THE CURIOUS INDEX, 1/17/2012

INNER PIRATE, PREPARED TO BE DOCUMENTED.

You might be the luckiest man on earth, and the evidence is Peter Berg is working on a Mike Leach docu-series just for you, you lucky pirate. Meanwhile, we're sure some person is going to produce a lasting documentation of Craig James' legacy on this planet, most likely while squatting on a toilet and playing Words With Friends on their iPhone. (Spoiler: it's shit! This one's for you, CJ!)

LET'S JUST LEAVE GUNNER KIEL ALONE. If Gunner Kiel is indecisive, it might have a lot to do with being 18 years old and desperately wanted by no fewer than five major football programs. Please recall the decision paralysis you had when two members of the opposite sex were in your call list, and now imagine that multiplied by your entire life. (That "call list" is not a metaphor. We mean "that time when you had two ladies' phone numbers, and though neither of them were sleeping with you, you could certainly call them, BUT WHO FIRST, DAMMIT? WHO?")

So doing things like this to a recruit is, for the millionth time, completely reprehensible, and is the antithesis of what should happen in the recruiting process. This is the "Please do not smoke near these open vats of gasoline" sign of college football fandom, but we repeat: don't tell recruits they are pieces of shit for not committing to your school. We would also tell you not to place your bare testicles on the face of a passed-out rival fan, but that would be lecturing the Taliban segment of Alabama's populace, and we've given up entirely on you and instead just hope jail and heart disease fixes what society couldn't.

RE: THE SALVAGEABLE PART OF ALABAMA'S POPULACE. The likely replacement for Jim McIlwain, Doug Nussmeier, would be pro-style, diabolically smart at times, and survived the roller-coaster of having Jake Locker as his quarterback. Rephrased: Nick Saban makes another brilliant hire that someone will one day overpay to be a mediocre head coach, and now you know why coaches work zillion hour weeks under the supervision of a tiny control freak.

LLOYD CARR AND DOWNTON ABBEY. A natural match, of course.

SO HE'S BEEN BUSY WITH HIS STUDIES. From Andy Staples last night, catching up with Lynn Katoa, former four star prospect at linebacker from the class of 2008! It's difficult, you see, because he's a fugitive.

DO WE NEED MORE TEETH-GNASHING ON ESPN? Since you pay them $70 a year for the privilege of watching them, well yes, perhaps we do. In their defense: if someone came to you and said "I'll pipe a gigantic stream of college football and quality related programming into your gourd for $70 a year," we'd have no problem paying it a la carte, bullshitting ESPN CFOs.