Reader Dan points the way to a startling occurrence: Joe Paterno, after years of closed practices, has opened up practices to the prying eyes of the media, and has gone so far as allowing video streams of exactly what’s going on inside Penn State’s practices. It’s not quite “Kim Jong-Il: Cribs” level access, but for spring football it’s damn close.

What’s going on, you ask?

–Joe Paterno scaring the crap out of a linemen by rushing at him and into a blocking pad in an effort to show him proper pad level and attack angle. (Mind, read: “Please, please don’t let him die right here.“)

–JoePa screaming at a lineman to “PULL YA SHIRT DOWN”

–Further installation and use of the zone read in the Penn State offense, a look that proved quite effective for Michael Robinson two years ago and was as effective in the Anthony Morelli era as bowling with cinder blocks.

Freedom! JoePa jumps in.

It’s got to make Pat Dye fall out of his chair and spill his drink to watch all those passes wobbling in the air: Auburn’s new offense is passgasmtastic, friends, and it’s not afraid to tell the show it…albeit in a vanilla, spring game kind of way.

According to GatorSports.com, Urban Meyer is seeing maturation in his secondary, last seen waving their arms feebly and wailing, covered in flames, at the Capital One Bowl. We will believe this when we see Wondy Pierre-Louis successfully defend himself from a marauding gnat, much less a thrown pass (Brandon Cox, Passing Christ Superstar? Really, Wondy?), but that’s what Urb’s saying at least.

Yoo-hoo! Mr. QB! Right here! Throw it here!

UF coach Urban Meyer said one of the reasons for the defense’s turnaround this spring has been the maturity of his players and lack of what Meyer likes to call the “dope look,” or that confused look that young players are notorious for.

“Confused looks lead to bad players, bad teams, bad defense, bad offense, and I’m starting to see that disappear a little bit on defense,” Meyer said.

“Disappear a little bit?” There’s hope in that phrase, babeee! It’s dripping with optimism. So you’re saying there’s a chance of us us having a secondary next year? That little happy skylark following me around? You put it there, Urban, all by yourself.

If you can’t watch the video yourself due to work-based productivity fascism, here’s the summary: Emmanuel Moody, still surprisingly behind in learning the offense; Chris Rainey, woo!; more double-tight end sets next year thanks to Hernandez and Ingram making strides; Harvin’s heel, iffy for the moment; Carlos Dunlap, blockwreckah on the d-line.

Joe Paterno, ah, that funny old guy! Just joshing on about how he could coach another 10 years, ho-ho! What drollity!

“I don’t even care if I get a contract. I’ll be very frank with you,” the 81-year-old Paterno said Saturday in his first meeting with reporters in three months. “I think the university will do what they think is right, whenever the time comes. Right now, I’m very comfortable.”

“What do I need an extension for?” he asked before joking that he could coach “just another 10 years.”

Blind peasant, you don’t even see what’s coming your way, do you? Paterno will survive to see the singularity on his Mediterranean diet, lack of exposure to radiation from portable electronic devices, and healthy insistence on not using horseless carriages to get everywhere. Then, just as Ray Kurzweil predicts will happen, he’ll have all of his organs replaced and coach Penn State football for hundred of years barring severe catastrophic bodily injury or murder.

That Little Rascal: Paterno to coach until molten lead rains from the sky.

Somewhere in that house are bags and bags of blue and white Nittany vitamins. We’d bet our head in a jar on it.

The big board continues to swell with fresh points. This week’s Fulmer Cupdate, as always, is brought to you by Brian, who continues to be hung like Reggie F’n Nelson.

Mississippi State bang-bangs their way onto the board with a murky “shooting incident” on campus in Starkville last Friday. Two players were involved for certain: Michael Brown and Quinton Wesley were both sent screaming off the team with all due speed following the shooting, and others may be involved since the Miss State roster was sporting a few conspicuous holes during their spring game Saturday. (Urban Meyer finds all of these punishments harsh.)

The incident began with the source of all trouble, naturally: a convenience store.

MSU Police Department Lt. Don Bartlett said an altercation at a convenience store near the campus — the B-Quik store on East Lee Boulevard — occurred a few hours before the incident at Zacharias Village and “may have been the motivation” for the gunshots at the residence hall complex, The Starkville Daily News reported.

H.I. and the entire Tennessee football team agrees: convenience stores are hellmouths of trouble for the young mind, with their slushees, cheap beer, lotto tickets and pork rinds. Virtue is staying away from them entirely, kids.

Cincinnati lights up a few points–two points, to be specific–for Terrill Byrd smoking weed in his residence. Well, at least he can buy booze on Sundays, unlike the good citizens of Georgia, who instead must drive to a bar, where they get hammered, buy some fried food, and then hit the roads after drinking. Sonny Perdue, don’t you have rain to pray for instead of persecuting the lazy alcoholics of this fine state? Lazy alcoholism at home is a family value in the South, dammit.

