Our extremely cursory and simple look over the options for this year’s fantasy draft in college football. Dibs!

One: Michael Crabtree, Texas Tech WR. Oh, sure, you say don’t draft him because he’s going pro, but here’s a surprise for you: HE PLAYS FOOTBALL, ASSHOLE. That’s right, and he plays it too well for even Mike Leach’s buttoned-down attack to hold his talent under wraps, friend. Crabtree’s line for last year looked like entire wide receiving corps’ numbers for theyear: 134 receptions, 1962 yards, and 22 TDs. Now let’s see if Mike Leach will trust him and stop throwing the ball only ten times a game. What is this, the Single Wing?

Two: Knowshon Moreno, UGA RB (Stands for “Rampaging Bastard”) Oh, no particular reason. FACT: This statement is a lie. If we just blew the head off your logic robot, then good: now you may free yourself from its clutches and draft Knowshon Moreno, who averaged 5.4 yards a carry last season and beat the bloody hell out of Florida in the worst Cocktail Party of my lifetime as a Florida fan. Give him the ball twice, and it’s a first down! Math is easy kids. Also, taking Knowshon allows you to take Matt Stafford, who may brilliantly audible to “run left/right/middle” when the defense does all that confusing jumpy stuff at the line.

Three: Jeremiah Johnson, Oregon RB. Could be the focal point for the Oregon offense next year, meaning he’ll get plenty of screens and zone read handoffs. Sadly, does not possess mountain man beard or pet bear, though someone could (hint hint) do something about both of these things before the season begins. We’ve always thought the bear was the next frontier for domesticated animals, especially home security bears. So cuddly!

Four: Colin Kaepernick, Nevada QB. If you have craved a gawky, discount version WAC version of Vince Young working out of the pistol, then Kaepernick’s your man.

Even if you apply the standard WAC to BCS conference conversion formula (divide roughly by 2/3, subtract five touchdowns), Kaepernick’s stats as a sophomore should improve from the 2175 yards passing and 573 yards rushing he piled up as afreshman in the eight games he started. Bonus! He works from the pistol, the formation that gets your qb disemboweled in NCAA Insert Year here but somehow chugs along nicely in real life.

5. Cam Newton, Florida QB. We’d bet a toe he’ll assume the Tim Tebow goal line battering ram role from Tim Tebow to take some of the hits off Tebow, meaning he’ll become the Mike Alstott of college football: a points vulture with an unnatural stat line skewed toward one yard TD plunges.

Brian presents the big board for the week. A smattering of notes on what was a quiet weekend follows.

Remember: Illinois and Mizzou are both victims of one player’s outstanding contributions. Depending on your semantics, then they’re not really winning as a team effort. That award would, at this point, go to the West Virginia Mountaineers and the nine points they earned last week for a large “intent to distribute” marijuana arrest. Tennessee is just a disorderly conduct or DUI charge away from nipping into the team lead, however, a move that would restore the earth to its proper axis, return to the king to his rightful place in Gondor, and get Arrested Development back on the air again.

Missing in action: A few obvious preseason faves miss the list completely, making them sleepers just waiting in the weeds to explode onto the board, or otherwise tranquil programs with shockingly little to worry about in the discipline department. Where’s former champ Marshall? Or heavy preseason favorite Arizona State? Or even Purdue, a team with consistently high scores throughout the short history of the cup? And whither Florida, Florida State, or Miami? Florida’s already got a point for a piddling underage drinking charge, but none of the big three has anything to show in the way of taserings, drinking while flying a blimp, discharging weapons in crowded daycares, or trafficking in exotic animals.

The Florida points are on the way in an update, so don’t bitch about it in the comments. This ensures one person at the least will bitch about it in the comments.

Posted from Cozumel, Mexico.

It’s an alcohol-iday, motherfuckers! WOOOOOOO! Shots on me. Literally. I’ve poured them all over myself. My speedo’s wet! Someone get me a new one or I’m sunning my buckeyes. And you ladies saw that yesterday.

Alcohol-iday! HT: Tressel’s World.

