Burn…you will burn…you will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell…

There is a special place in our blackest of hearts for Tennessee, and it is entirely personal. We don’t especially like where we’re from, mostly because it’s one of those places where ketchup is considered spicy, the slightest wrinkle of oddity is cause for grave concern, and country music of deplorable quality bubbles from its pores like congealed fat hardening on the surface of fetid stew. You like it? Great. We don’t, and that’s why we live in Atlanta, home of Adult Swim, a quiet but huge adult industry, a horde of swamp real estate investors spending money poorly, and a crumbling infrastructure and half-assedness more suitable for our tastes. Interstates are magnificent things.

We have, from birth, hated Tennessee: the indigestible-to-the-eyes shade of orange, the somnolent pre-games, the sludgy brand of football designed to eke out wins by field goals, their abuse of a fine coonhound by putting an inherently curious dog in front of 100K and daring it not to go insane with overstimulation. (Watch Smokey sometime: he is seconds away from cracking into an insane rage. We can’t blame them.)

In terms of rivalry, though, things had gone limp in recent years thanks to Urban Meyer’s superior coaching acumen, Erik Ainge’s ability to cough up a game when you most needed him to, and Tennessee’s complete inability to score points when it mattered. It felt hollow, after a while: rivalry requires a certain degree of competence on the part of your opponent, a bare minimum of respect for their inability. It is difficult to respect an opponent who lets you play the part of Dr. Manhattan: you point, they explode, and suddenly you’re the child giddily holding the magnifying glass.

This all assumes you don’t find someone to genuinely loathe on the other team. Ahem.

Like someone who’s already said how much he is going enjoy singing “Rocky Top” all night when they beat Florida in Gainesville, or someone who accused your coach of cheating in public. Don’t look at us: there’s little deep emotional bonding with Urban Meyer, since his relationship with the Florida fanbase is like that of a mob boss with his prize assassin. We pay him to eliminate people in cold cash. He does that. We exchange Christmas cards and formal handshakes. Urban Meyer is not a cuddler with anyone, as far as we know, and only prizes the sweet embrace of victory and cold vengeance.

Ask Mark Richt about that. Mark Richt is the nicest human being on the planet, a man who takes in the stray children of the world, bonds with his players in teary team meetings, and probably always leaves too much money in the Starbucks’ tip jar even though the barista simply turned, poured coffee, and then presented said coffee to you. Mark Richt is a saint walking among us, and Urban Meyer dropped a motherfucking safe on him and Georgia for dancing. Dancing. Dancing is festive, celebratory, nay, even cheeky, and Urban Meyer took that as justification to put UGA on the rack for four quarters and call timeouts at the end to prolong the agony.

Jack Warner once said of the director Raoul Walsh: “To Raoul Walsh burning down a whorehouse is a tender love scene.’ Ditto for Urban Meyer, whose deepest satisfactions as a coach have always come from the moments where he has his opponent Dexter’d up on the operating table bound and terrified. Now he, a lowly assistant who tacked up the coaching ladder from Bowling Green, to Utah, and then to Florida, faces a guy who at 34 is riding a genetic lottery win all the way to the bank and beyond, a guy who called him a cheater in the offseason riding in with an error machine at quarterback coming off a loss to UCLA at home.

We don’t think it’s going to be a blowout, since Tennessee’s defense should be quite good, and Florida hasn’t faced someone with the defensive speed of the Volunteer line. If there’s an opening though, a quivering moment where this game could turn into a complete and utter mass murder, safes are going to get dropped, and in great numbers. Never mind the fans: mind the guy they hired to take you out sitting down on the sidelines, the one with his arms folded who’ll call two extra timeouts just to watch you squirm before the clock strikes and breaks the last bone in your collective bodies. He’s the scary one.

Death…he brings death…

Holly, 7:13: And an NC State fumble that looks suspiciously like something out of Sakerlina’s playbook on a ram up the middle makes it 7-0, Gamecocks.

Holly, 7:15: And while we’re on commercial…are we alone in shaking in rage at the Chesney song that was somehow, someway, Even Fucking Worse than we all thought it could be? To thrust the absolute nadir of human existence so close to the beginning of glorious foobawseason is an act of human cruelty worthy of a visit to the Hague, WWL.

Holly, 7:20: Davis rolled over so fast after that hit it looked like he might be twitching from spinal damage. Happily not the case, merely a fine display of ACC ground speed (because he’s on the ground. UP TOP).

Holly, 7:23: I can’t believe this game isn’t taking place in Columbia with the volume of weird shit we’ve been treated to so far. A half-ass blocked ‘Pack punt results in Sakerlina ball, and fuck it, Garcia’s going downfield. Touchdown….and it’s coming back.Offensive pass interference, somehow NOT flagged by the sideline official five yards away.

Holly, 7:26: …which is how we get treated to an attempted Garcia scramble, counted as an unqualified success because he gets any positive yardage At All.

