Luchini fever has clearly broken out among the Vols, who have both engaged in heistin’ merchandise and gunnin’ (of the pellet variety) this week.

Next up in the revival: the heistin’ merchandise portion.

Freshman safety Nyshier Oliver was arrested on November 7 and charged with shoplifting at a department store in West Town Mall.

The police report says Oliver was spotted putting a brown shirt worth approximately $110 in a Dillard’s bag. He was arrested around 1:45 that Saturday.

…the Saturday of homecoming about six hours before the Memphis game, to be precise. We welcome the Vols back to the land of the competitive SEC East teams, and now up their possibility of winning an SEC East title next year thanks to the increased verve and hunger of the youngsters clearly energized by the new regime in Knoxville. DA COACHO HE BE SIPPIN’ ARMAREDDA! DA LANEKIFFUH HE BE SIPPIN ARMAREDDA!

And now, a song with no relation to this incident or story.

Vols, bitch.

I promise this isn’t a metaphor (and if it were, it wouldn’t be a particularly good one), but I had a nightmare last night involving not being able to open my eyes (and some small woodland creatures, but that’s neither here nor there). I was jarred out of the second one by my phone ringing off the hook, and here’s why:

Janzen Jackson, Michael Edwards and Nu’Keese Richardson, all 18, were charged this morning after an armed robbery attempt at a Pilot station on Cumberland Avenue, according to the Knoxville Police Department.

Each player faces three counts of attempted armed robbery.

Additionally, several news outlets are reporting that it was a semiautomatic PELLET GUN, which is apparently a real thing that exists. And here’s the money shot:

A Volunteer TV News photographer on the scene captured the suspects while they were being identified. At least one of them wore a black University of Tennessee t-shirt with an orange Adidas logo and the phrase “impossible is nothing.”

Honestly, in the first few minutes I was convinced it had to be a perfectly executed joke (I’m reminded of the first time I met Fearless Leader), and then my phone rang again, and again. There’s a weird kind of symmetry to it. Jackson and Richardson had already been in trouble with Kiffykins, though not legal trouble, in the past couple weeks. If it’s true, I hope they’re all three gone by the end of the day, lockers empty and dorm room doors swinging. Richardson and Edwards wouldn’t be missed all that much from this Vawls iteration (minus their strategic value as recruits), but Jackson was praised over and over again as being better than Berry when Berry was his age.

It’s weird. I never thought I’d end up mourning our clean police records, but they’re busted, so the floor is now open for wailing, gnashing of teeth, and outright gloating. Let’s all take a few deep breaths, and—

IF PHIL FULMER WAS STILL HERE THEY’D'VE USED A LOT MORE THAN A PELLET GUN THIS PROGRAM’S GONE SOFT I TELL YOU WHAT.

I feel better already.

‘Cause it’s Friday, you ain’t got no football, and you ain’t got s#!t to do. Break yo’ self, fool — the preseason USA Today Coaches’ Poll has been released in all its premature, ghostvoted glory. Rest assured Holly and I will get around to a withering dissection of everything that’s wrong with the coaches’ rankings later on today, not the least of which is the fact that some of the teams they ranked may not have even started fall practice yet, but for right now let us rejoice in a sign that the college football season truly is a-comin’. Kind of like when they start putting up the Christmas-sale banners in the first week of October.

This has been “Scary Thoughts” with Eric Berry. The battle has begun at Tennessee for the title of Other Safety Besides Eric Berry, and no less than Berry himself says both Janzen Jackson and Darren Myles Jr. have “a lot more natural ability” than he did when he stepped onto the Tennessee campus. Here’s a thought for Lane Kiffin: Why not just let the other team’s offense have the ball every series and play defense the whole game? Can anyone honestly say Berry isn’t the biggest scoring threat the Vols have on their entire roster?

It must be the winning record. It’s very slimming on you. Don’t look now, but Stoops might actually have whipped Arizona into a solid team — so solid, in fact, that Stoops himself has unloaded 20 pounds his Wildcats upset BYU in last year’s Las Vegas Bowl. In other nutritionally healthy news, there’s nothing spectacularly shocking about this Alabama notebook, we’re just amused by anything applauding a 354-pound man for his weight-loss diligence.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Bronco. Boise State says they’re not dwelling on their home opener against Oregon this season, but who’d blame them if they did? You can’t really accuse someone of “looking ahead” when the game they’re looking ahead to is their first game of the season, particularly when their opponent’s QB promised to “take it to them” a couple weeks ago. If you’re scoring at home, BSU punked Oregon 37-32 in Eugene last September, and host the Ducks on the Smurf Turf on Sept. 3.

Rolling with the Neu. Rick Neuheisel’s son Jerry, a presumptive member of the class of 2011, is starting to get some recruiting buzz, and though he looks sort of like how we imagine a member of the Swedish women’s track and field team might look, we know better than to bet against anyone with Neuheisel DNA. (Presumably, as a student at Los Angeles’s Loyola High School, Jerry will be at least an ancillary beneficiary of the breakup of the infamous Los Angeles Football Monopoly, though we can’t say for sure until we’ve seen the documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission.)

