Worried about the Big 10’s recent habit of face-planting in high-profile out-of-conference games? Jim Delany isn’t:

“In any particular time frame, could be three years, could be five years, could be two years, you could get your ass kicked, OK?” Delany continued. “It can happen. We’re not playing Little Sisters of the Poor. We’re playing the best football teams in their region.

“So were we 1-6 (in bowl games) last year? Yeah. Were we 0-6 in the BCS in the last (three years)? We were. Those are the facts. But take me from 2000 or 1997 to 2005; I remember when Michigan played Ohio State [in 2006]. We were the toast of the town, one versus two, game of the century.”

Jim Delany’s not too worried about it, really. He wouldn’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. He’s not worried at all.

Sounds like a reasonably nonchalant response to the issue, even if, as Doc Saturday humbly points out, it’s a problem that isn’t likely to resolve itself this season no matter what Delany says. For all the criticism we’ve heaped on the Big 10 commissioner over the past couple years, he sounds like a guy who takes a level-headed, matter-of-fact approach to problems instead of panicking, which is the kind of trait you’d want in not only a conference commish but also . . . an advice columnist:

Dear Big 10 Commish,
My husband and I have three children: a son who is in college and two daughters, a 16-year-old and a 10-year-old. My older daughter was an A student all through elementary and middle school, but her grades have deteriorated markedly since she started high school. She has a boyfriend now and has been spending a lot more time with him and his clique of friends, and a lot less time studying or helping out around the house; she hasn’t been particularly combative toward me or my husband, but that’s mainly because we hardly ever see her at all. A couple weeks ago I found what looked like the remnants of a marijuana cigarette on our back patio; I asked her if she knew anything about it and she said she didn’t, and that she had never tried marijuana or any other drugs. Can I trust her? Is it time for me to put my foot down and make her stop spending as much time with her boyfriend, or will that only drive her further away?
Concerned Mother in Battle Creek

(more…)

You will get tired of hearing his name, especially when ABC begins to pump its Big 12 lineup starting in October and you start looking LIVE at Brent Musburger’s face-plant into the Big 12 South schedule. This won’t be Colt McCoy’s fault at all, because he’s quite good, and guilty only of that and playing for a high profile team and probable national title contender (along with perennial stiff-armed trophy candidate, if you care about that sort of thing.)

Ahhh, Colt McCoy, WHATTAPLAYA: Prepare for a Musburgering unseen since Maurice Clarett and his lint roller rolled through the dirty streets of Columbus.

To alleviate this problem ahead of time, we offer up 29 alternate names for Colt McCoy. See? You’ve heard the name so many times you don’t even realize how outrageously fake his name really is: part firearm, horse, and Scottish, with just a hint of prominent car dealership owner and porn star thrown in. You let it trip off your tongue like it doesn’t reek of Walker, Texas Ranger script without even noticing, so used to the absurdity of it are you.

It’s a shame repetition bleeds the novelty out of even the weirdest things, but it happens. Therefore, college football fans, we present the Official Alternative But Equivalent Names for Colt McCoy for 2009.

Horse O’Shy
McClain Dudeflinch
Bear Canebreak
Python Smith
Hawk Cantanker
Magnum O’Reilly
Snake Triscuit
Patterson O’Buffalochickentender (more…)

Please, Coach Richt. Sit down. Would you like a pillow? You would? That couch is awfully firm, I know. Yes, it probably would hurt your back if you slept on it. Ouch! What sleep number are you? A 27, you say? They go that high? Wow. You are a man of refined and delicate tastes, sir!

So I’m here to discuss the Florida Georgia game with you. That game in Jacksonville, yes. So you want it moved? Right? Because it’s…hot. Oh, you mean in this room, too? Yes, it’s somewhere around 75 degrees in here. You require an exact temperature of 74 degrees in order to not wilt? Really? Well, sure I guess we can do something about that. There, adjusted it for you. Gonna make it? Sure?

