Two months in the can, one to go, folks, before 2007 is a misremembered, revisionist fog. Get every bit you can while you can. That is an order (Nevada-New Mexico State optional):

Remember the good times? There’s nothing keeping you away except you and your dignity.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
NEVADA at NEW MEXICO STATE (8:00 ET • ESPN2)
It’s a WAC game of no consequence whatsoever, even by WAC standards – both teams are eliminated from the conference title picture – so why not have one of those 59-57 barrages? It should be a law, really: the number of punts in any televised WAC game shall be no greater than the combined number of I-A wins between both teams. In this case, that’s five. Watch For: Admit it: you miss Hal Mumme, don’t you? It’s okay: it’s Friday night, it’s in New Mexico, it’s ESPN2…he won’t tell anyone.

SATURDAY – EARLY AFTERNOON: THERE IS A BODY. DUMP IT IN THE RIVER BEFORE…

Main Course: PURDUE at PENN STATE (Noon ET • ESPN)
It’s a virtual lock the winner here will be in one of the Florida bowls on New Year’s Day, which says nothing, really, except that there will be some really sketchy quarterbacking on display in January. Do not be fooled by Purdue’s “high-powered” offense, which has tended to find the deepest hole it can find against competent defense for the last three years or so – the Boilers were averaging 30 points before they were shut out by the Lions in West Lafayette last year. Watch For: Flashing back to his duty in the final days of World War II (this is true), JoPa mistakes the “bombs” Curtis Painter is spraying around the Penn State secondary for that agonizing night in the leaning shells of old farmhouses outside Bondeno in ‘45. Massacre ensues.

On the Other Channel…
IOWA at NORTHWESTERN (Noon ET • ESPN2)
One of these teams currently has a winning record. Can you guess which one? I didn’t think so. Watch For: Iowa quarterback Jake Christensen, coming one of the truly, stunningly horrible performances in the history of winning football after last week’s double overtime win over Michigan State. Christensen completed three passes in regulation for 24 yards, but didn’t throw an interception, which is like the quarterbacking version of playing dead. It’s all about adapting and surviving, man, adapting and surviving.

It’s just a highly evolved defense mechanism – Christensen doesn’t really throw.

NEBRASKA at KANSAS (12:30 ET • FSN)
The Callahan Death Watch limps into its final excruciating month in need of a good mercy killing: at 4-5 with three games to play, Nebraska is technically alive for a bowl game, even with a defense that just gave up 319 yards rushing at the Beaver Crossing First Presbyterian bake sale and a first time starter at quarterback. At some point, backups can only provide a spark – you know, the team can hardly play worse under Joe Ganz – but he’ll be a minor here if the ex-Blackshirts are competent enough to cover the 20-point spread. Watch For: Last week, it was the velour track suit. This week, Mangino goes for the lucky lederhosen.

Provincialism: N.C. State at Miami (Noon ET, ESPNU) . . . Wake Forest at Virginia (Noon ET, Lincoln Financial) . . . Ball State at Indiana (Noon ET, Big Ten Network) . . . Wisconsin at Ohio State (Noon ET, Big Ten Network) . . . Kansas State at Iowa State (12:30, Versus).

(A brief word to the Big Ten Network: I understand your contractual obligations to get teams onto BTN a certain number of times, but fuck you for picking up Wisconsin-Ohio State and sticking the rest of the country with Iowa-Northwestern. This is quite the boon a wounded conference was looking for, I’m sure, hiding a mythical championship contender in one of its three marquee games of the season on a regional network while trotting out the play-in game for the Music City Bowl for everyone not living next to a Great Lake. Or is it better voters not actually see Ohio State in its only pre-Michigan game worth watching? Go to hell. And if you don’t live in the Big Ten zone and you’re getting Wiscy-OSU by some means other than basic cable, you go to hell, too. We don’t want to hear about your fucking packages.

Oh, and it’s Northwestern: the Wildcats are 5-4. Iowa’s double overtime win over Michigan State last week left the Hawkeyes sitting at 4-5).

LATE AFTERNOON: VIVA HATE!