It’s going to be an interesting family Thanksgiving in the Bowden household. For the first time in ages, the only member of the Bowden family fielding any questions about national-title expectations is — Terry, despite bringing back only one offensive starter on his (Division II) North Alabama team. Imagine Stephen being the lone member of the Baldwin family to get any Emmy buzz in a given year and you’ve pretty much approximated the head-scratching factor here.

Profiles in headline understatement. The Virginia Cavaliers are looking for big-play wideouts, says the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Or, you know, big-play anybody, that’d be good too. (Cue my dad, UVA undergrad ‘71, Med ‘77: “We’re still the closest thing to a public Ivy in the country, Thomas Jefferson founded us, GRRRR ARRRGGGHH.”)

File under “Longtime rumors confirmed.” It’s official: Joe Kines “speaks another language.” The city of Tuscaloosa just collapsed under the weight of its collective lack of shock.

What? Oh, yeah, star QB, football, blah blah whatever. Ex-Longhorn hero and current Tennessee Titans QB Vince Young makes a very edifying appearance in the “What I’ve Learned” feature of this month’s Esquire, and while some of you are sure to beef with his promise to “be the next black quarterback to win a Super Bowl,” I’m not commenting on that one way or the other, mainly because I’m too distracted by the feature on Christina Hendricks of “Mad Men” immediately preceding the Young article.

Yes, I know that’s about as lazy as segues get, but y’all have been very good this week, and the very least I can throw your way as a show of gratitude is a little bunda. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.

For lack of a better term, we’re calling this the “Kiffin Effect.” Pop quiz, hotshot: Coming off a 4-8 season and a 45-0 vivisectioning by your big in-state rival in which you netted all of 37 yards, what do you do? What do you do? Evidently, this:

Houston Nutt phoned in just now to say he has sucked it, as a matter of fact, and the Delicious Creamsicle of Immediate In-State Superiority was everything he thought it could be.

The pressure of being the preseason #1 for the Fulmer Cup must’ve gotten to them. I know all you EDSBS regulars have been waiting with bated breath for the first time I’d make a blatant plug for my dear Georgia Bulldogs, and here it is: For what feels like the first time since I was an naive, apple-cheeked freshman, the Dawgs have gone an entire offseason without a single player getting arrested. One hundred law-abiding cocktails to all of you, gentlemen! By contrast, the Dawgs’ season-opening opponent, Oklahoma State, won’t be suspending two offensive players arrested for pot possession in June. Note to Mike Gundy: If you’re going up against Georgia and you’re the one that looks slack on player discipline, there may be a problem. Unfortunately for the Dawgs, that righteous indignation plus two bucks will get Willie Martinez a grande Pike Place roast at Starbucks.

Your “Suddenly My Problems Seem Pretty Minor” moment of the day. The Tulsa World profiles Tulsa QB G.J. Kinne, whose dad, a high-school coach in Texas, was shot to death by the angry parent of a player four years ago. By contrast, I’ve spent most of the past 24 hours raging at having shattered the screen on my iPhone, and officially consider myself humbled.

We have met the enemy, and he is Tony Franklin. I mean us. We knew the Auburn coaching staff was a wee bit divided during last year’s 5-7 debacle, but evidently so were the players. Why was that, you think?

“The offense had their problems and some guys started hanging their heads – just stuff of that sort,” said defensive end Antonio Coleman. “That led to a 5-7 season. It was just the little things that led to seven losses. Coach Chizik came in and corrected that; and all the guys have their heads up.”

Yeah, it was just the little things — you know, division, not having any semblance of an offense, that sort of thing. You drop off by a few hundred yards here and there, pretty soon you’re going 5-7. It happens.

Hasn’t Detroit suffered enough? With the cash-strapped Big Three automakers pulling their sponsorship of the Motor City Bowl, Little Caesar’s Pizza may be stepping into the void, meaning “We’re gonna probably be known as the Little Caesar’s Pizza, Pizza Bowl,” according to bowl co-founder George Perles. As a Birmingham resident and much-put-upon supporter of the Papajohns.com Bowl, I have but one thing to say: YOU BASTARDS. Can’t you just let us have this?!?

It beat out other mottos including “Bereft,” “Unfulfilled,” and “Empty-Feeling.” Ole Miss’s team motto going into 2009: “Unsatisfied,” taking a commanding lead in the Most Depressing Team Motto of All Time competition. Tip: If it sounds like something you’d circle on a restaurant comment card after a particularly disappointing meal, it probably shouldn’t be your team motto.

The anthem to which the Rebels will be charging into Vaught-Hemingway in ‘09.