The last time I heard people scream like that, I was running through some back alley in Rio with a flamethrower. You know how long a cat can run after you set it totally the fuck on fire? Thirty-eight feet. I know that because I just whipped out the old twatstand and marked it off myself. Took three lengths, but that’s an exact measurement.

(Surriously: Jim Delany always travels with a flamethrower. You should have seen him at the Hotel Ipanema that afternoon. He was like Peter the Great on PCP. He scares me sometimes. He thinks Turistas is both a comedy and a documentary. His eyes are the dead eyes of a killer! Great dude.)

Jesus. Two years in a row I gotta come down here and rage just to put the beast to bed. (more…)

Today is Repeal Day! Hip Hip, Hooray!

On this day in 1933 prohibition was officially repealed when Utah, of all states, signed on to the 21st Amendment, paving the way for nearly a century of great tailgating. I’ll drink to that.

Real life’s dealt us a mundanely busy hand today NOT involving some pre-weekend blogging. Life steals your jerseys sometime, but what do we do? We just borrow one, write our name on the back, and keep going like a real Hokie would.

(BTW, our refusal to waste a Saturday during grad school watching Chan Gailey coach football looks better and better after last night. Tech is a putrid offensive football team, and in the middle of the third quarter the stadium was half-empty and resembled less a division one football stadium and more a European soccer stadium after a riot.)

So accept this joint project between Joel and ourselves involving the most bitter matchup this weekend, the LSU/Alabama game between the team that made Saban the 4 million commodity he is and the team currently paying the price tag. He was working as a football coach in Michigan–that much is true. But even then he knew he’d find a much better place, either with or without you, LSU

If your Youtube is blocked, click here for the Flash version.

Fine, fine work by Joel as always. The Viewer’s Guide should be up around lunch, so check in for Hannibal’s guide to couching it with the precision of a team of commandos and making the most of the waning weeks of the season.

Charlsie wanted us to know how awesome her dad was–after all, Charlsie’s dad is the one in this video clip below scoring a td against Florida in the 1969 version of the Cocktail Party, and that’s something we’ll never do. The video also charitably includes footage of Carlos Alvarez returning the favor for Florida, a nice bit of historical footage of the greatest pre-Spurrier wideout and still standing leader in receptions for a game (15), a season (88), and for a career (176) at Florida.

Yet, as if that weren’t enough…the commercial contains not one, but two Coors Light commercials from 1983. Their motto at the time was “Turn it Loose!,” apparently an exhortation to consume Coors Light until your system began rejecting it in explosive fashion. There’s feathered hair, a mustachioed gay body builder, a jeep, a woman with gym shorts so short you can see lunch descending from her small intestine…it’s what the internet was made for: remembering the past, and then beating it to death with a mallet.

Beer after beer when you’re running around…Coors Light! Your beer for drinking and driving without that pesky drowsiness!

We know why this man craves popsicles now.

The Louisville Cardinals defense has played much of 2007 in a vague fog. Now we become aware that one member has been playing it in a very specific type of fog: marijuana smoke. And no, it’s not just any member of the defense–it’s Willie Williams, the troubled blue-chip recruit who was arrested at least ten times during high school, bragged of receiving fishy benefits in a recruiting diary in the Miami Herald, sprayed strangers with a fire extinguisher during his visit to the University of Florida, was under investigation at one point for “hugging a woman against her will,” had the president of the University of Miami excusing his admission in the press, bombed out of Miami when he couldn’t crack the starting lineup, and finally ended up in Louisville for his umpteenth chance.

And on cue–POOF!–it all goes up in smoke again as the bell tolls BONG, BONG, BONG for him again with an arrest for marijuana possession and eating the evidence on the scene.

About 9:40 p.m. yesterday, a police cruiser pulled behind Williams on West Broadway and attempted to pull him over, according to a police report. Williams failed to pull over for several blocks until he stopped at Second and Broadway, where an officer found him chewing on marijuana, according to the report.

Williams has been dismissed from the team, and could face up to five years in jail for the combo charges.

Familiar with the term square grouper? It’s a term for the plastic-wrapped bales of weed or if you’re very lucky/cursed cocaine found floating in the water or washed up on the beach in South Florida. Some people pay for their weddings with them, or put a down payment on a house, or end up begging for their life in a miserable corner of the Everglades to some man named “Rattlesnake.”

