Join Swindle and dashing cohort PB tonight at NowLive with special guest Bruce Feldman, he of ESPN, the fine book Meat Market, and being told to say bacon pants “like you wanna fuck a pig” by Peter on live air.

Time to shake off the pain of last weekend’s bloodbath, but not before we pick at the scabs a little.  Rightchere. 9 PM EDT.

The injury report. It’s feeling sprain-y in here.

Player, injury: Jake Locker, Washington. Broken right thumb. In case 0-4 by wide margins doesn’t convince you that Washington is in an “abandon all hope” stage of existence, perhaps this will: Jake Locker, in addition to being out 6-8 weeks, might not even come back at the same position:

“It is possible,” Willingham said. “I can’t tell you where right now. But he is a tremendous athlete, and the ability to play five, six, seven positions exists.”

Net loss: Realistically, nothing. This flaming corpsepile of a season just gets one more body thrown on it for Washington. It’s a particularly tough nail in the coffin of the Willingham era.

Tray Blackmon, Auburn. Broken Wrist. Tommy Tuberville says Blackmon will likely play with a cast on his hand.

Net loss: None whatsover, since any reduction in grip and tackling will be made up for now that someone who borrows the nickname “Little Ball of Hate” will now have a club on the end of his arm. That’s a push at worst for someone who once knocked the sex midget out of Kenny Irons.

Jahvid Best, Cal. Dislocated left elbow. Elbows aren’t one of the joints you think about coming out of joint, but in football kinetic force loosens even the most stubborn of limb-junctures. Best will miss the game this week against Arizona State due to the injury suffered against Colorado State.

Net loss: Substantial for one game, but not disastrous, as Best in on pace to return against Arizona. You’ll have to find your green-vomiting football player fetishes elsewhere until then.

Tyler Lorenzen, Connecticut. Broken right foot. Connecticut’s starter yielded the spot to Zach Fraser after injuring the foot against Louisville this past Friday night. He’ll be out for six to eight weeks depending on how long it takes for his traitorous foot to heal.

Net loss: None for Donald Brown, at least: the nation’s leading rusher–and no, you did not know that–will eat up even more digits in play selection now that the starting qb is out.

Knowshon Moreno, Dannell Ellerbe, Tripp Chandler, Georgia. Bruised elbow, sprained knee, shoulder. Ellerbe and Moreno are “questionable” (will be out there) while Chandler is “doubtful” (doubtful.)

Net loss: Their opponent, the bye, will challenge them–especially with Athens’ forever tempting traffic violations scene, where daredevil kids attempt to outdo each other in racking up meaningless tickets with multiple infractions. STOP THE MADNESS.

Florida: Jim Tartt, Emmanuel Moody, Ryan Stamper, Marcus Gilbert. Ankle X 4.
All ankles, all from the Ole Miss game.

Net loss: Bad, but it will be against Arkansas, so only slightly bad. Unless Arkansas, you know, throws a streak route against the Florida defense and then completely blows the mind of Major Wright.

Mini-Matthew McConoughey will have to wait to howl another week, as what was imminent on Sunday–Steven Garcia’s assumption of the starting job at South Carolina–is now only probable due to Steve Spurrier’s film review and general grumble toward quarterbacks who venture outside of the pocket.

“Stephen Garcia really struggled after about the first drive or two (against Alabama-Birmingham),” Spurrier said. “He got to where he was just running out of (the pocket) all the time last week. I don’t know if he’s quite ready to play.”

You make up your mind. We’ll be over here livin’.

Garcia was also the leading rusher against UAB, something else that had to make Spurrier’s well-tanned hide crawl. The number one defense in the country, btw? South Carolina’s, which has been revived by Ellis Johnson, who you may remember from his work keeping Mississippi State bowl eligible with an amazing “all-safeties” offense/defense in Starkville.

So, Tim Tebow has to walk past a church sign suggesting people pray for him every day, or at least live in a town where someone, presumably in order to catch the eye of parishioners who’d rather head on down to Panera, grab a bagel, and spend Sunday morning doing something else rather than sit in church, puts his name on a church sign to attract attention:

“I’m going to pray that [Tebow] is true to his faith because if he falls and gets caught up in some kind of scandal it will be bad for Christianity,” Brown said.

“I know the story of David, so we know it’s possible for all of us to fall,” Brown said.

If the Crusades and Worship Jamz haven’t done it by now, it’s not going to happen if Tim Tebow gets caught doing anything remotely un-Christian. What will happen is that people who see this will see you as a hucksterish attention whore who uses our beloved weepy baby-rhino in the most cliched and cheap of manners to drive just one more soul into that church and get their tithes. Oh, and that we need to crack out one of the internet’s Bronze Age Classics, the church sign generator, to do justice to other church signs in the college football universe.

(HT: Sports by Brooks.)

To speak to you today, we have invited a very special guest: Luther Campbell.

As the coach of the Miami Northwestern Junior Petit-Canes, the finest collection of nine to eleven year old football players in Dade County, I know what it takes to put a good football team together, to push your players to their maximum and get the most effort you can get out of your kids. I also know how to get the stains out of a white pair of pants, because they are young, and sometimes pee they pants from time to time.

