How do you enjoy a fluff piece you know from the start will be a perfunctory knob-polishing of a new coach, coordinator, or university president? They’re atrocious to write and just as bad to read, something that is not so much the fault of the writer as it is of the editor who says, “Go get me a profile” to a person who needs access to the program, the coach, and the players. Meaning: the profiles are inevitably nice, hands-offish, and gloss over anything remotely interesting.

Therefore, we at EDSBS Labs seek to give you reality improved. One technique to improve the fluff piece: unfairly excerpt or elide quotes. Another? Unfair illustrations, as seen in this Houston Nutt profile from the Laurel Leader-Call.

“WAYNESBORO – If Thursday night’s tenth annual Wayne County Rebel Club gathering is any indication, new Ole Miss Rebel head football coach Houston Nutt has already won over the Rebel faithful. The last four seasons are nothing but a fading view in the rear-view mirror of their vehicles…”

“If you meet Nutt, you will be impressed even if you are not a Rebel fan. (more…)

Resisting arrest with zest: Ole Miss.

DA REBBAH DONE–wait, wait. We can’t do the Orgeron voice when it comes to Ole Miss stories anymore, can we? He’s moved on to the Saints to coach their defensive line, meaning we fully expect to see Ed himself crashing double teams when he suits up in an attempt to psych his troops up next season. Watching a man blow both ACLs at once will never have been as festive, ami!

Instead, we’re left with the sadness of an Ole Miss team coached by the merely insane Houston Nutt. They make their debut in the Fulmer Cup with the arrest of safety Jamarca Sanford, who refused to leave the parking lot of Night Town, a billiards club, the kind we hate because it’s loaded with douchebags who, if you come within ten feet of them, give you the death glare and ask you “hey hey HEY! Little room at the table, here!” (See: Twain’s, Decatur, GA, for another of these.)

Apologies, Minnesota Shats–we’ll just be over here moving the cue ball with our minds, causing you to miss shots by fractions of an inch. Perhaps Jamarca hates these places, too, and just wanted to fight–or perhaps he was mesmerized by the menu offerings at Night Town. Erotic chicken might make us feisty enough to get arrested, too.

Fried Mushrooms - basket of ’shrooms served with ranch dressing. These ain’t the mushrooms that’ll get you to that Rocky Mountain high… But they’ll get you damn close. $4.50

They watch ‘em on 8mm? Now we totally want to hang with the owners of Night Town. It’s a rare breed of gentleman that breaks out the double-reel for his porno, sir.

Oh, and two points for Ole Miss in the Fulmer Cup.

Erotic chicken cant u see, thoughts of pretty u and me.

Houston Nutt’s taking his sack of crazy weasels and trucking the family down to Oxford, Mississippi in a hire that…um…we actually can’t say anything bad about at all, really. What the hell is a blogger to do?

In lieu of negative bashing of decision-making, we’ll actually have to discuss what’s good about the hire. Nutt wins games, so that’s an instant improvement over his predecessor, who did not win games this year, something coaches are supposed to do from time to time. Nutt also gets people to play football very, very hard. Not always intelligently, true; but very, very hard, and in very simple schemes they can pick up with ease. They’ll run the daylights out of the ball with Ole Miss’s underrated line on first and second down before the real treat: the return of the Matt Jones offense with Jevan Snead, where he’ll have a one receiver pattern, find it’s not open, and then will have to improvise and “make a play,” a phrase that is the coachspeak equal of 12th century cartographers’ “THARR BE DRAGONS.”

Nutt will also be away from Fayetteville’s now-toxic social environment, where he probably could not send a single text message without a nabob piping in with “HEY, YA TEXTIN’ UR GALFRIEND, HOUSTON?” Oxford’s more laid-back, and the other thing Ed Orgeron forged with three years of yaw-yaw (besides a nice talent base) are the sweet oblivion of low expectations. It’s not like Nutt has to win five games to improve in the SEC. Winning just one would do that.

One game? That’s improvement? WOOOOOO GIGGITY!

As for the dearly departed: Ed Orgeron has been mentioned in rumors surrounding Washington State. If you see a huge Cajun berating bushels of apples for their bruises and lack of toughness in the next week or so, Washingtonians, you’ll know there’s some credence to this scuttlebutt.

Every series ends. Sometimes they involve 3.5 million dollar payouts.

Frank Broyles: Houston Dale, we need to talk.