Main Course: LSU at ALABAMA (5:00 ET • CBS)
Bizarre start time for the Eye, about an hour and a half later than usual, all the better for the fan base that mobbed its new coach’s private plane and showed up 90,000 strong for the Spring game to get in that extra flask before filing in to its seats violently storming the gates to sate the entitled bloodlust that’s possessed the blackest corners of its soul since last December. This game could mean more, if both teams were undefeated or something – in SEC play, anyway, both are only an overtime loss away from 5-0, and a wild last minute drive from being 3-2 – but between coonasses, fucking rivals and the division title, there is epic theater in the works. Watch For: Well, damn, even Nick Saban has time for this shit. There are wilder environments than Bryant-Denny, but with an infusion of revenge and bourbon-filled Louisianans, under the circumstances, it should be transformed into the unpadded batshit madhouse of the season.

On the Other Channel…
Your Mouse-Eared ESPN on ABC Overlords Present…Regionalism!
CINCINNATI at SOUTH FLORIDA or MICHIGAN at MICHIGAN STATE or TEXAS at OKLAHOMA STATE or UCLA at ARIZONA (3:30 ET • ABC/ESPN)

One way or another, most of the country will be seeing Michigan-Michigan State, which is good and right: a legitimate, hate-filled rivalry between decent teams, neither of which is UCLA nor Arizona. The programmers guessing at the beginning of the year that Bruins-Wildcats would be a better draw for this slot than Devils-Ducks should be summarily sacked – Arizona? – not that anyone off the West Coast would be able to see the latter under these conditions, anyway. It probably worked out for the better, actually. Great job, guys!
Watch For: One of your last chances to see Chad Henne and Mike Hart as Wolverines. Truly, through the decades, they have been the voice of an entire generation.

NAVY at NOTRE DAME (2:30 ET • NBC)
Whatever the losing streak is now, 40 games, 45 games, this is it for Notre Dame. The last possible shred of respect it can salvage is to win the frosted dessert course of its schedule (in November, the Irish get Navy, Air Force, Duke and Stanford) beginning with the Middies, if for no other reason than to say “At least we didn’t lose to Navy” and avoid another billboard advertising this team’s historic futility. Watch For: Unparalelled potential for schadenfreude, and because you love the triple option, don’t you, seaman?!

Provincialism: Colorado State at BYU (Noon MT, mtn.) . . . East Carolina at Memphis (2:00 ET, WITN, WLMT) . . . San Jose State at Boise State (1:00 MT, KTVB 7) . . . Buffalo at Miami, Ohio (3:00 ET, Ohio News Now) . . . Army at Air Force (1:30 MT, CSTV) . . . Marshall at Central Florida (3:30 ET, CSS Southeast) . . . Maryland at North Carolina (3:45 ET, ESPNU).

THE WILD CARD
ARIZONA STATE at OREGON (6:45 ET • ESPN)
Even the most cynical hats must be doffed to the Leader for saving the game of the day from regional oblivion, even if kickoff here is inconvenient for anyone more interested in LSU-Bama. The second half of this one ought to get much better ratings than the first. Watch For: If it’s not enough of a draw to watch two high-scoring, top five teams hook up with the highest conference and national implications and coaches who are liable to stagger in as sloshed on the Nike dime as the Sig Eps in the stands, at least give a fair shake to Dennis Dixon, the most overlooked candidate for certain unnamed statuettes. Oregon has to remain a national contender for his campaign to gain any traction, and vice versa.

HERE COMES THE NIGHT

Main Course: Your Mouse-Eared ESPN on ABC Overlords Present…More Regionalism!
FLORIDA STATE at BOSTON COLLEGE or TEXAS A&M at OKLAHOMA or OREGON STATE at SOUTHERN CAL (8:00 ET • ABC)

Almost two-thirds of households nationally will see Matt “Roller Coaster” Ryan try to keep his lunch down against Florida State, while viewers attempt to keep their own lunch down watching the ‘Noles’ pathetic attempts to execute anything on offense. Even FSU’s lone interesting player, Xavier Lee, has succumbed to a sprained cerebrum, leaving vanilla Drew Weatherford to fail in far less spectacular fashion. Just for the record: does anybody else get the sneaking sense that, if their teams and coaches were reversed, Drew Weatherford and Matt Ryan are pretty much the same quarterback? Watch For: Independently, DeMarco Murray and Dennis Franchione’s tortured attempts at stoicism in defeat are worth the price of admission on their own. So a certain segment of the country is getting a sweet two-for-one. It’s like Christmas.

On the Other Channel…
MISSOURI at COLORADO (6:40 ET • FSN)
There’s no figuring Colorado out: the Buffs lose at home in the middle of the night to Florida State, then take out Oklahoma on the same field, then get routed in back-to-back games by Kansas and Kansas State, and, reeling in the wake of Sunflower State smackdowns, salvaged the season by whipping Texas Tech last week in Lubbock. Division I football, brother: completely schizophrenic. Watch For: Chase Daniel, who, no, you have not observed closely enough. Everyone has Mizzou figured, but nobody’s doing much about it.