If you’re a reporter waiting for a square grouper of a quote, you need to catch a first-year coach at his most candid. Before he stops cursing during press conferences, or crying, or calling out opponents he can’t possibly beat (um hrrghh cough cough Harbaugh.) You need, well…this quote from Randy Shannon.

When asked about Cooper in the spring, Shannon said: “I think Coop did a great job. He brought some some excitement to the team. And he’s a calm guy. He’s not an arrogant or flamboyant guy.” It was going well, then coach goofed. “Believe it or not, he and Javarris James are kind of like butt buddies.”

We only hope that in a fair and awesome world, Shannon would have gone on to clarify. “Both have excellent taste in clothing, and possess deep ties with the local arts scene. Both are fond of going to the gym, and are always home in time for Dr. 90210, which they watch with an equal mix of derision and ironic affection. Both have a firm grasp on the concept of camp. And most importantly, both are extremely fond of sodomy. That is, in fact, what I mean when I say they’re kind of like butt buddies.”

Actually, being members of the 7th Floor Crew, this should strike no one as surprising. After years of the beige from Larry Coker, the fact that we’re getting square grouper quotes in year one may mean that greatness is back at Miami in force. Canes fans! It’s your birthday!

(HT: Hotlanta Bill.)

Mr Stabby feels love, too.

Nyan Boateng was a VHT who flamed out of the Florida program after accomplishing the following things:

1. Causing reporters to guffaw when he claimed he ran a 4.1 40 yard dash.
2. Not outplaying Kenneth Tookes for the fifth spot on the Gators ‘05 roster.
3. Getting stabbed in the leg by his girlfriend during a lovers’ quarrel.

With that esteemed resume, Boateng transferred to Cal, but still made a cameo appearance back in Gainesville for one final hurrah–and what a hurrah it was:

According to Gainesville police Sgt. Chuck Reddick, Boateng attempted to enter the home of his former girlfriend early Thursday. When she refused to let him in, Boateng kicked in the door and entered anyway.

No one will ever love you like I will! NO ONE! A FELONY WILL WIN YOU BACK FOR SURE!!! Boateng has been suspended by Jeff Tedford pending the outcome of the case. If this is the same girlfriend that stabbed him in the leg, then Boateng has been put under the spell of a truly wondrous magic vagina. That’s the only possible explanation for this, since if we got stabbed by a woman, we’d…well, we proposed, actually. Call this glass house shattered if you please.

Three points for the burglary, two points for the battery, and one point for the criminal mischief gets Cal six points that mercifully did not end up on Florida’s tab.

This week’s big board appears below. Notes, corrections, and a whole slew of embedded updates follow:

UTEP may not catch Illinois, but do not blame the lack of effort as the reason why they’ll fall short of a Fulmer Cup title. The Miners score 13 points in their debut on the board thanks to a right cracker of an FnDC incident, complete with vivid, rarely cited charges like “assaulting a public servant” and “attempting to take an officer’s weapon.” Teamwork got them here, people: five players earned charges in all, with Tufick Shadrawy and Brian Wilkins earning the lion’s share of the gold strike themselves.

UTEP coach and roving roustabout Mike Price can’t really comment too much on the case at the moment, and with good reason: he’s recovering from surgery he underwent last week to put a stent in his heart to relieve pressure on a blocked artery. Guilt trip ‘em, Mike–show ‘em the flesh zipper like Krusty would.

Minnesota is already getting more exciting under new coach Tim Brewster–exciting like a wacky Euro-sex party with your close friends Mystikal and Andrew Lauder! Minnesota’s had some kind of nasty sexual assault case brewing for a while, yet the arrest of Dominic Jones for probable cause of criminal sexual misconduct has no apparent connection to the past allegations of third degree sexual assault earlier this spring.

Minnesota picks up four for what in essence is a rape charge. Jones is being held in the Hennepin County Jail without bail, which is not a good sign for him.

