Florida State now just gets players arrested just to remind everyone of their former glory, that halcyon time when they ruled a flaccid ACC with an iron fist and had players toddling drunkenly through the clubs of Tallahassee with impunity thanks to the diplomatic immunity afforded them by their exemption under the “Warsaw Rules.”

In lesser days now, Florida claims the twin thrones of excellence in football and in frequency of arrest, and even the ‘Noles crimes seem less energetic and creative than they once were. Preston Parker couldn’t even be bothered to stay awake for the drive-thru, much less to walk in and make trouble. Sometimes a program makes its own metaphors, and signing over the deed to Wake Forest yearly certainly qualifies as the football corollary to falling asleep while waiting on your McFlurry.

Just to remind you they’re there, Florida State football player Maurice Harris was arrested for grand theft, property crime (possession of a vehicle with altered numbers) and a traffic violation for attaching a registration and license plate not assigned to the vehicle to his car. Tomahawk Nation says getting rid of Harris would be just fine by them, though they’re particularly irked by Harris’ arrest highlighting Chuck Amato’s overblown reputation as a South Florida recruiter. Harris is Amato’s sole South Florida get in three years with the 21st century Seminoles, and has been a non-contributor thus far for the FSU defense.

That’s five points for FSU in the Fulmer Cup, which we swear will be updated in full as soon as our boardmaster gets back from his tour of the sawdust mines of lower Alabama and the Georgia Piedmont.

LSUFreek: Do you think the forehead chunk is too much?

Orson: No, no way. It’s tastefully done, and I live for forehead chunks.

Blogtoberfest! For those moments when coherence yields to ADD.

We are guaranteed to say nothing nice about you when you’re gone. Ole Miss Robert Khayat, the charitable former employer, on his former football coaches:

“David Cutcliffe’s last two years we virtually had no recruiting, no signing of people who could play,” Khayat says. “It was pretty natural to go for the person who was viewed as the best recruiter in the country. What we didn’t realize was that Ed was going to have so much difficulty coaching.”

Khayat then went on to say that his first girlfriend smelled funny down there.

Contrarians, take note! You may just want to go ahead and predict great things for South Carolina, since even out-of-conference preseason analysis has them shedding frontal lobe capacity and taking several steps down the evolutionary rungs this fall.

“Auburn’s Bigger Than Any Of Us Coaches.” Quoth Terry Bowden in this Scarbinsky piece, which may be summarized as “Gene, let it go. It’s Chinatown, where ‘Chinatown’ means ‘Auburn,’ and no one’s knocking up their daughter.” Things also bigger than Terry Bowden? Rodeo barrels, city garbage cans, and Michigan’s running backs.

SOOOOOOWEEEEE. New Arkansas blog on SBN goes live: Arkansas Expats, who hopefully can channel the state’s immensely weird fanbase without becoming paint-chip-eating mad in the process. If the gentlemen behind this are already paint-chip-eating mad, then please, proceed as normal. This being the SEC, we likely won’t notice the difference.

Okay, fine. Once a year we’ll link to a College World Series post. It may as well be Brian’s.

HOW MANY STARS? Get out the white Escalade and sign that kid, because Rivals says he’s awesome. No, I haven’t seen tape on him. But STARS STARS STARS!!! Sign ‘em, boys!

“I used to go in the coaches’ offices, and sometimes they would literally have Rivals.com up on their screen,” said Matt Shodell, who covers UM and its recruiting for CaneSport.com. “I won’t name the coaches, but they would be writing names down on pieces of paper. I don’t know how much film they were looking at.”

Larry Coker seen here with the number of Miami players taken in the 2009 NFL draft behind him.

Holy jumping hellsocks. The malaise of the Coker era may be somewhat more clearly outlined now with this, since though we used to joke about [NAME REDACTED] doing this at Florida, we had no idea someone would be ballsy-stupid enough to do what you do in video games: hunt for stars and start pressing the ‘A’ button until something happened. This clearly unearths the problem with Larry Coker: he was playing the game on Heisman level, and needed to adjust the difficulty. His kingodom for a thorough understanding of the options menu.

Also worth questioning is the general inaccuracy of recruiting rankings as a whole: if Miami really did just point and click based on star ratings, their track record of success swallowing Rivals.com’s ratings whole is not a great one. Coker’s teams went 19-19 following their loss to Ohio State in the 2002 National Title game, and ended up with declining draft numbers, an inability to compete consistently in the ACC, and the eventual firing of Coker in 2006.

