We’ll be at the SEC Championship Game this weekend, covering it for the Sporting News and taking pictures, talking to drunk people, and actually entering the pressbox. Fear for our lives, but check this space for further updates, pictures, and other tomfooleries from the game, as well as our full-blown, ADD-addled blog coverage over on The Sporting News.

We would be remiss and blazing with disrespect if we didn’t mention the death of Evil Knievel in this space before leaving for the weekend, though. Knievel inspired millions with his crochet patterns, his passion for flamenco dancing, and his subtly phrased viola solos in to packed houses in Milan, Tokyo, Sydney, and his landmark concert in Antarctica with G.G. Allin.

Ha! We’re just kidding. He liked to fuck himself on camera in bizarre and spectacular ways, and people liked to watch him almost die in exotic and explosive ways. You can practically watch as his pelvis shatters into a thousand little pebbles in this clip of Knievel’s attempt to jump the fountains at Caesar’s. And you will.

There’s entirely too little of this sort of public redneck daring these days. According to the clip info on Youtube, Linda Evans was the cameraperson on this clip. We’re sure Evil got right up after this happened and made sweet love to her right there in front of the thousands of gorehounds who turned up to watch him die. Or, er…he made love to her after he woke up from the 29 day coma the accident put him into.

Enjoy your weekend, and remember: life’s the Snake River, and you’re already strapped into a rocket car without a plan or a clue. Enjoy the descent.

-O.

WOOF! MEOW! I CANNOT TELL A LIE!

The Wannstache likely gets one more year of cruising cool in his Camaro with the re-hiring of Steve Pederson, recently canned Nebraska AD and former Pitt Athletic Director. Pederson’s first tenure at Pitt was eventful: he demolished Pitt Stadium (singlehandedly! not really!), built a new basketball arena, and oversaw one of the worst logo redos in college history:

Pederson commissioned a triangular logo of a panther that, at a distance, resembled a pit bull, or a bust of George Washington. This logo is not found on the front page of Pitt’s athletic Web site and has not been used since 2005.

One horrifying quote from the article: if Wannstedt were fired, one leading candidate for the job would be HRF3242 Beta Model 4, the cyborg known as Bill Callahan.

Russell had us on for the Seventh Day Adventure Podcast at Football Outsiders, and as usual we got chatty and created such a huge podcast it destroyed the FO in-frame mp3 player. Our parties usually destroy something.

So if you want to take this on yon iPod or other gadget, or simply while away the rest of the afternoon at work listening to us stumble through the picks for the week, please do. NOTE: we've changed our pick for the SEC Championship Game because ketchup is a vegetable this year, up is down, and we think Tennessee will beat LSU in the title game. Pete Carroll thinks you show too much fear, grasshopper.

MP3 File

Dennis Dodd’s headline seems a bit erectile in nature to us:

Insider: WVU can’t conceal its naked ambition in title quest

That’s why you tuck it up under your belt. Not only does it hide it, but it feels awesome when you do it.

The reality does seem somewhat less colorful than the idea of the Mountaineer wandering around covering his visible erection with a coonskin cap. An unnamed member of the West Virginia football team celebrated their shot at the national title in the team hotel last week by partying naked with the rest of the team. You may demur all you like, Mountaineers, but we have strong suspicions what free spirit decided to do a victory streak down the hallway.

It’s a shame Erin Andrews wasn’t there to see it.

I’m just not sure who I am anymore. I used to be so sure. I reeked of paper mills and boat fuel, but dammit, I made shit happen in my own little shitkicking kind of shit way. Where else in America could you boat in seven tons of dank Jamaican kine bud and have it on I-95 and up to Atlanta in a matter of hours, huh? And played home court to Lynyrd Skynyrd? I was important, man, in my own little skeezy way, and without the coke money, shaved-pube danger of Miami.

But now…now I don’t even know who I am anymore. The paper’s gone, because WAAAAAAAAAAHHH the smell, the stench was too much for delicate sensibilities. The police actually care what goes on your boat now. The naval station is still there, but the locals get pissed when someone ruffles a few feathers by throwing someone through a bar window.

Pussies, all of you.

Now they want me to be something, with buildings, and landmarks, and Whole Foods and shit. But what the hell am I? They filled in the empty spaces with signs and chain restaurants and roads so that from space I probably look like a NASCAR machine idling at the start, all logos and glossy paint. They want me to host sporting events, which is kind of like asking a chihuahua to sell aluminum siding door-to-door for you. It just doesn’t work on so many levels, and in the end the dog really doesn’t care, anyway.

