…SERIOUSLY. Luther Campbell is welcome back at Miami. (HT: Deadspin, as if Will needed it.)

We…no, fuck that. I’m speechless. Nay–teary. We love Luther Campbell, and he’s reached the end of a long, torturous hejira back to the ‘Canes, the team he loves and unfortunately used to pay from time to time for good play. For the man who popped into a Miami club on My Hood on MTV, grabbed the mike, and used this phrase as his intro…

“All the ladies got good pussy need to scream right now!!!

…is back in the fold. Everybody drop it to the floor where you stand right now in honor of the world spinning correctly on its right axis again. Why ESPN is going to be in Blacksburg on opening day and not in Miami for Uncle Luke’s triumphant return to the tune of “Doo Doo Brown”…well, that’s just one more reason why ESPN’s circling the bowl, isn’t it?

Quoth the bard: “Them titties? Scarred, Scarred, Scarred.”

Jim Delany of the Big Ten, normally referred to around here as “dikfase” (SEC grad, sorry,can’t spell but that won’t surprise you, right Jim?) has numerous irons in the fire at the moment.

And now, my stunning version of “Hustlin’” by Rick Ross.

First he’s busy ramming the Big Ten Network (The BTN, which looks like “Bitten”) through the mouthroofs of cable providers everywhere. Brian’s got a fascinating piece of actual journalism (shock faint revive wow!) on the process from the cable providers’ perspective, which in person seems ever so reasonable and fair: cable providers don’t think the slate of games the Bitten would be putting on is deserving of a sports niche outside of basic cable.

They instead want the Bitten to be classified as a “regional sports network,” much like CSS here in the greater Southeast. Here we begin to see some real regional deviation: part of the brouhaha surrounding this is that the Big Ten has fought for making this a premium channel due to regional interest, even with a substandard slate of games.

Lost in this is the consumer voice, which we’re guessing is uniformly against paying any more than they have to to see second-tier Big Ten games on an expensive channel. It’s money–people hate to spend it if they don’t have to.

Now transfer this to the South, where we know for a fact that die hard Alabama fans would phone in all variety of nefarious threats to get a game on television. Serious, horrible threats. We imagine this very conversation happening by region:

Comcast Customer Support: Hello?

AIF: You’re damn right I will. (Goes, immediately writes letter and mails.)

And this exchange from hundreds of miles south:

CCS: Hello?

ALSUF: I WILL SET YOUR CAT ON FIRE AND THROW IT INTO A VAT OF KEROSENE I HAVE IMMERSED YOUR ENTIRE DAMN HOUSE INTO WOMAN GIMME MAH FOOTBAW!!!

Youuuu did whut?

Secondly, Delany’s floating the expansion of the Big Televen to twelve teams after they “build value” in the existing brand. Possible snags include Syracuse and Rutgers, though Rutgers seems like the more obvious grab thanks to the proximity to the all-important ESPN sports scrotum in Bristol. (Though Syracuse’s basketball value is not to be denied as a strong attractor here.)

With that change, the Big Ten goes from being slightly off as an eleven team conference to being drastically misnamed as a 12 name conferences. We now suggest the following replacements for the name “Big Ten” for no fee whatsoever:

–The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Big Ten by Douglas Adams.

–Off Tackle Right: The Conference

–The Big 12. Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em sue. We’ll see who’s more “twelve” than the other.

–El Grande Diez! Massive potential outreach in growing Latin demographic.

–Tha Bigg 10+6-4. Reachout to urban demographic is undeniable.

–The Billy Ocean Conference. Why the hell not? That shit is smooooooth. And it’s not like he’s using the name. Listen to “Suddenly” and try to deny the silky sounds of a conference with that name.

–“The SEC.” Will help nail down those pesky national title game slots in years with multiple one-loss teams. Also interchangeable with “The Pac-10.”

SEC Media Days, the rootin’-est, tootin’-est, shootin’-est conflagration of 400 pound sportswriters and the coaches who loathe them in the nation. The updates from the boots on the ground:

Chris Vernon says…”elastic waistbands are in at media days, in fact, I feel weird that I have a belt on. A conservative estimate would put the combined weight of most radio teams at 550-650 lbs.”

The Tide Sports Blog has evidence that Alabama sportswriter Kevin Scarbinsky is dressing like Bumpy from Shaft.