Failure to plan means planning to fail. As for the Early Bird Award for Most Absurdly Diligent Scheduling, Oklahoma and Army have won that one in a runaway by agreeing on a home-and-home — in 2018 and 2020. Congratulations, Black Knights, on being the first D-IA program to earn a guaranteed loss in a season that won’t even begin for another nine years.

Now, you go back to doing something latently homoerotic, all right? We’ve already posted Still Life With Shirtless, Oiled Football Players and Lamborghini, the curious poster Tennessee is using to arouse . . . uh, interest in the 2009 season, or something; turns out there’s a “making of” video. Go click the link yourselves, pervs, we’re not posting that nonsense here.

File under “Up, Nowhere to Go But.” UCF offensive coordinator Charlie Taaffe is “pleased” with the improvement his team has shown heading into ‘09. Considering that the Golden Knights finished 120th out of 120 in DI-A in both total yardage and first downs, the fact that there has been improvement at all is probably reasonable grounds for pleased-ness.

Twelve-pack? Better go ahead and make that a case. Scott Wolf compiles every single college football game that will be on TV opening weekend. If you can look at this and not devise a way to remain laid out on your coach from noon straight through midnight on September 5, you’re not really trying.

peekaboo, boy wonder

[UPDATE: ZOMFG, this is not that farfetched.]

ORSON (ATL):
Texas Tech @ Kansas
Kentucky @ Florida
OK State @ Texas
Georgia @ LSU
Penn State @ Ohio State
Alabama @ Tennessee
USC @ Arizona

HOLLY (Knoxvull):
Alabama @ Tennessee, live in SurlyVision(tm) from Neyland.

The Turtle:� Everywhere and nowhere, and that’s because he’s representing FEAR, not some sucka Dust Bowl farmers.� [/steinbeckwasapantywaist'd]

Itineraries below, please and thank you.� Welcome back to this grand addiction of ours.

What’s that you say? Brimstone? That’s preposterous. We’re sure it’s just barbecue or something.

Here’s the list of people you should be considering. Some of them are just sitting around on couches right now just waiting for our call. They’re like loose change between the cushions but instead of paying for a late-night Taco Bell fourth meal, these guys could buy you the delicious chalupa of a national title!

Our list of candidates is as follows:

Dennis Franchione. A proven winner, people person, and a straight shooter. A winner, and had the sense to leave the Alabama job for a successful tenure at hrmble murphmumblemrphedhrm University! Also, an enterprising sort bound to find all kinds of innovative ways of opening up revenue streams for the program. Have you considered charging fans for oxygen? Dennis has!

Johnny Majors. He’s in town. You already know him to be an intoxicating presence on a personal level, and at 73 he’s merely middle-aged. (Seventy is the new forty!) Would restore class and tradition to this program by wearing a tie on the sidelines. A solid, cylindrical tie filled with “thinking juice.” Friendly with the current coaching staff!

Gary Barnett. Tanned, rested, and ready. Improves cash flow in program by keeping large boxes full of it in the locker room. Like half of any male fanbase, hates women! Once beat a horse to death with a claw hammer for “looking at him the wrong way.” Now that’s kind of man that can handle a challenge ilke the Tennessee football program.

Buttons the Cat. Buttons! Awww, sweet widdle Buttons.

Buttons the Cat might not “add anything” to your football program except a reeking litter box and shredded orange chairs in the players’ lounge, but we’ll also tell you this: Buttons also wouldn’t throw on third and one, either. And look at him eating a popsicle LOLoverwhemedwithcuteness!

Dennis Green. Calm, composed leadership for any program.

Ron Prince. A rising young star, and yours for the taking at rock bottom prices!

A particularly unripe cantaloupe with a face drawn on it and a headset. Or just keep Fulmer. It’s pretty much the same thing at this point.

9. Your longtime coach is giving the Johnny Cash Folsom Prison Salute to the fanbase at every turn.

8. The coach backstabbed out of the job prior to tubby, middle-finger flashing coach currently holding job emerges from comfortable deprivation tank filled with bourbon to stab back over fifteen years too late.

7. With new starter at qb, offense produced 9 first downs against Northern Illinois and 225 total yards, and this was considered “improvement.”

6. Booing from sorrow-filled, intoxicated fanbase at home games is repelling recruits despite the school having the largest recruiting budget in the SEC.

5. Is being overshadowed by undefeated Vanderbilt team who would likely be favored at this point in the season were the two teams to meet this weekend. Read that again, repeat, wait for eyeballs to fall out of head and roll across table.

4. Tennessee blogs are pretending to actually be Vanderbilt blogs.

3. Your offense (97th) is lagging behind Texas A&M’s nationally (95th). No, use the sharp edge, and cross at the wrists. You want an ‘X’ shape, remember.

2. Jon Gruden has become a viable replacement candidate in the liquid smoke-flavored fantasies of Vol fans. Because you want Bill Callahan, but blonde and addled from two decades of consistent sleep deprivation–that sounds fantastic.