Okay! Let’s talk. You want to move the game to Atlanta because it’s hotter in Jacksonville, and because going to Jacksonville isn’t really playing at a neutral spot. (more…)

A shaded shed on the grounds of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Shane Matthews, former Gator quarterback and radio commentator, wakes to find himself bound to a backboard. ALBERT THE ALLIGATOR stares at him.

Matthews: Wha…what happened?

Albert: …

Matthews: I was having a beer at the Copper Monkey one second, and then…nothing. I just want–

Albert: (Raises a finger to his lips. Um, the place where his jaws come together. Whatever that is. There.)

Matthews: What do you want from me?

Enter URBAN MEYER.

Meyer: Shane, I only want you to do what is required of you. (more…)

Christopher Hitchens was paid $45,000 for one night’s work in Miami for the 2009 BCS National Title game by ESPN’s Page 2. The piece was judged unusable, and has not seen the light of day…until now. Enjoy.

It is a notable coincidence of history to watch both Oklahoma and Florida tussle tonight on the same date that Abdul-Aziz-Ibn-Saud, puppeted Bedouin thug, murderer, tyrant, and happy patsy for the post-1900 colonial proxy octopus, named him self king of Hejaz, a barren waste of sand and camels invented on the spot and renamed “Saudi Arabia.” (A humble piece of nomenclature, that.)

[/guzzles entire bottle of sherry, tells crowd below pressbox to "fuck you.".]

Like the tyrant who conjured a territory whole from the aether, so have we on this field two imaginary kingdoms wrenched forth from geographic oblivion. (more…)

You…you’re probably not high enough to watch this video. Too bad, because we now imagine this playing in Lane Kiffin’s head on a perpetual loop as he totes his huge, white, cartoon-paneled head through the bowels of Neyland Stadium.

He likes to coach. Teh futbawl.

We have an unhealthy obsession with the inflatable secondary mascot for Nebraska, “Li’l Red.” Sometimes he does his little palsied “dead-girl-from-The Ring” into a wormhole located in a cornfield in Nebraska and journeys through time. Because we live in a universe of infinite worlds all existing at once, he falls through it differently everytime. Here’s one.

(Index along in a moment.)

In part three of Jim Tressel’s Vacation, a.k.a. Where in the World is Carmen, OhioSanDiego: A cheap, weathered envelope sits in the mailbox in Ohio. It is covered with numerous inscrutable postmarks. Inside it is a simple postcard and a photograph.

Front:

Back: (more…)

A phone rings in a large, darkened house in Ohio. A worried looking woman picks up the phone.

Woman: Hello?

Man’s voice on bad, third-world connection: Hey, honey. It’s Jim.

Woman: Jim…just tell me you’ll be home soon.

Man’s voice: Oh, sure sweetie. But you know I have to do this every year, and I have to do it alone.

Woman: I know…I just worry.

Man’s voice: Don’t worry about me, sweetie. Say hello to the poodles for me.

Woman: I love you, Jim.

Man’s voice: Oh, pooky, I love you too. See you in ten days.

[he hangs up. The wind howls indifferently outside.]

SCENE: The high plains on the Bamiyan Plateau, Afghanistan. Desolation. An encampment of tents surrounds a single well on the blighted landscape. SHEIKH MASOOD reads from the Chinese menu in his hand.

MASOOD: There’s no way they will deliver us our food out here.

Enter Masood’s second-in-command, AHMAD PASHTO.

PASHTO: But they promised delivery, no matter our location?

MASOOD: We shall wait another three days, and then cancel our credit cards.

A loud uproar goes up behind them. (more…)

“Ah, I remember that game. I watched that, probably on some barstool somewhere…”

–Pam Ward, re: the “Snow Bowl” Independence Bowl in 2000, during the ESPN broadcast last night of the 2008 Independence Bowl.

SCENE: Tricky Jane’s Bar, Tampa, Florida. PAM WARD sits on a barstool. Sarah McLachlan’s “Adia” plays in the background. PAM smokes a cigarette to the butt, and stubs it out in an ashtray.

Barkeep: Some game we got here, eh?

Pam: Yup. Some game.

Barkeep: Doesn’t snow like that in Shreveport very often, does it? (more…)