Chase Daniel doesn’t adjust to the altitude. The altitude adjusts to Chase Daniel.

SOUTH CAROLINA at ARKANSAS (8:00 • ESPN2)
It feels like both teams are reeling, but, where South Carolina’s lost two in a row, Arkansas has actually won four of its last five. The problem: those four were North Texas, UT-Chattanooga, Ole Miss and Florida International. Against actual SEC opponents, the Hogs have fallen flatter’n Houston Nutt’s denials re: Donna Bragg. Watch For: Any chance to watch Darren McFadden knife through hordes of tacklers is a precious one, and by all reasonable guesses, this will be one of the last you’ll get on a Saturday.

WASHINGTON STATE at CALIFORNIA (10:00 ET • FSN)
Random Pac Ten game! Random Pac Ten game! Less than a month ago, Cal was ranked third in the country and thinking national championship. Now the Bears are trying to hold on against streaking Wazzu (one in a row, baby!) to avoid a tie for ninth place in the conference. Watch For: The sheer, drunken, bleary-eyed pleasure that comes from falling asleep for whole quarters, then waking up just in time to catch a bizarro finish and trying in vain to remember just which team you bet on, again, before passing out for good. It’s the little things that make it all worthwhile.

Provincialism: New Mexico at TCU (4:30 CT, mtn.) . . . Washington at Stanford (3:30 PT, FSN Bay Area) . . . Southern Miss at UAB (6:00 CT, CSS Southeast) . . . Eastern Michigan at Toledo (7:00 ET, Buckeye Cable Network) . . . Rutgers at Connecticut (7:15, ESPNU) . . . Tulsa at Tulane (6:30 CT, CSTV) . . . Illinois at Minnesota (7:00 CT, Big Ten Network) . . . Wyoming at San Diego State (6:00 PT, mtn.).

Don’t forget to set your clock backs at the end of Cal-WSU, and enjoy that little time warp while you can.

Dan Hawkins: A true Spartan of coachrant.

In the pantheon of glorious rants, Mike Gundy’s must be given short shrift due to its lack of the following things:

1. Thrown objects
2. Profanities
3. Actual, filmed assaults
4. An uncontrolled, free-form rantflow to it.
5. Instantly quotable lines.

Gundy was prepackaged, plastic, and can’t possibly measure up to the foothills of the coach implosion Himalaya due to the lack of the five elements of a real, ass-ripping lunatic rant. Only the line “I’M A GROWN MAN! I’M FORTY!” comes close, and even then it’s borrowing laugh-memory from Molly Shannon’s Salley O’Malley and her enchanting Desert Rose. (He’s Mike Gundy! He can kick! Stretch! And….KICK! FOUR-OH!)

He even brought props, a bush league crutches of the junior-circuit ranter. Props mean you planned it; ideally, a rant comes not from the heart, or the head, but instead from the lizard brain, unfiltered, uncontrollable, and irresistable. Mike Gundy, were he a cinematic murderer, would be William H. Macy in Fargo; a real ranter like Lou Piniella or Dan Hawkins is Mr. Brooks or Dexter, unwillingly turning the wheel over to the Dark Passenger without knowing it. If props are involved, they’re hijacked on the scene, usually thrown without caring where they go or who they hit. (Hal McCray, phone; Lou Piniella, bases, Rob Dibble, an infant in a barfight with Billy Martin in 1977.)

Sadly, the best verbal coaching fit ever eluded recording devices. Marv Levy swore in an interview on the NFL Network that George Allen once went on a 45 minute tirade about the evils of snow tires. But failing that, for proper, grumpy bastard rant, call a pro like Paul Johnson, who’ll run the triple option of rant-ropology by accusing you of working at McDonald’s, getting angry, and wagering a public ass-kissing on the challenge. (HT: Peter.)

Reporter: Can I ask you something without making you mad?

Johnson: Maybe. I don’t know. (more…)

A definition:

A concussion occurs when the head hits or is hit by an object. A concussion can also occur when the brain is pushed against the skull with a strong force. In such cases, parts of the brain that control mental function may be damaged. The injured person may become disoriented (confused) and may briefly lose consciousness.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about three hundred thousand people experience mild to moderate concussions each year as a result of sports injuries. Most of these people are men between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.

