Holly and I had a lengthy discussion of the preseason top 25. Covered: Tommy Tuberville’s Contra-knowledge, the craving for an Eric Berry-like substance at Florida, the refusal to purchase Clemson or Clemson-related goods, the bizarre buoyancy of Texas in the polls, and our growing concern over the health and well-being of Rudy Carpenter. Enjoy?

Matt Stafford. Why Holly dislikes such a bon vivant is beyond us.

OS: Georgia at number one. The g stands for “Going down a slot to the winner of the Ohio State USC game.” They’ve got a built-in pressure valve right thurr, since they can slide down and therefore avoid the full heat of the bullseye for a bit.

Holly: And for (matt) Goddamn (stafford), My Pastor Heard Me Call You That. Who will be a factor in their one loss. Where “factor” = “crippling INT”

Orson: Ainge’d!

Holly: UNCALLED FOR

Orson: Reality is hurt that you’re ignoring him, and will be nursing his earl grey in the corner.

Holly: Yesterday’s news, short stack. Onward.

Orson: Any real problems with UGA being here? It’s as good as guess as one could make sober. Not that I’m making any of those.

Holly: Although for what it’s worth Ainge seemed to enjoy his last visit with Georgia very much. No real problems with them in the top spot, but I think Florida will have an easier path to Atlanta in December. And I really, really hate Matt Stafford. Just for the record. And it’s not the envy-hate of Percy Harvin.

Orson: No. We’re both on record as having a mutual envy-hate axis surrounding Harvin and Eric Berry.

Holly: Berry or Moreno. Pick one to steal. Although I’d give Berry the edge given your current…predicament. (See how I said that like a Victorian lady would talk about a baby out of wedlock?)

Orson: Berry. We need him so much more than we need a running back.

Holly: (Urban Meyer just signed 2 more babies out of wedlock to play DB in ‘09.)

Orson: We know you’re not used to living like we do at Brideshead. Give me Eric Berry and a million gallons of gasoline and the angry corpse George Patton and I will see you in Moscow.

Holly: Knowshon graces the top of my steal list, and then punches big holes in it with his widdle fists.
He’s like a cannonball that can dance.

Orson: Rennie Curran’s the cannonball that can dance, and then wear your ribs as a set of heavy metal angel wings.

Holly: Does your “need” for a ribcage really outweigh his desire for accessories? Rennie thinks not.

Orson: If you ask a UGA fan…no. Okay, USC gets the Ohio State suite at 2.

Holly: LOLercopter. Again, no real argument. I don’t see them getting caught napping this year.

Orson: Stanford does not qualify as napping. That’s something deeper, like watching the early Big Ten game on ESPN2 with Pam Ward. That level of somnambulance. EDSBS: unique because unlike 99% of other blogs, we don’t hate her because she has a uterus!

Holly: Like being so sleepy you leave your QB1 in a booster seat on the roof of the car, Raising Arizona-steezy but without the happy ending.

Orson: She just makes me sleepy. Pam Ward: Brought to you by Drank.

Holly: She will slow your roll. Pam Ward once mixed up kickers and punters and called helmets “football hats” in a single game. We need a meth ad: not Even Once. And then run the car right over it like she’s killing a possum.

Orson: Ohio State has to move downstairs for 3–if/when they lose to USC, do they crawl above the four spot for the rest of the season?

Holly: If they lose to USC, they won’t lose again until the national championship game.

Orson: Natch. The Big Ten continues to ignore our advice about using the slendertone ab belt as a core element of training.

Other exclusive training footage included below.

Holly: Honestly, you start to feel bad for them at some point. Not colt brennan sugar bowl bad, but like you’re laughing at a 3-legged cat. Funny! Sad.

Orson: Like Don Knotts in the Amazing Mr. Limpet before he turns into a fish.

Holly: Look at it hobble around and beat Michigan! Awww, Dorsey, PUT HIM DOWN.

Orson: I will pity Ohio State when their fans stop mocking injured players.

Holly: I said almost!