Houston Dale Nutt: GIGGITY! WHOO-WHEE GIGGITY!!! TARBLANG FANGDAMUS!!!! PIG PIG PIG!!!!

Frank Broyles: You’re getting fired, Houston. Do you understand that?

Houston Dale Nutt: FAHHARRD UP! YESSSS AH AAHHHHHM WOOOO GALLLGIGGITY I AM!!!

FB: No, just the regular kind of fired.

Houston Dale Nutt: GOTSTA CLEEAN OUT MAH HOGPIT?

FB: If by that, you mean your office…well, yes.

HDN: NO, AH MEAN MAH HOGPIT UNDAH THA STADYUM, WHERE I FIGHT PIGS FOR MUN-AAAHHHYYY AND FILM IT FOR THE ENJOH-MUNT AH THE PEOPLE WOOOOO PIG PIG PIG!!!!

FB: You fight pigs for money?

HDN: FLABBERTY-JABBITY, I FIGHT ‘EM FO LOVE, OL’ FRANKIE-TANKIE! THE MONEY MEANS NOTHIN’ TO ME, SINCE THE OOOOOOOOOO-SQUEALIE OF THE FIGHT IS ALL AH NEED!!! VIDEO EVIDENCE WOULD BE A SHAME IF IT GOT OUT, TREE-GUNDAMUS BANGFLINDAMUS WOOO!!!

FB: Perhaps a settlement is in order here. To keep things…amicable.

HDN: HAHHHAAAA BOSNAPPETTY STRAPPETTY BUTTSNIFF!!! AH CAN’T WAIT FUH MAH PAYOUT! IN EUROS PLEASE–GAY MONEY’S WORTH MORE NOW, BUT AHM TAKIN’ IT BECAUSE I’M WILY LIKE A PIG, JIB-GRABBETY JUPITER-TOOPITER! I’D WEAR HOT PANTS MADE OF EUROS IF YAH MADE UP FLATTAH MAH PANTS HAWG!

(Translation: Nutt’s fired with a $3.5 million “settlement.” )

(Additional translation: Nutt may be headed to Georgia Tech with much haste, per Rivals rumors.)

David Lee, offensive coordinator: “Houston, man. I was thinking toss right with Jones.”

Houston Nutt, head coach, Arkansas: “GIGGITY GIGGITY GIGGITY!!! WWOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! BLOTUNK BARFARKUS WOONDANGITY GIGGITY HOOOO!!!”

David Lee: “Hey, seriously. We’re burning clock here. I got toss right to Jones for the win, Coach.”

Nutt:”GOOD GREAT DANCING BOOGITY OOGITY! RAZORBACK FOOTBALL OHHH MAMIEEE SHANKY BACKRATTACKUS FLIRTIN’ WITH DISASTERATOOOIIIEEE GIGGITY BULLFROG!!!!”

David Lee: “Toss right to Jones, then.”

(They convert.)

Nutt:”WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AHM GONNA BIDRIDINKUS COACH FOOTBAW JAGGETY BAGGITY BILBO BAGGINS TAINTSLAP DOOGITY DINKEE HOOOAAAAAAAOOOOOOOO!!!”

David Lee: “Great call, right coach?”

Nutt: “What call? We playin’? HOT DANG LUV ME SOME FOOTBAAW! CALL HEADDS DANGITY BANGITY! HEADS NEVAH FAILS!”

David Lee: “We just finished, coach. We beat the number one team in the nation.”

Nutt: “WHY DIDN’T SOMEONE TELL ME BODANGIT!!! STARTS THIS SHITS OVER BALRAGGEDY TAGGEDY, AH SAY!!! GIGGITY GIGGITY GIGGITY!”

Lee: (takes long pull off bottle of gin, faxes resume to Sun Belt teams while wiping back tears.)

As if on cue…enter Houston Nutt.

Addictions are funny if you really think about it. It’s been my experience that people get addicted to things they’re really bad at. This is where I come in. Today, I’m going to help the gambling degenerates out there. I don’t want you to stop. I don’t want to make you a better person. I just want you to be a better gambler. This is for the college kid who maxed out his first Capital One card (awwww…..), the guy who lives in his Chevy Malibu but has to stay on the move so the repo man doesn’t take it, and for the n00bs who always wanted to gamble but didn’t know how. There’s something for everyone. It’s so simple, you’ll love it!

