Practicegate, One: A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough,without ever having felt sorry for itself, but not outside of the NCAA’s allotted hours designated for dropping dead from boughs. Camp Barwis may have you ready to ring the bell. He just wishes you would, maggot. Just ring the bell and you’ll get a warm towel, hot food, and–OH DAMMIT WHO THE HELL CALLED THE NCAA? This is what I had the wolves for, dammit.

The Detroit Free-Press noted Michigan’s exceeding the allotted practice hours prescribed by NCAA rules, and to hell with them for that since it forces everyone to do what both coaches and college football fans despise doing: actually having to read the NCAA’s regulations. (Especially Lane Kiffin, who would rather be reading Maxim.) Brian goes point by point with loads of yellow box quotes to back up the snooze-inducing legalities of the rules, but in summary: Michigan likely did violate rules by having quality control personnel count players’ attendance at “voluntary” workouts which, of course, were not truly voluntary in any way. No one denies this.

Practicegate, two. Someone will write bad columns about Rich Rodriguez going too far. They may address him as “DickRod” to belittle him. They will cite this as an example of college athletics becoming too much of a professional business. These columns will suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, and you know it.

The ongoing drama at Michigan is between their mercenary dick of a coach–like Nick Saban, notorious dick, Urban Meyer, dick to anyone outside of the program, and Bobby Petrino, treacherous dick, Rich Rodriguez is a mercenary dick–is pissing off the lilac-holding romantics in the Michigan old guard mooning for the days of actually having a Michigan man with cantankerous but grandfatherly ways presiding over their quaint but successful football program. Dicks do things like count non-participation in voluntary workouts, run their team until they fill the gutters with their vomit, and piss off columnists. Dicks also win football games much of the time, something former Michigan qb Chad Henne sees as the end product in all of this:

“I really think whoever’s saying it really doesn’t want to be there,” Henne said. “If they’re saying that then they’re not really worried about the team, they’re not worried about what they’re going to do during their season and they’re kind of just giving themselves up. That’s just negative talk right there. So whoever it is just really doesn’t care about the team, I would say.

“If they’re complaining about that, then they don’t want to be the best they can be and that’s their own fault.”

Please, don a rat-cap and wave a pom-pom with your letterman’s sweater over in the bathtub gin and jazz section over in the stands where fans from the 1920s sit if any of this shocks you. This is illicit professional sports charged with the loony tribalism of the regional, sponsored by universities in the same way universities have always helped develop young talent. If computer programming majors at Georgia Tech can code until their eyes bleed, the same should apply for anyone with a sponsored talent on scholarship who wants to work extra hours. This message brought to you by the 21st century, reality, and having a fucking clue.

Debose, interrupted. Andre Debose, hamstring, perhaps surgicalized. Florida now has only Jeff Demps, Chris Rainey, Brandon James, and eight other ridiculously fast people made in a lab to replace him.

Seriously, we’re not weird. Oklahoma fans, Mormons; Mormons, Oklahoma fans, though this is complete and utter reporting FAIL and you know it:

“There’s an honor code,” said Brent Babcock, an Oklahoma City chiropractor who graduated from BYU in 1980. “No alcohol consumption, no tobacco, no premarital sex. Even wild man Jim McMahon honored the code.”

LIES. This man had sex like he was flossing teeth: twice a day and vigorously for his health, no matter what some honor code said. To paraphrase Michael Irvin, not sharing himself with the world would have been the real crime.

We promise to wait at least eight games to fire you. Gus Malzahn has fuzzy, warm guarantees of love and affection at Auburn re: job security, meaning nothing because this is Auburn, and no one has any idea who the hell decides what. Keep you boxes packed, leave nothing in the refrigerator, and keep your car running. #nothingmakessenseatAuburnever

Ur about 2 get pwned by these tronass graphics. While we don’t endorse the “They’re too pussy to play us” again bit at the end, the tronass graphics sequence and Steely Dan sample Kanye in this summary video of Florida’s 17-9 victory over USC in 1982 is enough to make it one of the more amusing and educational football videos you’ll watch today.

Amusing: the tronass graphics, the nuke-orange unis, the cursed astroturf covering the luscious and naturally carnivorous turf of Florida field, and USC not looking like unstoppable beatific badasses. (Likely problem: Polynesian deficiency in roster.) Educational: you had forgotten USC and Florida, the intersectional dream matchup of this millenium, have actually played a home-and-home before, an ‘82-’83 series resulting in a 17-9 victory in the Swamp where Wilber Marshall had 17 tackles and four sacks, prompting USC coach John Robinson to call him the greatest linebacker he’d ever seen.

If you need further proof the series should happen: the ‘83 game resulted in a tie, meaning it never happened, and is a functional do-over. If this actually happens, a properly cheeky Coliseum scoreboard operator will start the pregame countdown with a “19-19″ posted for posterity’s sake.

“Yes, I’d like to buy 900 season tickets. Name? Kane Liffin…” Tennessee has not sold all of their season tickets with a week to go to the season, an unshocking thing given the tendency of people to procrastinate and the lingering fear AD Mike Hamiton has hired a belching football trustafarian as their head coach. Tennessee is so concerned about 900 unsold season tickets they had to light a few stacks of hundred dollar bills on fire in the football offices just to stop the fear-shivers.

Sense and Sensibility, SEC Media Edition. The SEC won’t budge on video coverage at all, but the rest of the media policy is rounding into some sensible shape after the Draconian first draft. Por ejemplo:

There are no longer limits on blogging entries, but play-by-play blogging is prohibited.

…because that’s not what liveblogging does, anyway, unless you long for the days of Red Barber reading a transcript off the wire and punctuating the action by clacking a bat together and hitting the “applause” button. That’s how Beano Cook still listens to the games, at least, and that’s how he’ll listen to this year’s inevitable Notre Dame/Florida matchup. Beano Cook’s predictions, as always, are brought to you by Turfman’s Leisure Scotch for Gentlemen, the only scotch designed to meet the demands of the modern biplaning sportsman.

Barkley loves football, frisbee, pressure. The Matt Barkley era’s announcement gets a mixed reception from the LA press. Barkley in response will lay on floor and dream of frisbee.

Delicious aroma, strong, frothy head, and intoxicating notes of ire. We know nothing about Texas A&M AD Bill Byrne besides his picture and his timely address of fans’ concerns over bringing their bass boat seats to use in the stadium. Scipio Tex probably doesn’t either, but the physiognomic reading of Byrne’s picture in Barking Carnival’s review of the Aggie football program deserves some kind of award for Hitchens-with-roboaxe award for slashing with malicious intent and fatal accuracy:

Sometimes appearances are not deceiving. I’m a tremendous fan of thin middle manager glasses over beady mackerel eyes and the White Rain coiffed hairstyle favored only by 1980s news anchormen and Liberty graduates. It speaks of stability and competence. I notice that he’s also clasping one of his hands to prevent it from flailing about like Peter Sellers’ German rocket scientist in Dr. Strangelove. His expression is that of dopey malevolence, suggesting a Hereford crossed with a wolverine. This dude is barely hanging on.

Bravissimo, sirs. “This dude is barely hanging on” may become an internet meme of necessity sooner rather than later.

It’s that woo-WOOOO. Our guest spot on the Solid Verbal features discussion of mustaches and much football talk.