We get a DNF for the second day in a row thanks to whatever death-flu is currently pouring through our system. Apologies from our immune system–we’re heading to the doctor, who hopefully will tell us what we want to hear, and prescribe eight fingers of bourbon and some honey for what ails us. If it worked for Jeremiah Johnson, it’s got to work for us, right?

If whiskey can’t cure it, then there’s no cure.

Clay Travis became a father this weekend. Congratulations from us on the spawning–we’re sending all the orange and blue baby clothing we can buy your way, Clay.

We’re in the grips of a proper death-flu-cold-plague-thingy of some sort, so it’s off to bed for the day. (Yes, it’s that bad. Falling asleep three times at the computer today stands as proof of our stupidity.)

Hope everything’s great when we wake up tomorrow!

Talk to you then,

–O.

Recruiting is like prom without booze for the college fan, and that equals nervous, nervous times. Ease the pain with the balm of someone who knows what they’re talking about, Andy Staples of CNNSI.com.

1. Name the three most contested recruits in the nation?

1) QB Terrelle Pryor, Jeannette, Pa. — Pryor’s obvious skill aside, his recruitment is especially nasty because it looks like it will come down to Michigan and Ohio State. The two fan bases hate each other with the heat of 1,000 suns, so the mud has been flying. For the coaching staffs, losing Pryor to their bitter rival would be a huge blow.

2) WR Julio Jones, Foley, Ala. — Jones is down to Alabama, Florida, Florida State and Oklahoma. He’s a 6-4, 215-pounder with great hands and phenomenal leaping ability. If he picks any school other than Alabama, the accumulated tears falling south from the state may actually flood Florida’s panhandle.

3) RB Darrell Scott, Ventura, Calif. — Scott is down to Texas and Colorado, but he may not reveal his decision before signing day. His uncle (two years older) plays at Colorado, which is why the Buffs are in it for the guy considered the nation’s top back.

2. Who’s being the most innovative in terms of reaching recruits?

A lot of schools have gotten around the text message ban by just sending e-mails. A lot of kids get e-mail on their cell phones now, anyway. Southern California and Florida also have one-day camps during the summer that are extremely popular among elite recruits. Florida calls its camp “Friday Night Lights.” They basically turn on the lights at Florida Field, jack up the hip-hop on the sound system and run the players through drills. Other schools have begun copying the format. Florida State had one this summer called “Seminole Showtime” that featured a ton of former FSU stars mingling with campers.

3. Who’s cleaning up?

The usual suspects. Ohio State has a great class whether Pryor chooses the Buckeyes or Michigan. USC may not have a great ranking because the Trojans may not sign as many players as the other highly ranked schools, but the Trojans appear to have a quality class. Also, USC already has a commitment from QB Matt Barkley, the guy who probably will be the top prospect in the class of 2009. Barkley attends the same high school (Mater Dei in Santa Ana, Calif.) that produced Matt Leinart. In the SEC, Georgia, Florida and Alabama have put together strong classes. If Alabama signs Jones, consider it a sign that Nick Saban’s recruiting mojo is alive and well.

4. Whose class will look good in terms of stars and numbers, but may not actually address program needs?

Notre Dame is always the one to watch in this category. The program needs an overall talent upgrade, and at first glance the 2008 class would appear to address that need, but Notre Dame also had top-10 classes in 2006 and 2007. At any other school, two consecutive top-10 classes would translate to more on-field success, but Notre Dame recruits sometimes get rated higher than they would had they not chosen Notre Dame. But that’s probably also Tyrone Willingham’s fault.

5. Conversely: whose class is addressing needs perfectly?

I realize a lot of Florida fans frequent EDSBS, so they’re not going to like this. Georgia really didn’t need much more talent, but the Bulldogs cleaned up. A.J. Green, a 6-4 receiver from Summerville, S.C., looked like a future star at the Under Armour All American game on Jan. 5. Georgia has 25 commitments, and five players already have enrolled.

6. What programs are tanking in this year’s recruiting?

Tennessee has not gotten many of its high-profile targets, but the Vols still have a chance to bolster the class with a few undecided players. One is Anniston, Ala., offensive tackle Antoine McClain, who also is considering Alabama, Auburn and LSU. Georgia Tech, which is hampered by high academic standards and a coaching change, hasn’t pulled in any big-name recruits. That said, Paul Johnson probably will have more talent at his disposal than he had at Navy, so the recruiting ranking probably won’t matter.

