Oh, they were so close to letting it slip from them, but a single incident of unpaid parking tickets qualified the USF Bulls for the Fulmer Cup team competition. That’s how teams function: even the smallest of players can, at the last moment, make a small contribution to block the extra point, open up a running lane, or get a driving on a suspended license charge to put USF into the Fulmer Cup race on a team basis, and thus nip the Hawaii Warriors in a low-scoring 18-16 tussle for the Fulmer Cup crown. Barrington was on the team and enrolled at USF at the time of the arrest, so the points stand.)

Sluggish scoring was partially to blame, but the aberration of USF’s title really comes as a tribute to the Ellis T. Jones Winner this year, Trent Pupello, the man who singlehandedly pistol-whipped USF into contention one fateful night in a parking lot. You can always blame Florida for the dubious honor of the crown, as Pupello was a transfer from Florida.

The Fulmer Cup is now closed until the cold, deathly embrace of the offseason reaches us again. Huzzah! Go in peace.

Thanks as always to Brian and SAS Wiki for keeping this going. ONE HUNDRED COCKTAILS all around.

Segway! Segue! Thing transitioning you from one topic to another!

LAST MINUTE FULMER CUPDATES

Gary Pinkel will send you to hell, child. “Future Chase Daniel” Blaine Dalton now becomes “future D-11 quarterback” with his dismissal from Missouri for an on-campus DWI. The incident is the second incident for Dalton, who was charged with driving with an open container earlier this summer. He also had a third incident where no charges were filed when pills belonging to a friend were found in his car, so three made a trend for Pinkel, who gave his qb of the future the boot from campus. (Soft boot or hard boot remains to be seen; he may be able to get back on the team with good behavior and time, but DWI with no style points (i.e. hitting a donkey, ridiculously high BAC, etc.) gets you two points in the Fulmer Cup.

Stealing Georgia’s thunder already. Oklahoma State is already attempting to pre-empt Georgia scoring, and is doing it by biting their style, too: senior DB Perrish Cox pulled a page from the Bulldog playbook by picking up a measly one-point suspended license charge in Stillwater. Let us congratulate the Dawgs, btw, on an offseason free of license-related foolishness or other driving charges. Either they hired the driving paperwork coordinator we’d always said they needed, or more likely than not someone performed an exorcism to rid the roads of the spirit of Mudcat Elmore’s car. For the 20 Georgia fans who got that reference: you’re welcome.

The Fulmer Cup ends at noon on Wednesday. If anyone’s going to rob a bank or pistol-whip an elephant, now’s the time to do these things.

South Carolina, What! South Carolina Gamecocks defensive end Clifton Geathers went to Club Ice early Sunday Morning. Why? Because Club Ice is on Lady Street, and that’s where ladies are. (That is a real photo from Club Ice, btw, and a reminder that though you may look drunk in a photo, you will look eight hundred times more drunk with redeye.)

Then Clifton Geathers got hero-drunk and did what heroes do when they’re drunk: he looked for a dragon to slay, or failing that, a security detail to scuffle with as a 6′8″, 281 pound man. EPIC MUGSHOT WIN after the jump:

Geathers got into a fight with a security guard at Club Ice, or tried to make love to a windmill. The defense will use the latter, but the former is what got the cops there and got Geathers charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness, all misdemeanors worth one point each. Tag on the requisite mugshot goodness bonus point, and South Carolina is awarded four points in the Fulmer Cup, thus making the only big move of significance on the Big Board this week. Teammate Jarvis Giles was involved in some kind of domestic disturbance on campus with a woman, but with no charges filed yet, we refrain, and simply state that the beginning of football season means couples sparring over time and attention, and sometimes that literally means “sparring couples.”

It should be mentioned that Geathers checked into jail at 5:45 a.m., and was checked out in the ten o’clock hour, and that little could feel worse than checking out of jail drunk, tired, and utterly pummeled at 10:30 on Sunday morning.

Sparring Couples, One: Alabama linebacker Courtney Upshaw was arrested for domestic violence/harassment, but so was his girlfriend, Kendall Gryzb, who was enraged at Upshaw for hoarding all those vowels in his first name while she needed them so desperately. The police report describes Gryzb getting slappy after seeing Upshaw talking to another woman, and Upshaw showing linebacker pursuit skills by following and then grabbing Gryzb by the neck from behind before pushing her down.

Dad’s not concerned, though.

