Notes follow. We blame reality.

Rank	Team
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Texas
4	Houston
5	Boise State
6	Ohio State
7	Virginia Tech
8	Oregon
9	Cincinnati
10	Iowa
11	Oklahoma
12	Southern Cal
13	Miami (Florida)
14	Oklahoma State
15	Penn State
16	California
17	TCU
18	LSU
19	UCLA
20	Auburn
21	Kansas
22	Georgia
23	South Carolina
24	Mississippi
25	Minnesota

This was so much easier before people actually knew shit. Before you say a word: this is wacky, week-to-week voting with a hint of correction for perceived talent level, potential, and past performance. You know who’s not going to stick around most likely? Houston, Boise, and Oregon, because Houston and Boise will be dragged down by the mediocre competition they play, and because Oregon will follow up a carpet-bombing of Cal by having their star corner get de-kneed and blowing an easy Pac-10 game. Re: Oregon? You play one highly ranked team and lose on the road and then dishumilatinate the highest ranked team in your conference, you get perks. Re: Houston? Big 12 South wins should count just as much in September as they do in November, when the Big 12 gets their annual run in the polls off conference play. It’s a trick of the calendar at this point not to credit them.

The rest: Is a bloody mess. Where the hell do you put Iowa, other than above Penn State and below Ohio State, who would probably beat them in a 6-2 horror show leaving non-Big Ten fans holding their own eyeballs in hand at the end in order to ensure they could never watch such football horror ever again. USC is off the boards in terms of solid betting thanks to offensive woes, Miami and OK State are erratic, Penn State looked atrocious, there’s a knot of SEC teams at the bottom you can untangle if you’ve got three months of conference play, and GODDAMN THIS MADNESS.

Pretty sure Minnesota’s a rock-solid 25, though.

The Ole Miss lockerroom in Columbia, SC, Thursday, September 24th just prior to kickoff. There is the sound of a church organ humming from an indistinct spot somewhere in the locker room.

HOUSTON NUTT enters surrounded by a choir of African-American ladies.

Count Giggity: GIGGITAH, REBELS!!!

Rebels team: GIGGITAH!!!!

Count Giggity: MY CHILDREN WHAT A BLOTARKUS BANGFANGLED GAME WE HAVE IN FRONT OF US!!! GIGGITAH!!!

Rebels tea: GIGGITAH!!!

Jevan Snead leans over to Dexter McCluster.

Snead: Any idea what that means yet?

McCluster: No. I don’t understand a word this magnificent, addled genius ever says. (more…)

If you’re an SEC fan of a certain vintage, you probably have vivid memories of former Kentucky head coach Hal Mumme: looked like Ted Danson’s awkward younger brother, called plays like a desperate bizarro-world Steve Spurrier, and was characterized by the near-constant presence of a jaunty neck towel that had to have been perpetually sodden with the floppiest of flop sweats. His four-year tenure at UK read like the Cliffs Notes version of a Scorsese mafia epic — lifted the Wildcats up out of decades-long obscurity to only their third back-to-back bowl appearances in program history, but painted this veneer of success on a rickety structure of malfeasance and staff infighting, and flamed out in the third act as player payments were exposed and the ‘Cats were pile-driven into 2-9 embarrassment. Mumme is now the head coach at Division III McMurry University, which currently does not have a name or mascot for any of its athletic teams as a result of the NCAA striking down its former nickname, the Indians, on the basis that it could be seen as offensive to Native Americans.

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.

The U.S. House of Representatives certainly has never had a shortage of complete nutcakes, but ever since former Rep. Tom Osborne (R-NE) declined to run for re-election in 2006 (in favor of an ultimately unsuccessful run for governor), it has been regrettably short on former coaching legends. According to the Orlando Sentinel, though, next year the House may have a shot at bolstering its numbers in both categories: Former Notre Dame head coach and current ESPN talking/babbling head Lou Holtz has been talking to national Republican leaders about the possibility of running against incumbent Rep. Suzanne Kosmas for the Congressional seat representing Florida’s 24th district. Granted, there’s probably a case to be made that Holtz couldn’t be that much worse than must of the fruit cups currently representing us on Capitol Hill, but the mere concept remains so intensely, willfully surreal on its face that there can only be one possible purpose for it: grooming a suitably bonkers running mate for Sarah Palin’s inevitable 2012 presidential campaign.

Palin/Holtz ‘12: In your heart, you know it’d be hilarious.

What kind of a representative/VP would Sweet Lou be? Well, we already know he’d be a big fat no on the Kyoto Protocols. If his continuing close relationship with Notre Dame is any indication, we can also assume he’d swing solidly to the right on all the hot-button social issues — abortion, euthanasia, the right of Michigan and Ohio State fans to intermarry, that sort of thing. As far as clues from his actual coaching career, we can assume he’d be dedicated to building a strong national defense, but that he’d also follow a fairly strict non-interventionist policy (unless you can find any evidence that his South Carolina teams mounted any offense whatsoever). As far as we’re concerned, the wild card here is health care: If he’s going to run as a Republican, the obvious assumption is that he’s against Obama’s health-care proposal, but you have take into account his unclear stance on drug benefits and his casual distribution of advice (as a “Doctor” on ESPN) that was, at best, quasi-solicited — there’s a possibility he’d be down for a lot more government involvement there than the GOP would like. (All together now: MAVERICK!)

