Prone. PRONE!!! I don’t have a whistle, I just say whistle. Ball. Come on: Ball! stick-OUT! (From USCRipsIt, which does a little more each day to explain why USC gets every single recruit they so much as blink at.)

NOTE! BRENNAN WANTS YOU TO LISTEN TO EDSBS LIVE! Right here! With Kyle King, who’s gonna tell us why the Dawgs are gonna lose to USC in the title game! We love you all! At 9:00 EST here!

DOUBLE NOTE! Might want to check out Brennan’s Wikipedia page. A screencap follows, because you know they’re going to axe it in a matter of minutes after this.

Patrick is doing the quality work we couldn’t do over at Thirty Five Seconds. We’re especially fond of this.

Our piece on things the NFL combine should test for is up over at the Sporting News, and if you take nothing else from it, it should be this: Deangelo Hall’s episode of Cribs is the gold standard by which all other NFLers’ Cribs experience should be measured. That is, until D-Mac gets the signing bonus and two months with a decorator.

Like that, but a house.

1. We’re full-time at the Sporting News now, and will be contributing two college football-related pieces or so a week over there in addition to appearing on Chris Mottram’s The Sporting Blog on a daily basis. We are also busy convincing them to send us to China on the cheap, and that the Chinese police will take bribes to let you into exclusive Olympic athletic events without jailing you at least 56% of the time you attempt it.

2. This will not impact EDSBS, which remains independent and Swindle-owned. In fact, the SN gig allows us to write full-time, meaning the pace of posting, so often dented by work and other nonsense, should remain constant at the worst. It will also not impact our fondness for profanity, so shove that notion sideways up your fucking ass, shit-tard.

3. The Swindle Industries family (dysfunctional and haphazard, just like yours) welcomes its first new member to the family: thirtyfiveseconds.com, our stab at a college basketball blog. Irishoutsider and Unsilent Majority will be bringing you only the finest of college basketball hearsay and analysis, along with lots of pictures of basketball players’ hair and mockery thereof. Other writers will make appearances, ourselves included, as you would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not think March Madness wasn’t worth paying attention to, and we only fit two-thirds of that bill.

4. Do you have a male relative you can’t talk to, relate to, or even sit in the same room with for longer than three minutes? Do you have to purchase a gift for them this Christmas? Of course you do, and of course you don’t know what to get them…until now.

Available at Amazon or out of the back of our trunk. We’ll be at Buddy’s at North Ave. and N. Highland selling them along with some fine electronic merchandise we found on the side of the road. Ah, the bounty of the concrete seas, all yours for rock-bottom prices!

Give the man a monkey. And his 4 million dollars.

“According to the win, I’m undervalued by 97 percent of what I should be paid,” said Weatherbie, who earns a mere $130,000 as the coach of the Warhawks. “I’m looking forward to being paid what I’m truly owed and living out one of my lifelong dreams: buying a monkey, and then training it to smoke and drink beer.”

ULM had no formal statement in response to Weatherbie’s demands, but off-the-record sources were quoted as saying that “there was no fucking way” they could pay Weatherbie’s new salary, citing the fact that “paying almost one-tenth of our total budget to a 5-6 football coach would be completely fucking insane.”

Weatherbie, though, is confident something could be worked out. “Perhaps they could sell some land or something. I don’t know. Have a bake sale. Charlie wants his monkey, and it’s time to give him some bananas for all his hard work. Tell the sob stories to my agent, pencilnecks. Bananas, motherfuckers.”

Weatherbie’s not the only one making cash from the hash of the Crimson Tide’s loss. With Saban’s wage skewing all coaching salaries, agents are rushing to the gates to demand audiences with ADs across the nation.

“It’s criminal that with six wins and a likely defeat in the Iron Bowl to come, my client is skimping along on $1.5 million dollars a year,” said Kyle Torvald, agent for Kansas coach Mark Mangino. “At the very least, the going rate for a win on a mere 4 million dollars a year as Alabama’s paying would take Mark Mangino up to $8 million a year, enough to pay for the pangolin flesh and whole pickled beluga whales that fuel his championship gameplanning.”

