Inadvertent or not, the winnowing down of D-1 football to a Premiere League begins with the APR. Columnage hyah at the SN.

Oh, and in unrelated news, Chile knows how to throw a death-party:

Either that’s a volcano and thunderstorm going off simultaneously, or we’ve just found exclusive pictures of Nick Saban’s new office. More photos here.

Let’s not let something as base as money settle this, friends.

Dear West Virginia administrators and other flintlock-bearing Appalachian hoi-polloi,

I write this letter today in order to offer a resolution to the $4 million dollar lawsuit filed by your university against me. Most of the time I leave this to the lawyers, but an offer like the one I’m going to put out here right now requires a personal touch.

You and I both face huge legal bills due to this unfortunate misunderstanding regarding my departure from West Virginia, a place I love both as my home and as the place where we accomplished great things together as a football team.

With that, I propose an end to the acrimony not by nitpicking over money, but instead by talking about settling the dispute the old-fashioned way. Money’s a shortcut for real value, and what I propose worked for centuries in its place.

I’m talking about the noble and ancient exchange otherwise known as barter.

You wouldn’t believe how effective the practice can be! The other day, I paid my plumber not in cash, but instead with thirty signed Michigan sweatshirts. He walked away happy, and I didn’t have a guest bathroom soiled with the remnants of the prior tenants corn-heavy diet all over the place. It’s almost a metaphor for what we have here, really: shit everywhere, and you and I sitting here with the tools to make it right in our hands. How poetic!

I don’t propose paying you in sweatshirts–though this could be a lovely bonus prize for you to trade up to something like a bass boat, mobile meth lab, Hannah Montana tickets, or something else of equivalent value. The important thing with barter: I’m not reigning in your possibilities. With $4 million, you’ll only be able to get $4 million dollars worth of goods and services.

But with barter, the possibilities are endless. I traded a VHS copy of Beethoven for a pound of thumbtacks. And what do you know, but four weeks later I’m the proud owner of a new rototiller. The boundaries are limitless! I’m prepared to offer the following items in exchange for the inflexible $4 million dollars contested in the lawsuit.

One: An old ab-roller. I couldn’t use the thing without face-planting right into the carpet every time. At no extra charge, I will throw in a bag of old cedar shavings. Their fragrance has a value you can’t possibly measure in money.

Include another pic of someone giving the thumbs up. It’ll help sell it! Take this out before the final draft! God, that’s a lot of money!

Two: The collected works of Suze Orman. Really, with her help you’ll be accruing wealth in no time! She’s got lesbian money powers you can’t possibly understand until you experience them.

Three: A Sega Dreamcast. At no extra cost to you, I will also throw in an old copy of Shenmue, perhaps the most revolutionary video game of its time. I’m not really a video game player, but I got this in a trade two weeks ago for a glue gun, three pounds of frozen beef, and a large but promising piece of particle board. I cut and paste that description from a Google search, but judging from its enthusiasm, you’re probably already just three or four steps from turning that INTO YOUR VERY OWN HOUSEBOAT WITH WATER SLIDE!!!!

Please consider this offer carefully. Keep in mind, there’s no limit to what you can do with barter, the past economy of the future. If you have any questions, you can reach me via ham radio.

Operator-interns are standing by.

Hawkins needs this outfit–especially the stick.

We really, really like Dan Hawkins, though it’s the kind of like you have for your daffiest professor or most energetic neighbor who, after completing their 5:00 a.m. run and eating their carefully measured breakfast of berries, whole grains, and egg whites, comes over to your house to bring you a perfectly carved Chinese dragon he whittled out of some driftwood he just had laying around the workshop, you know.

Hawkins spoke with the John Lynch Foundation in Denver on Wednesday at a even referred to in the Rocky Mountain News as “Lynchfest,” a name we guarantee you will never see for any event in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and a number of other states. Hawkins announced not only that Colorado will win a national title, they will do it in holistic and non-apartheidish manner.

“One of my heroes is Nelson Mandela. He has a word, it’s called ubuntu. And ubuntu kind of embodies the whole mentality that we’re all in this thing together,” Hawkins told the group.

Wait, there’s this, too: Hawkins is into Linux! Internet libertarian Paultardian dorks, you have your football program chosen for you.

(HT: Matt.)

We’re finishing up a column for the SN, and need to make sure that the thing, you know, is fact-ish. The CI will be along in a moment or so.

In the meantime, please accept Noel Devine rabbit-hopping all over the field as a substitute for actual content.

HT: WBGV.

