Hannibal Montegna has your snap viewing guide for tonight prepped and cut like the finest of fugu. Nibble and enjoy its venomous tang. (Slutty celebrity double-entendre joke pending!)

THURSDAY NIGHT HORS D’OEUVRE

It’s Thursday. Slaton smells blood.

Main Course: WEST VIRGINIA at MARYLAND (7:30 • ESPN2)
This game last year opened my eyes to the Mountaineers: unconvinced by their “fluky” win in the Sugar Bowl, I cynically expected a reversion to the West Virginia mean (maybe 9-3) last year, up to the moment I came home and flipped on what I expected to be a competitive game at the end of the first quarter, but what was instead a 28-0 rout. I’ve spent the succeeding year in contrite awe. Watch For: After a slow start last week, Slaton and White to gouge your eyes out with their game from the opening gun. In four Thursday night games the last two years, against Pittsburgh, Maryland, Louisville and Pittsburgh again, that pair alone has averaged an incredible 404 yards per game from scrimmage, not including any other rushers or any of White’s completions to any receiver except Slaton. Byrd Stadium is still grass, so, I dunno, grow it Serengeti long? Good luck.

On the Other Channel:
TCU at AIR FORCE (8:00 • CSTV)
Quick, dangerous turnaround for the Frogs, coming off a disappointment as the upstart in its own “Game of the Year” directly into the role of favorite in the 2-0 Falcons’ own defining game. Watch For: Air Force to keep it close with the sweet old school option game it supposedly scrapped, then brought back to run for 330 on Utah last week, until the Frogs’ oh-so-speedy “Afro-Americans” leave our country’s dim-footed, melanin-challenged servicemen spinning like a very uptight, over-educated top.

Tonight’s matchup between Maryland and West Virginia is compelling because it is Thursday, there is football on, and you have nothing else to do but sit and twitch and think about BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD. Yet there remain many other powerful reasons to watch the game, too:

–Vrrrooooomm. Pat White and Steve Slaton continue their work as the best sales team imaginable for the spreadbone West Virginia offense (both averaging over 100+ yards a game,) and ran giddily through Maryland’s slow-twitch defense last year. Maryland has played Villanova and Florida International, who seem fearsome enough to make the L.A. Times pronounce their defense as improved. We outran a toddler last night for a chicken finger someone dropped at a restaurant–sign us up for the Olympic 200×200, counselor.

–Ralph Friedgen’s improbable survival as the last remaining member of the Troll race.

–The sound of Ron Franklin, the voice of college football. Oh, wait…

–Numerous mentions of how Friedgen revoked Slaton’s scholarship offer, and how it motivates a man who already can run a 4.3 through almost any defense in the land to do exactly what he does against everyone else, anyway.

–Jordan Steffy’s preteen girl name. He should play in a midriff shirt and squeal when he completes passes with an unfortunate moniker like that. We think we went to school with a Jordan Steffy, who was of course hounded from school as “Jordan Stiffy.” Or she was abducted by gypsies. We can’t remember; they all get mixed up in our memory, they do…

–Rich Rodriguez’s anger. The camera manages to always catch one good shot of Rodriguez acting like he just realized he’s got a dirty diaper or something.

You could also listen in on the outstanding Football Outsiders’ podcast with special guest us covering the week’s games and picking them against the spread. We bet on Dan Hawkins upsetting Florida State after he rides Ralphie into the stadium while shooting apples off cheerleaders’ heads with the skill of a Zen archer–even more so if Hawkins misses and shoots a cheerleader in the head with one, which he did intentionally just to prove how serious he is.

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Under 48 hours until the Hate Bowl. Even orange shoes can’t help Tennessee where they’re going.

We can’t look past Hate Week just yet–but the Shadow of the Orgeron is long, and tinged with fire and the smell of smoked meats of many species. Erik at Deep South Sports spies our favorite kind of story–rank hearsay!–concerning a young autograph seeker and the Orgeron at a local little league game.