As for potential appointments or staff members, it’s probably early to be speculating on those as well, but one name seems like a pretty safe bet: Beano Cook as assistant for national security affairs, the Scooter Libby to Lou’s Dick Cheney? Yeah, you laugh now. Just see if he doesn’t.

Sir Stanley: Gentlemen! I seek philosophical entertainment!

Elrick, Duke of Necessity: Certainly. Today’s fox: What is sexy? Discuss!

Sir Stanley: Why sir, I had no idea you would play right into my hands! In my studies of the colonies and their primitive yet exotic derivative of our own culture, I have come across one thing they do excel at: the iconography of the sexy. I attribute to their mongrel blood, as they are too close to the base passions that rule us all, and therefore incapable of escaping it in the fine Alpine tower of reason as we do.

Elrick: Quite. But you have diverged from our path of inquiry, have you not?

Sir Stanley: So easily lost in the thorns, Elrick, and yet a nose away from the rose! Not at all, Elrick. For instance, I will show you using an experiment of PURE SCIENCE what sexy is. A sample from the colonies I believe you’ll find especially compelling. I will apply the following picture, a sample of pure sex, to the following array of items arranged on that table over there. Are you prepared, Elrick?

Elrick, Duke of Necessity: As ever, friend. Experiment away.

(more…)

A crowded church in Oxford, Mississippi. The slow sizzle of tambourines and magisterial rumble of a church organ roil in the background. A choir stands waving its hands heavenward in the air.

PASTOR HOUSTON NUTT approaches the podium.

Nutt: MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!! CAN AH GET A GIGGITY!!!

Assembly: Giggity!

Nutt: Ah said…..(smiles, pauses, looks up at the rafters…) CAN YA GIVE THE LORD A GIGGI-TAH!!!

Assembly: GIGGITY!!!

Nutt: Now let’s sing it out…HOW MANY TIMES DID THE LORD BLESS US?

Choir: THREE!!!!

Nutt: And a what— (more…)

Houston Nutt, professional coach. This is only marginally about him, but the picture is too good not to lead with here. Thanks: J.

The current turnover total for Florida on the year: zero, a number instructive for those of us kvetching and kvelling about the offense thus far, and its lack of Krakatoa-like eruptions a la 2008. The Gainesville Sun, a.k.a. Pravda: Swamp Cabbage Edition, addresses those concerns in typically sunny but timely fashion below. Warning: corrected to do away with the plague of one sentence paragraphs.

The Gators are the only team in the nation with zero turnovers.UF is one of only five teams in the nation that has not trailed at any point in the season. The Gators lead the SEC in total defense (213.0 yards a game), scoring offense (37.3 points a game), kickoff returns, punt returns and punting. The special teams have scored 14 points, only five shy of opposing offenses. Opposing offenses have not started a single drive on Florida’s side of the 50.

So, in short: they haven’t been good yet because they haven’t had to be good? A sobering thought if you, like us, are wondering if and when they’re pressed to actually score points, and if they will be able to do so. To be perfectly frank about the offense for Florida thus far, it still looks like a live dress rehearsal that someone accidentally sold tickets for: Miami was the audition for receivers (Louis Murphy, come on down,) while Tennessee was the audition for running backs (Emmanuel Moody, 55 yards on nine whole carries! Cue rain of frogs.)

Ole Miss and Arkansas probably won’t test this ongoing dry run on the field for the Florida offense; in fact, Ole Miss makes a particularly disastrous matchup with Florida, and not in a sense of pending Florida doom because Ole Miss is last in time of possession in the conference, and it’s not because they’re scoring scads of points in flashes. Then again, consider the next worst team in terms of time of possession: Florida. Stats are fun, and endlessly misleading!

P.S.: Houston Nutt in crazier than a sack of rabid weasels.

One time, I was trying to fix the HVAC in my house. I like to fix things because my father liked to fix things. One time he fixed a sick goat by throwing it off the roof of the house during an electrical storm. It hit the ground and stopped moving.

Fixed. Giggity.

I asked my father if the goat was “fixed,” and he said, “Son, ain’t nothing in this world that can fix a cantankerous goat or a laudanum-sippin’ woman. Except by violently throwing them off the roof.” That’s why I like to fix things.

[stares, attempts to spellbind audience.]

6.022 × 10 to the 23rd power. That’s Avocado’s Number.

[empty stares]

GIGGITY! (more…)

And I like to WIN.

Houston Nutt story number one. Please read all of these in a voice triangulated somewhere between Bill Clinton and George Bush’s, and remember that for proper effect you should point and attempt to spellbind someone while doing it.

Tale One:

Houston Nutt is speaking to an assembled group of Ole Miss boosters. Someone mentions Enrique Davis, the late switcheroo commit from Auburn who opted for the Rebels late this year. Nutt answers thusly.

You know what I like about Enrickey?

(LONG DRAMATIC PAUSE. SPELLBINDING STARE. THUMB FIST POINT.)

He’s FAST.

Tale Two:

Nutt is at his first major meeting with Ole Miss types. He’s relating a story about his upbringing hanging out with deaf kids. (Nutt Sr. was a coach at the Arkansas School for the Deaf.) No one’s really sure where this whole thing is going.

When I was a kid, I’d go out and play with the other kids, who were deaf. There was an African American on that field, a Hispanic on the field, a Native American on the field…it didn’t matter what you were or who you were, just as long as you could sign and communicate.

(LONG DRAMATIC PAUSE. SPELLBINDING STARE. THUMB FIST POINT.)

…And I like to WIN! (APPLAUSE.)

The N in Nutt officially stands for “Non Sequitur.”