After speaking with his daughter upon her release, Kendall’s father Dave Grzyb told the Press-Register that it was a “simple lovers’ quarrel altercation,” and that “I honestly think it was probably initiated by my daughter. I don’t think he laid a hand on her. He just tried to restraint her to keep from getting hit again.”

We can’t decide whether this is negligent parenting on public parade, or a tacit public acknowledgment of a daughter’s insanity when it comes to dating. Cue Auburn conspiracy theories about him being bought off, and award one point to Alabama for the misdemeanor charge.

Sparring Couples, Two. Kansas State has a remarkably similar situation with Joseph Kassavanoid and his girlfriend, who were both charged in a domestic incident. One point for K-State and their backup quarterback whose last name sounds like a pharmaceutical compound.

I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY VOICE. Auburn running back Eric Smith has an appointment with the police today on a third-degree assault charge, which he’s cooperating with fully, since he seems like he’s owning up to beating a drunken student up with his hands AND HIS MIGHTY VOCAL CORDS.

The victim did not know his attacker, according to a victim report obtained by The Opelika-Auburn News.

According to the report, the victim was assaulted in the third degree by “hands, fists, voice, etc.”

Etc is so tempting to the imagination: “Smith then beat up his victim with a taxidermed kangaroo, the abstract concept of sorrow, and the fender from a 1989 Fiero.” The misdemeanor charge gets Auburn one point in the Fulmer Cup, and breaks the streak noted in the article of Auburn players staying out of trouble, since Auburn’s last arrest was in 2007 for a minor traffic foible.

Belated charges: Vandy gets four points for the Cabbagestalk Burglaries, which sounds like the title of a discarded Jeffrey Eugenides short story, and reminds you that giants, while huge and powerful, can be caught by police if properly chased. (Justin Cabbagestalk is totally a giant’s name, and in a children’s book would have been breaking into the house to get something shiny and pretty for his tiny but devoted human-sized girlfriend.)

A few Fulmer Cupdates from the hot August home stretch on the Fulmer Cup beat. A reminder: the final day of the competition will be September 1st, with all points becoming null and void at noon. The traditional Fulmer Cup Amnesty Day of September 2nd will be observed in concert with Football’s Eve, so if you know someone looking for a day when their offenses will neither be tallied in points or reported as in-season shame, this is the day to do it. The current standings are here, but a full EDSBS Scoreboard will be up on Friday.

To the awarding of the points:

–Penn State has two boozy outstanding cases pending. Senior lineman Ako Poti decided to go-cart drunk, and substituted the go-cart portion with a car, which is illegal in all states everywhere. (Except for Arkansas, where it’s termed “breezy ridin’,” and punishable by a stern talkin’ to by the local sheriff.) Poti blew somewhere between a .10 and a .16, a formidable sum for a huge man and worthy of two points for standard and unexceptional DUI.

Penn State gets no points for recruit Glenn Carson’s drunk and disorderly, as he was not an early enrollee or on the team at the time of his arrest. He does get an appreciative nod from Joaquin Phoenix, who only hopes Carson belted out a response of “MONEY!!!” when asked any questions by the police.

–Occasional Fulmer Cup contributor Ohio University gives us nothing as grandiose as Frank Solich’s mickey-fueled DUI arrest or the punching of a police horse, but the theft of two laptops will give you four points in the Fulmer Cup: one for the misdemeanor plea deal Travis Carrie took, and three for the felony charges on the books for Corey Moncrief. Moncrief is also planning to major in criminal justice, and seems to be failing the fieldwork portion. Ironic juxtaposition, bitches! (HT: DevilGrad.)

Mangino is impressed by the teamwork. Sometimes a bar fight does wonders for team chemistry, a lesson easily picked up by watching The Replacements or any other sports movie where, in lieu of detailing the boring grind of establishing characters and chemistry, the team simply gets into a tremendous sprawling tavern melee. “When did you come together as a team, Star Playerguy?” “Well, probably when I threw that chair at a man, missed, and hit a defenseless woman in the face.” CUE SUCCESS MONTAGE AND FIVE GAME WIN STREAK IN 45 SECONDS.

Kansas reserve offensive lineman Jose Rodriguez helped his brother Cesar, a former KU lineman, remove a patron from the bar at 2 a.m. Saturday as part of their job as bouncers at the Cadillac Ranch, and must have been quite aggressive about it: both were booked for aggravated battery, giving KU three points in the Fulmer Cup for the transgression. Footage of the incident may be viewed here.

