If you’ve devoured Michael Lewis’s endlessly fascinating The Blind Side (as we have) and followed the amusing updates of cameos by Saban, the Orgeron, et al in the upcoming film adaptation (ditto), then you’ve probably been waiting with bated breath for the film’s wide release in November. If that’s the case, then Chris Mottram is going to throw some very cold water on those dreams, for he’s got the film’s trailer up over at Mr. Irrelevant, and . . . well, see for yourself:

Got that? Did you count up all the things that looked wrong? Good, now check the answer key after the jump and let’s see how you did: (more…)

During one of our post-SEC-media-days evening wind-downs, I overheard our fearless leader Orson, in a telephone trash-talk exchange with one of our illustrious Big XII partisans, describe Big XII Media Days as “the second guy in a DP scene” compared to the SEC. If that’s the case, then Pac-10 Media Day must be the guy holding the boom mike, as evidenced by this mob scene (courtesy of Scott Wolf from Inside USC) from new Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott’s podium appearance last Thursday:

PRESEEZUN BUZZ: UR DOIN IT WRONG. Seriously, Pac-10, that is bush. In the interest of a more literary comparison, if SEC Media Days is “Animal House” — a lot of shenanigans go on, nobody really learns anything, but nobody gets hurt — then Pac-10 Media Day (yup, that’s Day, singular) is the equivalent of a Tom Stoppard play: very low-key and dignified, a lot of people talk for what seems like a very long time, but in the end nothing happens.

As further evidence of just how much Scott’s appearance fizzled, Oregon coach Chip Kelly brought the house down, comparatively speaking, with his explanation of how his spread offense relates to the Pythagorean theorem. (As someone who counts finagling his way out of AP Calculus in high school as one of his life’s greatest victories, I find this inconceivable: Math?!? In college football? Too complicated! FIRE BAD!) Even Dennis Erickson’s interview with Fanster.com was positively vanilla (not to mention barely audible), with Erickson offering up nary a story about golf carts, volcanoes, drunken sexual shenanigans in the Far East, or any of the other things for which you’d bother to listen to such an interview in the first place.

Meanwhile, even Big XII Media Days gave fans more excitement in a single tattoo on Brandon Carter’s skull than the Pac-10 had in an entire day. Clearly, Pac-10, you guys need an adrenaline shot, but we, the SEC, are willing to provide it. How ’bout we loan Clay Travis out to you for future Media Days, just to liven things up a bit? Once you’ve watched Aaron Corp field the question of whether he’s saving himself for marriage, your eyes will be opened to a whole new world of possibilities.

Sometimes human behavior can be easily programmed and predicted. To save time, we’re encoding college football internet commenters by school. Notre Dame fans, we’ll save you the trouble by alerting you that BUTTHURT is present, skip to step 50 and proceed.

PROGRAM CODE “NotreDameCommenter@aol.com”

IF “notre dame” PLUS “EDSBS” THEN “mandatory philbinpic.jpg” NOT “Deadspin”=”Gay_Brady_Quinn.jpg

10 INPUT: “Notre Dame”

20 IF (Mention of ND) Then (EXAMINE FOR SIGNS OF BUTTHURT)

30 IF (Mention of ND)=(lack of BUTTHURT minus FLATTERY) then SKIP TO 50

40 IF (BUTTHURT=PRESENT) then NEXT

50 RUN “BUNKER MENTALITY” NEXT

60 Type COMMENT 1=(accusations of jealousy) + (citations of past glory you had nothing to do with)

70 IF COMMENT 1 clash (malfunction RIPOSTE) THEN NEXT

80 RUN “WILLINGHAM EXCUSE” NEXT

90 IF “WILLINGHAM EXCUSE” clash (malfunction timeframe expired) THEN REPEAT

100 If REPEAT = (clash malfunction) RUN “IMPENDING SUCCESS” NEXT

110 “IMPENDING SUCCESS”= type (”Signs of improvement”) + (”highly touted recruiting classes”) + (”Get your shots in now”) NEXT

120 REPEAT IN LOOP

130 If 120=FAIL Then RUN “ACADEMIC EXCUSE”

140 “ACADEMIC EXCUSE”=(”We’re smart and you’ll work for us someday.”) REPEAT

140 END

Is USF Coach Jim Leavitt aware you can’t give game balls to journalists? Is the journo in question aware Jim Leavitt may extend his arm to you not to shake your hand, but to rip your shoulder out of socket and the joint and thus teach you a lesson in taking nothing for granted, because though you may be maimed you still have full range of motion in one arm, and isn’t life about making the best of your current situation? Is Leavitt wearing pants?

This really is nothing when it comes to Jim Leavitt being animated in front of a camera, since you don’t build something from nothing without the ability to at least scare everyone in a 1000 foot radius with a glance. Leavitt’s man-fear-smell-emitting glands may have had as much of an effect on attendance as USF’s disappointing 7-4 season: attendance was down this year for the Bulls overall. Expect to see Leavitt standing on the corner of Dale Mabry with a sign advertising tickets…while selling a few Sunday St. Pete Times, too. Leavitt’s a hustler like that.

(HT: The Wiz.)

Disappointment has a flavor, and it is orange and black peanut candy, the BBB rated subprime mortgage of candy flavors, a lubeless hand job you get from a lackluster date on the couch, the sad realization that at your current age you do not possess a flying car both because they do not exist and you could not afford one even if they did, walking across the finish line of a race eighteen minutes off your usual pace…the moment when you order sherbet from the ice cream man of life and he gleefully scoops up a mushroom-shaped heap of the shit flavor and plops it in a freshly baked waffle cone.

The recipients thus far of the shit-flavored sherbet of sadness thus far in ascending degrees of disappointment, beginning with number five and counting down:

5. Christmas/Georgia.

Christmas is disappointing. You get together with your family, half of whom are too busy gagging larvae full of food to talk, the other half engaged in proving you right in your suspicion that your “shared DNA bond” is comparable in effect to the 95 percent of DNA shared with chimps. And like your chimp brethren, you feel capable of ripping their arms off without a moment’s thought from time to time.

Georgia’s season peaked on paper: a preseason number one that, once the ball was snapped, fell into good status thanks to injuries on the offensive and defensive line. (more…)