Chinese Bandits. From Life’s exceptional photo archive: the 1958 LSU Defense, a.k.a. the Chinese Bandits.

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If you need the reference to why the hell a bunch of Cajun linemen needed green rubber Chinese masks, you may have it. If you don’t, you’ll understand why some LSU fans still wear purple capes and do-ris to games.

If a tree suddenly blows up with the force of a nuke in Kansas, it doesn’t matter because it’s in Kansas. First AD Bob Krause takes a weird demotion and then departs altogether after a secret delayed payment to former coach Ron Prince–a payment even the president of the university was unaware of–becomes public knowledge. (And goes to a sketchy LLC set up by Ron Prince explicitly for the purpose of receiving the payment called “In Pursuit of Perfection, or 5-7, whichever comes first.”)

Now two longtime athletic department officials have been suspended for unstated reasons, donors have to be skeevy about where their money might go, and Ron Prince is collecting a paycheck from UVA as special teams coach and is still gainfully employed. Pete is right: If this were happening at Penn State or USC, there would torches, burny noises, and screaming going in response to this. In Kansas, it’s a footnote.

Looking forward to coaching at an FCS school. Doug Marrone’s team is hemorrhaging players for non-academic reasons (read: a purge of the roster by a first-year coach.) TNIAAM has deep sympathies, of course, for Marrone, especially as he’s as conflicted about himself as anyone.

“I’m thankful for the opportunity to attempt coaching for Syracuse,” said the self-ousted coach. “At the end of the day it came down to experience and I just sat down with myself and said you know what…you don’t have any.”

Syracuse may sink to an even lower circle of hell this year. We know, the bee blindfold and testicle wrenching circle was supposed to be the lowest one yet, but there’s always a basement underneath that floor.

Clearly, they’ve never been to the Palmetto State. As odd as this is, “Fuhman” really is how they pronounce it. It’s the correct pronunciation, especially if you’re a Shavian phonemic reform-type.

G.A.T.A. He’s of the enemy, yes: but get Erk Russell into any Hall of Fame you care to put him in no matter how much effort it takes.

SITE NEWS: We’ll be on the road in the morning, bound for New York for our anniversary. The Swindles are celebrating an outrageously advanced anniversary in the Big Apple prior to our appearance at Blogs With Balls on Saturday. Posting will be leisurely even for the offseason, but Spicy Livin’ should be on schedule in addition to anything particularly pressing. On Friday at 5:30, though, we’ll be totally and completely fucking occupied.