The Cadillac Ranch gets excellent reviews, by the way.

Greasy? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, VATO? [/thrown through plate glass window by huge lineman. again.]

E-i-e-i-oh. James McDonald had a beer, e-i-e-i-ho. And with this beer he had a shot, e-i-ei-oh. With a beer shot here/and a roadblock there/here’s a cop/there’s a cop/everywhere a cop cop/Two points for a DUI, E-i-e-i-D’OH.

“Go on.”

“So, what I’m telling you is that the reason there’s two champagne bottles on the floor of my car, and it’s all the fault of this bossy anime schoolgirl who was here just up until three seconds before you got here. She was…right…here…”

“Was that who you were arguing with?”

Money’s on Andre Cold Duck, but you never know. Perhaps the Bulldogs’ starting running back and senior had graduated up to Korbel, or maybe even gotten lofty enough with his taste in the bubbly to class up to Perrier-Jouet or Veuve Clicquot. Whatever the case, the disappearing anime girl who demands champagne from lonely football players strikes again, and earns Dixon three points in the Fulmer Cup, two points for the initial offense, and one point for flair in leaving the bottles on the floor of the car.

Notes, Clarifications, and Demonstrations of Poor Math Skills.

The Sargasso Sea of Chicanery. Only a lone point for Nebraska’s Tim Marlowe, the hardbitten detective who got couldn’t stand the thought of that steel hammer smoking his partner in the alley, and needed a few belts to keep that ugly picture out of his head. One measly point for them, and otherwise we’re cruising into a home stretch and waiting on the inevitable burst of points that rain down when kids return to campus for fall.

Those grim, resigned doctors you see in the movies treating mobsters’ wounds in backroom bars and abandoned meat lockers? They’re apparently in short supply in Jonesboro, where Arkansas State’s Paul Stephens had a bad, bad night:

A starting cornerback for the Arkansas State football team is in police custody, recovering from a gunshot wound to his midsection after a man said he shot an intruder trying to break into an apartment.
[...]
Red Wolves coach Steve Roberts issued a statement through Scott.

“I am aware of the situation involving Paul Stephens and continue to gather information surrounding the events that occurred this weekend,” Roberts said. “As we get more information, we will take appropriate action. We wish Paul good health and a speedy recovery from his injury.”

“Injury” doesn’t really seem to cover it, does it? “Injury” implies some degree of accident, although we suppose it’s appropriate insofar as Stephens didn’t mean to get himself shot during an attempted burglary. “A speedy recovery from his larceny.” There.

Because we sense there will be bonuses in the offing for sheer dumbassedness, points will be assessed upon the return of the Dear Leader.

Revisions, points updates, and conspiracies.

For the enlightened conspiracists out there: The Trilateral Commission decreed it, and then confirmed the call with the Elders of Zion, who then ratified the dismissal of affray charges against Janoris Jenkins with Quantum and the Gnomes of Zurich. Broadcasting the orders over special high-frequency radios through Chinese Triad contacts based in Mormon temples across the world, who then executed the orders through Mara Salvatrucha operatives with links to Opus Dei and the Carlyle Group to intimidate the judges in Alachua County to make the charges go away, debase the US Currency, and simultaneously undermine the University of Tennessee and Georgia programs while clearing the way for ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.

Either that, or there was no evidence to hold the charges any further against Jenkins. Believe whatever you like because you will, but whatever you decide don’t touch Janoris’ chain. He values it deeply. Florida now falls off the Big Board, unable to keep the torrid late pace of the summer stretch of the Fulmer Cup season.

Setting said pace: Washington State, who with the arrest of a current player and two former players on felony burglary put on the burners and stretched the team lead over Hawaii to five points. Overtaking the Cougars at this point will take a blitz of bad behavior or some Jimmy Johns-esque solo work from someone on the Big Board, as the likelihood of WSU earning more points over the summer is roughly inverse to their chances of winning more than three games this season. (Good/not good at all, fractionally speaking)

Formal point tally, btw: four points, three for the felony, and one for doing it with two former players and making it a team-building exercise.

Not one of those fun, complex DUIs. Kansas State tallies two points for DUI as offensive lineman Jeffrey Fitzgerald earns a ho-hum, almost subhumanly boring DUI:

“It was a simple DUI,” said Lt. Herb Crosby of the Riley County police. “An officer observed some erratic driving, stopped (Fitzgerald) and arrested him for DUI.”

