By Holly, who reminds you that when the zombie war comes, machetes do NOT need reloading.

Their names were shouted in exultation or bellowed in impotent rage across the SEC in 2007. You know their stats by heart, lived and died with their triumphs and tears. But in this age of bioweapons and nuclear experiments gone horribly awry, there are more important matters to ponder; namely, how each of these college football notables will aid your survival when the wrong red button is pressed and the zombie hordes rise to enslave us all. You’ll need the best of the best (SEC speed = fast zombies). The essential personnel:

Rich Brooks thinks the undead hordes are bullshit. This will not save him.

The Buffoon Who Got You Into This Mess: Michael Henig, QB, Mississippi State
How He’ll Save The Day: When jumping from rooftop to rooftop to reach the river/gun store/barricades, will carry the season to its logical conclusion by mistiming the flinging of his own form and being intercepted, so to speak, by a less than sturdy awning. As he is tugged with agonizing slowness from the canvas, the undead hordes will fall upon his flesh, allowing you to escape.

The Decoy: Blake Mitchell, QB, South Carolina
How He’ll Save The Day: Will be assigned as lookout while the rest of the party stocks up on ammunition/canned goods/fuel, and upon seeing an approaching zombie attack party, will inexplicably fancy himself a hero and run outside, waving his arms and capering about to distract them long enough for our heroes to lock and load and hop into an appropriately sized truck. The undead hordes are not amused by dancing, and will fall upon his flesh, allowing you to escape.

The Cloyingly Self-Effacing Hero: Erik Ainge, QB, Tennessee
How He’ll Save The Day: Sneaking past the gibbering masses in the dead of night, will slip on a discarded shotgun shell and break both legs in the fall. Will implacably insist on not being carried because He’ll Only Slow You Down, and will accept no comfort—but does gather all remaining grenades. After the explosion, the hordes will fall upon his flesh and the flesh of their shredded comrades, allowing you to escape.

The Hothead: Knowshon Moreno, RB, Georgia
How He’ll Save The Day: With tears in his eyes and an unearthly battle howl in his throat, by completely losing his shit and barreling into the penultimate wave of zombies at full force, ripping and tearing their limbs with his bare hands. A valiant effort, but the thing about zombies is there’s always Just Too Many. The undead hordes will fall upon his flesh, allowing you to escape.

The Shrewish Love Interest: Colt David, K, LSU
How He’ll Save The Day: After spending the entire ordeal displaying gradually more obvious signs of crumbling and generally slowing everyone down, will drop to his knees shortly into the sprint over open ground to safety, wailing that It’s Hopeless and We’ll Never Make It. The undead hordes will fall upon his flesh, allowing you to escape.

The Cheap Shot You Don’t See Coming: Kyle Jackson, S, Florida
How He’ll Save The Day: As you stagger over the final hill between your sleepy little borough and the haven of the convenient nearby military base/open sea/arms of Orgeron, will burst inexplicably into flames and fall in a shrieking, ineffectual heap at the crest of the ridge. Cold and raw or sizzling in the skull—brains is brains is brains to a zombie. The undead hordes will fall upon his flesh, allowing you to escape. Fade to black.

T-Tubb, if he can get his boys to aim those chop blocks at the neck, might stand a chance.

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.

The Body Count for week eight of college football season grows long and fearsome. Tread lightly.

–Tim Tebow is “banged up,” a medical term of great vagueness. It’s his right shoulder, his non-throwing one and the very same one diagnosed by Dr. Gary Danielson on the broadcast. At the rate Danielson’s been making accurate snap calls as the color guy on CBS, we predict that any and all premonitions of the rapture made by him will be one hundred percent accurate. If heard, immediately repent.

–Georgia RB Thomas Brown (collarbone) and Kregg Lumpkin (knee) are both out against Florida. Fortunately, Knowshon Moreno’s been running countertops, so he’s ready, fit, and itching to play.

–Addition! Georgia Tech’s Tashard Choice will miss the November 1st game against Virginia Tech following knee surgery today (Thanks, Asim!). Quoth Chan Gailey: “I’m not getting fired. I’m being ‘voluntarily transitioned’.”

–Nebraska, already taking on water through gaping torpedo holes, takes a few more just below the mizzenmast with linebacker Blake Lawrence (ankle) defensive lineman Brandon Johnson, center Brett Byford, and linebacker Bo Ruud (10/22, knee) all questionable for Saturday’s game against Texas.

–The North Carolina Tarheels’ Tackle Andre Barbour and cornerback Jermaine Strong suffer injuries of the disciplinary sort, Barbour for weed-related infractions and Strong for “undisclosed reasons.” (Stealing precious gems from impenetrable vaults? Trafficking in exotic animals? Cutting the heads off parking meters?) Both will miss this Saturday’s game due to suspensions. Brandon Tate is probable following some noggin trouble of the concussed variety.

–Notre Dame running back James Aldridge is questionable for the game against Navy due to a sprained ankle and crushed spirit.

–Ohio State tackle Todd Denlinger is questionable with a leg injury for Penn State, along with linebacker Ross Homan (toe).

–Oklahoma State has someone on defense injured. Doesn’t really matter, does it?

–West Virginia will be going for the hands, as Rutgers qb Mike Teel’s right hand is bruised and has him probable for the WVU game.

–South Florida gets thinner on the line as starting tackle Walter Walker is out indefinitely with an MCL sprain against UConn.

–Tennessee receivers Josh Briscoe and Lucas Taylor are both sidelined by concussions to their toes. We mean, a toe injury and a concussion, respectively. Though we’re sure a toe concussion, if possible, would hurt with the fire of a thousand burning stars.

