NARRATOR (V/O): You’re watching “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong.” Percy Harvin was one of the most talented athletes in college football history: A five-foot, eleven-inch receiver out of Virginia Beach, he broke records as an all-purpose offensive player for the University of Florida, totaling 32 career touchdowns and helping to revolutionize the role of the wide receiver in the modern-day spread offense. He was drafted in the first round by the Minnesota Vikings and signed a five-year contract worth more than $14 million.

Scene: A classroom in a Florida high school. A dozen or so high-school football players are seated at the desks; PERCY HARVIN, flanked by the high-schoolers’ coaches as well as some of his own former coaches, stands behind a podium at the front of the room.

NARRATOR (V/O): Harvin had a speaking engagement at a high school in Florida to tell some potential Florida recruits about his time at the university and how it prepared him for the NFL, when one of the students asked him a fairly innocuous question.

STUDENT 1: So, like, I know the football program at Florida is one of the best in the nation, but what’s it like outside of football? Do they let you go off and have any fun?

NARRATOR (V/O): As one of Florida’s biggest stars, Harvin was used to making public appearances and giving pat, innocuous answers to the media about practice or upcoming games. As an NFL player no longer bound by the athletic department’s strict rules, however, he felt he had the freedom to talk more candidly about his time as a college student, particularly if it might help “sell” the university to an interested youngster. In other words, Harvin decided to “keep it real.”

HARVIN: Oh, hell, man, Gainesville is a blast. Let me tell you something, brother, high as the football program is ridin’ these days, people on campus know you play ball, you are the king. There ain’t nothing you can’t do down there: Go to bars, go clubbin’ until four in the morning, and the girls — good lord. They jump on you the minute you walk in the door, I mean, if you wake up in the morning and you got less than six girls in your bedroom, you weren’t even trying, son.

FLORIDA COACH (hurriedly): Yes, well, there’s time for socializing and everything, but the strongest bonds you make as a Gator are with your teammates, wouldn’t you say, Percy?

HARVIN: Oh, no doubt. Me and the guys, if we didn’t go out we’d just sit up in someone’s apartment, firing up jays and drinking and playing XBox — man, have you ever played 2K9 on weed? It’s hilarious! Me and Brandon Spikes were going up against each other one night, and he was acting the fool and –

STUDENT 2: They let you smoke weed?

FLORIDA COACH: Oh, no, no, that’s not a –

HARVIN: Let me? Man, they can tell you not to do it, but when it comes right down to it, what are they gonna do, babysit us every second we ain’t at practice? I mean, yeah, there was that one coach who barked at me because I was late to practice and showed up all bloodshot and everything, and I guess I kind of went off and choked him and whatnot, but it wasn’t like anybody was gonna let that get out. Trust me, you keep bringing home those SEC trophies, they’ll take care of you.

STUDENT 3: Can we go back to the girls for a second? Which sororities on campus are the biggest sluts?

HARVIN: Now y’all got your heads in the right place. Check this out: Me and Chris Rainey were driving down the street one afternoon and we saw all the AOPi pledges standing out in front of the house waiting on something, so he leans out the window and yells, “I haven’t seen that many white girls in one place since my . . . ”

FLORIDA COACH: OK, OK, thanks, guys! Thanks for coming . . .

NARRATOR (V/O): After being de-scheduled from Florida’s remaining recruiting visits, Harvin is back in sunny Minnesota, gearing up for his rookie NFL season with last year’s 25th-ranked passing offense. It doesn’t get any realer than the pros.

Scene: A quiet evening at Harvin’s condo. Outside, the weather is gray and drizzly. Harvin is on the phone with the Vikings’ offensive coordinator.

HARVIN: Yeah, you put me in wherever you want, man. Between me taking those direct snaps and then Favre throwing to me on those deep routes, we gonna be in the end zone so much we’ll be payin’ rent, baby. Huh? (pause) He didn’t? He’s staying retired? But I thought he was talking to . . . (long pause) Well, hell, who’s our quarterback, then? (pause) “Tarvaris Jackson”? Who the fuck is that, one of the Jackson Five? (pause) Whatever, man, whatever. Call me back later. I got weekend plans to make.

Harvin hangs up, pulls out a joint, and lights it. He then dials a number on the telephone.

HARVIN: Fuck Minnesota, I’m calling my boys down in Gainesville to see what’s up. I gotta go someplace real.

NARRATOR: Percy Harvin: Once a college superstar, today an ominous reminder of when “Keeping It Real” goes wrong.