Come on: you can’t even pique the interest of a jaded cop? No interesting zigzagging, or a chaotic but entertaining detour through a shopping mall? Or even artistic use of road flares during the arrest? You bore them, Wildcats. Entertain them. Washington State football players would.

The Battle DUI: earns two points for Arkansas, though we almost assigned a bonus point for the stupidity of earning the DUI by hitting the woofers so hard the police pulled you over for violating the local noise ordinance.

Urrbody on the street gett tipzay. One point for public intox for Iowa State, as it is defined as a one point offense under the Fulmer Cup rules, and because drunks have to walk around, too, dammit. When will our nation be as free as Cardiff, Wales? Someday soon, we hope, you puritan jackoff monkeys who insist on “sober walking” and “not passing out in the bushes.” “Again.”

Further clarification: Charges against Adam Gunn of Pitt, dropped, thus lightening Pitt’s point total by 4. Iowa’s Fat Man on A Little Bike gets three points.

Tears. Just pay tribute by peeing in the closet, and take your drawer full of keys when you go hunting or fishing, you lucky bastards. His kind shall not pass our way again.

Florida State now just gets players arrested just to remind everyone of their former glory, that halcyon time when they ruled a flaccid ACC with an iron fist and had players toddling drunkenly through the clubs of Tallahassee with impunity thanks to the diplomatic immunity afforded them by their exemption under the “Warsaw Rules.”

In lesser days now, Florida claims the twin thrones of excellence in football and in frequency of arrest, and even the ‘Noles crimes seem less energetic and creative than they once were. Preston Parker couldn’t even be bothered to stay awake for the drive-thru, much less to walk in and make trouble. Sometimes a program makes its own metaphors, and signing over the deed to Wake Forest yearly certainly qualifies as the football corollary to falling asleep while waiting on your McFlurry.

Just to remind you they’re there, Florida State football player Maurice Harris was arrested for grand theft, property crime (possession of a vehicle with altered numbers) and a traffic violation for attaching a registration and license plate not assigned to the vehicle to his car. Tomahawk Nation says getting rid of Harris would be just fine by them, though they’re particularly irked by Harris’ arrest highlighting Chuck Amato’s overblown reputation as a South Florida recruiter. Harris is Amato’s sole South Florida get in three years with the 21st century Seminoles, and has been a non-contributor thus far for the FSU defense.

That’s five points for FSU in the Fulmer Cup, which we swear will be updated in full as soon as our boardmaster gets back from his tour of the sawdust mines of lower Alabama and the Georgia Piedmont.

Come, let us eat the traditional eggrolls of my people and celebrate peace together with our tribe’s 2 for 1 daquiris.

Your appetizer: The arrests of two New Mexico football players for Fightin’ ‘n Da Club, bringing two points to the UNM Lobos and rounding out what has been a stellar beginning to the Mike Locksley era there.

The main course is the double arrest of UTEP players Daniel Palmer and Nick Sampson, who beat up a roving stereo salesman in an El Paso parking lot after one dared the other to punch the man, and then take the stereo. No, really, someone did this. It’s in print ‘n stuff.

In addition to robbing the victim, the complaint alleges that Sampson struck Aguilera-Mota after being egged on by his teammate.

“Hit him and take that,” the complaint quoted Palmer as saying.

Having missed every afterschool special ever made, Sampson allegedly did so, and now has to face the wrath of life’s keyboard cats playing the song of arrested, possibly convicted, and also possibly booted off the football team. Hit blend on that semantic blender and wait for the margarita, men:

If both are charged with theft and one with assault, that’s a minimum of nine points for the UTEP Miners, who would lose a contributor at running back and another possible contributor at safety to man’s unending thirst for fresh, free stereo equipment purchased off the back of trucks in parking lots.

Ronnie James Dio wants to bless this with his satanic powers, because it is that powerful. Go ahead, RJD.

Ah, GifParty. You never let us down. Then again, neither does Wazzou:

Tyree Toomer and LeAndre Daniels were arrested on theft and burglary charges and were immediately suspended…

Toomer and Daniels are accused of second degree burglary, residential burglary and theft in the second and third degrees.

Gadzooks, that’s quite a load of points. Burglary and theft don’t strike us as misdemeanors, meaning the standard three-point award for any felony here has to apply, but how is a really, really good question at this point. The conservative. Wazzu sits right now with nine points. Four felony charges are listed there, a grand sum of 12 points if you only count them as a lump sum, and not as two people’s charges doubled.