Orson: I am a Florida fan, and know classless when I see it because I can see it whenever I look in the mirror. That was classless in the extreme. Run up the score! Run up the score!

Orson: The next three can appear in any order, right? Oklahoma, Florida, LSU?

Holly: Oklahoma and FLorida maybe interchangeable, but I dunno about them Tigers. Top ten, fine, but I’d kick them down a few notches. Loss of personnel + sooner or later Miles’ d20 is going to come up with the wrong 4th down call = new year’s day bowl.

Orson: Whatever. Who dares wins.

Holly: “I cast a spell!”

Orson: Or is turned into boudin by an angry mob in two years. Either way, someone wins.

Holly: I will until my death refuse to ascribe responsibility for those calls to him. I think he’s got sheeps’ entrails stuffed up under that chapeau and they’re doing the talking.

Orson: I think it’s a tiny rat riding around underneath his hat with a passion for haute cuisine. And, er, football.

Holly: Scrying, whatever. The luck that abandoned USC at Stanford, Michigan against App State? Voodoo Expressed, right into his noggin.

Orson: He received the karmic dividend check last year.

Holly: Yes. And it’s bled dry. (please?)

Orson: He must make deposits into the general fund this year. Mizzou…Pinkel… Pinkel.

Holly: Dangerouser than LSU, for sure.

Orson: That’s a burly comparative adjective there. Re: Mizzou: trepidation, I has it.

Holly: Individually, at least. Making it out of the Big 12 scathe-free, I dunno.

Orson: Actually, the whole ass end of the top ten is dodgy as rusty rifles to me. WVU? Clemson?

Holly: Yeah, your favorite’s coming and then mine.

Orson: Even Texas?

Holly: Them too. Down, down, down. Auburn will sneak up, but you know that. But, as usual: Replace them with…who?

Orson: Coupon-cutting Tommy will hit up down up down left right left right ab ab select start in the third quarter, and five points will appear on the board for no reason.

Holly: [LSU/Contra joke]

Orson: Tuberville always gets the spread gun in the first board.

Tommy: familiar with Contra, sure…but what about Contra Bassoon, motherfucker?

Holly Anderson: And Tommy Bowden’s got a face like a Battletoad.

Orson: And just like Battletoads, my side cannot defeat Tuberville. Texas Tech will bump up. They always do. They’re like Purdue, but with style and less fiber per serving.

Holly: oh god, can Texas Tech finally go national? Please? People will love ‘em.

Orson: They will. Enough writers have caught pirate fever to bump them up past their due. However, they have to kick name brand ass like Oklahoma’s to get them into the VIP area.

Holly: Do Not Like, for no discernible reason. Just….No Sale. Not buying it.

Orson: We are in agreement that the only reason we do not like them is the Bowden Compact of High Expectations met with three to four inexplicable losses? Like losing to Chan Gailey’s final Georgia Tech squad?

Holly: Yes. I get one pass on this list, and I’m using it now: BOOO.

Holly: OK, back up. Care to restate your WFV hateration?

Orson: You mean my skeptical, reasoned OH GOD THE TORCHES—Sorry, had to run from my house.

Holly: There we go. [toasts marshmallow] Fanks! [around mouthful of delicious campfire snack] I’m higher on them than you are out of family indoctrination, but WHY WHY WHY are they fucking around with that offense?

Orson: Defense minus six starters plus Pat White being asked to throw more in new offense equals unacceptable margin of error for current ranking.

Holly: That scares the ’shine out of me. I’d love to see them keep this spot, but this is not their year, which I know because last year was their year. And an admirable finish, but they’re plateauing at best, and probably not even that.

Orson. And they blew it. Years from now this will stick in their collective craws.

Holly: On to Texas? Muschamp, holla, but it’s going to take at least half a season to kick in. See: Chow, UCLA.

Orson: Results also pending the offseason offensive tweaks, AKA the Colt McCoy Re-Education project.

Holly: I don’t know what they’re doing in the top 10. But I can’t think of anyone to put above them. Except Auburn. But I won’t, out of spite and the fact that we have to play them back to back with Florida.