1. This, shockingly, gives us no pleasure anymore.

This should provide all of the confirmation needed to establish that on today, October 7th, 2008, the Unversity of Tennessee football program has sailed past the dragons on the map and to the very edge of our flat world. Behind them, oceans and the island of one national championship under Fulmer; ahead of them, blank space and cascading water.

So we had to dig deep to remember just why we hate the whole state of Tennessee, and suddenly one startling, shit-flecked reason splattered up from the depths of our subconscious: Nashville, Tennessee, where country music is processed, compacted, and then released on the world with a great farting noise from the anus of the country music industry.

Johnny hated Nashville. So should you.

Oh, country music didn’t necessarily start this way. Originally country music was written by men and women who barnstormed up from the electricity-free rural cowplots they were born in, and who alternated writing songs about drinking and fighting and fucking with songs about drinking while fucking, fucking while fighting, or about combinations of the three that happened while driving semi-trucks.

You know real country singers because they are either now all dead or semi-retarded from years of excessive alcohol and drug abuse. They did not have six-pack abs and did not manage their money. They died in fiery plane crashes and holding bottles of liquor; they clutched their hearts and fell to the ground when whole pieces of fatback clogged their arteries after years of eating vile road food. They were not pretty.

Their music was about life sucking, and oh wasn’t that a shame, so let’s just have a drink and forget about it. It was, on the whole, fundamentally honest music about life being hard for poor, violent, and uneducated people.

Not self-congratulatory twaddle like…well, like this:

I had a barbeque stain on my white tee-shirt,
And you were killin’ me in that miniskirt.
Skippin’ rocks on the river by the railroad tracks.
You had a suntan line and red lipstick,
I worked so hard for that first kiss.
And a heart don’t forget, something like that.

Okay: so you’re poorly groomed, she’s wearing a mini-skirt (of course), and you propose that you actually skipped stones on a river by a railroad track. How trope-ish of you to cite all of that campy rural imagery in a single verse! Live like you were dying! Oh, only if Tim McGraw. You and the entire industry cranking out music that tells people exactly what they want to hear about themselves and their lives.

Country music plays out now like some kind of long, dumbed-down daily affirmation set to a bland rock beat. You know it’s “country” because occasionally they lay a fiddle down across a verse or two, or reference things like “railroad tracks” or “barbecue,” or sing with obvious planted accents. Hey, Kenny Chesney just wants you to take it easy and relax! Like you were on an island! Not a coup-ish, violent island seething with poverty, but one a them ones where every thang’s okay, and you and your baby got a couple a Coronas and nothin’ to worry ’bout but your tans. HOO-WEEE!!!

That’s one of our favorite things to loathe about country music–the demographic whores who run Nashville have this list of things to sandwich into every song. Hey, people like Buffett? Let’s have lots of songs about how great the beach is! People will love that. Hey, a song about how your hometown is just dandy! And your children and wife are awesome! And everything you’re doin’ is right and good, man.

We would kill someone for a good song about spooky rural murder. In fact, we offer to commit one, just to have a talented songwriter witness it, and then compose a badass song about it. Toby Keith will be on one side, and we’ll be on the other with an RPG. You and your Ford Truck and your shitty goatee, which you wear as the totem against obesity like every other hilljack concerned about their double chin and masculinity, will go up in flames. HOW D’YA LIKE ME NOW? That you’re on fire.

To hell with the state for ruining a fine art form and for becoming the landing pad for spent hair-band rockers desperate to sell their second-rate midlife efforts to an audience with lower standards–namely, country music fans. (See: Bon Jovi. Who says you can’t go home? Oh, only about half the population of New Orleans.)

They lap this stuff up like so much gravy soup at the Golden Corral. They made Patsy Cline go pop, dammit, as unpardonable a sin as has ever been committed in popular music. A populace who aids and abets in the production of such shit needs no pity when their football team bleeds out by thirty points on national television, and deserves none.

One: what color is your season? In other words, please explain the metaphorical state of your program through the metaphor of color:

Opaque. Not exactly a color, I know, but the concept is similar. With the arrival of new offensive coordinator Dave Clawson, the offense is shrouded in mystery, and any attempt to penetrate it with light is thwarted by scattering or absorption. Nobody can see beyond the curtain.

Clawson was formerly the head coach for the Division I-AA Richmond Spiders, so good luck finding any tape on him. Just who is this guy? Nobody knows. How will quarterback Jonathan Crompton fit into the new system? Secret! What kind of offense does he run? A few daring souls have ventured a guess that it’s a west coast-ish spread-y-type thing that morphs into . . . something else depending on the personnel, but again, nobody really knows. Yeehaw for intrigue and woo-ish-y offense.

Practices are closed to the media, too, so the new offense won’t be unveiled until the big national showdown with UCLA on Labor Day.

Two: What historical nation and period do you resemble most right now?