No, this isn’t just another chance to post a Youtube video. It’s a cry for you, loving, liquorice-flavored lass of ours. It’s you who, when we’re addled with a mysterious flu-like illness that’s been dogging us for most of the day, comes to us with a velvet-covered sledgehammer of inky green mercy. It’s a plea for you, who comes to us like Rey Malualalalalaauga hammering Juice Williams unblocked up the middle, crushing us with an inevitability easily confused with natural law.

Oh, NyQuil. As Dennis Leary said: “Big N, little Y, BIG FUCKIN’ Q!” It’s to you we run in times of trial, voluntarialy ceding any and all ability to operate heavy machinery. Not since the days of Jeff Bowden, offensive coordinator, has sleep come so decisively or mercifully. Green Fairy of Aisle 12-A, we’ll see you tonight when your screwed and chopped grooves boom us to sleep.

Erique Robertson, Illinois weak-side linebacker, has been charged with three felonies in connection with an incident near the astonishingly spelled “E’llusions” nightclub in Champaign, illinois.

Freshman football player Erique Robertson pleaded not guilty to three class-four felonies Monday, one day after head coach Ron Zook suspended him indefinitely. The 19-year-old linebacker is charged with reckless discharge of a firearm and two counts of aggravated unlawful use of weapons.

According to a Champaign Police report, Robertson was also charged at the scene with not having the proper identification for a firearm and obstructing justice.

If the charges hold, that’s three points a felony charge plus the misdemeanor points…all tallying up a whopping 11 points for the Illini, who if you’ll recall leaped to a sizeable lead last year with the breakup of a burglary ring involving two players. This eleven point total would ensconce the Illini in the catbird seat with a one-point lead over Missouri, and also puts Erique Robertson in the running for the Ellis T. Jones III Award for individual achievement.

Remember: when [NAME REDACTED] talks about the need for proper gun handling, he’s not talking about firearms man.

Guns, baby.

These are seasoned professionals! Trev’s coming after us! AIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Anonymous, like life, can be a bitch. At least that’s what Anonymous themselves say, the group of hackers and other assorted internet desperadoes that are currently slashing up the Church of Scientology’s servers and “hacking and spamming for Ron Paul.” (WOOOOOOO! Gold standard up in this bitch, baby!)

Anonymous also trolls for those soliciting underage girls “Dateline: To Catch a Predator”-style, waiting in internet chat rooms and making life very difficult for those cruising for tail at Hannah Montana concerts. This week’s edition of the show, poached off of 4Chan.org, show an unidentified young recruit identifying himself as “NAUGHTYHUBBY” who, after hearing that his conversation partner is 13 years old, asks if she would like to “SUCK MY BIG BLACK 18 IN DICK,” thus entering a heretofore unexplored country of sexual insecurity by claiming a penis not just twice, but three times average size.

No word on who the recruit is, if any action has been taken by authorities, or what the hell’s going on with it. It’s internet rumor of the most salacious kind. In other words: enjoy, in that “gawk-at-something-horrible” kind of way.

Another conversation between the recruit and the “cops” follows. Who knows if it’s actually the police; we suspect it’s not.
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Hard dudes. Quick deaths. Few words.

First person plural: off. Blame this on cold medicine.

I should mention that my Dad is the oddest person I’ve ever met. He is and has always been a quantum person: blip! he’s here, joking, laughing, fully engaged and charismatic in the way men who claim membership in the “Smiling Irish Bastard Hall of Fame” can be. (I have next to no idea where my family actually hails from, it’s just the phrase and the similarity that matter most here, not the documented truth.)

Then, in a minute–blip! Gone. He still stands in front of you, or next to you, but in an instant his mind has gone somewhere completely alien and unreachable to you. Someone once wrote of Dean Martin that he must be either the deepest soul on the planet, so elusive was he, or that he was the shallowest. I’m never really sure of either, but the two do share an ethos of being phenomenally elusive people as hard to hit square on as Linnie Patrick coming through the hole. Years can pass without any real, substantive information being exchanged in conversation, and I have, on occasion, written down what I know about my dad using notebook pad. I don’t get past the second page. There is not enough information to fill the pages, thus saving the world from the 3,923,918th anguished daddy-issues bildungsroman.