See illustration 1.A below:

For more information, the Library of Congress recommends that you find your local Rey Maualuga. Anger him; this may be done by staring directly at him or at a picture of him, breathing oxygen in his vicinity, or even standing too closely to him in days that end in “y.” Then wait behind as many blockers as you like for desired results. He’ll find you.

(BTW: What in the hell is wrong with UCLA’s protections? Olson was sacked five times in the game against Utah. West coast offense short pass three step drop quick protect whaAAAA?)

Pants, dignity. On this we build our republic.

Overzealous coaching is something we understand. Stealing someone’s pants outside the bounds of a friendly prank is not. Curt McKinney, coach of the Cincinnati rec league Midwest Marauders, is a pants-stealing, batshit-crazy bastard, according to one Aucherae Washington, a 10 year old booted from practice for walking down a hill during sprint drills at the Marauders’ practice. The saga of a boy who lost his pants follows in brief (boxers, actually, but on with the story:)

The boy said his coach berated him in front of the other players.

“He wanted a pair of pants,” said neighbor Yvonne Workman. “He was upset, and he seemed like he was nervous and he didn’t know what to do.”

The coach has not been suspended because he has not been charged with a crime in the case, according to league officials. He should be, of course: the kid is ten years old, playing football for fun, and obviously mismatched with a zealot of a coach who stripped him of his dignity in front of his teammates before making him walk home pantsless at the age of ten. Remember that blogs are the little invisible words in between the lines of regular newsprint, and in this case, those words read: Oh my god, what a complete and utter waste of carbon this man is.

And if you don’t think everyone in life wants a little dignity and a pair of pants at the bare minimum…then you, sir, are not part of this man’s Republic of Awesome. Seek citizenship elsewhere.

HT: Odell51

This may be all you see of us today–we’re headed to Clemson for the Bowden Bowl, where we can safely root against Bowden no matter what happens–but in the meantime, Mark Mangino would like to show you that underneath that cuddly exterior lies a facemask-grabbing, fuck-dropping coachbeast just dying to chew your ass off.

FYI: Raimond Pendleton was not eaten afterwards. An assistant usually sprinkles them with salt and other spices during the diatribe in those instances. (HT: Pete Jayhawk.)

Ivan Maisel gets the Barbara Walters shot at Nick Saban in a piece producing two shining details worth framing on the wall of “things we will wear into the ground through comic repetition this year. ”

One: Saban hates your gangsta huggies.

On the practice field in the early days of spring practice, the Saban you don’t know decided he had had enough of his players wearing their pants too far below their waist…

“He pulled his pants down,” Caldwell said, “and said, ‘This is how some of you guys look. You’re showing your ass. And I’m going to be the only a–hole showing around here.’”

Proof positive there’s a Patton DVD somewhere floating around the Saban household, most likely sandwiched between musty copies of the original Walking Tall and Snap, Pop, OH MY GOD WHY?: Quarterbacks in Pain, Vol 12.

The other grand tidbit here: Saban’s rage fuel, allowing him to work those famous 20 hour days and still reduce underlings to tears with ease, is readily available at your local gas station or downmarket grocery store:

The Saban you don’t know may have a Manhattan income, but his tastes remain rooted in his native West Virginia. Given his druthers, Saban would be watching practice video, a cup of coffee on the table and Red Man Golden tucked in his cheek. Toss a package of Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies (the original size, not the big ones) next to the coffee and you may not hear from Saban for hours.

Them’s some druthers right there. Saban’s snack tastes run roughly parallel to Britney Spears, something we wouldn’t have predicted given a decade’s worth of guesses. In our darkest moments as a fan–say, when the 2009 team is pounding the hell out of Florida’s quarterback in the SEC championship game–we’ll just go to a happy place where Nick Saban is yelling at his players, waddling around a practice field with his pants around his ankles and an oatmeal cream pie in his hand. Laughing makes the sad fly away at times like that.

That visual could be handy for SEC fans over the next few years, actually.

Matthew Stafford: Shit! Look at that shit, Mo.

Mohammed Massaquoi: Fucking shit.

Matthew Stafford: Holy. Shit.

Mo Massaquoi: Holy. Shit.

Stafford: (downs sandwich) That’s our fucking coach levitating.

Mo: Upside-fuckin-down, man. He’s levitating upside-fuckin’-down.

Stafford: Like he’s Neo, dude. Fuckin’ A.

Mo: He’s the chosen one. He can read the Matrix. Fuck.