(We don’t actually know if one can buy booze on Sundays in Cincy. All we know is that Sonny Perdue can go fuck himself with a corkscrew for limiting our personal freedoms in the name of winning a few Jebus voters in Crisp County.)

Missouri still sits atop this thing like a prize drunken peacock, but several teams sit in striking distance. Just a few misdemeanors separate Tennessee from Mizzou, and if any team has the gumption, abundant convenience stores, and raucous, enabling campus environment to make this thing happen, it’s Tennessee, dammit.

Sure, Mississippi State football players are shooting each other…

Defensive tackle Quinton Wesley, 21, a junior from Atlanta, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault after he allegedly shot a gun at a car.

Starting left guard Mike Brown, 21, a senior from Atlanta, was arrested and charged with possession of a weapon, allegedly a .38-caliber Cobra pistol, on school property.

and thus earning seven points in the Fulmer Cup: three for each felony there, and one style point for the creative method of instant messaging chosen by Quinton Wesley. Both, by the way, have been not suspended, or put on some temporary probation, or some other variety of bullshit deferment: they’re GONE, as in banished from Starkville completely. (No jokes about doing them a favor in the process, or how if you lived in Starkville, you’d go shooting random shit, too.)

Horses are hating on dogs, too, and you’re not doing a thing about it.

Everywhere, dude. Haters are everywhere.

The point is: there’s cheesecake to be handled here, and served before it gets warm. First, Vanessa Jeri, a Peruvian model sent to us by Bundameister First Rank Kleph; and then, for those who don’t even bother with faces, two fine selections from Supertangas, the best website on the planet for people who like looking at women’s behinds–and just that, because that’s pretty much your only choice over there.

As always: SFW, but not S(mart)FW, m’kay?

Enjoy your weekend, and for those hoops-inclined types, check out Thirty-Five Seconds for ongoing tourney coverage. And now, bunda.

(more…)

You’re not going to like it when I say this…

Furman Bisher is very, very old: 89, in fact, and still writing columns for the AJC. To be very, very honest, we respect his longevity but have never particularly enjoyed his work, making him the Bob Dylan of Atlanta sportswriting: around, allegedly legendary, and never really doing anything for us. Then again, when we were growing up he was already sixty, so admittedly we’ve never seen him close to his fastball.

The rule at the AJC has been, since time immemorial: Cut Bisher and die. This seems an immensely stupid rule for anyone, since if you line up at a typewriter every day you’re bound to make mistakes. (See our corrections, or perhaps this entire blog for examples thereof.) However, it might be time for someone to begin at least proofing what the guy types before entering “RUN” or whatever command publishes on the FORTRAN-rigged website the AJC has:

“Eight springs ago the Mets and Cubs opened the season, not in Cincinnati. Guess where? Tokyo. That Tokyo, the guys who gave us Pearl Harbor. Some people don’t like you to bring that up, trade with Japan is so hot. But I’ve got a long memory. I saw what a few bombs can do to our property.”

Gadzooks: not only does Bisher anachronistically invoke the Rising Sun paranoia of the late eighties (The japanese will own your brain! They’ll own everything!), he…he says that. Rather than fire up the facile righteous indignation wagon, we simply sent a tattered rising sun flag and this note in an envelope to Bisher at the AJC this morning instead.

Deal Westeln Devir,

Lieutenant Hideo Takeda
Japanese Army
Zambales Mountains, Philippines.

When Furman Bisher takes the red-eye to Manila later this week with a flint-lock rifle, a canteen, and a map in hand, and you hear laughter emanating from the Atlanta area, that would be us.

We all make mistakes. In fact, some of us specialize in them. Thus, we present the EDSBS Corrections for the week through 3/28/08.

Mistakes: we make ‘em.

On Tuesday, we mentioned that Bo Pelini’s middle name was “Steven.” This is incorrect: Pelini’s middle name is Wrathhammer. We regret the error.

On Monday, we quoted the number of sacks allowed by Notre Dame last year as 58. This was correct, but left out the other stat lines.

Pressures: 324

Disembowelments: 15

Decapitations: 7

Drawn and Quartered: 9

Thrown off cliff in Iraq by U.S. soldiers: 3

Strapped in chair and forced to watch Ang Lee’s The Hulk: 1

Again, we regret the error.

On Wednesday, we referred to Bobby Bowden as a former lover of Rudolf Nuryev and “one of the most notorious power bottoms in the Castro’s jet-set weekend crew in the 70s” This was based on false information and bad sourcing, and we regret the error.

Also on Wednesday, we implicated Bobby Bowden in the shooting of Tupac Shakur. This, too, was based on bad information. (Thank god we didn’t actually do that…unlike the LA Times actually did to someone.)

On Tuesday, we referred to our consumption of Tylenol Orange Flavored Cough Medicine in Las Vegas. This was a misrepresentation. We were actually smoking moonrock and huffing benzene at the time and chasing it with the Orange Drank. We regret the error.

