In 33 days…fire your coach if this happens to your team. Immediately. Do not pass go. Don’t even fucking think about giving him 200 dollars.

Awesome Football Trick Play – Watch more free videos

We can’t wait to post it with the rest of this year’s “Orson’s Favorite Things” piece, so here it is, the solution to all your problems involving weddings and other forms of human interaction conflicting with your viewing of an ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX game broadcast on local frequencies.

America, Fuck Yeah: the NHJ Portable Television.

How awesome is the EDSBS bride, The Conscience of a Nation? So awesome that SHE suggested we purchase this immediately. Too bad for her: in case you wonder how we’re going to die, it’s most likely while pounding the face of this watch in following a Florida turnover viewed while driving to the store for ice for our ninth vodka and tonic of the day. Hand hits watch on wrist, turns car into oncoming traffic, and we’re done. That’s totally how it’s going to happen, and it will be all your fault, Tim Tebow!

Mangino might actually look small on this screen, though, so there’s good news for someone in this.

Enjoy your weekend.

Play this to get you in that smooth West Coast frame of mind…

Yeah, we’re smooth now. Toto-smooth. Ready to talk about the Pac-10, who’s not trying to be harsh or anything when they suggest that they’d COMPLETELY FUCKING BAIL on the BCS if anything resembling a playoff were instituted. Even a “plus one” format falls under this umbrella statement, which isn’t a threat, but you know…we’re just saying.

(Great rhetorical device there. If you should ever want to say something completely untowards or inappropriate towards someone, just include “I mean, don’t take this personally…” and then conclude with “I’m just saying.” Congratulations! You’ve effectively managed to compliment a co-worker’s ass without violating HR regulations!)

Hansen also takes the bait laid out by Les Miles by going out of his way to say this, quoted in an LA Times piece by Chris Dufresne:

The Pac-10’s national image will change only when teams other than USC start making national noise.

“It’s very, very important,” Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen said of the matchups. “We have to win games like that.”

All true, sure. But we would like to say this to USC on behalf of the rest of the SEC: stop looking at us like that. Here–perhaps try a tasty petit-four we made last night. See? Those are delicious, aren’t they? Have another? Now you didn’t think we were talking that kind of shit about you, right?* Of course we weren’t, now.

The historical parallel popping up in our minds at the moment is the ACC under Florida State, which featured some very good teams (like Mack Brown’s UNC squads, O’Leary’s Georgia Tech teams, and the moonshot 1990 UVA team that held the #1 ranking for 3 bizarre weeks.) Ed–okay, as Michael points out, FSU didn’t join the ACC until ‘92. Then how ’bout the Barber Brothers mid-90s teams? Not bad. There are good teams, but there’s one big lobster clubbing everyone else in the tank into submission. Said lobster is USC, and will remain so as long as Carroll’s there.

The other great quote fluttered from the mouth of Captain Kaboom, Jim Harbaugh, who will bow to no man as head coach of Stanford. After stating that this year’s USC squad “may be the greatest football coach of all time,” causing John Skipper of ESPN to rush to the bathroom to take care of the raging hardon he got on hearing this…

OW! Jesus, the little bastard is straining my fine summer-weight wool pants…

…Harbaugh then fessed up to having some old jock flashbacks that went too far on the practice field:

One day last spring, on what’s supposed to be a cerebral, measured campus (more…)

That noise you hear is Ed Orgeron speaking at SEC Media days, where he’s just finished up a booming and “optimistic” rundown of the Ole Miss Rebels, all the while winning the Al.com pool for “most likely to fry our audio equipment.”

Mock at your own risk. The Orgeron has endured tougher battles.

The Orgeron, putting down his croker sack full of blue chippahs, had two of the most intriguing quotes thus far from the Alabama equivalent of the Cannes Film Festival. One, he took a nifty slap at that pipsqueak Saban:

Orgeron first commented on Saban’s impressive record saying, then belittled him saying “he won a share of a national championship.” Saban claimed the 2003 BCS championship at LSU while Orgeron was an assistant coach at Southern California, a team the AP and others declared was the real national champion.

Then he finally explained how a Delta State walk-on became the starting qb at Ole Miss, saying that Brent Schaeffer’s automatic spot as starter under center was an error on his part.

Orgeron raised eyebrows last year by naming Schaeffer the starter before he played a down. Now, he calls that a mistake.

“I wish I hadn’t done that,” he said. “That was for recruiting.”

OWCOACHOBARRINDASOLETODATUBBYNINNYBOYMEDIATAHPES! BEENWATCHINDAOPRAH, GEDDINTOUCHWITHDAFEELINS’! Please, please let Ole Miss have a moderate amount of success this year–a league without Orgeron would leave us rent with grief. He’s learned how to elbow other coaches properly at Media Day. He’s evidently starting to learn from his mistakes (though the John Thompson hiring still has us befuddled.)

As long as the tally of wins doesn’t include a victory on September 22nd, we’re fine with whomever he beats, on the football field or in a dark alley in Oxford. Judging from some of the advance stuff we’ve heard about Feldman’s book following Orgeron’s recruiting around for a season…you’ll be pulling for him, too.

We’re extremely literate, hard-working, degreed and responsible people here. We do not wear Axe Body Spray. We have never gotten a DUI. We do not wear necklaces made of dull gray metal shaped into mock-chain link. We accept our eventual mini-vanned fates with glee. We love our wives and go to bed at responsible times only after sorting the recycling, making sure our BillPay account is in order, and taking the dog out for a walk.

And yet….CHEESECAKE STRIKES!!!

Andrea Rincon, a Colombiana, we think. This is the safest picture we could find for the front pagina. The rest are technically safe for work, but again, probably not a great idea to have on the front page, as they feature extremely distracting amounts of bunda. (Seriously–if you have an ounce of hesitation, don’t click more.)

(more…)

Sometimes, we imagine Bobby Bowden looks behind him and thinks “How the hell’d I end up in Nuremburg?” Ah, but for a ninety degree twist of the wrist at full extension, sir.

…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.