1930s USA, F.D.R.’s New Deal. The Papa has been either the offensive coordinator or the head coach for the Vols for nearly two decades. When Fulmer took over as head coach for good in 1993, he hired David Cutcliffe as his offensive coordinator. Cutcliffe held that role until 1999 and then took it up again from 2006 until this past off-season when he left for Duke. Randy Sanders served as OC in the interim, but most believe that he was essentially handcuffed to Fulmer’s offensive philosophy and scheme. So we’ve really had almost no change for almost twenty years. At first, Roaring ’20s, but then gradual decline, a Black Tuesday (2005), and a lingering depression, all of which sets the stage for this year’s New Deal.

This season, Fulmer hires mystery man Clawson, and this time, he’s reportedly going to give his young assistant free reign to reform the system and bring relief to needy Tennessee fans. Hey, we could use a new deal, and if we have to bankrupt the future to do it, well, we’ll just have to worry about that later.

Three: You have important players. Discuss a few of them hastily.

1. Eric Berry. The Tennessee equivalent of Tim Tebow. A game-changer as an All-American freshman with 86 tackles and five interceptions for 222 yards. If he and Tebow collide at full speed this September in Knoxville, 108,000 will witness the discovery of the god particle.

2. Gerald Jones. Missed most of the first half of the season, but was an all-important playmaker with only limited touches once he got on the field. Against Kentucky, for example, Jones (1) made a fantastic, athletic touchdown catch to send the game to a second overtime; (2) got a key, against-all-odds first down in the third overtime and then the key, touchdown-making block on the next play to send the game to a fourth overtime; and (3) served as a decoy for yet another touchdown. Also spent time as a change-of-pace QB.

3. Jonathan Crompton. Limited experience, but ranked higher by Rivals than Ainge. Appears to have better chemistry with and leadership of the team already. With a good, experienced offensive line, running back, and receivers, he’ll surprise some folks.

Four: Name two games we might actually want to watch featuring your team.

1. At UCLA on Labor Day. The Great Unveiling (for both teams). It’s Monday night football, what else are you going to watch?

2. Um, Florida? If “you” are “we,” then “we” might enjoy that one. If “I” am “we,” I don’t know about you, but “we” have mixed feelings.

Four-A: Save us all some time and mention the game we’re better off NOT watching.

Not fair. You should know that historically Tennessee plays both up and down to its competition, which makes most games, even the ones that look like clunkers on the lot, ALL CAPS EXCITING WITH EXCLAMATION MARKS! Perhaps Clawson will cure us of that, but holding your breath is not advised.

Five: Every hero forgets something in their toolbelt. What does your team lack?

The weak spot is along the defensive front seven. The lack of great defensive tackles is mystifying. Tennessee’s d-line coach Dan Brooks has put John Henderson, Albert Haynesworth, Jesse Mahelona, and a handful of others (there were 11 defensive linemen from Tennessee in the NFL last year, more than any other school, according to Phil Steele) into the NFL, so it’s quite perplexing as to why we’ve sort of dried up here. Dan Williams and Demonte Bolden were fine last year and figure to be better this year, but as of right now, there’s no reason to think they’ll even be in the vicinity of Henderson/Haynesworth. The ends? Sort of the same story, but with some promise with VHT Ben Martin at one of the ends. The linebacking corps will have trouble replacing Jerod Mayo, but we still have Rico McCoy, and John Chavis always seems to have what he needs here. Whatever the case up front, they’ll probably look better than they did early last year simply because the secondary (last year’s early-season weakness) has become the defense’s (if not the team’s) strength, which will allow Chavis to mix up his blitz packages better this year and give the players more time to make plays.

Six: Describe your team with a Jimmy Buffett song. No, we’re serious–do it.

Um, Fins?

Can’t you feel ‘em circlin’ honey?

Can’t you feel ‘em swimmin’ around?

You got fins to the left, fins to the right,

and you’re the only bait in town.

Danger signs on all sides. Richt and Georgia, Meyer and the Gators, Steve Spurrier in the East and Saban, Tuberville, and Miles in the West. Everybody wants a piece of everybody else. Tangent: Why exactly does Florida play Theme from Jaws? When was the last time you saw a great white in the Everglades?

Oh, and bonus: Change the “fins” to “fans” and you also have a theme song for coach Fulmer, depending on the result of the last game played.

Seven: We’re master wagerers. Give us a bet to place for up to ten dollars about your team.

Eric Berry and Demetrice Morley will haunt your dreams.

If you’d like to read more about Tennessee football, the Library of Congress recommends Rocky Top Talk. If you’d like to contribute your own Visiting Lecturer post, please contact us at harumphharumph of the gmail email variety address.

We care, just like a tiger does: with their claws and teeth first.