At the bare minimum, we’re looking at 12 Fulmer Cup points for Wazzu, and the effective Fulmer Cup lead. (USF also has 17, but all of their points from Trent Pupello’s one-man riot and pistol-whipping clinic in a bar parking lot.) If you would like to play safety at Washington State and taste the special experience of playing Dan Hawkins-approved Divison One Football, just wait until everyone in front of you is arrested, and you’ll see the field soon enough.

I-back to the Future. Nebraska picks up a single point for the negligence of I-back Quentin Castille, who failed to appear in court over a trio of missing license plate charges, and will instead be brought in on the proactive tip by the Lincoln law enforcement community for wasting the judge’s precious time. This does not count as the kind of jail experience one can brag about, sir. Gucci Mane this does not make you.

Carl Johnson, finally off the books. The points awarded to Carl Johnson and erroneously left on the books after their dismissal have been returned to the cookie jar, since the charges were dropped after a judge realized at an attorney’s urging that a man cannot break a restraining order he does not realize exists. Carl Johnson has peacefully gone back to watching his girlfriend just like the rest of you do, which is through an open window with a powerful infrared telescope.

Otherwise: The long quiet gulf of June awaits, smooth, ripple-free waters sure to be interrupted by a bar brawl on a hot evening or a Florida Gator affray charge of some sort.

Finish the drill, Maurice Neal. Okay, Coach. No matter who tells you to stop, okay? Got it coach. I mean no one’s stopping you, okay? Not even a cop with a loaded gun can keep you from making the play, right? Oh, you got no idea, coach.

From the Deseret News:

Police officers watched Neal hit a man, Martin Chacon, in the face, who then fell to the ground unconscious, according to the charges. Neal and several others then began to fight another man, Juan Hernandez, who fell to the ground. Neal then kicked Hernandez several times in the torso and head so that he lost consciousness, the charges state.

For continuing to beat people senseless despite being in the presence of a policeman finishing the drill, Neal receives two misdemeanor counts of assault and one count of failing to obey the orders of a law officer. In another interesting facet of the story, you can beat people up in front of policemen in Utah and only get a misdemeanor charge. Remember that–it could be useful one day if you’re in the mood for brawlin’ in Provo. (No caffeine or alcohol? Best belee we gone brawl.)

Total charge: Four points. Three for the charges, and one for doing it in front of a cop.

Xavier Hicks of Washington State has to be approaching some kind of new career Fulmer Cup record, recording points for the Cougars in 2005 (theft), 2007 (theft again), 2008 (assault via contact lens,)and now in 2009 for driving with a suspended license. Hicks did this last year, too, but that time he was on the way home from jail. Legends like Hicks don’t need licenses, but they do get arrested for not having them while driving.

Two points for Washington State: one for the misdemeanor, and one because it was the most consistent performer in the history of the Fulmer Cup.

We think this a lot when driving behind handicapped drivers, who rank with Ethiopian cabbies (two speeds: 15 mph or 70 mph) and old men as the world’s worst drivers by discriminatory category. We’re very sorry life has done something to you to give you the little pac-man-eating-a-seated-man on your car’s license plate, but it by no means excuses blowing through stop signs. driving ten miles under the speed limit at all times, or breezing across four lanes of traffic without using a turn signal.

Just get your shit together, stop attempting to recruit others into the handicapped drivers’ club by causing accidents, and allow us to cause our own accidents by attempting to blog and eat a Chik-Fil-A number one meal all by ourselves. (The broken bones came from a pull-up bar–just imagine what we’re capable of with a car!)

The same could be said for Arkansas defensive tackle Lavunce Askew, arrested for taking a laptop with teammate linebacker Matt Marshall. Marshall and Askew allegedly took the items from an unnamed complainant in the middle of the night. Marshall was seen returning the iPhone the following morning.Then this happened:

Askew pulled up while police were questioning Marshall, had the laptop and admitted to taking it, according to the report. He said he was going to use it for school. Askew was placed under arrest.

Oh, for school? Well, just go on your way young man no don’t I’m kidding put your hands on the hood of the car. Your shit, together it must be. That’s felony theft, and three points in the Fulmer Cup for Arkansas, who already have had a great week thanks to Ryan Mallett breaking his ring finger while lifting weights and missing summer practice.

ps. Another Arkansas “athletic” was arrested this past week, too. See excellent typo in that article for title reference.