FADE TO BLACK

Pillowfights aren’t always sexy. We reserved a special pillow for Boy Scout camping trips: the Hammer. The Hammer was an ancient down pillow that had, over the course of decades, surrendered much of its fluff to the atmosphere, leaving the remainder as a sack of rock hard feather stems and assembled grit. It had zero give as a pillow, and may have accounted for years of nightmares we had as a child about clowns crushing us in the watery pits at the bottom of elevator. We’re actually not sure it wasn’t just a sack of corn husks and gravel with a pillowcase around it, now that we think about it.

When swung with the appropriate amount of force, though, the Hammer could shatter testicles, evict teeth, and turn a raging pillow fight into a 360 degree swath of prone bodies around you. It was our preteen Mjolnir, and worked with the kind of force that Nebraska defensive end Barry Turner must have applied in a mighty alleged swat of a pillow at his girlfriend on Friday night. Ordinary pillows don’t get you third-degree assault charges.

According to the police report, Turner and the woman fought on Friday night, when Turner allegedly picked her up in the entryway and carried her into the apartment. There, he asked her about a phone call, and when she did not answer, allegedly hit her with a pillow. The report said she grabbed a candlestick and hit him in retaliation. He allegedly responded to that by biting her on her arm and refusing to let her leave.

The universe gives you a FAIL on the Rhett Butler move, Barry, but awards points for the attempted candlestick murder by your girlfriend, Miss Scarlet. As for biting: when your relationship reaches the point where emotions run so high you can only communicate with biting, then it’s true love. We suggest proposing immediately, because that kind of fire does not die.

Nebraska is awarded one point for their efforts in the Fulmer Cup, bringing their total up to a respectable two points in the early innings of the Great Race.

In marginally related news, please enjoy Tulsa World’s interview with Oklahoma linebacker Ryan Reynolds (emphasis ours):

Q: A lot of people thought your absence from the second half against Texas was the difference in the game. Even though you lost to Texas, you played in the Big 12 title game and the national championship game. Did it feel good to know that your knee wasn’t the difference in the entire season?
A:  Well, I don’t know about the Texas game, but as the season went on, I felt our team got a lot better. I felt if we were to play Texas later on in the season, or had a tie-breaker game or something like that, I think we would have won that game. I think we were a better team than Texas at the end of the year. I mean, I’m glad that loss to Texas didn’t have any effect on us going to the national championship. But I don’t feel like me coming out of the game was the reason why (Texas won).

Oh, where to begin? The implied statement that mid-October is too soon to evaluate the prowess of a team? After all, it’s only what, seven games into the season? The idea that losing the national title game (only the latest in an admirably solid streak of postseason choke-jobs) leaves one’s team somehow superior to a team it lost to by 10 on a neutral field, a team that went on to win its own BCS tilt? We just can’t decide. Angry Texas hordes, over to you. Arise, Army of the 45-35.

Hakeem Nicks is horrifying. From the Meineke Car Care Bowl, where Bill Stewart kissed Pat White on the forehead, and Hakeem Nicks kissed Drew Rosenhaus’ phone number hello in his inbox.

No-huddle spread missionaries re-sent to Auburn. After the first mission to the region was devoured by natives, the church of the spread will send one of its most seasoned veterans to attempt the conversion of the savage tribes of lower Alabama. Auburn has hired Gus Malzahn as their offensive coordinator, ensuring the future occurrence of a.) editorials wonderin’ what in tha tarnation that fruitcakey offensive “genius” (not our quotes) is doin’ with that dang ol’ fruity offense, and b.) that if Auburn can get up by ten on Ole Miss at any point in the next two years, they will try to get up by forty if they can.

TAWMMY SAYS YOU PILLAH-BITERS NEED to PAY. At least the Patriots would have gotten the Cotton Bowl or something in the college system.

Those damn elitists strike again. The Grey Lady publishes an account of Texas recruiting including this account of a party recruit Jamarkus McFarland attended.

“I will never forget the excitement amongst all participants,” McFarland wrote. “Alcohol was all you can drink, money was not an option. Girls were acting wild by taking off their tops, and pulling down their pants. Girls were also romancing each other. Some guys loved every minute of the freakiness some girls demonstrated. I have never attended a party of this magnitude.”

Bottom line for recruiting blue-chip small-town recruits? Queen Latifah movies are a fuckin’ must. Rebuttal goes hyah.

Steve Addazio, step on up. The Florida offensive line coach will be the new offensive coordinator, and will assume his duties immediately after Dan Mullen calls the national title game. Meyer says little will change staff continuity etcetera we’re a happy family me mom and dad.