Tennessee has a minor, eeny-tiny-bit of a discipline problem, and not the sort that professional paste-eater and push-door puller Mike Freeman suggests should end up in the firing of Phil Fulmer. (Mike: Tyler Durden IS the narrator!) Fire him for being only good to excellent, sure; we’ve seen that in the SEC before. Fire him for blackmailing Trace Adkins with incriminating gay sex photos into performing at his daughter’s birthday party. (Unsee that, dear reader, and you have achieved enlightenment. We just typed it, and will not eat for several days.) Fire him for picking up field mice and bopping them on the head, and then dipping them in panko crumbs, deep frying them, and eating them during film sessions.

Fire him for any of these, but not the juvenile aborted Liverventures�* most Vol players get arrested for these days. The Vols just need a special blend of caring, discipline, and caring discipline outlined below. Because we care. We really do. In that kind of foster kid kind of care, the one where you don’t buy them fresh produce, turn on the heat for them in the winter, or buy them clothes that fit.

Actin’ Straight with EDSBS: Vol-arity Edition.

1: Pat Summitt. This doesn’t even have to take longer than 15 minutes. Simply invite Pat over, have the winningest coach at Tennessee ever come to a Vol team meeting and then allow her to rip each of the Vols’ gridiron types a new, perfectly torn second asshole. Summitt is the kind of thin-lipped, wiry, kerosene-eyed women who drove schoolbuses in my childhood: very, very quiet schoolbuses. There were rumors one kid, once, had spoken, and that only a red mark the birds liked to pick at on the school driveway stood as testament to her wrath. The team would be a lot like that schoolbus for the next year, at least.

2. Hedge mazes outside dorm entrances. Bull your way through fifteen rows of thorny hedge without bleeding to death? Do I smell starting defense?

3. The ChastiT belt. Fierce, made of stainless steel. Adorned with picture of John Chavis on codpiece for extra contraceptive power.

4. Additional cash bonuses for good behavior.

5. Instituting of naptime, with mats and graham crackers, to cut down on violent behavior after dark. We’d even throw in a few of those boss blue and red nap mats done in custom orange and white. If successful, consider implementing stop-light code in team cafeteria during training table meals.

6. Waiver of delivery fee on pizzas, wings, whores. It adds up, and it would keep them in the dorm.

7. Super Nanny She could have them singing the cleanup song in no time. Bonus: being British, capable of drinking 320 pound men into under-table tears.

8. Reading “The Secret” to unlock the power of wishing for wealth instead of robbing convenience stores. That’s Louisville’s thing this year, anyway.

9. Installing court-ordered breathlocks on their legs. When you blow into them, if drunk, your legs cease to work. Tracy Morgan hasn’t walked in months due to this technology. If it can keep him home, it can keep anyone home.

10. Give them all mini-ponies to take care of to teach them responsibility. It’s a bit like the egg experiment in civics class, or the time your parents gave you a puppy to test your ability to take care of things. And once it was over and you’d sold the puppy to the Bolivian space program, didn’t you feel so much more adult?

Plus: on first sight, people’s mind will be blown. Is it a little horse, a really huge man…OR BOTH?

11. Endow Urban Studies Chair for Chamillionaire, allowing him to lecture players about his theories on “riding dirty” while “staying clean.” If we want Chamilitary men properly trained, then we need a proper Chamilitary academy to train them. The University of Tennessee is just begging to be this place.

12. Turn players onto new video game sensation Wiisault and Battery. Feloniis and misdemiinors were never so harmless as in Nintendo’s latest party classic for America’s favorite video game system.

13. To prevent dogfighting, channel their energies into alternate fighting rings. Siamese fighting fish are a good proxy, or even better: theater majors, who will fight with feeling so long as they “know where they’re supposed to be in the scene” and understand their motivation. (”Your motivation is the five thousand dollars at the top of that ladder, motherfucker. Go get it!”)

14. When all else fails: send them to Up With People. Yes, they still exist, and they can still wilt a good solid erection from fifty paces with the sound of their melodious unity.

It’s all an excuse to see Britton Colquitt dance around with streamers. But at least we’re admitting it.

*Our failed VH1 reality series pitch starring Anthony Haden-Guest, Mario Batali, and legendary guzzler Kofi Annan. We’re praying it gets picked up by Fuel.

3:33 PM Holly: ohgod. ohnonono. Steve Beuerlein just pointed out that “Tennessee is always in the game with Erik Ainge at quarterback.” DO NOT TEMPT THE FOOTBALL GODS, BLAZER BOY. If Ainge goes down in this game I’m coming for your entrails.

3:44 PM Barstoolio: Oh, for fuck’s sake. Perhaps focusing on “finishing” over the last two weeks in practice could have included some “starting.” Miami’s 27-point second half wasn’t enough to overcome the flat first half and the loss of two starters to injury. Purdue and NC State, I trust that you understand the only thing that can salvage this day is the utter destruction of Tressel and Bowden, and should that not happen, I will burn your states to the ground. I want the ground spongy with their blood and their towns laid to waste. Time to drink the pain away.

3:46 PM Holly: TOUCHDOWN, ARIAN MOTHERFUCKING FOSTER. …and the glee is supplanted immediately by apprehension, because here comes our defense.

