Penn State fans need to subcontract their services out to political parties. Whatever they did in response to the announcement of a ticket lottery on Tuesday night worked so well that Penn State went back to the old “first come, first serve” policy today, not even 48 hours after the announcement. That’s not a policy revision–that’s an annulment.

From Penn State Associate Athletic Director Greg Myford:

“It became very apparent, very quickly, that most Penn State students want the first-come, first serve, system,” said Greg Myford, associate athletic director. “So that’s what we are going to do.”

Si se puede! The blue and white proletariat have spoken. Now if we could get them to get riled up enough to change the whole “Zombie Nation” cheer that’s caught on there recently, we’d be talking about real progress. (We can’t get hyped up about football to Europop. It’s almost as bad as nu-metal in that department. BOOM! Snort Ecstasy to it? Sure. Celebrate decapitating linebacker hits? No, sir.)

This need does not apply to Virginia Tech, who clearly needs no instruction on how to rock at home games in Blacksburg:

Via DeepSouthSports: Georgia quarterback Matt Stafford not NOT lifting a keg of beer over his head at Talladega.

We’re sure that’s Pepsi.

Facebook strikes again! Deep South’s got the rest, and it’s much, much more incriminating than the photo above, mostly in the cuddly, slightly homoerotic way you can only hope to happen. The pics show one skinny woman and two young men, so think of the whole photo series as Y Tu Mama Tambien, but in English, without the dreary ending, and with the final destination being Talladega, and not a gorgeous Mexican beach. To Manuel and his sly little finger! And Go Dawgs!

P.S.: At least he’s not Brady Quinn today.

It’s one of the most magical times of the year: you wake up, and there’s just a hint of summer in the air. The bees buzz, the birds warble…perhaps you hack up a thick ball of pollen-encrusted mucus, if you’re fortunate enough to live in an allergen hell like Atlanta.

And then, the children run down the street, clutching white papers with baby blue print on the letterhead: THE APR’S OUT! THE APR’s OUT!!!

Jump for joy, piglet! The APR’s out!

The NCAA’s attempt to quantify the reconciliation of athletics and academics did indeed come out yesterday, and it lives up to its reputation again as being one of the sternest, least forgiving gauges of academic performance in small schools never hoping to even play in a bowl game or sell a single piece of NCAA merchandise. The letters stand for Academic Progress Rate, but we can substitute any number of better source words for the acronym APR:

Abstruse Pedantic Ruse

Auburn? Pretty Ridiculous.

Athletes Placed in Remedials

Annual Pipsqueak Reaming

The last one is particularly apt. The schools receiving the most serious scholarship penalties and Myles Brand finger-wagging all come from college sport’s Christmas Islands: Northern Arizona University, Texas Southern, Tennessee-Chattanooga, San Jose State…and most snidely, HBCUs and schools affected by Hurricane Katrina. (Myles Brand doesn’t care about black people! ) Oh, and FIU and Georgia Southern. Those puppies got kicked, too. (more…)

If you haven’t checked SMQ’s superb Hub pieces in the a.m., you should, because he reads everything all the time about college football. In Yodaspeak, he is the do, while we’re merely the try thanks to our insistence on reading other things like porn, racing forms, and international affairs journals.

Anyway, two great tidbits from the Hub this morning. First, Florida’s teflon gets slicker by degrees as Dustin Doe, the Florida linebacker charged with affray (fighting more than one person at once,) has his charges dropped thanks to authorities being unable to identify who started the fight in the first place.

The Stop Snitchin’ movement working for us, Florida fans! Snitches, stitches. Learn it, live it.

The other bit worth mentioning is the conviction of a Fulmer Cup legend: Ellis T. Jones, the man who inspired the Ellis T. Jones Award for Individual Achievement, was convicted of robbing a pizza parlor, an incident not even involved with his tasering of people looking for deals on Craigslist. Jones could do five years for the robbery, and hasn’t even begun to deal with his tasering/robbery case yet

In happy news, Jones had still more charges against him dropped, an attempted murder and robbery charge the judge called “too much, really, just too much, Ellis!” He didn’t say this, by the way. But he should have, dammit, twirling his toupee like Rip Taylor and throwing confetti in the air at the same time.

The judges in our imagination are much better than real life ones.