Orson, 7:28: Hey! Beamerball reference! Sean McDonough in the wild lives off low-hanging fruit. Apologies for the lateness: beer doesn’t fetch itself.

Orson, 7:35: That pass was Philip Rivers FlOOOOOOOOOOAAAT-worthy. NC State and South Carolina are living up to being the opening band that breaks a string every song and shocks the bassist to death with an improperly grounded amp.

Orson, 7:40: Shhhhh. That’s Spurrier working exclusively out of the shotgun, the thing I would like to shoot Kenny Chesney in the face with.

Orson, 7:44: Garcia hasn’t looked awful here. TFMM is giving the good advice tonight.

Orson, 7:49: I don’t want the Bowden grill. I want the Jeff Bowden grill, the one that sets everyone who touches it on fire. Also, the only beautiful football play of the night is destroyed by a penalty, the equivalent of touching the Jeff Bowden grill.

Holly, 7:55: Trying to explain Garcia love to Papa Shark. Invoking McConaugheyey. Daddy: “Who’s he play for?”

Orson, 7:57: Double comments of the night. First, Jerkwheat from the comment thread re: Craig James remark about getting a hamburger at midnight: “‘burger at midnight’ is some kind of sex code, right?” Then, Holly’s friend Fowler: “if that was a mark mangino grill, you could cook a whole pig on it”

Orson, 8:05: There you are, Spurrier-era South Carolina team! Terrible jumpy third down sack from Garcia, and a botched field goal to squander good field position? With a bouquet of frenzied panic and fizzly disappointment? We give it a 91, available for immediate drinking.

Holly, 8:12: “Mark May and Lou Holtz will join me…” That’s not a plug. It’s a warning.

Holly, 8:14: Nice of O’Brien to break out the milk-colored coaching shirts, just to remind us who we’re dealing with.

Orson, 8:14: Please note professionals at work as Craig James and Jesse Palmer both assume there is no chance Tom O’Brien isn’t playing for a field goal here.

Orson, 8:17: Time flies when you’re sucking so bad several spectators have disappeared into the vortex of mediocrity created by this game. We’re at the half. Hey, Erin Andrews! Haven’t seen her this offseason.

Orson, 8:20: Halftime break. Entertain yourself in the comments as Rece Davis gets his drama class on.

Orson: 8:22: Okay, one last thing: Dr. Lou jumping to hit the Promise made us giggle unnecessarily. Approve.

You’re on the list, now:

Award-winning country music star Kenny Chesney, known for his high-energy stadium concerts, has written a song exclusively for ESPN’s college football game and studio telecasts during Dick’s Sporting Goods Kickoff Week (Sept. 3-7) and Championship Saturday (Dec. 5) as well as select contests throughout the season and bowl games. ESPN will have the exclusive premiere of the song during its pregame show Thursday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m.

Needs editing. One moment please. [Sound of screaming, fire, steel clanging, tendons ripping.] Okay, here you go.

Shitty, meaningless Award-winning country music star prize dwarf Kenny Chesney, known for his high-energy stadium concerts lackadaisically humping the dead carcass of a long-dead musical genre pandering to humanity’s most fatuous and ignoble traits, has written a song misbegotten flaming abortion of ass-cramping tripe exclusively for ESPN’s college football game and studio telecasts during Dick’s Sporting Goods Overpriced Jockstrap Hut Kickoff Week (Sept. 3-7) and Championship Saturday (Dec. 5) as well as select cursed contests throughout the season and bowl games. ESPN will have the exclusive premiere public excretion of the song during its pregame show Thursday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m. a date that shall live in infamy as the day suck conquered the universe.

What the hell is wrong with this?

Just play that, show some people hollering, a few shots of people getting knocked the fuck out, and then Fowler/Lieutenant Beautifulpants/Corso. There! There’s your new intro, not this crapulent piece of faux-cornpone pablum the marketing people pulled from America’s Milquetoast Mecca, Nashville, the home of country music that can go fuck itself in the ear with a wolverine.

She thinks your tractor’s sexy? Bullshit. You drive a fucking Honda Odyssey to work, Sonic, Bass Pro Shops, and that’s about it. God, please: if you exist, send 1988 Steve Earle forward in time to us. We will give him a flamethrower and a suitcase filled with blacktar heroin to burn country music to the ground and make people start writing honest songs about running from the cops, drinking yourself blind, and resigning yourself to your own doomed bastardhood before a premature and giddy death.

To Sam the Eagle, the commenter who will say, “Now, now, pish-posh, this is really all too much–” That dash is you being obliterated by our army of pitbulls. Do you have any idea how many times we are going to listen to this bullshit this fall, and the next, and the next? If Kenny Chesney loved college football at this point, he would go get arrested for a crime of moral turpitude and force DisneySPN to hang back with the old standard, “We’re Coming To Your Citaaaayyyyyyy,” known in our household as “The Song That Makes Daddy Fart Pure Flames Of Rage.” That’s how far you’ve beaten us down, Bristol: we’re rooting for the return of Big and Rich, who have spent years perpetually promising to come to your city without either fulfilling the promise and allowing us to ax a little ax-dang in their chest-tang, or put a little cyanide-tink in their drink-ink.