Stafford: He just fucking walked right off the board and–BOOM!–he’s just fucking floating there.

Mo: Holy smoking donkey dick, he’s still up there.

Stafford: Just fucking sitting there. Wherever I go, it’s like his eyes are followin’ me.

Mo: He’s gonna do that ’till I stop dropping balls, right?

Stafford: I need a beer. Like, right damn now.

Mo: He heard that. He knew you were gonna say that before you even said it.

Stafford: Holy shit, he did, didn’t he? Holy fucking shit.

Mo: How long’s he gonna be up there?

Stafford: ‘Til we get an offensive line, he says.

Mo: He’s gonna be up there a while, then, motherfucker.

Stafford: Fuckin’ A, man.

Mo: (shakes head) Fuckin’ A.

(Photo of Mark Richt doing a backflip off the high dive at UGA via Sports By Brooks. And that really is Mark Richt, who can also levitate upside down, we’re sure.)

What in the name of Malagasy hissing cockroaches is this shit? If you can’t see the video, it’s the LA CBS affiliate KCBS reporting that UCLA wide receivers coach Eric Scott was arrested for burglary earlier today. (HT: Sam.)

Eric Scott: arrested for burglary?

You knew Pete Carroll’s house had a burglar alarm. You knew you’d have to replace the playbook with an object of equal weight before the booby traps kicked in and crushed you all. You were afraid, but you went anyway, Eric. Heroes call that courage, sir.

All of this happens just in time for Pac-10 Media Day tomorrow! Karl Dorrell should just claim a case of the burning twistgut shits and stay home.

More pending…

Here we were, all ready to tack Oklahoma State up as this year’s pip of a Big 12 team, the one that goes 9-3 and beats a few luminaries along the way, when a potential starting receiver slips while lifting a ridiculous amount of weight and sends a few lumbar vertebrae shooting across the gym.

Back injury: an interactive feature starring you, a lot of weight, and pills whose names end in -done.

We noticed the story in passing this weekend, but were perhaps to distracted by the awesomeness of going to a Mastodon concert to really take in just how nasty Woods’ injury truly was. From NewsOK.com:

It’s uncertain whether Woods will play football again after a freak accident in the weight room. But it’s encouraging the sophomore wide receiver has had feeling in his legs and was released from intensive care on Sunday.

Great Tamurlane’s nutsack! What the hell was he lifting? A Coke machine made of Govermentium? Chunks of solid granite, or their human equivalent in weight if not consistency, conference rival coach Mark Mangino? Woods went from “freak weight room injury” to “may never play again” over the weekend, spending the weekend in intensive care before undergoing three and a half hours of back surgery to repair the blasted bones in his back. He’s still in the hospital, but is expected to be released in the next couple of days.

The Cowboys still have plenty of talent left at wideout, including the large and very difficult to defend Adarius Bowman (1181 yards, 60 rec, 12 tds, and an amazing natural origami practitioner.) One thing they may not have is the clean and jerk as part of their workout routine any more–we’d be a few slipped discs that this is the exercise that got Woods into the hospital.

He wouldn’t be the only one to get injured doing the clean and jerk:

Petrificus totalus! Like all Youtube videos showing grave injury, we have to assume he’s fine. Or completely paralyzed. One of the two, actually.

Without coaching a game yet, Gene Chizik has caused a frenzy in global currency markets unseen since the advent of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Golden Yuan: the Chizik-Nickel, or as speculators are already calling it, the “Chickel.” (HT: Keosahawkeye.)

Yours for only $15, the Chickel commemorates the upcoming 2007 season by putting Chizik in profile on antique gold. Looking at the picture, we’ve never noticed what a striking similarity there is between Coach Chizik and Chief Sitting Bull, were one to cut his hair and place him in a three-piece suit.

As compared to other coach-emblazoned swag, it’s impressive. For example, this completely kicks the ass of the [NAME REDACTED] seat cushions they handed out two years ago at Illinois. They were unpopular with reason, however, as they tended to get soft and give out somewhere around the early fourth quarter.

3.5 million dollars this year, 3.75 million dollars in ‘08, and…well, we won’t stretch Saban much past the two year window yet. That’s asking a lot of a coach who’s, you know, still exploring other options, checking the scene, thinking about getting his MBA, seeing other women, you know…keeping his future flexible, man.

Thought about taking the State Department exam, but doesn’t have time for that shit.