Torvald paused, and looked pointedly at the back of the room where Kansas AD Lew Perkins stood. He then said, “And if Kansas doesn’t want to put quality lye-infused whalemeat on Mark Mangino’s bloodstained sideboard of victory, we’re sure someone else will.”

The inflationary effect still “pales in comparison to what most CEOs make,” says economist Kevin Bridesworthy of the Brookings Institute, “but it’s catching up.”

“Soon we’ll see coaches begin to make demands they previously couldn’t dream of: sedan chairs, private brothels, payment in bricks of platinum, stacks of euros, private jets, you name it. They’re gonna have it,” says Bridesworthy, who also pointed out that Saban, building on his own contract’s record-setting salary, could reasonably expect to renegotiate his own contract in the coming months to reach a $10-12 million dollar level on salary based on the overall increase.

The other form could even include custom luxury goods in the form of dedicated staff to manage the whims and likes of coaches. Les Miles’ pending contract at Michigan includes an office stocked with its own private taffy-making machine and taffymakers on staff. When asked about the deal, Miles had no comment besides, “Mmmm, taffy.”

Weatherbie’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, is giddy with anticipation. “Certainly, the Saban deal establishes a level more in line with a coach’s actual value to an organization. But it’s really just a start. My client clearly is just as capable of going 6-6 as someone making 4 million dollars a year; why not reward him thusly?” asks Sexton, who also represents Nick Saban and negotiated the original $4 million dollar deal with Alabama.

And while the salary race is set to begin, Weatherbie’s already living the dream.

“I really don’t care where they get the money. I just want that monkey. He’s gonna be funny as shit, right? Beer in his hand, cigarette in the other. Maybe I’ll teach him to get me beer out of the fridge, or even blow the whistle during practice. Man, this is…this is just gonna be awesome.”

Coach Dennis Franchione here, and believe what you’re hearing–I am willing to accept a buyout. In fact, I’m excited about accepting this buyout and all it has to offer me.

Remember, though, that here at Texas A&M my staff and I have done nothing but fight for the best every single day. We believe in–caps for championship emphasis–HOLDING THE ROPE, day in and day out for the Aggie Nation. And that’s just what I’m gonna do here in this negotiation. The hands? Mine. The metaphorical rope? That’s your dicks, gentlemen.

What have I got to hold your balls to your ceremonial bonfire, sirs?

Well, I sold hot dogs on campus from a cart near the Agricultural Science buildings for the past three years. I was clearing 2600 a month on that thing, and that’s with what, like, 20 hours of labor a week? Shit, with this coaching thing going and the email newsletter I was up to my ears in loot.

I bought a new Camry. With cash, guys! That’s just how good things were!

Anyway, I never got a license and bought my dogs across the border from my close friend Antonio, a Mexican gentleman who sold warm meats out of his trunk. I don’t even know what kind of meat they were, but Coach Fran’s Giggin’ Weenies sold like crack on a cheap bun one you put a little mustard on them and put ol’ coach behind the steamer.

But then someone got a hold of a fishy dog, and got sick. How sick? I’ll be frank with you: they got very sick. So sick they almost paid the ultimate price: paralysis, a fate worse than death. Imagine it, being trapped in your own body like a prisoner in reeking, fleshy cage! A living hell, I bet.

Not, this kid got off easier than that–he died. And when his family thought of going to public health, suing the university, and ruining my reputation along with that of Antonio the warm meat merchant and lastly this fine university, I wouldn’t accept it. So I had a brief talk with his surviving family and offered them forty dollars and an autographed Dennis Franchione HOLD THE ROPE T-SHIRT for their silence and forgiveness. It’s very important to establish trust with those around you, and I genuinely sought to do that.