(You all owe him a note of thanks. I forward them on for you happily.)

Linnie Patrick is a deliberate reference here: Linnie played for Alabama and was quicksilver in cleats when Bear Bryant coached at the University of Alabama. My father met Bryant once–possibly more, but again, information here is scarce–through the equally vaguely defined relationship my grandfather claimed with Bryant. All I know is my grandfather, a horse-trainer who shuttled around the country from track to track, knew Bryant in some degree and had enough of a connection to wangle a visit and (apocryphally) a scholarship offer for my aunt. I’d love to elaborate, but I can’t. That is all I know, leading to the endless stream of qualifiers, parentheses, and limiting modifiers. I don’t know much, and like 99.9 percent of history, it has evaporated into an oblivion of forgetting, half-memory, or denial.
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Kirk Herbstreit has his Columbus, Ohio home for sale, meaning he’s got either upgrade or transfer plans afoot for the Herbstreit clan. TSD’s not sure where he’s going, but the pics of the place make it seem like a nice buy even in the worst American real estate market in bleems. Is that a horseshoe-shaped stairway with a horseshoe shaped archway at the top? Yes, yes it is.

Herbstreit construction: homes for men, and their highlights.

Tressel’s house in in there, too, and sadly there’s no visible brothel, trebuchet big enough to fire a man with, or fountain of blood in the picture. Those must be in the back.

It’s more embarrassing than bad, or depending on your viewpoint, not bad at all, but here’s what we were talking about in the Curious Index this morning when we were talking about this being a bad day for Wake Forest: pictures that appear to be Riley Skinner posing nude for the camera.

Remember, kids: it all ends up on the internet. If there’s a video of you being ball-gagged and dominated by a prominent Canadian sex ed expert, don’t go around expecting it not to pop up somewhere. And if it does pop up somewhere…Sue Johanson, you’re a dead woman, you hear! A dead woman!

Sue, you promised!

This week’s cup runneth over with points for Missouri and some bonus foam on that rapsheetaccino for Tennessee. The Big Board is, as always, brought to you by Brian, who is hung like Reggie F’n Nelson.

Missouri earned points we neglected to include last week, mostly because we couldn’t believe anyone not named Robert Downey, Jr. could be caught with such a diverse array of recreational drugs. And yet he exists: late of the Missouri football team, backup defensive tackle John Stull was arrested on Jan. 11th and is charged with two felony counts of drug possession, one misdemeanor count of drug possession, suspicion of possessing drug paraphernalia, possession of intoxicating liquor as a minor and use of a false identification.

Felony drug possession is a step above your average weed-toting Gator-inhalator charge, especially when you’re talking about coke and pills, which is precisely the case in Stull’s case. Three points each for those, one point for the misdemeanors, and we’ve cooked up a 10 point kilo of points for Missouri that was miscounted as 3 last week. We, like the Gainesville Sun, regret the error.

The asterisk by the score is significant, though: it indicates an early watch on the Ellis T. Jones III award, meaning the award for the single largest score for an individual. If Missouri stays clean for the rest of the Fulmer Cup race, we would award Stull the ET3 award, and give the program award to someone else. The point is to account for programmatic, patterned bad behavior ind a single program, not one outlier on an otherwise well-behaved team. Thus the little octopus hovering in the northeast corner up there.

Officer, I don’t like your tone. Tennessee lineman Anthony Parker picks up a bullshitty disorderly conduct charge, but a point is a point is a point here. Why is it a a bit bullshittish? Because Parker’s biggest crime seems to be hollerin’ and cussin’, a time-honored pasttime in Tennessee from what we can remember from our tenure in the Parallelogram.

Knoxville Police Department spokesperson Darrell DeBusk said Parker, 21, was arrested in the parking lot of the Sutters Mill Apartment complex just after midnight Saturday morning.

Henard then arrested Parker and took him to the detention center . . . .

That’s why it’s bullshit, but you don’t quiet down when the cops come a-callin’, and you get-a disorderly conduct charge and one point for the Vols, who are already making an outstanding claim in the early paces of the Fulmer Cup race. Tradition never graduates! WOOOOOOOOO!!! This is ourrrrrr country…..

And remember…Ole Miss picks up points for disorderly as well. We still think they’re blameless due to the intoxicating effects of erotic chicken.

P.S. Texas A&M’s points were an error, as well–the incident occurred during the season, and is not eligible.