Jim Delany of the Big Ten, normally referred to around here as “dikfase” (SEC grad, sorry,can’t spell but that won’t surprise you, right Jim?) has numerous irons in the fire at the moment.

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.”

Our instant senior correspondents are filing their reports to ESPN’s new “College Football Live.” We’ll post them as we get them, since we’re stuck being employed. Viva la cut and paste! The only consensus we can see after one show: Lee Corso is waxing orange at an alarming pace.

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…

Joining us in our rotating Friday Media Critic spot: Merrill Hoge, ESPN commentator and concussion sufferer, joining us as he tries to find his way out of the ESPN Jaworski Honorary Edge NFL Matchup Tape Archives.

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? (more…)

Illinois defensive coordinator Vince Okruch has left the Illinois football program on “temporary leave of absence for personal reasons,” meaning [NAME REDACTED] has to promote Dan Disch and Curt Mallory to co-defensive coordinators for the Illini. “Personal reasons” is as specific as any comment or press release gets on the matter–it could be anything, really: alien possession, persistent case of scabies, Guillain-Barre syndrome, leaving to get that real estate license he always craved…unless you lock onto this key bit from Chicago Sports:

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.

Again, what you’re about to read is straight foolishness. But at least we admit that.

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. (more…)

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, already embroiled in a public spat with Comcast over the fees for shoehorning the Big Ten Network into Comcast’s monolith of programming, hasn’t let the controversy slow down his ambitious plans for expanding the domain of the Big Ten.

Even in the face of Congressional scrutiny, Delany’s plans to forge ahead with the hardball tactics that have made him a lightning rod for controversy in the world of college football. This includes the bold initiative to stuff the Big Ten network with all kinds of Big Ten related programming, including women’s sports, a negotiating point that escalated tensions between Comcast and the Big Ten when Comcast referred to “second and third-tier sports,” language Delany demanded an apology for in a press release. (Comcast refused.)

Most controversial–and potentially humiliating for Delany–is his proposed “Leave a Dollar, Leave a Dollar” campaign designed to exploit “unrealized value” in the Big Ten’s name.

“We realize that as America’s number one sports conference, our name has real value as a brand,” said Delany at a Wednesday morning press conference. “So we’re asking that when you say the words Big Ten in a sentence—you simply drop in a dollar into the conveniently located Big Ten Jars of Excellence around your area.” Delany paused in the middle of the sentence, pulling a dollar out of his billfold and placing it into the jar.

Delany: asking you to leave a dollar, or leave a dollar. Illustrations by House Rock Built.

Delany tried to silence critics of the plan by claiming they were out of step with today’s street culture. “We’ve done the research, (more…)

Your Fulmer Cup scoreboard for the week of May 14th finds things awfully quiet on the Fulmer Cup…too quiet, if you ask us….

Note follows–not notes, but note. That’s how quiet it is.

Notes, errata, and apologies.

Eastern Carolina needs some points for next week for the strange arrest of their defensive line coach Donnie Thompson. Thompson, now the former defensive line coach, falsified $11,000 in expense reports during what he calls recruiting. Given ECU’s 69th ranked recruiting class, Thompson should have falsified a few thousand more in expenses. It should be mentioned that East Carolina did fire him for this.

Three points for stealing from your employer and being a less-than-outstanding role model for your players. Though you certainly get an ‘A’ for effort in the recruiting department, Donnie. The dancers of Greenville thank you for your efforts.

Thanks to eagle-eyed tipster Dave, we may now proudly report that the Texas A&M Aggies celebrated their ten win 2006 season this past Saturday by winning their tenth and final game in 2007.

On the Aggie site it’s been fixed, but on the internet shameful petty mistakes live forever. Aggie football: it’s officially FRANTASTIC!!!!

Ten wins, baby!