As an eagle-eyed spectator noticed (along with most of the UGA student section, apparently), yes, that young man was indeed peeing in that little room, and no, nobody has any idea what they did with his, er, leavings.

Kentucky, our apologies in advance.

I’ve got my towel, I’ve cut all the checks . . . let’s light this candle.

As Mumme prepares for his first season at McMurry, Lexington Herald-Leader columnist John Clay took it upon himself to track down Mumme’s UK staff and find out where they’d ended up. What he found was less than inspiring: Of Mumme and his 11 original assistants from 1997, only five are employed at D-IA programs in any capacity; four are college head coaches; two are coaching at the high-school level; and two are out of coaching entirely (though one of them has the convenient excuse of being dead since 2006).

The most successful of these gentlemen, obviously, is Mike Leach, currently leading his rowdy band of pirates at Texas Tech to regular bowl appearances; oddly enough, the guys with the next most prestigious jobs on the list were mere graduate assistants under Mumme. Chris Hatcher is the head coach at Georgia Southern (and being mentioned with increasing frequency as a candidate for D-IA jobs), while Sonny Dykes is breathing life into a formerly moribund passing attack as Arizona’s offensive coordinator.

There is, of course, one guy who still rates a grade of “incomplete”: Tony Franklin, running backs coach under Mumme and currently offensive coordinator at MTSU. At the moment, Franklin is known primarily for being the catalyst that started the Tommy Tuberville administration down the road to doom in its last year at Auburn, a dubious distinction indeed; but if he can work the same wonders at MTSU that he did at Troy, who knows, he might have a D-IA coaching gig in him yet, thereby eclipsing both his old bosses something fierce. The spread offense indeed works in mysterious ways.

For lack of a better term, we’re calling this the “Kiffin Effect.” Pop quiz, hotshot: Coming off a 4-8 season and a 45-0 vivisectioning by your big in-state rival in which you netted all of 37 yards, what do you do? What do you do? Evidently, this:

Houston Nutt phoned in just now to say he has sucked it, as a matter of fact, and the Delicious Creamsicle of Immediate In-State Superiority was everything he thought it could be.

The pressure of being the preseason #1 for the Fulmer Cup must’ve gotten to them. I know all you EDSBS regulars have been waiting with bated breath for the first time I’d make a blatant plug for my dear Georgia Bulldogs, and here it is: For what feels like the first time since I was an naive, apple-cheeked freshman, the Dawgs have gone an entire offseason without a single player getting arrested. One hundred law-abiding cocktails to all of you, gentlemen! By contrast, the Dawgs’ season-opening opponent, Oklahoma State, won’t be suspending two offensive players arrested for pot possession in June. Note to Mike Gundy: If you’re going up against Georgia and you’re the one that looks slack on player discipline, there may be a problem. Unfortunately for the Dawgs, that righteous indignation plus two bucks will get Willie Martinez a grande Pike Place roast at Starbucks.

Your “Suddenly My Problems Seem Pretty Minor” moment of the day. The Tulsa World profiles Tulsa QB G.J. Kinne, whose dad, a high-school coach in Texas, was shot to death by the angry parent of a player four years ago. By contrast, I’ve spent most of the past 24 hours raging at having shattered the screen on my iPhone, and officially consider myself humbled.

We have met the enemy, and he is Tony Franklin. I mean us. We knew the Auburn coaching staff was a wee bit divided during last year’s 5-7 debacle, but evidently so were the players. Why was that, you think?

“The offense had their problems and some guys started hanging their heads – just stuff of that sort,” said defensive end Antonio Coleman. “That led to a 5-7 season. It was just the little things that led to seven losses. Coach Chizik came in and corrected that; and all the guys have their heads up.”

Yeah, it was just the little things — you know, division, not having any semblance of an offense, that sort of thing. You drop off by a few hundred yards here and there, pretty soon you’re going 5-7. It happens.

Hasn’t Detroit suffered enough? With the cash-strapped Big Three automakers pulling their sponsorship of the Motor City Bowl, Little Caesar’s Pizza may be stepping into the void, meaning “We’re gonna probably be known as the Little Caesar’s Pizza, Pizza Bowl,” according to bowl co-founder George Perles. As a Birmingham resident and much-put-upon supporter of the Papajohns.com Bowl, I have but one thing to say: YOU BASTARDS. Can’t you just let us have this?!?

It beat out other mottos including “Bereft,” “Unfulfilled,” and “Empty-Feeling.” Ole Miss’s team motto going into 2009: “Unsatisfied,” taking a commanding lead in the Most Depressing Team Motto of All Time competition. Tip: If it sounds like something you’d circle on a restaurant comment card after a particularly disappointing meal, it probably shouldn’t be your team motto.

The anthem to which the Rebels will be charging into Vaught-Hemingway in ‘09.

Failure to plan means planning to fail. As for the Early Bird Award for Most Absurdly Diligent Scheduling, Oklahoma and Army have won that one in a runaway by agreeing on a home-and-home — in 2018 and 2020. Congratulations, Black Knights, on being the first D-IA program to earn a guaranteed loss in a season that won’t even begin for another nine years.