On Monday, we suggested that Rutgers coach Greg Schiano was lactose-intolerant. This is not accurate. He is just naturally gassy and has a problem processing complex starches. We regret the error.

On Thursday, we reported on the death of Brent Musberger in a Texas hotel room following a squabble with Mexican drug dealers and an unstoppable, shadowy killer fond of coin flips. This did not actually happen, and was instead the plot of the Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men with the words “Brent Musburger” put in place of “Josh Brolin.” Again, we regret the error.

From the Auburner comes a story of horror so overblown and provincial, it must be about the Auburn/Alabama rivalry. Overblown and provincial, however, is just our speed, so here you go:

The inclusion of the “Angels With Filthy Souls” line is a nice touch, as is the Golden Flake ad. Right now, Nick Saban is doing dips shirtless in a dark prison cell he calls home while watching this video to prepare for 2008.

Perhaps you recall the Oklahoma church deacon and pastor who grabbed the testicles of a Texas fan and nearly ripped them from his body. Or maybe you forgot intentionally, since it involved one man RIPPING OPEN ANOTHER MAN’S FUCKING SCROTUM.

Well, he’s on trial. Fun details follow!

When a pair of bar patrons tried to separate the two men, Thomas said he heard a popping sound, looked down and saw a lot of blood.

Beckett’s attorney said that Thomas was the aggressor and that his client defended himself only after the younger, bigger man went up to the bar to confront him.

And now, for no reason whatsoever, a picture of a heart-healthy pomegranate!

Oh, no reason. Why do you ask?

The last person we can remember being arrested for false imprisonment was Rick James, so the soundtrack for this is a true barn-burner: Rick James and Tina Marie live at the BET awards singing “Fire and Ice,” which Rick wrote about methamphetamines and fire, two of his favorite things.

We’re catching up, but it bears mention for the spectacular score racked up in a single offense by Arkansas junior linebacker Freddie Fairchild, arrested on Monday for third degree battery and second degree false imprisonment in a domestic incident with his girlfriend.

The victim, said to be Fairchild’s girlfriend in a police report, told police that Fairchild physically attacked her causing injuries to her head, face, arms, legs and pelvis, according to an arrest report. She said after the attack he did not allow her to leave the house for several hours.

Fairchild is assessed seven points total: three for each felony count, and one for reminding us of Rick James, something that will always earn you bonus points in the Fulmer Cup. Petrino has suspended Fairchild pending the legal process’ results, which in Petrino-ese means Fairchild will not be suspended, and that the coach just got done with a very promising interview with the University of Washington regarding their head-coaching position.

Cold winds sweep off the jagged teeth of the Hindu Kush. A UH-60 Black Hawk chops through the thin air; as it passes through the azure sky, it seems to be constantly recalibrating its flight path, listing slightly to the right side, correcting, and then listing again. It finally lands on a flat, dusty patch of land surrounded by razor wire, sandbag bunkers, and a lone American flag flapping in the bastard breeze.

The blades come to a slow crawl: four coaches exit from the left side of the plane. All wear black fleece vests and cargo pants. One coach remains in the helicopter, visibly rocking the chopper from the inside as the machine sags to the right.

(A muffled voice yells from the inside:) A little fuckin’ help here? Huh?

Randy Shannon: This place is NICE.

Tommy Tuberville: Smells like…Afghanistan.

Mark Richt: Guys, maybe we should go back and help Charlie.

Tommy Tuberville: Hell, no, padre. I didn’t fry fish in backwoods Tennessee for years just to help some gravity whore yank his whale-sized kiester out of a helicopter.

Randy Shannon: No, I mean it, y’all. This place is really, really nice. (more…)

The official biography of Kim Jong-Il and Pete Carroll’s actual life inch closer together by the day:

First, Kim:

North Korean publications describe Kim Jong Il as a renaissance man who has flown fighter aircraft, written operas and shot 11 holes-in-one in his first try at golf.

And who can conjure food from his empty hands! Oh, wait…

And then there’s Pete Carroll, who unlike Kim actually does the things written about him. In the middle of communing with the People’s Spirit on Mount Paektu and writing three symphonies, each more beautiful than the other and more beautiful than any music ever composed before, Pete decided to take a little batting practice with predictable results at the Coliseum, which is being rigged into a baseball stadium for an exhibition game between the Red Sox and Dodgers.

Carroll and tight ends coach Brennan Carroll each drilled three homers over the 62-foot-high net down the 199-foot left field line, and quarterbacks assistant Yogi Roth hit the staff’s only other home run in the hour-long batting practice session.

Oh god! I haven’t been able to smell in thirty years! Hit another one, Pete! Hit another one!

Of course he did. Did you see the definition and perfect form in his swing? And fact that when he hit the ball, it flew into the net and TURNED INTO A DOVE OF HOLY PEACE? Pete Carroll is thinking about you right now, and knows you can be more as a person than you ever dreamed of being. Will you answer the challenge, grasshopper?