Let us praise men who, like many of us, peaked in college. Step forward, Derrick Rodgers of Arizona State: your three tackles, seven assists, one sack and safety don’t tell the story of how insanely unblockable you were against Nebraska on September 21, 1996. Watch. Tip hats. Goggle your eyes at Nebraska giving up three safeties in one game.

Pat Tillman’s back there at linebacker as well, along with Mitchell “Fright Night” Freedman, who decided to live up to his name by pursuing a post-football career in sexual assault.

Fuck you, Fulmer!

Tennessee fans’ attitude toward Phil Fulmer is much like their unique body odor: a layered, complex aroma of pungent, angry deer musk, sweet cinnamon bun odors from breakfast, the smoky country ham odor from lunch, and the angry bite of moonshine on the breath from the liquid dinner. It’s hard to discern whether Tennessee fans are done with him and waiting for something better to come along, affectionate towards him because of the past, or stuck in a muddled, hammy mix of the two.

Except for this gentleman, of course.

A Signal Mountain man is facing an obscenity charge after displaying a sign on his car.

A sheriff’s deputy who made the arrest said Jeremy Boyd Eaker, 20, of 7717 Sawyer Pike, had a sign reading: “F— you, Fulmer.”

The newspaper, because they filter reality into soft little edgeless nuggets for the fire-god-fearing mouthbreathing mer-tards who make up 72% of humanity, could not type the word “Fuck.” That’s just a guess: we would not be surprised if “F—” would get you arrested in Tennessee. Either way, we’ll start a defense fund for the guy if you like us to. One paypal account against oppression at a time, internet soldiers. If a gentleman can’t put a crude, handpainted sign telling a football coach to go ride porkpole in his front yard, then what do we live and die for, dammit?

A young recruit walks off the field from spring practice somewhere in the Sun Belt. Two men in black approach him.

Come with me, young man.

Man in black one: Son, please come with us. Coach Nick Saban of the Crimson Tide would like to not have a word with you, virtually speaking.

Man in black two: It will only not take fifteen minutes or so.

Recruit: Um, he can’t leave, right? That’s in the new rules. He’s not…

Fear creeps into his voice. He looks left, right, waiting for an unseen eavesdropper who never appears.

RECRUIT: He’s not…here, is he?

MIB1: Not in one way of speaking.

MIB2: And yes, in another way of speaking.

MIB1: He is everywhere and nowhere all at once. Remember this. (more…)

We have a confession to make: inside our heart, there’s malice. And, hopefully, blood. And, if you look hard enough, a pang of regret because we made a bet this weekend that came back to haunt us. No, it did not involve gay sex, $137,329.93 in unmarked bills, and Marvin Harrison’s gun. No, we bet on a horse in the Kentucky Derby–and Kanu will be happy to corroborate this–and came damn close to picking the upset special.

Oh, look: here’s a picture of how that all turned out!

Yes, that was EDSBS’ horse.

We bet on Eight Belles to win, and our confidence in the horse and proxy bet of ten American dollars resulted in a horse getting aced on the track, a horrified throng of fans weeping openly, and NBC directors hanging themselves in the booth trying to balance the horror of a dying thousand pound animal on the track with the need to mention YUM! foods and you know, the really happy people who actually won the race.

In short: we have powers. We didn’t ask for them, but they’ve been given to us. Further evidence follows of our sadiM touch, the misfortune passing things we interact with casually, in list form.

Summer 1990: We go to our first concert: Stevie Ray Vaughn and Joe Cocker. In August of 1990, Vaughn dies in a helicopter crash. Shortly thereafter Cocker is found dead from an autoerotic asphyxiation.*

1999: We go to Nepal; shortly thereafter, the Prince goes nuts, kills the whole family, and the country is seized by a Maoist insurrection.

2008: We cover the SEC basketball championship. A tornado hits the Georgia Dome.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re not a scientist, but if that isn’t a trend we don’t know what is. Clearly, our very interest in something decrepifies it instantly. Therefore, we ask: how should we best focus our malicious energies this fall? A few suggestions we have pop into mind:

Wagering that Florida State will win the national title. And continuing to wish Bobby Bowden success in the glorious last victory through the ACC!

Betting on Bobby Petrino to finish almost the entire season as head coach at Arkansas. Really, he’s like a tree now, roots and all.

Taking a fifteen dollar prop bet on Ohio State to get to the national title game versus a five loss SEC team and lose.

How else should we use these unintentionally harmful powers of ours? Besides betting on the Florida defense to definitely give up over 330 yards of passing a game again? Let us know in the comments. Seriously: we’ll take donations NOT to bet on your team to do anything substantial. The effect is real: just ask South Carolina, who got crazyfaced with last year before watching them wallow in mediocrity in an impressive second-half slide.