Those are the salary numbers for Nick Saban’s contact, newly finalized as of today. The contract was stripped of much of the extraneous endorsement and personal appearance requirements many coaches have built into their contracts, including the “unlimited” obligations listed in his predecessor Mike Shula’s contract.

By contrast, Saban need only appear once a week on the radio during the season, twice during spring practice and once close to the national signing day for high school recruits.

For television programs, Saban is bound to appear once a week during the season, once after the season and once after a bowl game.

The rest of the time he may sit in his undisclosed location, watching film in the dark, sucking the hearts straight from the chest of screaming iguanas, and scanning the want ads dutifully. This is likely a positive development for Alabama fans. Shula’s performances in press conferences were…well, just watch the clip to see all you need to know.

One of our favorite sites sights (dammit) in all of college football around the turn of the ’00s was watching quarterback Dave Ragone leave brain cells and soul points all over the field while playing quarterback for Louisville. Why was Ragone’s energy meter getting knocked down by multiple bars as we watched pre-MSU disaster John L. Smith’s Louisville teams shock FSU and begin the Cardinals ascendance from C-USA to the Big East? Because Dave didn’t slide, you simpering little nancy.

I’m gonna get hit? Ok, that’s cool.

As in never. Ever. Ragone went shoulder first into every hit he took, a practice which resulted in hits where visible, atomized bits of brain matter shot from his eyes, ears, mouth, and most spectacularly, his ass. Ragone would actually look progressively dumber over the course of the game–we would have paid Adrian Karsten (god rest his tax-cheatin’, suicidal soul) good money to play him in Connect Four over the course of the game. First quarter: Dave wins in three moves. Second quarter: Karsten thrashes him in six moves.

Fourth quarter: Ragone’s eating the chips.

This refusal to slide met its match in one of the most dismal Thursday night games we’ve ever watched, a 2002ish matchup versus Colorado State with Bradlee Van Pelt at quarterback for the Rams, another non-slider brain damage fiend who rocked the mullet pre-hipster revival and had a face like a disgruntled vampire bat. (more…)

Before we celebrate the more ominous, seedy side of collegiate athletics with a Fulmer Cup update, let’s remind people that sometimes people do really, really extraordinary things for each other because of the connections they develop in the course of their work in athletics. Because unless donating a kidney is a mandated policy in the HR manual at Oregon State, this truly is an act of grace:

Oregon State offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf donated a kidney to offensive line coach Mike Cavanaugh’s wife. Laurie Cavanaugh, 48, had living-donor kidney transplant surgery on Tuesday at Portland’s Oregon Health & Science University Hospital.

Cavanaugh has autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, an inherited condition usually dormant until the patient hits their forties of fifties. Almost all patients experience renal failure before they hit the age of sixty, however, and the morbidity rate is nothing to scoff at: before dialysis and transplants, most patients died within ten years of the onset of symptoms.

Mike Cavanaugh, Laurie’s husband, was understandably overwhelmed.

“When you work as closely as a coaching staff does, you develop some really deep and solid friendships — I guess you could say this is the ultimate in friendship,” said Mike Cavanaugh, who like Langsdorf is in his third season with the Beavers.

Langsdorf will likely have to seriously curtail any beer-drinking he might have been doing prior to surgery. That, sir, is friendship. ONE HUNDRED COCKTAILS of a non-alcoholic variety for you, Mr. Landgsdorf.

Cavanaugh and Langsdorf, post-op.

Sylvester Croom’s already lived three lives in one: Alabama offensive legend, NFL coach, family man, lover, fighter, and now the first African-American head coach in the SEC. He truly has grown into a man of all seasons, a philosopher-king in his own right.

And now, he wants to share his greatest joy with you: the joy of music. Please, bear with the atrocious audio quality of the first minute (the producers said the song “needed edge!”) and listen to Sylvester Croom’s debut album, available on Mud Dog Records for only $39.95, including bonus concert DVD.

We now present to the world…Sylvester Croom, laying down hot tracks on his debut album dropping right here, right now: Sylvester…Croons.

(Psst! Hey! All you need to know is that Sylvester Croom has a very, very deep voice. Proceed!)

MP3 File

Finally, it’s happened to all of us: Sylvester Croom sings.

How refreshing: a video of a horrific hit not timed to “BOOM!!!111″ by some nu-metal band so bad we refuse to remember the name. Though Ohio State ended up winning this game 44-0 in as bad an asswhipping as you can really hand out to a conference foe, Minnesota peeked through the gloom and snatched victory on at least one play.