Rick Neuheisel will out-charisma Pete Carroll if it kills him. We’ve called Matt Hayes, in this space, a dick for being a dick to his readers. And, in a sense, we now have the discomfort of kind of sort of working with him. So do not consider this a link for apology’s sake (since he has turned out to be a nice guy), but instead a testament to the wisdom of turning on your tape recorder and letting it roll when following around Rick Neuheisel pre-signing day. Because we don’t explain, or unless we’ve done something really bad, apologize.

And it only gets better. While talking to Moutra, who has been pulled in different directions the past few days by coaches at Cal and Oregon, Neuheisel gets a voice mail from linebacker Patrick Larimore.

“I am pumped and ready to kill,” Larimore says, his voice eerily intense.

Just the kind of man you want playing defense for you. No, really. If a Florida recruit was quoted in public saying that, we’d mail him fine selections from the Bloody Hunk of Raw Meat Of the Week Club. In fact, we haven’t heard that kind of fire out of a Pac-10 recruit since Loren Wade, or perhaps O.J. Simpson.

Just a few paragraphs later:

It was there that Neuheisel met Katie Larimore, Patrick’s shy young sister who balked at playing the piano when Neuheisel asked. So he sat down and tickled the ivories to loosen the tension.

“Knocked out a few from my third-grade piano lessons,” Neuheisel says.

What he doesn’t mention was that he ripped through Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto flawlessly at the meeting.


Ladies…mind a little Rachmaninoff while I recruit Patrick?

Tie? Check. Valise? Check. Gat? Check! Reggie Bush’s bodyguard flashes a gun at Lloyd Lake’s attorney outside of a hearing for Lloyd Lake’s suit against Bush.

“It’s outrageous that he shows up strapped for a deposition,” Watkins said. “That’s outrageous conduct in the lawyer world. Come on, we’re lawyers. I don’t threaten people, I sue them.”

And lawsuits are not at all threatening? Lawya, please. This could be one from a long list of theatrical Lionel Hutz lawyer tricks, but we’ll know something’s truly up if Watkins interrupts a thorny moment in the trial by spilling a glass of water on the floor and claiming his water broke.

“His ego is as big as New Jersey.” Penn State trustees, boldly commenting off the record, approximate the exact size of Joe Paterno’s ego while engaging in the preferred activity of Nittany Lion fans worldwide: wondering when the hell Joe Pa will retire.

We’re not always better. But we always care more. SEC fans, next season’s fancy helmet schedule for every team, already laid out for you by a valiant, unknown Auburn fan. Click on the pic for the super large version.

Again: we just care more. If all the Southeastern United States’ football attention budget were diverted to business and education, we’d make your prize town in Sim City look like Lagos during a coup. But then again, we couldn’t watch football, and that would be a fate worse than death. (HT: Seth.)

Julio Jones is busy. First, the nation’s top-ranked wideout recruit somehow keeps a poker face and lets no one–seriously, like, not God–know where he’s going to before announcing his commitment to Alabama. Now he’s got to finish up high school, enroll, stay in shape, oh, and testify in a murder trial. That’s all. We recommend Getting Things Done to help get all that done, Julio. Like, total lifesaver.