I was shocked when they refused. Oh, they made a lot of ruckus when I set the house on fire. Whew, and they got even louder when I started firing! But it was for the greater good and after enough screaming and carrying on and hours of me chasing them all through the woods, I think they understand where I’m coming from, and what I’m trying to teach here. I think we’ve all come through this even closer than when we started, and I’ve generously paid for their hotel room while they begin to rebuild the lives they once knew before I destroyed them.

Anyway, the really serious part is the hot dog license without a permit, which could be a fine of up to hundreds of dollars here. If you don’t want the Bryan and College Station Health Department on you like a bag of barking hammers, you better give Coach Fran what he wants. You don’t know hell until you’ve gotten a kitchen inspection from them. For a mere $2 million dollars, that’s what you can avoid. Your choice, friends. Choose wisely.

Oh, what better time to be facing a team with the potential to beat you by 70: Texas A&M will be going into their matchup against Texas Tech with self-reported violations chasing them after a press conference today regarding the exclusive newsletter sold by Dennis Franchione to a select group of boosters for $1,200 a year.

Aggie officials ordered the shutdown of CoachFran.com and “admonished” Coach Fran this morning in the press conference. In case you’re reaching for the thesaurus right now, never mind. Just put on a straw hat, a fake handlebar mustache, and waggle your finger firmly at yourself in the mirror while calling your reflection “a scandalous rapscallion scamp of a tramp’s son!” That’s admonishment, and one can only hope the meeting between Franchione and officials took place in exactly this manner.

The emails are now out, and in scoping through them the Harold Hill shenanigans of Franchione’s weekly game preps are detailed lovingly by the actual author of the emails, Mike McKenzie, Franchione’s longtime assistant and one of the guys who helped get Mike Price $22 million dollars from Sports Illustrated. Our favorite thus far involves a group of Rangers staging a mock abduction in the middle of a team meeting.

…two of the Rangers burst into the room portraying terrorists bearing (wooden fake) weapons. They “captured” Scott in front of the group and tied him up and blindfolded him, while the others held the players hostage. They were loud and chaotic and maniacal. Everyone was mesmerized.

Then suddenly, eight other Rangers in full field dress, as the good guys, sprang into the room’s three entrances and overpowered the terrorists, freed Scott, and secured the room. Their exercise started with a bang–a fake gas bomb (a balloon they exploded) that certainly got everyone’s attention.

Coach Fran loves commandos! He promised he’d kill you last…BUT HE LIED.

It’s Medieval Times every day with Dennis Franchione! Live performances! Stunning surprises! Pat Benatar playing in the back room! With showstopping skills like this, Franchione’s success as a future mogul in Branson, Missouri is guaranteed.

Seriously: he’s fried? Toast? Done, right? May we assume the Tuberville, Gruden, and other rumors may begin in earnest? And that with Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Missouri still on the schedule, the only commando raids happening in the Aggie locker room will be from hired guns doing boosters’ bidding and doing a little extraordinary rendition on Fran? He could be in a Syrian prison by November at this rate. EXCELSIOR!!!

Pirates tend to have a raunchy sense of humor and should, what with all the wenching and pillaging of booty. Euphemisms make for romance! Remember that they both essentially mean robbery and rape, mind you, which is why real pirates are total assholes who don’t wear eyepatches and who do carry RPGs when they plunder Taiwanese freighters off the Horn of Africa.

(Seriously: vigilance, reader. Pirates are everywhere. Be aware.)

We remain fond of the fake variety, though, especially the ones in Lubbock who attend Mike Leach’s Pirate School. Oh, and they make festive t-shirts, too, like the one cocked up for this week’s game against Texas A&M. Did you know that, in addition to making huge bonfires, grabbing their balls in unison, and participating in complex group cheers, the Aggies have a collie as a mascot. Why? Because Lassie’s no commie, dammit, unlike that liberal pinko Alger Hiss of a dog, Rin Tin Tin.

FYI: We actually got an advance copy of this t-shirt from Dennis Franchione last Thursday. He’ll send you next week’s rival t-shirts for just twelve hundred dollars a year. You say crazy, but who was pimping this shirt on Saturday in Baton Rouge? Only Dennis Franchione’s official 145th best friend, yours truly, according to his Facebook page. We can feel the envy from here.

