minimizing effect on total skeeziness/risk-friendliness perception of school, anyway.

The Indonesian Ferryman Award is given to the school that, like a speed-addled Indonesian ferry captain who hasn’t slept for three weeks and is on deadline, will take on too many passengers and then begin pushing the extras overboard when others clamor for seats.

The Mr. Chips Award for Academic Integrity is given to the goody-goody schools offering no more than their allotment adding up to 85, or even more prissily offering fewer than their allotment just to earn extra brownie points with Dean Wormer.

We’ve got the ACC, Big East, and lastly the SEC, ridin’ dirty and doing so shamelessly. (We think there’s reasons for this not including the facile “So Everyone Cheats” argument, but will hold ’till later. Though there’s certainly a bit of that going on, though not where you would suspect. (Cough cough Tennessee cough.)

First, the ACC:

To our surprise, the ACC boasted the lowest number of scholarships offered of any of the major conferences, thus earning the All-Conference Mr. Chips Award for Academic Integrity by holding at a six-year average of twenty-two scholarships offered a year.

The Indonesian Ferryman Award for the ACC goes to North Carolina, (more…)