*Or is still alive. Who’s got time to look?

EDSBS Live will be postponed until Thursday because Peter’s being given a little chi-chi by law school. in the meantime, you will have to settle for Kige Ramsey’s best coaches of all time. Try not to get your mind blown.

Bowden over the Bear? Fatwa, Tide fans! A fatwa must be proclaimed!

The NCAA released the APR today, the Academic Progress Report, the NCAA’s opportunity to seize the spotlight and do what it does best: issue press releases.

The NCAA’s Academic Performance Program (APP) is creating positive behavioral change among Division I institutions, according to new four-year data released May 6.

The multi-year Academic Progress Rate (APR) data – with four years of data collection available for the first time – show upward trends in several categories, especially from 2005-06 to 2006-07.

GET DOWN, PARTY PEOPLE! GET DOWN!

We’re still digging through the data for this year, made even more fun by the NCAA’s propensity for releasing a press release on one page, a commentary on another, a spreadsheet here, a comprehensive list hosted on a Russian Military server and only accessible via several hours of white-knuckle hackery. Fortunately, the Indy Star has them all compiled nicely for you so you can revel in the uproarious ironies of a system where the University of Florida’s football team is on par with the United States Military Academy’s team in academic performance, and where Eastern Kentucky pwnz them both.

In the meantime, the only penalties of any relevance to college football go to Kansas and Washington State, who will suffer scholarship losses due to underwhelming APR scores. NCAA, beware: Mark Mangino will have his real estate agent call you to voice his displeasure with your metrics!

Former Georgia Tech qb Joe Hamilton just joined the Yellow Jacket coaching staff to assist young players in adjusting to life. And as all great leaders do, Lil’ Joe leads by his own example.

A former Georgia Tech quarterback, just hired to help football players adjust to campus life, was arrested for driving under the influence, possession of marijuana, open container and hit and run on Tuesday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Ever elusive, Hamilton dodged the first hit before campus police pulled him over and got him to admit the hit and run, along with emptying the car and finding the weed and open container combination. The things we love most about this:

One: That he was hired to help kids adjust to college life. Um, TOP SCORE!, Joe.

Two: When people take weed and an open container with them. There’s a very American mentality to it: if I can sit in my living room and utilize a luxury, it should therefore be able to come in the car with me, be it television, booze, weed, my XBox, television…all of it can go mobile, baby. We encourage the trend: the deep-fryer between the seats, the Wii in the dashboard, and especially the mobile meth lab.

Um, wait. Perhaps that’s not such a good idea after all. Baton Rouge, stand up! We mean, duck.

Joe Hamilton: Mobile and explosive, like a meth lab.

This week’s big board only appears unchanged: Washington State makes a spectacular score in some post-incident charge juggling, a correction noted in the regular notes, corrections, and etcetera below. The board is provided, as always, by Brian, who is hung like Reggie F’n Nelson.

Washington State’s Andy Roof may have put Wazzou on the board for good thanks to his ability not just to punch people at parties, but also to break their bones while doing it. The Cougars already sat at a good, solid five points thanks to some contact lens sabotage and beery legerdemain.

Andy Roof’s original head-butting offense was given one point for piddly charges, but that may have changed in a drastic manner:

But the police investigation is pointing to alleged crimes more serious than misdemeanor fourth-degree assault. An assault that results in broken bones usually merits a felony second-degree charge, Tennant said.

“Our investigation is criminal in the fact, ‘Did Andy Roof hit this person and how much damage did he cause this person?’ ” Tennant said.

Broken bones in a fight mean likely and various felony charges for Roof. Conservatively, let’s go ahead and estimate two felony charges of assault at the minimum put Roof’s incident at a six-pointer, meaning WSU climbs to a count of eleven–and that’s if we don’t “reward” Roof with a bonus point for not only punching someone completely unprovoked, but also for smashing someone’s face into a stop sign.

Other than that: relative quiet. Two former Mississippi State players will be charged in a shooting incident, meaning we may have to award some retroactive points for the crime. (Croom did boot them, but they were players at the time, and therefore the charges and awarded points stand. Exeunt the EDSBS legal staff…) This quote mystifies us:

“I did make a terrible decision,” said Wesley. “I didn’t use the brain God gave me. I used what the devil gave me.”

A golden fiddle? A stunning goatee? The gift of knowledge? Or like the only great scene in Bedazzled, a life as a Colombian drug dealer complete with assassins in pursuit and a hot mistress? For the record, we never saw what was bad about that whole setup.

(Thanks as always to the SAS Wiki Fulmer Cup board for keeping us straight on scoring. We need all the help we can get.)