Why, yes, they’re leaking right now, thank you very much.

8. Dennis Franchione is under so much pressure his teats leak condensed milk constantly. (This usually requires some firm pressure with a gloved hand. Food safety starts with you!)

7. Up to fifty thousand people to attend, the second largest gathering that night in Miami and the largest not involving muscular chickens with razors strapped to their ankles. Wait, there’s a Mets/Marlins game? Okay, third largest, and second largest without the death chickens, okay?

6. Stephen McGee, dual threat quarterback, finally embodies all that A&M fans truly want in a quarterback: tough, fast, able to run the option, and white.

5. Aggie Corps of Cadets could be mistaken for immigration officials, causing thousands in stands to flee in panic.

4. Aggie Corps of Cadets could be mistaken for DEA officers, causing thousands in stands to flee in panic.

3. Aggie Corps of Cadets could be mistaken for Russian Tax Police, causing thousands in stands to flee in panic.

2. Kyle Wright is starting tonight, and will save the groundskeeping crew time and effort by trimming the grass one underthrown ball at a time.

1. 270 pound Jorvorskie Lane will score a diving touchdown. Sadly, the impact will shatter the limestone bedrock of Miami, spoiling the Florida Aquifer and making the city unsafe for human habitation. Unsurprisingly, no one living in Miami will notice this.

For the record, as long as they both play like they did on Saturday, we don’t care if they’re wearing muscle shirts and PVC pants and doing the gayboy two-step to Crystal Waters on the sidelines in between chugging Cosmos. 59-20 is fabulous no matter who you’re kissing. After Saturday, the least we owe Tebow is a kiss on the cheek, which he’d never demand.

Now, Grossman? He’d be holding his balls and demanding a harem. That’s just what the Sex Cannon did and does, baby.

(If you want the actual story on the emotional journey of Tony Joiner without the irony, click here, or watch Joiner interact on family night in last week’s ESPN fluff piece here. )

By the way, if you’re looking for ESPN video on Florida’s victory…you won’t find any. It doesn’t exist on ESPN and their video page, just as the potentially epic Florida/LSU game won’t be make Gameday, either, as ABC owns the rights to the Red River Shootout that same Saturday. Michael Eisner says this is not the game you’re looking for (this is not the game we’re looking for…)

And now, my stunning version of “Hustlin’” by Rick Ross.

First he’s busy ramming the Big Ten Network (The BTN, which looks like “Bitten”) through the mouthroofs of cable providers everywhere. Brian’s got a fascinating piece of actual journalism (shock faint revive wow!) on the process from the cable providers’ perspective, which in person seems ever so reasonable and fair: cable providers don’t think the slate of games the Bitten would be putting on is deserving of a sports niche outside of basic cable.

They instead want the Bitten to be classified as a “regional sports network,” much like CSS here in the greater Southeast. Here we begin to see some real regional deviation: part of the brouhaha surrounding this is that the Big Ten has fought for making this a premium channel due to regional interest, even with a substandard slate of games.

Lost in this is the consumer voice, which we’re guessing is uniformly against paying any more than they have to to see second-tier Big Ten games on an expensive channel. It’s money–people hate to spend it if they don’t have to.

Now transfer this to the South, where we know for a fact that die hard Alabama fans would phone in all variety of nefarious threats to get a game on television. Serious, horrible threats. We imagine this very conversation happening by region:

Comcast Customer Support: Hello?

AIF: You’re damn right I will. (Goes, immediately writes letter and mails.)

And this exchange from hundreds of miles south:

CCS: Hello?

ALSUF: I WILL SET YOUR CAT ON FIRE AND THROW IT INTO A VAT OF KEROSENE I HAVE IMMERSED YOUR ENTIRE DAMN HOUSE INTO WOMAN GIMME MAH FOOTBAW!!!