Illinois @ Ohio State (-15)

This is the unstoppable force against the immovable object. Illinois has the nation’s 6th best rush offense and tOSU has the nation’s top defense. That might look like a lot of points, but it’s not. You’ve got the Zooker, in Columbus, with Juice Williams at the helm against the #1 team in the country. Now that the Buckeyes have the offense rolling, this is a lock. This is a low risk way to wet your appetite and make you feel like a gangster. I’m giving it a “throw you up against the wall in an alley next to a dumpster” rating - this game’s for everyone, even the kids. Put a dime on the Buckeyes, collect your cash, and you’re gamblin’! It’s so simple.

Alabama @ Mississippi State (+5)

Saban will not be Croomed. I know, Mississippi State is nearly bowl eligible, but take a hard look at them and they’re a picture mediocrity - offense, defense, special teams, and coaching. Gambling is about numbers and the (mildly) important number on this game is 21 — it’s (not even close to) the most points the Bulldogs have scored all season and it’s the least amount of points the Tide have scored. In just his first year, ‘Lil Napolean is already working his dark magic on the Tide. This is a “bat to the knee” game. It’s ugly but you can recover from it. Put half your weekly salary on ‘Bama to cover.

Florida @ South Carolina (+6.5)

What good is genius if you can’t help others understand it? Steve Spurrier is arguably the best offensive mind in college sports but he appears to have come to a point in his life when he’s completely unable to communicate his vision to his players. If you’ve watched the ‘Cocks you know what I’m talking about. A play isn’t brilliant when it’s drawn up; it’s brilliant when it’s been executed on the field. I haven’t seen any brilliance out of South Carolina for weeks. They won early this season playing good defense and scoring however many points they needed to win. All of that appears to be lost now. This team is a fucking mess and the Gators are not the team you want to see at a time like this. If USC can’t figure out that you have to put 10 guys in the box to stop Arkansas, how are they going to stop Tebow? You might think Tebow is out of the Heisman race, after this game, you would be wrong. I’d rate this a solid “two-thumber”. You might get your thumbs broken, but if you want big rewards, you gotta take big risks. Do you want to be a gambler or not? Find the seediest bar you can, ask for a bookie, and put your girlfriend/life partner/roommate’s coffee can cash on Florida.

Auburn @ Georgia (-2)

This talk of Tubs going to A&M will fall on dear ears. Auburn is well aware of what happened last season when Brandon Cox threw 4 pics and they got hammered by Georgia. That’s not going to happen again. Georgia’s running game has looked great the last few weeks when Mark Richt remembered that 1 back is better than 3. Sadly, he’s facing the meanest motherfucking defensive line in all of the land on Saturday. Auburn is a bad match up for the Georgia so be prepared for a piss poor effort from the Dogs between the hedges this week. If you like to watch pretty girls cry, tune in to Athens around mid-point in the 4th quarter where there will be more ugly beautiful than you can imagine. Put a month’s bar tab on Dumbo to beat the Dogs outright. [no catchy rating for this game, apparently.—ed.]

Arkansas @ Tennessee

This game is not for the faint of heart. If you think you know what’s going to happen here, you’d be lying to yourself. These teams are both so inconsistent that it makes their fans physically ill to watch them. With Arkansas, you’ve got the jaw-dropping talent of Darren McFadden who may just win the Heisman based on his 321 yard output last week against South Carolina. Additionally, the Razorbacks have Felix Jones who’s also run for 1,000 yards, on exactly half the carries of McFadden. They may be the best tandem I’ve ever seen… and their team is 2-3 in the conference. This is the story of Houston Nutt. On the other side of the ball you’ve got Philip Fulmer and his band of merry men, who look alternately awesome [see: Georgia game], terrible [see: Florida game], and disinterested [see: Mississippi State game]. If you’re picking this game, you’re not taking the team to win, so much as you’re taking Neyland to be the difference here. Take Tennessee, but before you do, look at the next game, because we’re going with a parlay here.