People want to go to a place, you see, and that’s never been on my resume, this whole place-ness thing. I’m fine just being a loose confederation of utilities and conveniences. Places get messy: they have communities, and annoying neighbors who depend on each other for things, and all of the things that make you want to take a chainsaw to that real place’s community at the end of the day. When you’re no place, there’s wake, drive, work, and pick up the kids before plugging yourself back in like a dead cellphone into the tv, the XBox, the computer.

Whatever. It’s not bad, and I’m not gonna pretend it is. When the romance of living turns into the perfunctory masturbation of daily life, call me. There’s always rooms available.

Here’s what I’ve got, though: I’ve got drawbridges, a coffee plant, and porno. Rent a car. Get a hotel. Fly in, buy something from a chain, and get drunk on a bucket-sized drink at a clean bar at The Landing, a fake place conjured up–again–because some asshole thinks we need “placeness.” Watch the game and leave quickly on our well-paved roads.

Don’t demand “culture,” you art-fucks, or nightlife that doesn’t involve puking a night’s worth of shots into a toilet while bad house music plays in the background. Don’t demand that we be interesting. The whole point of the state is to not pay taxes and avoid losing your house when you declare bankruptcy, and the whole point of this town is to not worry about being a town. It’s a county, a geographical space where people use gas, eat food, and shit into the proper receptacle. Dazzle is not this business we are in.

And don’t blame us for the ACC championship game not selling 20,000 tickets, because it wasn’t our idea to entertain your asses, anyway. We wouldn’t buy the tickets if we were you, both because Boston College versus Virginia Tech is selling the same sandwich twice, and because once you get here, there’s no here to enjoy. And no one could care less about this than me, so go ahead and go to Charlotte next year and see if I care. Nowhere couldn’t care less.

Your morning rumor report includes a financial bombshell that, if true, confirms our suspicions that Michigan’s athletic department is cheap/SEC football programs print their own money colored with the ink of slaughtered gremlins. Again: all of this is fact-like substance, and not to be confused with real fact, and if responded to with “I call shennannigans” in the comments, we will personally fire a Hellfire missile from the EDSBS Predator at your house in response. They’re all shennanigans until we see a man in a dorky hat at a press conference repeating excited name of football program excited excited happy repeat name of football program.

Your soundtrack, courtesy of the Timex Social Club:

The top shelf, Louis XIV cognac rumor of the day is that LSU offered Les Miles 3.45 mil to stay at LSU. Michigan’s standing offer in this variant of the rumor is somewhere between 2 and 2.5 million, meaning that the inestimable bonds of affection between Miles and Michigan, allegedly priceless, may now be given a cash value of somewhere around 1 to 1.45 million dollars.

Another candidate to replace Chan Gailey at Georgia Tech is now Randy Edsall, who tripped he coach-sensors at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport on Thursday. Edsall’s a very good coach, but “exciting” doesn’t describe Edsall’s grim, hard-hitting vintage of football. We were thinking someone with a bit more fiesta in them, frankly…like Mike Leach, who would only have to change half of the name of his school on his underwear if he came to Tech.

(The server issues should be resolved now. A software update caused a conflict that brought things to a screeching halt. We apologize for the delays, and offer up a special offer of nothing to compensate you for the inconvenience.)

`I’m not looking to go anywhere.”

–Matt Turner, NWA.com, Thursday.

Tommy Tuberville may have just completed the long-delayed departure he began back in 2003 when he survived Bobby Lawder’s attempt to depose him and bring in Bobby Petrino behind his back: Arkansas media types are reporting that Tuberville has agreed to be the next head coach at Arkansas, a story we’re not really sure we believe at this point.

Thanks to Kevin for encoding the video for the public football interest. He’s cool like that.

The early signs came with the story that Tuberville was not present at a scheduled meeting with Auburn AD Jay Jacobs earlier this week; then the additive snowballing of rumors and continued radio silence on the part of both Tuberville and Auburn officialdom made things even more suspicious for the paranoid types who, being broken clocks twice a day, really thought this might happen.

The quick, hastily scanned impact of this IF TRUE ALL SHAKY RUMOR AT THIS POINT HOLD OFF ON FACTINESS:

–Tuberville inherits a roster full of manageable talent to work with at Arkansas. Being a CEO kind of guy, the staff Tuberville assembles will matter immensely, and with his current DC Will Muschamp being considered for head jobs, he’s gonna need a bright young defensive mind at the least if offensive coordinator Al Borges follows him.