Youuuu did whut?

Secondly, Delany’s floating the expansion of the Big Televen to twelve teams after they “build value” in the existing brand. Possible snags include Syracuse and Rutgers, though Rutgers seems like the more obvious grab thanks to the proximity to the all-important ESPN sports scrotum in Bristol. (Though Syracuse’s basketball value is not to be denied as a strong attractor here.)

With that change, the Big Ten goes from being slightly off as an eleven team conference to being drastically misnamed as a 12 name conferences. We now suggest the following replacements for the name “Big Ten” for no fee whatsoever:

–The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Big Ten by Douglas Adams.

–Off Tackle Right: The Conference

–The Big 12. Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em sue. We’ll see who’s more “twelve” than the other.

–El Grande Diez! Massive potential outreach in growing Latin demographic.

–Tha Bigg 10+6-4. Reachout to urban demographic is undeniable.

–The Billy Ocean Conference. Why the hell not? That shit is smooooooth. And it’s not like he’s using the name. Listen to “Suddenly” and try to deny the silky sounds of a conference with that name.

–“The SEC.” Will help nail down those pesky national title game slots in years with multiple one-loss teams. Also interchangeable with “The Pac-10.”

Corso Orange Rating, July ‘07: Yam-colored.

From Senior Theology and Media Correspondent Jebus H. Christ:

Right off the bat I’m wondering where Chris Fowler is? Are The Great Outdoor games this week? So as his first act as host of the show Rece Davis runs over to the Grambling State Band and clumsily tries to whip them into a frenzy and they completely ignore him. You got served!

Back over to Corso and Herbie. The whole time Corso talks, Herbie stares at him with a glazed expression… why is that look familiar?
It’s the same look David Schwimmer had on his face when he played opposite Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm’s version of The Producers. Corso is Max Bialystock! Wow, these guys are electric…

Thanks for having me. Today I’m supposed to talk about…what was it again? It’s so hard to remember things sometimes. That’s why I write everything down in my Palm Pilot. It’s what NFL coaches do to make it in the men’s league that is the NFL. The league full of hard, tough, oiled- to-the-seams-in-glistening-nude-glory men.

Guest columnist Merrill Hoge wears those sweatbands under every outfit he owns.

And with a tap of my thingy here: POP! Media. I’m supposed to talk about the media and college football. I played college football once for a team. I may not remember what team it was for, but we were men. Hard, glorious men playing a man’s game. And that’s why we at ESPN are covering it even more than we did before with a new weekly show.

Jesus, couldn’t Fowler have done this? No, he’s out on vacation. Hey! Fowler just sent me an email. I’ll share his:

Hey, Hoge! Waiting in line at Borders for Potter book. Third in line! Wanna copy?

And here’s my response:

Hey, wizard-fag! Trip on my dick then suck on it. Love, Merrill.

So what were we talking about? Wait, hold on, reminder coming in on this thing. It says “Synergistic promo for ESPN College Gameday Show with unknown website. Thank you for helping ESPN get viral!” What the fuck are they talking about? If they wanna get viral, they’ve got it. I mean, Irvin’s just down the hall, man. He’s as viral as they come.

A leader in the field of viral marketing.

Wait…they mean that new shit with Rece Davis at 3:30? They don’t need help. They’re going up against The Bavarian Rape games on FoxSports or some shit. No one watches that.

Where the hell am I? This shelf says “Steelers v. Miami, 1990.” Never heard of either of ‘em. I must be way back in this place.

BOOP! I hate this shit. “Reminder: Segments to include a roundtable discussion on what it is like to coach at Notre Dame with current coach Charlie Weis, and former Notre Dame coaches Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz with Brent Musburger moderating, and “Senior Thesis” will follow several top senior players through a personal video diary they document exclusively for College Football Live.”

Who gives a rat’s ass? Am I supposed to call some glogger or whatever the hell it is and talk to them? They think Major Harris is a great quarterback. Just look at him. He may look hard. But he’s not hard enough. I don’t care what the Titans do with him, he’s never going to be the kind of veiny, iron-clad, throbbing kind of hard that hard men need to be to play in the NFL.