They know how to take the field, though:

I also know how to keep a complainin’ ass daddy’s mouth shut, too. First, you tell him how his boy is doing fine, just fine. Then you take the second complaint quiet–reaaaaal icy, like stone, right? No expression. Then, later that night, you set his grass on fire with some gasoline. That shuts him up right quick.

Anyway, also consider myself an expert on a medical condition I have myself termed and named: The Bitch Mentality. (more…)

We’re filling in for Shanoff tomorrow over at the Sporting Blog, so we have to be up at the asscrack of dawn to file. This means EDSBS Live is postponed until tomorrow at 9 p.m, since if we attempt to do both we’ll be up at five in the morning hungover and out of gas by noon tomorrow, which describes most days but still: it’s nice to actually try to manage our time responsibly.

Now if you’ll excuse us, there’s Rock Band 2 to play. In the meantime, you’ll have to go to UTEP to get your sirens.

Whoever made the Al Groh Coachbook: We love you, but in a noncommital, beaten by Duke, “Meh” kind of Al Groh way. “Al Groh became a fan of Van Halen” is probably our favorite little detail in a well-layered casserole of parody.

In further Facebook news: We thought Pete Carroll might just let the Facebook status hang for a few days as he watched film of the Oregon State game and helped negotiate the bailout package: but you can’t stop Pete Carroll from charging headlong into the future.

WIN FOREVER. Except on Thursdays.

Principles: we have them. Holly took a stand this weekend.

Inadvertently funny. Perhaps calling the Auburn offense the “offensive” is appropriate, if incorrect in a grammatical sense.

Our schedule does not get any easier. Our offensive is virtually last in every statistical category. Franklin please shave and please for the love of god get a first down, that’s all I ask.

Save that for the Octagon, Mr. Pelini. Bo Pelini is one of the few coaches who really looks like he could step in and play a few downs with authority, and perhaps that explains why he picked up a 15 yard unsportsmanlike call in the loss to Virginia Tech while arguing with officials: he looks like he’s about to flying squirrel attack someone.

That’s great news! Further injuries as Jim Tartt gets injured on Florida’s o-line.

Punting would be preferable to what’s currently going on. Lloyd Carr will not be the next head football coach at Syracuse, which Matt helpfully points out, but still mentions because it’s fun to watch people’s heads explode every now and then.

We prefer the cowrie shells and tarot cards. Football Outsiders attempts to take on the dangerous question of “meaningful college football stats.”

Nipple twisting: Reilly, pro.

Rick Reilly doesn’t like us, and that’s fine. Rick Reilly makes 3 mil a year for writing an 800 word column once a week, usually some good-natured but dated pablum about golf, golf, his troubles playing golf, and how awesome it is to be writing an 800 word column about golf for a living. In America, we call this separating fools from their money, and we’re all for it. There’s no one less relevant to his universe than a golf-hating college football blogger, and there’s no one less relevant to our world than a guy who makes jokes about the Queen Mother and writes about golf. We’ve never read him with any regularity, and we’re sure the same is true the other way around.

Nevertheless, you tromp on college football’s sod, and the ears prick up a bit. From today’s “Life of Reilly:”

The thing about college football coaches is this: They lie just slightly more than your average Fallujah real estate agent.

We’re not even sure what that means. Reilly hates Arabs? There’s one columnist not voting for Barack Hussein Suicidebomberallahabad Obama this fall! Hey-o, topical humor! Plus, everyone knows the real estate market in Iraq is booming, right? It’s a great time to buy.

But affairs do not take a turn to the perverse until the next sentence. Prepare yourselves. Your sex drive will be killed for eight to ten days at this thought:

But now with my new invention—TruthClamps™—you can find out exactly what these coaches mean. TruthClamps™ take out the guesswork!

Simply take the two six-inch, orange TruthClamps™, attach them to the nipples of your school’s football coach and turn on the readout machine. Imagine, finally getting the straight story from these guys!

Notre Dame fans, you should be covered in your own vomit at this moment. (more…)

Late last night, 1500 words on Jonathan Crompton Not Being The Guy were rendered hopefully irrelevant by this headline.  (You’re welcome.)  This is far, far from over—Tennessee does not promote young players lightly, easily, or without maddening deliberation at speeds too slow to deserve the term.  But an entrenched veteran, deserving or no, even catching a glimpse of a hook is a welcome sight, no less so for being completely fucking overdue.

The above article was followed shortly by a chaser of nightmare fuel.  He’s determined!  Good morning, sunshine!  Sleep well?  Did the football being  played around you last week and the week before disturb your nappytime in the pocket?  If there’s a delicious deep-fried lining to this clusterfuck, it’s that the Cromptonites, bottom-feeders in action and in onomatopoeia, are at last shaken free of their delusions of any modicum of competence on the part of their carp-faced idol.  Say what you will about Ainge, but the Bad Erik label wouldn’t have been necessary had there not been Good Erik to mirror it.  Occasionally, shit got done.  That is painfully and entirely no longer the case.

“I’m still gonna be the guy.”  Damn right you are.  The guy with three touchdowns and four INTs in four games.

(more…)