Orson: See: winning national title in last five years for the reasoning behind Texas. As for playing Auburn and Florida back to back, enjoy that. Enjoy=choke on the burning, flesh-searing pain of those two weeks.

Holly: Like the bye week ever did us any good, but this is just mean-spirited.

Orson: Attention span waning. Let’s just look at the rest as a series of contrasts. What the fuck is Arizona State doing above Oregon?

Holly: Who in gay hell gave UCLA three votes? Where’s Spurrier’s sop to Duke, and can I take its absence as a compliment to Coach Cut?

Orson: ASU: No linemen, no ability to protect Carpenter, and a visit from Georgia opening the season?

Holly: It’s gonna be a birdbath, filled with blood.

Orson: DID THEY NOT SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO COLT BRENNAN, THE QUARTERBACK WITH ANOREXIA?

Holly: DYING TO BELONG.

Orson: Carbs wouldn’t have saved him in that game. I can’t lie.

Holly: I take my earlier puzzlement back. I’d replace Texas with Wisconsin.

Orson: Agreed. One of the few togetherish teams in the Big Ten.

Holly: This is my “irrational like” pick, converse to Clemson.

Orson: I’d also bump up Oregon.

Holly: And Texas Tech, out of hype. Hope. Whatevs.

Orson: Yarr. That’s why.

Orson: Can I interest you in a discussion of your eternal soul and its relation to BYU?

We’d like to discuss BYU football with you, ma’am.

Holly: Have you seen that one shot of their coaches looking rrrrill uncomfortable posing with showgirls and the Las Vegas Bowl trophy?

Orson: NOOOO.

Holly: Like they’re already scanning the forthcoming pamphlet hurricane in their heads? Penn State was much, much higher in many earlier preseason polls. Off-field funventures dragging down rankings? Or collective coming-to-senses? I mean, we’ve said it before, but sans Anthony Morelli, can’t they only improve?

Orson: I thank ESPN for edifying me on their shocking discipline problems, and for conducting a fair interview of Joe Paterno. [/vomitsonself] I think most people are making the cognitive shortcut that any offense that looks more like the option will be a better fit for Joe Paterno.

Holly: Addendum: I’d put Tennessee at 16, above AZ State and BYU, despite standard issue PreGameDreadPak [patent pending] coursing through my veins. I don’t feel comfy, but I feel better than a buncha desert heathens.

Orson: I have no idea what to do with the Vols. None. They’re a set of numerical values somewhere between the five spot and the numerical equivalent of falling down the stairs toward the crocodile pit in my basement. Until I see the Claw in action, I withhold any serious judgment.

Holly: Me either. Although I will say that were I not a Tennessee fan, I’d be pulling for them this year just to see the term “Clawfense” make its way into popular usage. I think we’ll have all the answers we need on Labor Day. Like, more than usual first game barometers.

Orson: Gerald Jones, if Clawson is truly Clawsome, will get the ball muchly.

Holly: I believe Hinton touched on this, but there’s just….nothing to know, and it’s maddening. Cutcliffe or Sanders-in-name have had that offense since the year I was BORN. Does not compute. This is completely new for me, and as a Tennessee fan I’m threatened by change. And brightly colored birds.

Orson: And librlz. Damn librlz.

Holly: And I hope that Fulmer does not share my fear, and yank the fancy new schemes at the first hint of trouble in the Rose Bowl.

Orson: He could.

Holly: He’s not used to change either

Orson: Any final additions?

Holly: I will guess that Fresno State has been ranked at #25 to start the season for seven of the last ten years.

Orson: They’re a schedule pick right now. Oklahoma State will creep in there. If only because T. Boone Pickens will buy USA Today and reserve a space for them.

Holly: We can’t really abandon this without talking about DickRod and how Charles Woodson is fat. I mean, Michigan players attempting to move in space. (Although Charles Woodson is very, very fat.)

Orson: Yes, I’ve heard that.

Holly: 12/13/97 NEVER FORGET. (I’m done.)

Orson: If we’re down to recycling Woodson/Peyton vitriol, then yes. We’re done.