The cottage industry of the internet is complaint, particularly about announcers and the shitty job they do. Consider, though, what spoiled little whining Fauntleroys we all are compared to the brave couch warriors of years past: one game a week, shot on no more that six or seven cameras, and narrated by Howard Cosell and the late, great coach Bud Wilkinson.

(Nostalgia’s a confounder here: you might love Cosell now, but we guarantee the internet would have turned flamethrowers shooting napalm laced with cyanide against Cosell. He broadcast the biggest games for the biggest sports presence and took controversial stances, two factors guaranteeing excoriation by blog-types. His loyalty to Ali would especially appall bloggers, who on the pure sports side would have accused him of ball-washing, and the “heh!” conservative blogger crowd, who would ask him why, oh why he did he hate America? )

Just watch the Notre Dame/Alabama game for proof that football coverage has evolved from knuckle dragging analog mono to glorious HD digital quality just this far from virtual reality. The thing that has changed the least is the role of the announcer. They still do what they’ve always done, which is alternately enhancing the game with observation and blathering over it with inane patter.

Sumo nutritional soup for most lucky football consumer. Enjoy.

Terrelle Pryor: go with Charlie Batch if you want to live. Pure, brilliant fantasy from SMQ.

Chas has news for Auburn fans: Paul Rhoads is a consistent defensive coordinator as long as the talent keeps coming. In regards to getting that talent in, he gets the mildish gas face in that department.

P.W. Botha gets the gas face!

Swindle Industries posts following:

–Greg Paulus wants-a you to treat him-a like the precious orchid he a-truly is.

—We went to an NBA game, and didn’t even need our Ritalin. We will drop serious dollars to see the “Kiss Cam” employed in all political debates this year.

Giving him a siren? Brian’s got the klaxons sounding with Pryor news.

DCS Football is a newish blog looking for reviews, critiques, questions, etc, so give him some, blogsluts!

Losers With Socks reviews who hates whom currently in the SEC. We, for the record, love everyone for the next eight months. Then it’s death buffet time for motherfuckers, bustas, infidels, and punkass bitches everywhere.

Classin’ up! Andy Staples, former Florida linemen and Tampa Bay Trib writer, classin’ up with the SI.com gig. Unlike the Tampa Trib, CNNSI.com will never come off in smudgy patches on your fingertips…unless you’re laptop is, like our, covered in blood most of the time.

Clay Travis is actually training for the combine. Given the grueling regimen involved, we give
an over under of three weeks until catastrophic knee injury.

Do you have a new blog, website, or simply want to send pictures of your cat in odd poses to Orson? Well, fuck your cat, lawya. Your college football website we do want to see, especially if you know you write new stuff on it more than once a week ‘n stuff. Send to harumphharumph of the yahoo variety, and we’ll take a look, link, and then send your url to spammers in Vanuatu.

An organizational allergy to running backs will do this: Gator running back Markus Manson is, according to one of those great, great sources you can’t mention, is transferring from Florida. Manson is a junior who, mired in the logjam at running back in ‘06 and then mired in the refusal to actually play a running back in ‘07, made an attempt to switch to corner when it became clear he would not see time in the offensive backfield. That didn’t exactly work out, so he’s gone to Valdosta State–again, according to our sources.

Manson: gone.

Brian from MGoBlog has your cheat sheet for Big Ten recruiting. This interview does feature Brian doing his best junior Steele act, downloading a precis of the Big Ten recruiting scene with almost frightening fluidity.

Listen to the whole thing, or do what we know you will do anyway and peep the cheat sheet:

–Iowa is doing very poorly.

–Ohio State is replacing gears in the machine as usual.

–Minnesota actually is recruiting talent.

–Illinois is again building a solid class based on coach [NAME REDACTED] and his hypnotic glare.

IM-HO-TEP! IM-HO-TEP!

–Penn State still cannot recruit offensive talent.

–Terrelle Pryor and his whereabouts remain THE dramarama of the season.

MP3 File

Economics and college football take the chalk and cheese route of relation, since most people would be happy to pull blinds and ignore the ugly piles of money that make the sport work in both good and bad ways. But we’re more than happy to loll in it, especially because it allows a C student in Econ like ourselves to point and laugh when Professional Economists write things like this:

Our estimates imply that recruits’ decisions are governed by a handful of primary factors, among them the school’s recent football rankings and the geographical distance between the recruit and the college. Also, those schools that are members of conferences affiliated with the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) are found to have a significant recruiting advantage compared to other institutions.

USC should be able to get whomever the hell they want. Now gimme a grant!

The Economist: pure bitchy cold awesome. Economists? A mixed bag.

If we were able to pay taxes line item-style, we’d opt out of this kind of academic research. Economists should at least be doing more interesting research in Duh Studies, since if you’re going to be telling me things I already know (your instincts, now backed up by data!), you might as well be like the economist in Freakonomics who hung out with crack dealers and got a good story out of it in the process.

In the meantime, we also await this year’s results of the College Football Recruiting Prediction Model, a project put together by three economists who manage to correctly predict 68% of recruiting outcomes. As stated by Duh Studies experts above, the single most important factor in deciding a school? Proxmity to home. So if a recruit’s hedging and you’ve got money on it or something, just crack out Mapquest, and do the mileage. It’s one of the reasons we can’t believe Omar Hunter’s going to Florida–Georgia’s closer, and the numbers back a Dawg bet over a Gator.

AFP–Reggie Bush, the 2005 Heisman Award winner, has announced his intentions to use his remaining eligibility and return to the college game for what he calls “a year to recoup, prepare for the NFL, and show the world just what I can do as a player. I hereby declare for the NCAA draft on February 1st, 2008.”

Accepting offers: Reggie Bush.

Bush, a running back from 2003-2005 for the University of Southern California, said the decision was a difficult one, but necessary for his success in the long run.

“I realize that I need a little more time to prepare for the pro game, and will be accepting salary offers from D1 schools for the next month.”

When reached for comment, compliance director for the NCAA John Babbage had his doubts about the validity of Bush’s bid to become the first pro athlete to return to the pro ranks.

“First, it’s against NCAA bylaws to pay players, something we’re not sure Mr. Bush understands. Second, by declaring himself in the NFL draft after his junior year–and I’d have to check the rules on this, of course–he has likely forfeited his status as an amateur and has no remaining eligibility left.”

Babbage added: “I’m also pretty sure we don’t have a draft, either.” (more…)