Finally, we award one point for weed possession to South Carolina, whose recruit Quintin Richardson may earn a point as he’s currently enrolled at SC and therefore eligible for Fulmer Cup points despite never having strapped on a Cock helmet for South Carolina. Richardson was picked up following a report of shots fired at an apartment complex. A police search ensued, and Richardson was found Holden Caulfield. William Holden. You know what we mean, man.

Richardson may also want to avoid the apartment complex altogether–this is the same apartment complex where Richardson was stabbed last month in an fight over a lady. Hell, we avoid towns where we’ve gotten bad roast beef sandwiches–stabbing would certainly do the trick as far as blacklisting a spot on our daily rounds.

The task of putting together a top 25 of any sort is stressful: frayed nerves, excessive caffeine and Ritalin consumption, the ever-present explosive gas…it’s like working in a cubicle with Katy Couric, actually, though without the constant reminders to get our colon checked yearly. (We do! By a guy named Stan in an alley in Macon! What?)

We therefore recruited help for 1-10 in the form of R. Kelly, who in addition to fucking the same girl happen to be huge college football fans with plenty of angles to cover on the upcoming season. The end product is so hot, it reminds us of our Jeep, because it makes us wanna ride.

See provisional 1-3 here, including our standard overreach for Michigan.

4. Texas. Is this a blind reach for a blue-chip program, or an actual stab at coherent forecasting? Considering that we’re reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book Black Swan right now, we’ve been disabused of the notion of accurate forecasting and can happily toss this out there as a rank and giddy guess–since they’re all guesses that will inevitably be up to 180 degrees from what we thought would happen.

Colt McCoy: will be merely excellent this year, a letdown from 2006.

Nevertheless, Texas makes for solid guessing for good reason. The linebacking corps returns intact; the defensive line will feature defensive tackle Frank “The Subpoena” Okam, who along with his fellow d-lineman Derek Lokey is taking the LSAT in preparation to become a lawyer (and therefore a future reader of EDSBS.) Colt McCoy and his fake-ass assumed name (born Edwin Schlobodowitz, Poughkeepsie, NY) had the best freshman season in recent memory, insuring that whatever he does this season will be a letdown of some sort. We’d say he can’t be as good, but the Greg Davis offensive system remains a run first game, and Jamaal Charles et al constitute the usual nightmarishly talented Longhorn backfield to keep the pressure off McCoy. Limas Sweed, Quan Cosby, and Billy Pittman are already getting open as we speak, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Kells:

Straight up, dog.

Kells on Texas: Straight up, dog.

5. LSU. Everyone else’s automatic number two winds up at six five here, mostly because we think this team just has two losses written all over it this year. Placing them at two requires taking certain factors as givens we’re not willing to grant, namely:

1. New offense, no problem=untrue. Jimbo Fisher can’t help but be overrated after the bidding war that ensued this offseason between FSU and Alabama, yet the dropoff between him and Gary Crowton must be noted. Crowton’s offenses at Oregon rang up huge numbers against the gnomes of the conference and sank when confronted with actual defenses. (more…)

Due to the general state of holiday disorder surrounding the EDSBS workspace right now, we’ve neglected to update le Cup this week. Corrected in short order, with notes, observations, and further bloviating and notes following.

HT, as always: Brian.

Tennessee cracks into the big board due to popular demand and the cold hard fact of walk-on Justin Jackson’s arrest. By the way, the fact that he’s a walk-on has been mentioned in every single story, something that mystifies us. Why tout that he’s a walk-on? Do you want to advertise that these are the type of people that just gravitate to your team, rather than come by invitation? Both are bad, admittedly: Gainesville’s red-eyed public firearms technicians come there at the behest of the uni. But still…

Illinois is looking damn near unapproachable at this point thanks to a burglary ring arrest of two now-former players who were given boatloads of counts. Unless Anthony Morelli throws a wayward pass in practice through the windshield of an armored car, which then flips and spills thousands in cash across the practice field, which then causes Penn State players to grab the wind-strewn cash in fistfuls and run, we’re not seeing any real competition here. Illinois is Lance Armstrong, riding a fresh EPO buzz up the Alpe d’Huez; everyone else is just some Euroninny rider calling their support car for more doped blood and chardonnay fifty meters back.