Rank	Team
1	Alabama
2	Florida
3	Texas
4	Houston
5	Boise State
6	Ohio State
7	Virginia Tech
8	Oregon
9	Cincinnati
10	Iowa
11	Oklahoma
12	Southern Cal
13	Miami (Florida)
14	Oklahoma State
15	Penn State
16	California
17	TCU
18	LSU
19	UCLA
20	Auburn
21	Kansas
22	Georgia
23	South Carolina
24	Mississippi
25	Minnesota

This was so much easier before people actually knew shit. Before you say a word: this is wacky, week-to-week voting with a hint of correction for perceived talent level, potential, and past performance. You know who’s not going to stick around most likely? Houston, Boise, and Oregon, because Houston and Boise will be dragged down by the mediocre competition they play, and because Oregon will follow up a carpet-bombing of Cal by having their star corner get de-kneed and blowing an easy Pac-10 game. Re: Oregon? You play one highly ranked team and lose on the road and then dishumilatinate the highest ranked team in your conference, you get perks. Re: Houston? Big 12 South wins should count just as much in September as they do in November, when the Big 12 gets their annual run in the polls off conference play. It’s a trick of the calendar at this point not to credit them.

The rest: Is a bloody mess. Where the hell do you put Iowa, other than above Penn State and below Ohio State, who would probably beat them in a 6-2 horror show leaving non-Big Ten fans holding their own eyeballs in hand at the end in order to ensure they could never watch such football horror ever again. USC is off the boards in terms of solid betting thanks to offensive woes, Miami and OK State are erratic, Penn State looked atrocious, there’s a knot of SEC teams at the bottom you can untangle if you’ve got three months of conference play, and GODDAMN THIS MADNESS.

Pretty sure Minnesota’s a rock-solid 25, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STUDENT 2: They let you smoke weed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FADE TO BLACK

F$#@ Sooners, get money. Packing two of the last three national-title trophies and gunning for another one in ‘09, Urban Meyer is getting a raise that will jack his salary up to an even $4 million a year, meaning that not only Urban but entire future generations of Meyers will be makin’ it rain for the indeterminate future. Before you ask, yes, Les Miles has a clause in his contract that entitles him to make at least $1,000 more than any other conference coach, but apparently it only kicks in if Miles wins the national title this year — thereby saving LSU from having to give The Hat a quarter-million-dollar raise for going 3-5 in the SEC last season. (See, if they just gave Les the highest salary in the conference, they’d only be spoiling him; this way, he learns the value of money.)

You know how to start a car, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow. West Virginia wide receiver Jock Sanders, last seen propping up an unusually weak Fulmer Cup effort by the Mountaineers with a DUI charge, may be able to bring an end to his indefinite suspension from the team if he “handles a series of requirements.” This includes completing an alcohol-awareness course, speaking with high-school groups about the dangers of DUI, and our favorite, having a “test lock” device installed in his car that will basically require him to breathalyze himself and prove he’s sober before he can start his vehicle. This is probably gonna sound weird, but I’ve always wanted to try one of those things — though my gadgetary curiosity here is of the singular ride a Segway/use an ejection seat/get Tasered variety that involves trying it once just to see what it’s like and then never, ever having to do it again.

Cue the “It’s not your fault” scene from “Good Will Hunting.” Louisville running back Bilal Powell is trying to put his fumble in last year’s game against Kentucky behind him and look ahead to 2009. Is it just us, or does it seem like he’s taking it a bit too hard? His fumble accounted for only a fifth of UL’s turnovers in that game. Trust me, Bilal, there’s more than enough blame to go around for the FAILsplosion that was Louisville’s 2008 campaign, and they’ll be coming after Steve Kragthorpe with torches and pitchforks long before they get around to you.

I don’t know the guy, but I’ve got two kidneys and he needs one, so I figured . . . Elsewhere in the Big East, Syracuse head coach Doug Marrone, charged with cleaning up the HAZMAT spill that is the Orange’s football program post-Greg Robinson, says he’s “been hearing good things” about the progress made by former Duke basketball player and not-ever college football player Greg Paulus, who allegedly is still in the running for SU’s starting-QB job, in summer conditioning. Be that as it may, signing Paulus period still strikes us as the kind of decision that will be very much in the running for inclusion in a Bad Idea Jeans commercial by the end of the season.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed GERG is king. Speaking of Robinson, the situation at Michigan is apparently so dire that the addition of Gerg as defensive coordinator is being seen as one of the team’s biggest bright spots heading into 2009. (Yes, we know Robinson was an exemplary D-coordinator with both the Longhorns and the Denver Broncos. But a 3-25 Big East record is the kind of failstank that wouldn’t be quickly forgotten even if he’d only been hired as the night manager at a 7-Eleven.)

What, by playing them within 30 points? Late entry in the race for saddest quote of the offseason: Washington State coach Paul Wulff’s insistence that his Cougars “have the opportunity to surprise some teams” this year. I’d like to believe that, Paul, I really would, but I’d also like to believe that Lacey Stockbauer is going to end up with two tickets to this year’s Texas-Oklahoma game and offer me her extra one. In other words: na ga happen.

Hmm…what shall we pour into the Stadium Sipper? These two Bud Lights? This Montrachet 1978 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti? 20 shots of Jager? You’re right, Ed. The Montrachet don’t go with the stadium popcorn at all. Go with the Jager, and we’ll save the wine for the cold chicken fingers at the after-tailgate.