–Auburn, like the guy who never deletes a single lady’s phone number from his cell phone, will likely booty call the coach they got caught engaging in a backdoor case of coitus interruptus with in 2003: Bobby Petrino. Alabama may soon have two extremely overpaid coaches, especially given the increasingly hopeless situation at qb in Atlanta. Hopeless, in case you didn’t know, is spelled H-A-R-R-I-N-G-T-O-N. Or L-E-F-T-W-I-C-H. Or you could just say “It’s a Somalia, man,” and watch everyone nod knowingly. The effect is the same all around.

–If Petrino is as unbudgeable (and with the demonstrated tolerance of being mediocre as a college coach after being a superb college HC being a two years, see Spurrier and Saban) as we suspect he might be, then Auburn’s stuck in the nasty position of hunting retreads in a job market with Michigan and Nebraska still prowling. That’s an ugly proposition, though Auburn could certainly outbid almost any other program around. The only issue is how many bananas are left on the shelf when they get around to actually shopping for replacement.

–We’ll say it again: LEACH. LEACH. LEACH. Just because we want him in the SEC so, sooooooooo bad. Hire Orgeron as your line coach and head of recruiting and you’ll hear us purring for miles.

–Paul was right, Paul was right, Paul was right. Never underestimate the power of Wal-Mart. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army bought Tuberville through the wallet of the Walton family if Tuberville did come through, and Paul Westerdawg was righter than Ron Paul on this.

–In state, this gives Nick Saban a bit of breathing room in terms of competitive advantage. He’ll have a running head start on recruiting that will be impossible to make up this year, especially with Tuberville raiding south the instant he hits the door in Fayetteville.

–More later, because this is the SEC, where we’ve figured out what to do with the other eight months of the year not involving actual football games: a little exercise we like to call Scandalicise! Feel the burn, Auburn fans!

Bystander: My god, this man’s stopped breathing! Someone call a doctor! NOOOOOOOOW!

Tom Osborne: Hush, little man. Dr. Tom’s here now.

Bystander: Oh, thank god. Look! He’s turning blue!

Tom Osborne: Oh, it’s just a doctorate in education. But I’m pretty sure I’m the right guy for the job. Fetch leeches, son.

You know who I like? Me.

Bystander, pacing at Starbucks: Where’s my coffee?

Tom Osborne: Coming right up, young man.

Bystander: This tastes like bleach!

Tom Osborne: And urine, son. Pure urine. That’s a latte, right?

Lonely woman: My husband neglects me.

Tom Osborne: Shhh, shhh. Quiet.

Lonely woman: Ohhh, Dr. Tom, is that a corn cob in your pocket, are you just happy to see me?

Tom Osborne: Well, heh, it actually is a corn cob. I carry it for luck. I’m just being sensitive and comforting without ulterior motives. I’ll leave the satisfaction of your physical desires to my friend and former player Christian Peter here.

University of Nebraska: Hey, Tom. We need an interim head football coach.

Dr. Tom: I know just the man, everyone. I know just the man.

We know this is about recruiting, and being able to put Osborne in homes to talk to blue-chippers directly with a proper and legal title. Still, the Dick Cheney Award for self-nomination goes to Dr. Tom for naming himself as interim head coach.)

Courtesy of Bruins Nation: OMG UCLA SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK YAH SQUEAK USC SQUEAK FUCK SQUEAK SQUEAK USC SQUEAK SQUEAK UCLA!

We honestly did not understand a word these ladies just said besides UCLA, USC, and the word “fuck.” They pointed to their asses a lot, too, meaning that foreigners viewing this video would naturally assume that these were a group of retarded cult members participating in some kind of ritual centering on laxatives, purity, and banishing bad spirits clad in blue and yellow, personified by the tall male at the end of the clip.

Lincoln, NE–(AP) Local man Neil Shurbock sees signs of faded football hopes everywhere he looks, according to friends and neighbors who have become concerned over his overall well-being during Nebraska’s increasingly disappointing 2007 season.

Friends are concerned.

“Everything reminds him of how good the Huskers were supposed to be,” says girlfriend Tracy Bowles, 28, of Lincoln. “He sees a kite crash to ground in the park, and it’s a Sam Keller pass crashing to the ground. He spills a glass of water, and it’s our defense not grabbing a pick. It’s really straining our relationship.”

Bowles said the behavior dates back to the Frank Solich era, but has become exaggerated and even more demonstrative with the now-finished Bill Callahan era.

“We’re playing Call of Duty the other night, and all of a sudden he just flips out and starts throwing grenades everywhere screaming, ‘I’M JOE DAILEY, I’M JOE DAILEY!!!’ Dailey hasn’t even played for us in two years, man,” says friend Tim Smalley, who’s known Shurbock since “the Tom Osborne era.” Smalley says he’s concerned for his friend’s well-being, and fears the new coaching search might tip him over the edge. “He totally killed our whole campaign.”