3:56 PM Holly: …and they appear to be both alert and here to play football. I know this isn’t how livebloggery works, but I’m a little hesitant to do anything but report the facts of this game and make fun of ugly Athens coeds in the stands, for fear of jinxing our chance at a conference win.

3:59 PM Holly: Whoa. Clicked over to Texas-OU to find John Chiles in at QB. Didn’t expect to see that this early.

4:01 PM Barstoolio: I am working with the options of NC State/FSU and Iowa/Penn State. Either way, the unmistakable odor of tapioca and mothballs is wafting from the television.

4:03 PM Holly: Arian Foster’s name means “water bearer” and “holder of knowledge”. Honey, you just hold on to the damn ball this week and leave the heavy thinking for Sundays.

4:04 PM Holly: …all right, that came out wrong. Arian, we love you. But you understand why were a little surprised to see you breaking tackles and with positive yards next to your name, right? Keep it up. You’re doing great. Text message from hetero lifemate at Neyland: “Arian, I only yell because THAT’S HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU.”

4:07 PM Holly: But as delightfully strange as that is, it can’t compare to seeing our defenders knocking down opposing players. That’s kinda like glancing around in traffic and glimpsing a duck driving a car.

4:09 PM Holly: Haven’t Texas and Oklahoma both suffered enough in the last seven days? What sins could they possibly have commmitted in the intervening week to deserve the dulcet tones of Paul Maguire?

4:13 PM Holly: Just a disgusting late hit on Colt McCoy. Lovely, Sooners. And here’s Maguire, trying to excuse it. McCoy follows up with a pretty pass to Sweed. Shake it off, kid.

4:15 PM Holly: LUCAS TAYLOR (not our QB) to Coker for a 56 yard TD. I take it back. Seeing trick plays from this team? THAT’S like watching a duck driving a car. If you need me for the next few minutes, I’ll be blowing kisses in the general direction of Coach Cutcliffe.

4:21 PM Barstoolio: Happy Valley has got to be the dumbest location name in college football. How do they even get excited? It’s like trying to get pumped to play in Skippy Kid Ridge or Rainbow Fun Hill.

4:22 PM Holly: WE JUST BLOCKED A PUNT. We are Tennessee. Tennessee does not block punts. I clapped a hand over my mouth to muffle my shriek with such force that I cut my lip. Holy hell, this could be something. (Yes, followed with 30 yards in penalties, just so we know it’s still the Vols playing.)

4:26 PM Holly: A Georgia defender just streaked straight through the line to Ainge with terrifying speed. Too bad he’d already completed a bullet train of a pass to Austin Rogers for the first down.

4:27 PM Barstoolio: Holy shit. FSU’s kicker is like a giant sandy redneck bear. He’s terrifying.

4:26 PM Holly: I can’t believe this. Touchdown Hardesty. Extra point up and good, and our new kicker’s on the longest perfect start streak of any UT kicker, ever. 21-0 Vols. It feels like time has sped up. This isn’t easy to articulate or to snark about, but…they’re playing like Tennessee, all of a sudden. These are the boys we know. Just in time for the balance of our conference schedule. (Still: Caution. Remember last year, and remember last week. This is far, far from over.)

4:31 PM Holly: LOLZ!!1 There’s a little corner window over on ABC with Bob Stoops talking in it, but the angle’s distorted and his head looks like a perfect trapezoid.

4:40 PM Holly: Ainge took the guard off his broken finger for today’s game, and he’s back, baby. 110 yards passing in a quarter and a half, the latest to freshman WR Moore for 45 yards. Over on ABC, Texas leapfrogs ahead, 14-7.

4:43 PM Holly: Aaaand…touchdown. Arian Foster, all is forgiven. 22 yards, not a finger laid on him. Time to start drinking and Photoshopping. HOLY SHIT MAN WALKS ON FUCKING MOON, y’all.

4:43 PM Holly: Hypothetically, while I’ve got to the place to myself, how many different ways would Swindle come up with to kill me if I embedded a Rocky Top mp3 in this post? Discuss.

5:01 PM Holly: Giggly stat from CBS: In the last four quarters of meeting, Tennessee has scored 65 points to Georgia’s nine. And that’ll take us to halftime. Was it good for you? Me, I need a cigarette.

5:07 PM Holly: All right, halftime. Let’s review.

• Texas hanging in with OU, 14-14 at the half.

• Alabama, up a suspiciousy slight 16 points on Houston in the 3rd.
• Iowa, down 13-0 to Penn State at halftime, which ain’t that bad considering their season to date–that defense is still doing its thing and doing it well.
• ‘Noles tied with NC State, 10-10.
• South Florida…tied 7-7 with Florida Atlantic?
• Michigan manages to scrape a win against mighty Eastern Michigan, 33-22.
• West Fuckin’ By-God Virginia juices Syracuse, 55-14.
• [TEAM REDACTED] over Wisconsin, 31-26.
• Kansas and PeteJayHawk over KState, 30-24.
• Auburn over Vandy, 35-7.
• Wake over Duke, 41-36.
• DaCoachO over La Tech, 24-0
• Maryland defeats Georgia Tech 28-26. The Turtle can’t help you, Chan Gailey.