Holly suggested taking one seat filled with Jager Jameson and Irish Cream in, and one with Guinness, and then car bombing the entire section. That would work, you’d need ten for beer and one for Jager to make it work out correctly, and who’s going to do that when you could just have twenty stadium seats full of Jager?

Another idea we wanted to foist on security would be filling the stadium seat with something entirely non-beverage related, like delicious peppered sawmill gravy or a molecular gastronomy creation like liquefied marrow. Hand it out like shots at a game (preferably an insanely hot one,) and when security comes to throw you out, calmly explain that it’s not booze, but instead is tasty homemade gravy you’re sharing with the public for free out of the kindness of your heart. They might throw you out for just being cheeky, but you could say you were tossed out for handing out free hot gravy at a 90 degree football game, and that’s something you can tell your grandkids (to disturb them, and therefore leave creepy old you alone to watch your favorite show, McGillicuddy, or “An Elderly Paul Rudd Fights Young Criminals With the Assistance of a Sassy Rapping Cyborg.”

(All that said, the deluxe kit is 40 bucks, people. Pounce, consumer!)

Play me off for 6-8 weeks, Keyboard Cat.

No permanent or lasting damage, as the piece of angry, disunited bones in my back aren’t load bearing. They do hurt like I swallowed a plugged-in soldering gun, which is why I’m waking up in a few hours to dust off some more delicious, nutritious Percocet.

Thanks to all the well-wishers on Twitter and Facebook. (Our phone doesn’t work, as the iPhone battery died last night, too.) It’s pill and sleep time, and we’ll see what “we” feel like tomorrow.

Daddy Fat Stacks you would be if you wagered correctly.

It’s not just that it’s the coach’s son and two other football players who incurred the rather gentle charge of public intox, a misdemeanor charge handed out like pizza coupons on most college campuses. (We never got one, but that’s the advantage of being uncoordinated and mumbling all the time–no one notices when you fall down and start slurring your speech.) It’s the manner in which they got the charges.

According to University of Iowa Department of Public Safety Associate Director Bill Searls and criminal complaints, Zachary Merlin Derby, 19, and Tyler Allen Christensen, 19, both of Hillcrest Residence Hall, approached an off-duty UI police officer and attempted to pick a fight with him.

It’s akin to attempting sexual assault on a woman with a vagina dentata, and with figuratively similar results. There’s little else more embarrassing than having a program with a nagging discipline program get their PR dick bitten off by having their head coach’s son arrested on campus with a .160 BAC and attempting to fight a random stranger who turns out, funnily enough, to be a policeman.

They were at least courteous once arrested, or perhaps just hallucinating and imagined the policemen to be mermaids guiding them into their magical flashing light-laden carriage. Mermaids are mentioned intentionally here, as you’d have to be 18th century dehydrated sailor cranked on sour rum to match this level of CRUNK:

Police said Derby had a blood-alcohol level between .207 and .211 percent.

That’s called “Finnish Cruising Altitude,” and if you haven’t been there lately, it’s the kind of drunk that makes pants disappear, wraps cars around telephone poles, and has you waking up in Corsica when you began the night in Paris. T-Pain got that drunk once, and now his voice sounds that way all the time no matter what he says or does. It’s that serious.

The three charges are one measly point a piece, but a bonus point is awarded to Iowa for the whole “we’re Iowa and we get arrested” pattern for a grand total of four points. The FAA should probably file charges, too, as players did not file flight plans before floating in lazy, booze-fueled circles in regulated airspace for several hours prior to arrest.

CORRECTION: There’s a fifth-degree criminal mischief charge in there, so Iowa gets five points. Oops Pow would like to note that that charge wasn’t even awarded to the guy above Finnish Cruising Altitude.

And then, after the jump, another hot piece of tail from the weekend.

…tiene tremendo CULO!

By hot, we mean temperature-wise. You could bake profiteroles in there. A whole pan of ‘em, we’d guess.

No, you just feel the funk as I go by, right? The man-ness coming off me in torrents thicker than the rain itself. I know how it works.

So you hit the bright and shinies, and even though you couldn’t catch him if you tried, he pulls over. Because he’s a gentleman. The kind of man who, in barbarian times, would offer you his wife for the evening. And videotape it. And watch it crying later. Did I say too much? No way. I’m in touch with my emotions, here. It’s just another facet to this 24 karat full spectrum manhood that’s got you chasing me down the road on a night when you’d rather be sitting in your squad car masturbating to porn on your cell phone.

But then just when you think, man how cool can this guy be? How lucky am I this evening to get the chance to skim some cool off this deep reservoir of pure man-tao?

You see this:

You’re damn right that’s beer. A whole goddamn helmet full of it. You might be asking: but how do you breathe it? Answer: IT’S OXYGENATED. Ever seen The Abyss, where aliens live at the bottom of the ocean and drown Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio just to see her tits? It’s just like that, but WITH BEER BABY. You cough a little bit at first, but once you get the cycle going it’s just like being back in the womb, with the difference being that instead of breathing in smelly amniotic fluid you’re breathing a high-proof Belgian Ale–WHILE DRIVING.

It’s better than being inside your mother. And believe you me, I’d know about your mother! See, a man of humor, as well. Please, you’re going to pass out from the fumes of awesome surrounding me. There, that’s better. I’ll make you a deal: you give me 75 bucks and let me squeeze off a few rounds with your revolver, and I’ll let you try it. I’ll even change out mine for some fresh beer, just to give you the full experience. For that, you’ll just forget about any “DUI” charges, and instead charge me with DWA: Driving While Awesome.

How do I plead, you ask? GUILTY AS CHARGED, MAN! Up top!