It needs to be said that a lot more goes into a team than recruiting. Contrary to what an NFL scout will tell you, putting a college team on the field takes more than an ability to hypnotize athletically gifted teenagers into coming to your campus. (Thus proving again that NFL scouts are wrong about everything forever.) Coker’s staff could have struggled to develop that talent, particularly on offense, where Miami seemed unwilling to protect a quarterback at all for the better part of four years (see: Kyle Wright, who was hit 22 times in the 2004 Miami/Florida State game alone.)

The iffy results from just taking Rivals’ advice alone, though, shows how important team fit actually is to putting a player in the right spot. Maybe Tennessee wasn’t insane to tell Tajh Boyd to go elsewhere, though we doubt it, because we’re pretty sure Lane Kiffin’s just making this shit up as he goes got it all going according to plan, we mean. Yes. All according to plan.

Apologies: this took forever to put together.

NOTE: We may have killed the quiz for the moment being with traffic. Coo and say nice things to it, and maybe it’ll start working again.

This is our favorite image of all from the Stadium Sipper’s site:

Hmm…what shall we pour into the Stadium Sipper? These two Bud Lights? This Montrachet 1978 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti? 20 shots of Jager? You’re right, Ed. The Montrachet don’t go with the stadium popcorn at all. Go with the Jager, and we’ll save the wine for the cold chicken fingers at the after-tailgate.

Holly suggested taking one seat filled with Jager Jameson and Irish Cream in, and one with Guinness, and then car bombing the entire section. That would work, you’d need ten for beer and one for Jager to make it work out correctly, and who’s going to do that when you could just have twenty stadium seats full of Jager?

Another idea we wanted to foist on security would be filling the stadium seat with something entirely non-beverage related, like delicious peppered sawmill gravy or a molecular gastronomy creation like liquefied marrow. Hand it out like shots at a game (preferably an insanely hot one,) and when security comes to throw you out, calmly explain that it’s not booze, but instead is tasty homemade gravy you’re sharing with the public for free out of the kindness of your heart. They might throw you out for just being cheeky, but you could say you were tossed out for handing out free hot gravy at a 90 degree football game, and that’s something you can tell your grandkids (to disturb them, and therefore leave creepy old you alone to watch your favorite show, McGillicuddy, or “An Elderly Paul Rudd Fights Young Criminals With the Assistance of a Sassy Rapping Cyborg.”

(All that said, the deluxe kit is 40 bucks, people. Pounce, consumer!)

Bobby Bowden: (has servant hold up rotary dial phone to ear:) Ah say they-yah, hello?

Joe Paterno: Hey, Bobby. How ya feelin’, buddy?

Bowden: Spry! Just chopped some wood, actually. On my way to do some brisk calisthenics and then expand my chest for a while. How’s your leg? Hurting right now? Like the wobbly inflamed knee of a horse just seconds from the glue factory, eh?

Joe Paterno: Nah, but thanks for asking. That’s very kind. It’s feeling good enough to walk around with no problem, actually. Gonna go for a walk to the stadium in a bit, maybe drop in on my son. Who’s still coaching with me. And not fired and sucking at the drained, sagging bosom of my university.

Bowden: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you, Joe. I’m busy thumbing through these blue-chip propects to call. They’re all so fast, you just wouldn’t believe it, really. And they all want to come here. It’s warm down here, you know. That’s got to be hard on your joints, ain’t it Joe? They have to hurt you soooo in the mow-nin’, right?

Paterno: Nah, but I appreciate the concern, Bobby. Hey, look at me, I’m just talkin’ all over the place here. Just wanted to let you know that I’m real sorry to hear about the NCAA shooting down your appeal to vacate the wins. I hope this doesn’t affect our friendship, as would sit fifteen games behind me on the all-time wins list, and that’s with your wins from Samson College throw in there. (giggles)

Bowden: THAT’S SAM-FAHD, you dago sonofabitch! It’s one of the finest academic institutions in Buh-mingham, Alabama!

Paterno: I’m sure they gotta lot of ‘em. I’ll tell ‘em that when I go to my next Brown alumni meeting. Anyway, I gotta get crackin’ here. There’s stuff I gotta do, like take my vitamins, go for a walk, and enjoy the view from 15 wins ahead of you.

Bowden: I hope you trip on your momma’s dick, cripple. WE WILL RISE AGAIN!!!

Paterno: It sounded better when you said it at Gettysburg. You have a nice day, Bobby. Have 15 of them in a row, on me.

Bowden: Why I nevah!– [/click!]