Even the mention of Husker favorite Bo Pelini does not seem to calm Shurbock in his perpetual state of anxiety.

“He starts screaming about Brad Smith every time Pelini’s name comes up. ‘246 yards rushing! 246!’ He’s like some demented parrot at this point.”

The stress has started to affect even the most private of moments in Shurbock’s life.

“We were having sex the other night, and I decided to let Brad finish…um…al fresco, shall we say,” said girlfriend Bowles, who has sex with Shurbock three times a week on average in a normal week but gets no intimacy for two weeks following a Nebraska loss.

“He was…finishing, and then just burst into tears in the middle of it. I asked him what was wrong, and he said it was just like Todd Reesing spraying the ball all over the field against the ‘Huskers earlier this year. ”

Bowles’ eyes gleamed with tears momentarily, and she composed herself. “I’m thinking of leaving him. I’ll have to tell him in football terms for him to understand, like ‘I’m firing you just like Frank Solich got fired.’ He’ll understand that, right? Right?”

Shurbock had no comment on this story, saying he was awaiting the outcome of the coaching search before resuming “the rest of my shitty, lose-to-Kansas like we’re…we’re…FREAKING KANSAS, for- God’s-sake life.”

One extremely strange but persistent rumor regarding the Georgia Tech job: Slick Rick?

We’ll go ahead and air the rumors currently flying through the ether re: ongoing coaching coups just to get them out there and test their validity. Again: these contain rumors, which may not even be considered something like a fact-like substances. In fact, your soundtrack for all of them is below, and should be played throughout the reading of each rumor.

Pelini to Nebraska.

Probability: Only slightly fishy. For a rumor, this is practically the equivalent of a Bears and Stearns WOOO! rating in the bond market. Skip Bertman’s already gotten tiffy over the fact that Tom Osborn didn’t even seek his permission to speak with Pelini, a just rage since Pelini is still technically pulling pay from LSU. Pelini would be another first-time head coach at the college level, but when you cut him, he does not leak hydraulic fluid as cyborg Bill Callahan did. Pelini, for those who may have forgotten, was the defensive coordinator for Nebraska back in the Solich era when they did not merrily spank passing receivers and running backs on their way to the Huskers’ endzone.

Tuberville to Arkansas.

Probability: Corpse-reeky. A fun fiction with its roots in the ancient rift between Bobby Lowder, megabooster at Auburn, and Tuberville, who survived Lowder’s attempts to depose him before going undefeated in 2004 and making the point megamoot while beating Alabama 6 times in a row. Again, Tuberville is represented by Jimmy Sexton, who as Paul Finebaum will repeat for the next two weeks, thrives on this kind of chaos.

Wannstedt gone?

Probability: pungently plausible. Wannstedt’s done little to cosmetically improve the Pitt program during his now three-year tenure: no bowl games, humiliating defeats to conference rivals (see West Virginia’s demolition of them last year and the potential sequel this weekend for comparison) and Tom Lemming talking about how great their recruiting classes are. They’ll likely opt for stability, but if you refresh your RSS reader and you see “WANNSTEDT FIRED,” you’ll ruin no screens with the splashy surprise of a spit take, eh? We wouldn’t.

Spurrier to LSU.

Probability: Bad mayonnaise crawling from the jar, picking up a gun, and walking to the nearest convenience store to rob it. Spurrier is undoubtedly frustrated with South Carolina. That’s not scuttlebutt or hearsay, that’s what you can read in The State every two weeks or so during the season and once a month during the offseason. The facilities aren’t up to par, they’re not admitting the athletes Spurrier needs, and the players have a pesky case of collective dumb they can’t shake–all true in varying degrees, and all complaints made publicly by Spurrier.

Any and all considerations of his itchiness to win seem to be contingent on Spurrier feeling his mortality and “wanting to win one more” before the curtain call of retirement. This assumes you believe Spurrier thinks he’s a.) mortal, and b.) not a fit 35 year old guy with a hot sports car and rock hard abs. He clearly thinks he is exactly this, of course, so time is no concern. He goes nowhere is our guess, both out of loyalty (he does have some) and proximity to Augusta National, his favorite pissing grounds.

You may know him better as just plain Floyd, or by his full name: Sgt. Floyd Pepper. Either way, Floyd carried his skull spoiler proudly, flopping it side to side with aplomb through classics like “Can You Picture That” and “The Happiness Hotel” while talking in a manner that even at a very innocent age you likely recognized as being someone bombed off of several pounds of really choice weed.

Our Mustache of the Day: Floyd Pepper

Happy Mustache Wednesday, motherfuckers!