It moved! Saban just arriving in the building is news in Alabama.

Bobby Johnson, like Steve Martin in so many ways. The Vandy coach answered a question about text messaging by sending a quick text message as a reply, then said that he actually had a problem with text messages since they distracted students when they were in class. Urban Meyer then suggested Johnson hike his skirt up if text messaging blew his slip up the wrong way OMG LOL.

True to form, softball questions reigned. So actual children were left to ask the difficult questions to Nick Saban:

After a reporter from Huntsville asked Saban about the suits he wears, Dawson Wade, 9 of Vestavia, spoke up, asking Saban about Alabama’s difficulty scoring in the red zone last year and how to fix it. Grateful to be answering questions about football rather than his wardrobe or the spectacle of his arrival at Alabama, Saban gave a thoughtful, composed response.

Hold on…something seems awry there…

Grateful to be answering questions about football rather than his wardrobe or the spectacle of his arrival at Alabama, Saban gave a thoughtful, composed response before incinerating the impudent rapscallions with his Custom Bear Bryant Brand Flamethrower With Real Bryant Head Flame Spigot.

That sounds better.

Earl Bennett, optimist. Earl Bennett wants a holographic panther loyal only to him. He wants a gun that shoots exploding pit bulls at 950 feet per second. He also wants to make love to Jessica Biel in front of a live studio audience.

Oh, and he thinks Vandy can get to a BCS bowl game.

“We are thinking BCS bowl,” Bennett said. “That’s what we’ve been talking about. We are working hard to do that. We believe we can do that.” …

We believe we will kick the first discouraging evil Disney character we see in the balls during the Disney Marathon, too. But after 12 miles of running, it’s likely not happening.

Orgeron? No detectable smell of burning gunpowder and cooked flesh yet. He’s scheduled for tomorrow. Do not attempt to chest bump him.

Pay no attention to your seismographs… Sylvester Croom is set to speak later today, so what you’re feeling is not an earthquake, but rather Croom’s voice, which makes Barry White sound like a mincing prissy rent boy squeaking through the Johnny Mathis catalog.

Ever have one of those days where you wake up convinced you’ve killed someone? Or robbed a house? And you’re covered in blood and lying naked in the park, a human femur lodged in your mouth? That’s precisely what every day is like for us.

Again? Dammit.

Therefore we welcome UCLA WR coach Eric Scott to the damn club, son. He probably woke up this a.m. and thought, “Man, did I allegedly break into a house yesterday and get arrested for burglary? Nah, that didn’t…oh, shit.” And like us in the park, he has to spend the rest of the day dealing with that fact (though fortunately for him, he’s likely clothed and doesn’t have to do the American Werewolf in London thing we have to do all the time. Do you know how few men in this world own a decent pair of 35 inch waist pants?)

The details are burbling up through the L.A. Times, and they’re not very flattering to Karl Dorrell and the hiring process at UCLA. Scott had priors, including a misdemeanor concealed weapons charge and a disturbing the peace charge. Both charges could and are easily picked up on a lively weekend, but they look worse than they perhaps should in light of this police report snippet:

Authorities said Scott was arrested with Jesus DeAlba, 23, and Timothy Williams, 23, Tuesday afternoon after deputies received a 911 call about a possible burglary in the 11600 block of Pioneer Blvd. in Norwalk, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. Sgt. Craig Harmon said.

“A neighbor saw the three suspects on the porch of a single-family home, then saw them force their way in,” Harmon said. “When deputies arrived, the three were seen walking from the location, and were found with property from the house they admitted to taking.”

Scott’s attorney issued this statement:

“From my preliminary investigation, it appears that a mistake was made by the Los Angeles Sheriff Deputies that should be cleared up within a few days. There is no evidence that any crime was committed by Eric Scott or anyone with him.”

Which is entirely possible–this is the LAPD we’re talking about here. Scott’s been placed on administrative leave for the time being while the charges are sorted out. Dorrell’s standing by his man, but at a safe distance of a few feet just in case this turns out to have merit. Scott’s been an inner-city recruiting force for UCLA–perhaps he just succumbed to that infamous inner-city pressure we’ve been hearing about.

College football’s a game of unbridled joy, but it’s also one of “harm-joy.” Castaway, you’ll find what you’re looking for in that department, too, in just 37 short days.