Arizona State @ UCLA (+7)

Don’t ever bet on a Pac-10 game. Just don’t do it. It will only end in tears and shattered extremities. This is particularly true when you’re talking about a game featuring Karl Dorrell. He’s like an abusive father to Bruins Nation. Beat BYU! Get crushed by Utah. Then in an attempt to get back their love, he treated them to wins over Washington and Oregon State! Then he slipped and broke their heart by losing to Notre Dame. Such is the psychology of the abusive relationship. He then “bought Bruins Nation a new bike” by beating Cal and quickly backed over it in the driveway by losing to Washington State. They cried and he slapped them around for  it by losing to Arizona. UCLA’s remaining 3 games are against ASU, Oregon, and USC. I can promise you he will win one of them, in a last ditch effort to make them love him again… but not this week. The Sun Devils lost for the first time last week in a spirited tussle in Eugene but I think you go with them to cover the 7. This isn’t so much a vote of confidence to Dennis Erickson as it is a vote against Karl Dorrell. Now, here’s the fun part! Take whatever you can afford to lose, double it, and put it on Arizona State and Tennessee to win in a 2 team parlay. This is also cool, because just as the Pac-10 game starts, the SEC game will be ending. For 6 straight hours your heart will be racing. Nutt! Dorrell! Fulmer! Erickson! It will be like the longest game of Russian Roulette ever. Enjoy!

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.

How fired is your beleaguered coach? A good question to ask this time of year, especially if you’ve been going to work, doing a shitty job, and losing football games. The current round up of those lining up to meet the vocational grim reaper and their relative metaphorical equivalents follow.

Houston Nutt.

How fired is he? Explosively fired, man. Hmm…if he were an element, he’d be pure sodium. You know, the stuff your friend Todd decided to steal from the chem lab in high school? Because he read it was explosive and whatnot, right? And put it in his back pocket and sat down, removing a clean, sirloin-sized chunk of his buttocks? (Todd was cool like that. Kids with parents in jail typically are.)

Fired? Oh, I’ll make them all pay, I will! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA

Houston Nutt shouldn’t be near any open flame right now. If he were transported on trucks, they’d have to have a special sticker to cross state lines with him, and you’d swerve several lanes over to avoid getting to close to it. Tactical scrutiny has now gotten easier and more common than ever: against Auburn, Darren McFadden received a mere 17 carries without the excuse of being drastically behind, as the Tigers only scored nine points in four quarters. (Tuberville, up by a field goal, decided to protect the lead by running. This is not a joke. He did.)

Most damning is Nutt’s political situation: his protector and sponsor, Frank Broyles, is stepping down as AD after this year, leaving Nutt and an extremely, um…”participatory” fanbase to shake the torches at the gates until he goes, even if they don’t have a clue who’ll take the gig once Boss Hawg is gone. They’ve got planes and shit, man. You can’t fight that.

We just consider it a miracle they didn’t unfurl the banner and unleash the five hundred pounds of malathion they’ve got in the back on the crowd, or weed, or whatever else you know an Arkansas pilot hustles around in a Cessna to make ends meet.

He should go into… Restaurant management. (more…)

Houston Nutt, eight seconds from squandering a heroic performance by the best running back not named Herschel Walker we can remember in a 41-38 loss to Alabama:

(HT: Hokie Andrew.)

On the day when his chief sponsor, Frank Broyles, stepped down as the Athletic Director at Arkansas, our thoughts naturally turn to Houston Nutt, just as they do whenever we text message our mistress or run the ball 30 times in a row in NCAA 2008.

The third week of the season usually takes our football infection from drastic to epidemic level, what with Tennessee/Florida, USC/Nebraska, ND/UM in the repuS Bowl, and a treasure trove of other games going on this weekend. This slew of quality includes the most curious Arkansas/Alabama game, where new-look Bama goes up against Humanity Advanced (Darren McFadden), Felix Jones, and the handoff artist they call a quarterback.

It being the first real semi-national peek at Arkansas, questions abound. Will Bama’s defense hold as the Hogs undoubtedly run right at them upwards of fifty times in the game? Will the WildHog (neé le Wildcat) run havoc on a fledgling Saban defense? Will Major Applewhite’s new offense prosper in their first game against heavy-gauge SEC competition?

And most importantly…what the hell is Nutt saying in this photo ?

Be healed!
Five times! We’re only passing five times.
All the ladies over here say HOOOOOOOOAAAAHHHH
Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat!!!

Leave your suggestions below.

Marcus Monk, the lone offensive threat not wearing a running back’s number on the Arkansas Razorbacks’ roster, suffered a knee injury in practice yesterday. The injury is most likely some torn cartilage, according to Dr. Houston Nutt, who diagnosed the injury on sight after practice.

