Despite calling in another request for a game extension from their local Buffalo Wild Wings (sadly, no longer serving Weck) and getting exactly what they wanted, SEC fans will continue to complain about the officiating because they can, and because now with the advent of DVR and these fine internets even the most innocuous holding call can be scrutinized.

You should know the story has reached some kind of point of deflation when Nick Saban is telling the refs to go to the lake for a weekend, which we kind of would like to see a.) because it proves a point, and b.) because the resulting anarchy would make a soccer riot seem cordial in comparison.

“I just really do believe this: If I was an official, and I was making what I make officiating, because I love the game and I love doing it, and I was getting crit­icized by the media, includ­ing our announcers on TV, like these guys get crit­icized, I’d step back and say, ‘I think I’ll go to the lake this weekend. You can have this.’ That’s what I’d do,” Saban added.

If they did go to the lake they’d catch boots and call them fourteen pound largemouth bass, but that’s just the kind of year they’re having as a group. Officials around the nation will have another inexact and fallible day this coming Saturday because officiating is an art, not a science, and is practiced by frail, fallible humans who deserve your sympathy and understanding (after you’ve hit them in the skull with bottle from fifty feet away. Especially then.)

Urban Meyer has been fined $30,000 for his comments about SEC officiating, the logical endpoint of the SEC backing itself so far into a corner re: officiating. As Holly suggests, the proper greeting to this (as it is for so many things) is a thoroughly lazy wanking motion in the direction of the SEC offices, but not so for Meyer. He still has to pay the $30K, but no one has defined form of payment.

We have suggestions.

–7 freshly circumsised and adoptable Filipino baby boys. (No questions asked.)

“Yeah, seven. But it’ll cost you. Bob Tebow Ministries doesn’t run on prayer and happy thoughts alone.

–600,000 nickels delivered in cheap garbage bags.

–1749 copies of this (ON SALE) classic by seven-time Pulitzer Prize Winner and astronaut Mike Freeman.

–Check written from his Cayman Islands account. (Takes days to clear, sure to draw IRS audit.)

–Three live Siberian Tigers. Black market prices, and surely available on a moment’s notice in Miami.

–Coupon for five favorable calls made by SEC referees in the game of their choice.

All are roughly equivalent to $30K or so, and should suffice in making Mike Slive feel more Roger Goodell-ish by the moment.

IT LEARNS. Lane Kiffin may be staying above the fray for now, but Mike Slive may have an excuse yet to get out his suspendin’ stick yet. Sadly, Urban Meyer may play the part of the honors student who gets to serve as a warning to everyone else.

Little is dumber than the story of Spurrier pointing out Alabama using tape to mark kicks. In case you haven’t noticed, South Carolina’s been using tape to improve Stephen Garcia’s aim, as seen in this EXCLUSIVE AND NOT DOCTORED AT ALL PHOTO WE SWEAR.

How else would one explain a leap from a 53% to a 57% completion percentage? It must be magical tape. As if a rivalry priding itself on pure hate didn’t need an additional spark to create a proper trailer park bonfire. Saban says Tiffin won’t use the tape since risking a five yard penalty would be too much, but let’s focus on the most impressive possibility here: in theory, the same crew assigned to LSU/Georgia and Arkansas Florida could end up working this game, too. Crazy Old Testament God is just begging for this to happen.

Before we went on our annual vacation to the Barbary Coast last week, we wrote Charles Bloom, media-tussler for the SEC, and asked what the policies covering digital media. Answer: “A policy document is in the works and is not finalized yet.”

That policy document is out, and thunks into a PDF reader with the heft of a Gravity’s Rainbow with even less sense. Rocky Top Talk has the fully legalistic spread on the policy, but the relevant bits you need to know most:

You go there, and HEY! IS ANYONE LISTENING? I SAID STOP!!!

It’s all theirs. All of it. The policy document announces the kind of godlike powers the NFL claims over all content, language not dissimilar to anything you’d find in any other league’s

Video expiry date: 72 hours. You’ve got to wait 72 hours before using any video, which under their particular interpretation of fair use is kept to less than three minutes. Or, if that’s too long for you, you can just go ahead and pirate it, post it on Youtube, and keep the websurfers in Birmingham busy. (more…)

If you’ve devoured Michael Lewis’s endlessly fascinating The Blind Side (as we have) and followed the amusing updates of cameos by Saban, the Orgeron, et al in the upcoming film adaptation (ditto), then you’ve probably been waiting with bated breath for the film’s wide release in November. If that’s the case, then Chris Mottram is going to throw some very cold water on those dreams, for he’s got the film’s trailer up over at Mr. Irrelevant, and . . . well, see for yourself:

Got that? Did you count up all the things that looked wrong? Good, now check the answer key after the jump and let’s see how you did: (more…)

Things that TOTALLY happened in the first fifteen minutes of SEC Media Days.

–Bobby Petrino glamoured a reporter into asking him to recite all fifty capitals of the United States, because he’s still totally proud he can do that on command.

