The M reflects light to the M on the floor. Tim Brewster gives a tour of the largest locker room in college football, and at the 2:13 mark shows you what it looks like when you buy the “M” off the demolished Landmark hotel in Las Vegas and strap it to the ceiling of the locker room.

Coach, what fills me most with pride is the endlessly flashing game show logo M we have in our locker room.

Because of 1912. Rich hatred requires a thorough marinade, and when you have aged beef going back to 1912, you have a layered, smoky flavor to rivalry only time and savory bitterness can create. Black Shoe Diaries details most of the whys and wherefore here, but Ohio State/Penn State really goes back to 1912 when Joe Paterno had resigned for the third time from his post at the school to try his fortunes in the rubber trade in the Congo, and then things went to hell for real at the Ohio State game:

One spectator came down out of the stands and began to rush them, but he got no further than assistant coach Dick Harlow who knocked him out cold with a single right fist. Police rushed the field to surround the Penn State players and protect them as fans grabbed some blue and white bunting under one of the goalposts and set it on fire.

It must be good, because it’s scored as a 1-0 forfeit on Ohio State’s side and a 37-0 victory on Penn State’s books.

At level nine they unveil the alien origins of the punt block for TD. Texas has its own special teams secret society, with membership only available upon blocking a punt. The only member at level eight is Michael Griffin, who is the head of the board, and…we really shouldn’t say anymore.

“He’s the head of the board of directors,” Akina said. “Yes, we’ve got a board, but I’m probably telling you too much.”

Shortly after that Akina was run over by a boat driven by a blazed Cedric Benson as a warning. The less you know, the better.

Goddamn you, smash route. Smart Football has all you care to know about the Smash concept, something Florida fans will remember with ass-ripping pain from the 1994 Auburn/Florida game.

Dynamic tension, needed. Blutarsky waxes long on Richt’s available banked credit with the UGA fanbase, and on whether Richt needs some of what we’ll call dynamic tension in the program. If dynamic tension means “axeing Willie Martinez,” the answer is no: that just sets up the inevitable chipping away of assistants and the onset of Tuberville Syndrome. It is one thing to replace assistants immediately: both LSU and Texas make quick work of plugging and unplugging assistant coaches if they don’t perform, and have done so successfully. Delaying it for two years running as Richt does, though, sets up an unpleasant power struggle, since he’ll have appeared to have caved to pressure if he does pull Martinez, and won’t be seen as proactively replacing a faulty part.

It is akin to the difference between doing something before your wife notices and begins nagging, and then doing it afterwards. You both feel significantly better if you, the properly uxorious husband, take out the trash promptly. When the reek overwhelms the house, however, you have become the asshole husband, and your wife has become the nagging bitch, and now we’re all thrilled to be taking out the garbage now, aren’t we? The true problem was not getting rid of him sooner; had he done so, Richt wouldn’t be hip deep in acrimony and the garbage-stink of Martinez’s porous defenses.