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Senator Blutarsky thinks Bernie Machen's push for playoffs at the SEC meetings in Sandestin this week ended ignominiously as presidents hedged on the idea, coaches threw their hands up in resignation, and the bang of Machen's public posturing ended in a whimper:

The story here is lowered expectations.

He’s got no specific plan. "There are no specifics," he said. "It’s a concept. Do we want to look at a playoff? There are more plans than there are Carter’s pills. The plan will evolve if the people want to do it."

We think it was less about a schedule of:

Monday: Mention playoffs
Tuesday: Powerpoint "WHY WE NEED A GODDAMN PLAYOFF"
Wednesday: Book the stadiums for new, perfectly coordinated national college football playoff.
Thursday: Poppin Dom, clockin' hos at Donut Hole with Tubs and Mike Slive.

...and more about just being annoying enough to lay the foundation for a "Solid South" behind a playoff, showing the interest and will to have a playoff to solicit interested bidders. It's about signalling the possibility at this point, not getting the ink on the tv deal in three weeks, and reminding everyone of interest that it's not going away, even on the docket of the most monied conference in the land, because in the end the real money for universities lies in a playoff package sold to networks for a gazillion dollars.

In short: Bernie Machen seems content to kick, push, kick, push, and now coast into coming year before being just as annoying at the meetings next year as he was this year.

As for why he's suggesting that the money should be spread to all D-1 schools...

well, that's not even lies--it's pure bullshit by the letter of the definition. Machen doesn't even care whether that's true or not. It simply sounds nice, and serves his interests. Again, it's bullshit, but he's our bullshitter, and we'll bullshit right along with him until the next time he says drinking at college football games = evil.

Then, he gets the Sparta treatment.

Steve Spurrier, jabbing like Zab Judah at the SEC meetings, is nothing new. But no coach has ever excelled at the art of indirectly slamming other coaches as Spurrier does, and this year's "cordial" SEC meetings saw the OBC in seifu-esque form.

Spurrier, known for running up the score while at Florida, remembers some tempers flaring at a few spring meetings over the years.

"There are some that get upset," he said. "But most coaches understand. I've never known a good coach that worried about somebody running up the score on them. It never bothered me, and I've been beat bad like everybody else."

The coach with the biggest problem with it in the SEC during Spurrier's salad days? Phil Fulmer, who by definition would not be a good coach in this formula.

Your unsportsmanlike blowout of my team has forced anger oil from by pores, sir.

Anthony Morelli caught a fish. A big, unholy, corpse-feeding catfish in the Allegheny River, actually, the kind of catfish Okie Noodlers catch with their hands. (Okie fishermen released this statement on the capture of a fish using bait and tackle: "Pussy.")

In a reversal of fortune, Anthony Morelli intercepts.

The story comes complete with a detailed account of the rigging, bait, and execution of the catch that only an angler could stay rapt reading. Morelli played the role of mature sportsman by photographing the fish and then returning it to the river, which he summed up in this statement:

"I didn't want it to die for no reason," Morelli said. "We just took the pictures and enjoyed the moment. Who knows, maybe 10 years from now he'll be 10 or 15 pounds heavier and I can hook him again."

WHEEEEEE what fun that will be for Mr. Corpse-eating Fishbeast! Apropos of nothing, we have heard that one way Lousiana fishermen clean these fish is by nailing the head to a tree, a scary process since the fish allegedly "scream" during the process. If it sounds anything like "WHYYYYY GOD WHAAAYYYYYYY?" we'll hang up our waders tomorrow.

(HT: Black Shoe Diaries, who thinks Morelli should be hitting the playbook. He was, dammit! He was trying to cast a hook into it from across the room, and just happened to accidentally put it into the Allegheny. You would only believe this if you watched Morelli play last year.)

As other UGA types are busy bringing 12 Monkeys to life, we wish Vince Dooley a speedy recovery from his surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his throat. Doctors give him an excellent prognosis for recovery. At 74, we will consider an excellent prognosis to be a fresh supply of Depends, a Man Versus Wild marathon on all day, and a 12 pack of rotgut beer in the fridge. Dooley considers it an excuse to attend a speaking engagement even though he couldn't speak. If the spry 74-year old did the whole thing via the magic of interpretive dance, send video immediately.

Larry Coker wants the world to know that he isn't burnt out, and wants to coach again, and despite his face is not, in fact, an original crewmember of the Argo. He only came on board in Colchis, and was only along for part of the search for the Golden Fleece.

Not 2,500 years old. More like 2,349, to be truthful.

Yes, the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl may displace the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl as the single most cumbersome, prestige-sucking corporate sponsorship name in all of bowl history. Brian Murphy of the Idaho Statesman laughs, but not alone: Roady's CEO joins in, being an excellent sport about the whole thing:

Like will bowl organizers include Slim Jims in every player's gift bag?

"Not Slim Jim. We have an exclusive deal with Jim Beam beef jerky," said Roady's co-owner Kelly Rhinehart.

It only took a plane ticket to Peru, a nasty case of malaria, four robberies, a close encounter with a treacherous lackey and a fast-moving wall of spikes, and running headlong in front of a boulder for a hundred yards or so...but we have, through bandit tactics and our knowledge of archaeology, acquired a copy of Phil Steele's Guide To College Football a full week and half prior to its release.

You wish you were as JAMPACKED WITH INFORMATION as we are right now.

This belongs in a museum: Phil Steele is here.