Man. I’m sweating and feel all tingly. That’s disturbing. Where the hell am I? What’s this tape? Gary Miller/Shelley Smith New Orleans ‘91? That must be one hell of a boxing match. I think I might be in a tight spot here if I can’t find water. If only I had one of those Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling around. They’d bust me through that cinderblock wall and have me back in the studio in no time flat. God, they were hot.

So they’ve got this show, and they’re doing more football, blah blah. Meanwhile ol’ Hogey’s on the real network: ESPN News. I’m all over that. Watch it because that’s what men do when they’re not stuck waiting for some loser-ass who never played football with real, hard, rippling musclemen in the NFL. They’ll never know the joy I felt playing for that team I played for. Whatever their name was, I’m sure they were awesome. And hard.

Holy Christ! Is that a skeleton nailed to the wall? Nametag says “G. Easterbrook.” Never heard of him, but that is fucked-up shit right there. I’ve really got to find my way out of here. Whatever my name is.

Merrill Hoge is an announcer for ESPN and former announcer for the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling. He is currently hoping to find his way out of the ESPN Game Tape Labyrinth by early August.

During the season there were rumors of friction between the head coach and defensive coordinator.

Hey! You excited and improving over there?

…fueling our hypothesis is that Okruch has a potential job waiting at Northwestern and and/or tired of [NAME REDACTED]’s endless pawing of his defenses. [NAME REDACTED]’s time at Florida was marked by a refusal to delegate to assistants, even in the most crucial of situations. Charlie Strong, a hyperaggressive DC, watched his defenses fall back into soft zones in the second half with doomed, eventually blown leads; Ed Zaunbrecher, offensive coordinator, watched as [NAME REDACTED] called for a double reverse pass to end Florida’s potential comeback in the 2003 Capital One bowl against Michigan, placing the ball in poor Vernell Brown’s hands to win it with Rex Grossman running a pass route downfield.

(We’re very sorry about that hole in the drywall, Mom. If it makes you feel better, we just put a matching one in our own wall just remembering that game. Happy kitties make the rage go away, happy kitties make the rage go away…)

Yayyyyyyy happy kitties not 2003 Outback Bowl BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD AARRRRGGHHH!!!!

If we’re in on this hand of blogger’s bluff, we guess Okruch tired of the second-guessing micromanagement and took a hike to “explore other career options,” leaving Illinois with two co-dcs with exactly no experience as DCs at the college level. This means [NAME REDACTED] now will attempt to mold the defense into a facsimile of his masterfully forgiving 2001 Saints defense. This means putting drywall repairman on speed dial, Illinois fans. Now.

The preliminary, subject to all edits, clarifications, admissions of complete brain spasm:

1. USC. No cracks. Just none: USC remains a smooth, creaseless facade of sheer talent with brilliant coaches pulling the levers, ensuring that anyone with half a tank of rationality will pick them at number one. This is also the obvious pick, too, which is sad but true for those of us who really love to make the contrarian’s pick.

The Tony Robbins of football continues to inspire with excellence and synergistic practices, you angels, you.

The wobbliest piece of USC’s American Quilt of Talented Angels–we’re sure Pete Carroll calls it something like that, as opposed to the old Cartesian oppression of “depth chart”–is at wide receiver, but even there the term “wobbly” remains, well, wobbly since Vidal Hazelton and Patrick Turner fit the mold of unmanageable USC receivers: tall, fast enough, good route runners with balletic skills to bring down balls in coverage.

Defensively, Carroll continues to run a pro defense in college garb. The worst they’ve looked was against Football Jesus, and that was, after all, Football Jesus. (Praise his name!) Brian Cushing has all the makings of (backhanded compliment coming) a great college-only linebacker, and Sedrick Ellis can probably already begin writing generous checks based on the credit of a fat pro contract he’ll receive for being huge, fast, and fond of playing defensive tackle.