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.

[hit play, then read on for maximum effect]

If you’re of orange-and-white extraction and a relative young’un like me, you’ve enjoyed respectable if not notable football success for most of your cognizant life. You are also threatened by change, and you may not know what to make of this young whippersnapper Kiffykins strolling the sacred halls of Neyland. He’s arrogant; he’s got a funny accent; he delivers his addresses like an under-prepared sixth-grader giving a book report, and oooohweeee, has he ever stirred up a hornets’ nest in the papers.

But here’s a fun little test. On one side of an argument are Paul Finebaum and Gregg “Greg” Doyel; on the other, Bruce Feldman and Matt Hinton. Who would you rather have in your corner?

Finebaum:
I flipped on ESPN over the weekend and heard a national commentator refer to UT’s 33-year-old football coach as “Insane Lane.” Certainly that had to make an impression on upcoming high school seniors who might be considering UT in a few months.

Doyel:
A sharper coach, one with a better feel for himself and his business, wouldn’t go out of his way to tick off the one guy in the SEC who has the players, the style and the cruelty to get even on the field.

Feldman:
…do people really think because of this, Florida is going to REALLY try and rub it in UT’s face? Meyer was going to try to blow up the scoreboard regardless.

Hinton:
So even though I have no idea how many games Kiffin’s going to win this year at Tennessee (well, I have some idea), on some level I have to think anyone able to cause rival scribes to spill this much ink and drive a usually sensible Alabaman into the arms of Al Davis before his first spring game at a school that just went 5-7 with a loss to Wyoming must be doing something right.

Look, it’s February. We’re all hurting for content. But Finebaum is clearly set on ginning up pageviews in the lean months, and Doyel is flat acting the fool. The idea that the Florida-Tennessee rivalry, in particular, isn’t operating at a full-time haterade zenith already is frankly preposterous, and while I don’t expect more from Doyel, his readers should.

And what if they’re right? I have often said that, were I not born into a through-and-through Tennessee family, I’d like to be an LSU fan. I admire their joie de vivre, their willingness to bodily threaten women and children of opposing fanbases, their sheer cussedness that is never altered by numbers on a scoreboard. We orange faithful could stand to learn from the fine example of Baton Rouge. Too long have we meandered along in (relative) gentility, content to cheer lustily when games go our way and fall dead silent when down more than a touchdown.

No more.

Brothers and sisters, it’s time to relinquish the mantle of “the Michigan of the SEC”. Let’s see some hustle in here. Let’s see some fire in those dead eyes. Let’s see us trailing the Gators, the Tide, the Dawgs by thirty or more and screaming, “THAT ALL YEW GOT??” at their nearest fans. And in the meantime, let us laugh long and proud at all the ruffled petticoats Kiffykins is leaving in his wake. His apology to Meyer was deemed half-assed and disingenuous by everyone with a hot mic? GOOD. The man is fantastic television, and for this bounty of offseason entertainment, at least, we owe him our allegiance.

He’s young. He’s inexperienced. He’s running into walls left and right, but bless his heart, he’s doing it at full speed. Would we really want it any other way? Kiffykins may very well get run out of town on a rail, but if he goes down he’s going Cossack-style, and in the meantime he’s ours. Think for a moment and name the most hated men in the SEC: Meyer. Saban. Miles. Anyone sensing a pattern here? Now rejoice, damn you, Knoxville—we done got our very own prince of darkness. Freshly hatched though he may be, I f’ing love him for it.

Vawls, our path diverges. From here on out, I’m gonna have some fun with this. (To wit: I just compared Lane Kiffin to the head coaches of Florida, Alabama, and LSU; it was not an accident, and you can go to hell and die if you think we’re not beating them all a billionty to three (and Georgia, too) at the very next opportunity. See?  I’m telling you, this is the only way to live.) I hope to see many of you spitting and hollering and damning the torpedoes from here to August and beyond. The rest of you—well, if y’all like being pantywaists so damn much, I’m sure Vandy’s bandwagon can spare a few seats by now.

Hey, play’s coming this way. Shit. Shipley? I thought these guys all played for Iowa. Maybe he’s just a black dude covered in white shoe polish. That’s gotta be it. I gotta get over here and tackle this dude, just one sec—

Quan Cosby: PUDDING POPS, MOTHERFUCKER!!!

Lendy Holmes: (sees batter-covered cellphones circling above him in the azure Dallas sky.)

Rules of engagement are written for your safety and for that of your team. By all means, enjoy yourselves.

Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So let us celebrate the struggle!