With the injury to Monk, the Razorbacks lose their last excuse to not run that most glorious of sledgehammer offenses the whole season: the single wing. Did you think your day was complete without the single wing? You were fucking wrong, sir/ma’am. Revel in its cromag glory, and eat a caribou leg cooked over open flame in honor of it. (Where no caribou is available, a Baconnator will do. You must eat if off the tip of a broadsword, though, to make the whole thing work.)

Its similarity to the Te-bone or the West Virgnia spread is, at times, frightening. The Wildcat looks downright sophisticated in comparison, what with all that “passing” done from it.* Your last excuse is gone, Don Porkrind. Embrace the single wing. You know you crave it.

*Four passes a year= a lot. Love, Houston Nutt.

A respectable 20 rank in the Coaches’ Poll! A buzz-generating sighting of the Wildcat formation in fall practice, a formation that new offensive coordinator David Lee says he’s even expanded in his playbook! People forgetting the turmoil of the offseason until…until you get the sudden departure of offensive Colin Tucker from the team, a minor hiccup in the depth chart that should slide away from the reader somewhere around the bottom of the page.

Unless Tucker Sr. goes on a Rivals site and either drops a neutron bomb on anything and everything associated with the coaching staff–now that’s got itself some walkin’ legs, now.

(more…)

Ivan Maisel and company are currently rolling through a weeklong series on the follies of Arkansas athletics, with Maisel turning in his bit on Houston Nutt’s disastrous offseason of FOIA requests, accusations about his personal life, and his struggle with a crack cocaine habit that Whitney Houston called “scary, man.”*

Whitney Houston: could have, in a parallel universe, commented on Houston Nutt’s nonexistent but dramatic crack habit. Rumorz r funn!

At one point, Maisel referred to the tactic of accusing Nutt of cheating on his wife and lying about who he contacted and when as “Rovian,” a reference to Karl Rove, head political adviser for Bush and possible sheepfucker**. Maisel, who himself spends his weekends out of the office doing GOD KNOWS WHAT with local teens***, wrote this:

The innuendo came at no extra charge. Nutt’s detractors have put him in the impossible position of proving a negative — he must have cheated on his wife because there is no proof that he did not.

It is a maneuver borrowed from national politics, Rovian in style and execution.

Fair enough–it’s a page straight out of backwoods politics as played by both parties but perfected by the Lee Atwater school of campaigning, summed up best in Atwater’s famous quip “Let’s strip the bark off this son of a bitch.” (more…)

The Cronicas roll on…

Our theory of SEC football scandals involves several stages, outlined below.

First: the spurning! At one point someone pisses someone off about something. This is then aired on a message board, blurted out on talk radio, or vented in a drunken boosters luncheon so virulent it’s spoken of in hushed tones years later.

Second: the infection. The story spreads as people circulate emails from trainers, guys who wash cars for the university spill their innermost secrets (”I saw him calling someone real sneaky-like in the parking lot of his office last night!”) and talk radio begins to hint boldly around the story. That asshole on your message board with an endless well of “insider information” claims to know the real story, which he wishes he could tell you but WHOOO! would that be trouble.

Third: Thermidorian Period. The raging peak of the scandal, where even the coach and administration get too stupid to just shut up and let the lawyers enter the fray for them. We just passed this in the Nutt case last week, where everyone’s issuing fevered press releases (including university car wash guy) and the “inside info” asshole on your board disappears just for effect.

Fourth: Enter the lawyers. The scandal putters out in a succession of frivolous lawsuits, legal proceedings, and increased billable hours for every scheisty lawyer in arms’ reach of the case.

We have officially entered the Fourth Stage of Las Cronicas de Boss Hawg, as John David Terry, bold taxpayer, has filed the first legal salvo in the Houston Nutt Saga by accusing university bigwigs of not adequately investigating the Teresa Prewett emails to Mitch Mustain, the ones showing a grown woman calling a 19 year-old a “fag” and gently suggesting that he transfer from the University.

Mr. “I’m not named Richard Dean Anderson and I still have the gall to use three names” then, after filing the lawsuit, presumably went back to his rustic cabin for lunch.*

*Yes, we’re calling you hillbillies. Because this whole thing makes Arkansas look like bone-sucking, muscadine-wine sippin’, knuckle-dragging goatfuckers. And that’s sad because we come from Tennessee and Florida, two places with similar PR issues. Fortunately, the lawyers are in force now, which means the worst thing you can accuse anyone of now is being overly litigious–this is ouuuuuuuuuurrrrrr counnnnntreeeeee…