Now, you go back to doing something latently homoerotic, all right? We’ve already posted Still Life With Shirtless, Oiled Football Players and Lamborghini, the curious poster Tennessee is using to arouse . . . uh, interest in the 2009 season, or something; turns out there’s a “making of” video. Go click the link yourselves, pervs, we’re not posting that nonsense here.

File under “Up, Nowhere to Go But.” UCF offensive coordinator Charlie Taaffe is “pleased” with the improvement his team has shown heading into ‘09. Considering that the Golden Knights finished 120th out of 120 in DI-A in both total yardage and first downs, the fact that there has been improvement at all is probably reasonable grounds for pleased-ness.

Twelve-pack? Better go ahead and make that a case. Scott Wolf compiles every single college football game that will be on TV opening weekend. If you can look at this and not devise a way to remain laid out on your coach from noon straight through midnight on September 5, you’re not really trying.

Friend of the Kool-Aid man, Founding Father, poon hound extraordinaire, the man behind the quote “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” inventor, daredevil, exhibitionist, member of the Hellfire club, productive drunk, thinker, hellion, and above all, total quote machine:

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

I am in the prime of senility.

And lastly, his finest work: on why you should get with old ladies:

…because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement…

…8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!

Ben, tip of the tricorne to you, sir.

Holly is out of pocket, so this is a solo production. Extra profanity added to beef the thing up.

Drink: Applejack. So impure its colonial nickname was “essence of lockjaw.” You’re aroused, yes? Of course you are, Dangersouse. That’s why you’ll snag a bottle and mess around with it even with the risk of blindness being a real possibility (and if you’re snagging some of America’s bathtub brew answer to raki, that is probable.) Modern equivalents of applejack won’t blind you, but the taste is an unmistakable apple-ish, burly raw redneck of a taste, something you imagine would go well with a dinner of smoked bear meat after you lost your eye in a fight over a hussy’s spoiled honor.

There are a few variations on applejack cocktails, but The Marconi Wireless is the most stylish cocktail. In addition to having a badass name, it is both simple and derived from the Waldorf-Astoria’s Drink Guide. The particulars:

2/3 Applejack

1/3 Italian Vermouth

Two dashes orange bitters

On ice, down the hatch, and suddenly you’ve been hit in the face with Jersey Lightning, the same brew used to pay construction workers in colonial times.

Comestible. FRIED GODDAMN CHICKEN. So good all-caps blasphemy has to be used. Put it against the American flag, and the dead in Arlington Cemetery make an audible rustling noise as they all salute in unison. Ten hut!

Eat it with a fork and I will use mine for the only possible purpose a fork can serve around fried chicken: staking your hand to the table and taking yours from you, because you don’t deserve it. I ask you: would you have sex with someone using tongs? Yes, you would, probably, but you’re not normal, and neither is your tong-ee. Carry on.

To the remainder of those normal people who prefer the hands-on approach, just eat that shit with your hands the way Satan intended, or don’t eat it. Snobbery can’t really be applied to something so affiliated with the black and white trash communities of our fine nation; get it at Popeye’s, eat it out of the bucket from KFC, pay 18 bucks for it at Watershed in Decatur, or go to the AU and get it at the Busy Bee. It’s all varying degrees of stunned excellence, though you are allowed to have your preferences.

The sensual pleasures are limitless. There’s a vein of meat just below main layer of the breast so delicious chickens would eat it. Nay: chickens should eat it, and other chickens would forgive them for it. If there is a part of a person this delicious, I will be the first in line to eat it with bare hands and a wetnap waiting.

There’s more: nubbins of batter, just fat, salt, black pepper, and pure chicken essence bound together in little asteroids of pure ecstasy, the marrow, sucked straight from the bones, the silky connective tissue that–if you’re a pure cave person–adds another layer of pleasure when you suck it straight off the bone.

Feel no shame when you scrape the box for the last scuds of batter sitting in the bottom of the box. That’s happiness, pure sweet happiness that will kill you just as quickly as any other really good thing in life. Dig in without regret. In summary: fried chicken is fucking awesome, and if you don’t like it I will beat the shit out of you until you buy me some, you un-American shitbaggins.

Combustible. Evil Knievel Attempts to Jump The Caesar’s Palace Fountains. Qualifies as a combustible due to the small explosions you can hear in his bones as they break, and from the flaming excellence in the story behind the jump itself:

On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed his last 100 dollars on the blackjack table (which he lost), stopped by the bar and had a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesars staff, as well as two showgirls.

Then, this happened:

A feat combining attempted insurance fraud, hornswaggling network coverage out of the deal with a fake corporation, broken bones, a motorcycle, gambling away your last 100 dollars, and a guy in an American flag suit? APPROVE.

Transit: The Muppet Studebaker.

Want became “need” when I saw the painted tires for the first time.

Canon: Raising Arizona

Sexy redneck idiots seducing responsible but vulnerable women into disappointed lives, trailers, beer in cans, people who’ve done time, ranch houses and anonymous streets, the occasional bounty hunter, the quotidian surreal, oddball accents, theft, a populace bristling with weaponry, folding lawn chairs, the shameless nouveau-riche, swingers, and the beautiful importance of it all: Raising Arizona, you are my America, and far closer to documentary than fantasy than most people would like to admit.