….and in Knoxville, the Tennessee Volunteers lead the Georgia Bulldogs, 28-0 with two quarters to play.

5:20 PM Barstoolio: Howard Schnellenberger is old (Seriously, I was under the assumption he was interred under the Orange Bowl at midfield or something) but has managed live long enough to be tied with USF at the half. The rabid Bulls fans in Tampa are preparing torches. Hose down your children!

5:23 PM Holly: We’re back, and Ainge is promptly sacked. That’s rare for this line, but two things we need to not not NOT do right now: Get lazy, and try to stuff the ball up the middle on every play. Let’s finish this thing. (And I mean “finish” in the Mortal Kombat sense, boyos–I wanna see some spinal columns.)

5:28 PM Barstoolio: I wonder if anyone’s tried to go over Niagara Falls in Joe Pa’s chest?

5:32 PM Holly: Touchdown, Georgia, on what you have to call a beautiful catch by Goodman. He basically snatched it right out of Vinson’s face. Vinson landed funny on his wrist but hops up fast enough. 28-7. Over in Dallas, Nate Jones just made a nifty catch for the Lonhorns. McCoy follows up with a pass to a TE whose number I didn’t catch–shades of last season. They’re in the red zone and driving. Still 14-14.

5:39 Holly: Seeing is believing–we’re throwing the damn ball. And it’s working. Ainge is being allowed to run this thing his way, and it’s a credit to our coaching staff (I know!) that they’re going with what works rather than shoving Foster into the middle of the line every play.

5:46 Holly: Daddy calls from the game to confirm that yes, in fact, that was Tennessee that just went for it on fourth and short…and converted. The sky has turned to sackcloth.

5:51 PM Holly: Foster’s THIRD touchdown of the night, once again inducing apparent narcolepsy in the Georgia front seven the second the ball’s in his grasp. 37-7 Tennessee.

6:02 PM Holly: Georgia gets off a 66-yard punt. Impressive…problem is, that means they just gave it back to Erik Ainge.

6:10 PM Holly: Young John Chavis’ hair FTW!

6:11 PM Holly: Texas and OU are all tied up as the 4th quarter begins, 21-21. Someone in the metro Chicago area kindly find Texy and PB, shoot them full of adrenaline, and set them loose in the nearest bar.

6:16 PM Barstoolio: FSU/NC State on lightning delay gets me to Dallas just in time to see Colonel Mustard sideline reporting with a shaky cam. That was…disconcerting.

6:16 PM Holly: At least you didn’t get the motherfucker in the boater hat.

6:26 PM Holly: Meanwhile in Dallas: OU’s up 28-21, and Colt McCoy just got picked off…right as Stafford’s intercepted in the endzone by Marsalous Johnson. There’s an exTREMEly suspicious pass interference call, and Georgia moved up to the 2. Touchdown to a wide open Tripp Chandler, made all the more loathsome by virtue of being named Tripp Chandler.

6:32 PM Holly: Text from brother at Neyland: “Dear sociopath in black shirt: I’m sorry your team sucks. Please sit down.” If I know him, he’s sneaking up behind the guy to get a look at his cell so he can send this message to him personally. If this turns out to be the last post, I had to go take care of his bail.

6:40 PM Holly: Matthew Stafford, intercepted out of his own endzone. Fulmer’s covered in Gatorade and capering about in a manner more suited to a man a third of his size. ROCKY TOP, BABY.

6:51 PM Holly: Your final score: Tennessee 35, Georgia 14. Fuck and yes. Now, to sweat out the last two minutes of the Red River Shootout. Texas down by seven with two minutes to play.

6:56 PM Holly: Update from LSUJoshua: “We were walking down to see the band and Mike the Tiger and caught these two girls peeing on bushes. We asked them how it was going, and they said “Pissalicious”. ” Hey, like Georgia’s pass defense!

6:57 PM J-Money: I’m back! I just turned on the Clemson-Virginia Tech game in time to hear one of Clemson’s players being referred to as “lightly used”, which is the same way a friend of mine refers to his former wife. I’m not making either piece of that up.

6:58 PM Holly: It’s not gonna happen for the Longhorns, and that’s so painful. Trash prevails: OU 28, Texas 21.

7:05 PM J-Money:  I didn’t expect Duke to play like that… most of the time, their games would have exactly the same outcome if none of their players had any arms.  It was 34-9 in the middle of the 3rd quarter.  Final score? Wake 41, Duke 36.  I cursed at a woman wearing a bonnet.

7:07 PM Holly:   And that’s naptime…see y’all back for the night games thread in an hour or so.  GOVAWLS!!