–Clay Travis got into a fistfight with an enraged Paul Finebaum, and was choked out in a matter of seconds by the Birmingham Battler, who then penned a column that every SEC coach would simply sit in silence for 30 minutes at the podium because they were SKURRED OF WHUT NICK SAYBAN GONE THANK.

–Rich Brooks enjoyed a fine scotch, looked to the east, and remembered the smell of jasmine in the air, the sultry air of Luzon on his flesh, and the eyes of Maria, the one he could never possess. A single tear streamed down his cheek, and on his lips a single, almost inaudible word: “Bullshit.” We saw this in person, we swear.

–Pat Forde walked by and smelled of money, hearty midwestern values, and well-aged beef.

–We acquired an itchy lanyard!

We swear at least one of these ACTUALLY HAPPENED. More is happening over at TSB and on Twitter, so strap in and enjoy the stream of non-news news. How crazy is it, you ask? We requested a peephole enabled room, that’s how crazy we are. You’ll all find out about handy 220 volt plug located on our inner thigh, an amenity we had way before the Pontiac Vibe bit our style.

This won’t be true at the end of the year due to players getting experience, racking up respectable stats, and the inevitable but unpredictable quantum leaps collegiate quarterbacks take with good coaching and time. (Carson Palmer 2000, bust; Carson Palmer 2002, brilliant Stiffarm Paperweight winner.) For the moment, though, attempting to pick a third-team preseason All-SEC quarterback is hard unless you’re picking Jarrett Lee, and then you’re just being a cheeky dick. (We’d start him first team over Tebow if it meant the fourteen points free casino credit you get when facing an LSU team with him under center.)

The third team All-SEC starter? Brian Hartline/Steven Garcia, or as we prefer to call him, Stevian Gartline.

He’s a bitch, he’s a liar, he’s a conservative pocket passer who likes to embark on wild out-of pocket runs, he’s a Gamecat with feathers and claws, he’s fumble-prone and not, he’s got immense talent and a looming BUY rating as a former blue-chip recruit, he’s everything in between and no you would’t want an any other way. He has four legs, and all of them moving at once means trouble.

(Seriously: How could you not take Jordan Jefferson over either of these guys? And how much rhetorical cropdusting is it to fart upon the third spot by splitting it between two very mediocre qbs?)

Yeah. It’s Mike Hartline. We blame society and sleep deprivation for the error.

The title of this post is meant to be humorous: of all the positions you want behind you in a fight, quarterback is the last of them. They’re valuable, they’re often man-pretty, and they’ve spent so much of their playing lives being protected that they not only don’t like being hit but more often than not throw punches with the effectiveness of an enraged Brian Sutherland. It should also be noted that this entire competition would be bullshit if Freddie Kitchens were around, because that man could displace force like no one could:

Left with the sad crop of mortals we have, here are the SEC’s quarterbacks ranked by their ability to perform well in a barfight.

12. Jonathan Crompton, Tennessee. Too slow to even compete here. What kind of slow? That kind, really. Which kind, you ask again? Oh, take the whole spice rack of whatever slow means to you. It’s all there.

11. Tim Tebow. Too pacifist by far, though he can certainly take punishment. Also, though you’d think bolts of divine lightning would probably level everyone arrayed against him, you’d be surprised at how far out on a limb the Lord will leave you no matter how much he loves you. Best to avoid getting caught in a gory Biblical plotline and pick someone else for a wingman in case a Kentucky Hailstorm breaks out one boozy night. Also: probability of Tebow being in a bar, much less one your ass is sitting in? Low.

10. Ryan Mallett, Arkansas. The good news: he will at least be comfortable in a bar. (more…)

It’s a long offeseason. In an attempt to vary up the somewhat fatigued Friday rotation, we will change it up with various lab experiments, including The Digital Viking: The EDSBS Guide To Spicy Living. The five categories are Drink (obvious), Comestibles (Food/Snack), Combustible (Shit what blows up), Transit (for making you transitory) and Canon (essential films, books, and movies to understand reality as you know it.) Enjoy?

Drink.

Holly: Continuing our “This Week In Imperialist Cocktailing” subseries, I recommend the Soixante-Quinze, or French 75. Gin, sugar syrup, lemon juice, and champagne. If you happen to be lolling about in my favorite 213 backroom bar, throw a brandied cherry in the bottom.

Orson: Fat Tire. Amber beers have the shortest half-life from the tap/awesome to suck/bottle. Abita Amber remains the premiere example of this, as it’s strictly meh from the bottle but guzzleworthy from the tap. When in Baton Rouge, I will drink draft Abita Amber from a gutter filled with decaying nutria, so long as it’s just been poured, and someone promises to feed me fried meat of some sort immediately afterward to kill the resulting bacterial infections and general -itis.

Fat Tire is here somewhere in Atlanta, and by Cthulhu it will be mine tonight. (more…)