He waited until the game was over, so as not to bother him while the game was going on. He stood there waiting with his Florida Gator team hat (the five year old that is). When his turn came, he was very rudely turned away by Orgeron. He told my son he was not going to sign his hat because it was a Florida hat.

Nancy Grace is outraged, OUTRAGED WE TELL YOU! The EDSBS official stance is this: when Somali Bantu mothers have daughters, they slap them from infancy. Why? Because life for the Bantu is hard, and for women it is hardest. To the child with the Gator hat, welcome to your baptism in the Church of Arbitrary Laundry-Based Hatred and its first instructional slap–and consider yourself lucky you weren’t dressed for the grill and cut into chops on the spot.

(Check the photo–who knew he had such shiny knees? Your reflection in them would be the last thing you see.)

Witness a rout, and you will never forget it. It sears itself into the memory like walking in on your parents having sex, or seeing your dog hit by a car, or walking in on your parents having sex with your dog before all three are crushed by an 18-wheeler careening through the wall of the bedroom. (The last in that series only comes close to describing the 1996 Fiesta Bowl.)

Burnt Orange Nation reminds us to never forget these moments by commemorating the anniversary of “Rout 66,” the 66-3 taxidermy of the Mackovic-era Texas Longhorns by the UCLA Bruins in Austin. Texas committed eight turnovers that day in losing what might be the greatest beatdown ever between two major, respectable D-1 programs ever. It also induced instant allergic reactions to Skip Hicks’ name from Texas fans, showing that one man’s laughable NFL flop is another’s anthrax.

Now in jumboretropixelvision!

The game also should mark the hazard of prognostication from a single data point. (more…)

(He comes to in dark room. Turns on the light. The clock reads 4:45 a.m. It’s Sunday, September 16th, 2007.)

Jesus, my mouth tastes terrible. Just awful. Like someone shaved a rat on it. You’d think a grown man would know better than to combine red wine, dollar jello shots, and jager bombs. But this grown man didn’t. Need…water. Need…

Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

(A Michigan t-shirt sits on the floor. A pack of condoms sits on the nightstand. It has been opened.)

Oh, god. Oh, please, Lord. Not again. Not again. I thought this was the bottom. I know it’s been a bad two weeks. I know I’m bad and need help, serious, serious help. If you’re there, say I don’t have to look. Please say this didn’t happen.

(A groan comes from a bulky body on the bed next to him. The sheets stink of sin and the faint whiff of Bechamel sauce.)

Okay. Okay. It happened again. FUCK! Wait–I can accept that. Reality check. Courage. Like a Victor would.

I’m gonna look. One quick turn to the right and all. And you want to know the truth, right? It’s better to know the truth, right? Because you’ll feel better. Because you’ll feel better. And it can’t get worse than Appalachian State. It just…can’t.

One…two…three… (more…)

It’s HATE WEEK!!! Joel from Rocky Top Talk answered our five questions, and we answered his over at RTT. We also appeared on the Corn From a Jar podcast, where we discovered why we left our birthplace: we speak far faster than anyone else in the state.

Courtesy of the Gatorsports FulmerFark thread.

1. Are the rafters squeaking in Knoxville from Phil headed out the door? Would we be stretching if we called this late Imperial period the Butterdammerung?

Being from Tennessee, you should know that the sun nevers sets on dairy products. Or if it does, they are fresh and new each milking morning. Or something.

There is a certain segment of Vol fans that is dissatisfied with coach Fulmer and always will be, but Fulmer has friends in high places with fat wallets. Fulmer’s really in a lose-lose situation: if he has another Season of Which We Do Not Speak ("SOWWDNS"), no amount of support from donors will save him, and if he wins another national championship, he’ll merely buy himself another eight years on the Throne of Perpetual Torridity. It’s the price one pays for a $2M+ salary.

2. How does it always happen that Tennessee and Florida meet each other in games with complimentary weaknesses? (We have no dbs, you have no wideouts, etc.)

That is odd, isn’t it? I blame Chris Leak.

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