The mode of thinking this morning after talking with the trainers I’m “working” with (read: being maimed by) is that the only possible reason any discrepancy might exist between the SEC and the Big Ten is talent development. That’s it: not schemes, not odious theories involving weather, nothing but the training they receive and the varying emphases different programs build into their training programs. We’re brewing up a piece on this at SN, but in short think of player development in college football as one exaggerated episode of Top Chef: when everyone’s working with the same produce, how you cut it up and prep it makes all the difference at the margins.

The floating ghostly head of Tom Hammond is all yours. Only on NBC! Notre Dame football! Until 2015, or approximately one-tenth of the way into Charlie Weis’ contract! DID YOU HEAR US IT IS NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL, WHICH YOU MAY WATCH BEFORE AN EXCITING LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT! We didn’t mean to yell, but at NBC we’re extremely proud of anything we do for any reason, up to and including bringing you the next installment of the three-year cyclical virus known as Notre Dame Comeback Fever! Symptoms include inflammation of expectations, heavy hemorrhaging of hope, and death.

Terrelle Pryor shall not run thy scout team, notes SMQ. The Tebow/Leak hydra will rear its head again in Columbus, indicating that if their is a hot fashion from three years ago or more, you may still find it pumped as haute couture in Central Ohio. Have you seen these cargo shorts, man? The pockets! They’re unbelievable. And, you know, it’s embarrassing, but we can’t stop listening to this when we do shrugs.

It’s catchy, right? And totally doesn’t make us gay for liking it, man. Now I gotta go do shrugs.

Leach. Pirates. Again. From Chip Brown’s column--where’s there’s more pirate-fetish details–reasons you may, for all his functional dementia, believe Mike Leach craves the marrow-deep violence at the core of the barbarically beautiful game:

“Very violent. Very intense. Helmets flying. Some fights. All the reasons you have football,” Leach said.

Word.

Just to clarify: if you have a white Bronco and don’t want people reheating OJ jokes from Jay Leno’s peak performance days, then make sure you make it clear by making your own OJ joke. By the way, we’d pull an Allen Bailey alligator act on Jay Leno with glee, something the words “OJ joke” reminded us of instantly. We have few powers, people, but give us one shovel, one Jay Leno, and we will give you one irreparably damaged shitty comic. It’s one of life’s great divides: the necessity for explanation excludes any possibility of comprehension on the listener’s part.