They play in a league that, with the exception of Oregon State, has shown little ability to catch USC and bring them back to the peleton. Throw in a road game against Nebraska and Notre Dame, two teams they still outclass in terms of talent, facilities, and coaching Q, and USC is an easy, easy, easy pick.

The skeptic interjects: Last season, far from a clean slate for USC, showed several deep cracks in the veneer of invulnerability, especially in terms of offensive output. The loss to UCLA seems potentially terrifying given how manhandled the USC offense truly was, especially on the corners where smaller, seemingly less talented cornerbacks owned USC’s wideouts. Booty’s more turnover prone than his predecessors, and the departure of Steve Sarkisian Lane Kiffin prior to the 2006 season did take something of USC’s offensive prowess away. (God damn you, tasty and free Bud Light.–ed.)

2. Michigan. Holy, gobsmacked hell, what in the living daylights is Michigan doing here? A team that lost its bowl game by mucho when its defense couldn’t figure out USC’s innovative “throw long to Dwayne Jarrett” attack, a team that couldn’t stop Ohio State from heaving its waterboy across the goal line in their rivalry game, a team that when the chips were down showed all the creativity of Futurama’s Bender minus his brain when confronted with a problem in a big game (”I am Mike Debord, please insert QB Waggle.”)…why here?

Michigan as Bender? It’s a comparison we should expand on…

A cakey road schedule helps, as does the siren song of returning starters Mike Hart, Chad “Average Michigan White Guy qb Mark XIV” Henne, and Mario Manningham. On defense they’ve got Alan Branch and Lamar Woodley to replace, but otherwise will plug holes systematically as they have been wont to do during Carr’s tenure. If this is a sucker’s pick, it won’t be exposed for many weeks after an early season matchup with Oregon at home, or at least not until the Ohio State game, which by all accounts Michigan should win, but won’t.

The skeptic interjects: Forecasting off the schedule izz dumm–Florida was supposed to have no shot with a 5.15 grade schedule last year, and yet somehow ended up by luck in the national title game with one loss. The Big Ten, like any really competitive league, tends to handicap itself in the national title race by pulling ambitious crabs back into the bucket of teams with at least one loss. And, as always, Michigan’s problems begin and end with one word: Sweatervest.

The eleventh-ranked google image result for “sweatervest,” and problem number one for Michigan.

3. West Virginia. Overranked? Sure, but if you’re gonna go, go out in flames atop the 12 cylinder Dodge Tomahawk that is the West Virginia offense and its counterpart, the wildly unpredictable Texas Hold ‘em game that is their 3-3-5 defense. Pat White, Steve Slaton, Darius Reynaud, freshman Noel Devine…all weapons in the hand of the (just one more metaphor and we’ll stop, we swear) four-armed Goro that is Rich Rodriguez’s offense. Frankly, we have to walk away from the computer for a moment to calm down.

(Punches wall, screams. Returns.)

The Mountaineers’ offense: Goro wins.

The schedule’s nice and easy, the defense will…well, whiskey-cranked WVU fans will just have to pray they hold serve a few times. This team remains the most pure fun to watch period, as evidenced beautifully by their bowl game versus Georgia Tech. Even when down 35-17 in the third, we didn’t doubt for a second they would at least threaten to win within a margin of three points or so, and for two very good reasons:

1. It’s West Virginia, and
2. Chan Gailey was coaching on the other sideline.

Their biggest rival is undergoing a change in management (Louisville), and a quick eyeballing of the schedule looks relatively bump-free. We say: Vroom, vroom, y’all.

The skeptic would like to have a word with you. Despite having a linebacker named John Holmes, little suggests West Virginia will achieve consistent penetration and stop playing roulette on defense, scoring huge on one spin of the dial and then losing it all on the next hand. The skeptic would like to have a word with himself, please Even with the disastrous performance versus Louisville, however, they still placed 28th overall in the nation…not elite, but still very good, and well beyond the “holding serve” criteria.