–UCLA’s middle of the defense is just done plain flat-out jacked-up, so injured only Cletus-ian parlance can describe it.

–Virginia Tech corner Victor “Macho” Harris is probable for VT’s Thursday nighter against Boston College. He’ll play because, you know. He’s Macho.

–Most intriguing injury of the week: Noel Devine may miss Saturday’s game against Rutgers due to “personal issues.”

We’ve never seen someone killed all the way. Killed halfway? Yes, in the form of a guy we saw hit by a scooter on a Taiwanese street so hard his shoes flew off in both directions. Killed around the 75% mark? Yup, in the sight of a guy in Thailand who fell off of a moving motorcycle and smacked his unhelmeted skull on the pavement and lay motionless for a full twenty minutes before ultimately walking away from the crash.

Killed about 95% of the way? Oh, yes, yes. There was something about it that troubled us. What was that, says General Allenby? Answer: we liked it.

For an instant, no one knew whether to cheer or call a mortician; it remains the second worst hit we’ve ever seen, and the worst we’ve ever seen in person due to the sickening noise of impact, audible from our seats at field level in the North Endzone. Afterwards, Kent’s whole face swelled up as if he’d been stung by a hog-sized bumblebee, and he reportedly had difficulty breathing. Video almost doesn’t do it justice…almost. (HT: Thomas.)

The delay on the daily affirmation comes via The Power T, who helpfully remind us that Lee Corso, be he what he may, is nothing if not himself at all times.

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…)

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.

Have a great weekend!

There’s a spectrum of giveafuck. On one end, there’s Oprah. She cares. About everything: your soul, your life, eight dollar coconut macaroons, South African schoolchildren…even your poop. Oprah is blessed with a surfeit of giveafuck–from left to right, put her wayyyyy over on the right of the giveafuck scale.

On the far left, just next to John Daly, Andy Dick, and Kim Jong-Il…there’s the guy on the left in this video of two slammed Oklahoma State fans singing a song about a lonely Okie.

Our fave is the “HRRRRNNNGGGH” that constitutes his only bit of “singing” in the video. He makes that noise right after displaying the signs of having a stroke, after which he recovers and seems to feel much better.

We can only assume T. Boone Pickens is at this moment wangling some way to enter both of these guys in his pioneering Oklahoma State Fundraising Death Pool to raise more cash for the Cowboys. After all, it’s “just another way of capitalizing existing unexploited risk.”

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…

We began this entry looking for embarrassing clips of Vols fans. Our search took us somewhere else entirely: to a video of a Tennessee fan scoring a Tank Abbott-worthy roundhouse on a red-panted UGA fan in the middle of the street.

The Tennessee guy appears to be the second coming of Buford Pusser. We were going to be all sportsmanlike and gentlemanly and congratulate the unfortunate recipient of the blow on getting up in a non-wobbly fashion. However, as appeared to start the fight on the night his team gave up fifty and failed to execute the individual revenge in front of gathered hundreds, we revoke the offer.

Next time, we recommend brown pants, brawlin’ Bulldog fan.

God bless bad programming. Without it we would have never had the “double-cross” pick play in Sega’s College Football National Championship, the unstoppable toss-sweep in that game, or Warrick Dunn’s hide-exploding stiffarm in Dreamcast’s NFL 2K. The idea of Dunn stiffarming perfume sales ladies is farfetched. In 2K, however, Dunn could force blast linemen three yards backwards through the air like a shoulder-pad wearing Jedi. “Farfetched” doesn’t cover the first zip code of that territory of the absurd.

A slow news day officially begins when you’ve begun searching YouTube for “NCAA Glitch.” That happened around 3:25 EST, actually. Don’t denigrate that as a waste of time, however: the proper term would be an awesome waste of time, since we found two ghostly glitches recorded by avid researchers of the game.

1. The little-used teleportation button. Would be funnier if the coach came off the sidelines when using vintage Woody Hayes Ohio State teams. But this ain’t bad:

2. Can’t touch this. Also known as the “Tebow” move. We’re not telling you how to do it.

Well, it is Northwestern on defense. It all makes sense now, no?

On a day where basketball is devouring the popular imagination, we should not fail to note the semi-retirement of Mike V, the actual real, live Tiger mascot for the LSU Tigers. Mike, an aging but still healthy 15-year old, has displayed dimmed enthusiasm for the duties of Bayou Bengal mascothood, according to his handler Dave Baker, and will begin the three-step process toward retirement.

Baker said he noticed that Mike “didn’t seem to be into it anymore” during last season. “It was more bothersome to him…[Mike] is still in reasonably good shape for an elderly tiger, and still has a “good attitude.”

Meaning he’s still staring through the bars, fantasizing about killing you, pulling your hide off, and eating every inch of you down to licking the marrow out of your bones. Because he’s a Tiger, and they really are born to kill, mate, break down recruiting tape, and sleep just like the Orgeron without doing much else. (Little known fact about Tigers, the recruiting bit. Totally explains LSU’s historically dominant recruiting, no?)

Mike will retire in stages since LSU has vowed to never let a Tiger die on campus again. We’re just sitting her cringing in envy since Florida refuses to honor our requests to keep a real Albert on the sidelines during the game. A live alligator being fed whole live chickens during a football game would be intimidating as hell, we think.

Visit Mike’s website, the king don tiger of all don tiger websites.

Soon to be wandering some gangster’s lawn: Mike V.

Given ample time, we think the laws of physics and parallel universes imply that you could find a video of yourself being concussed by a bloodthirsty safety.

In fact, according to a Scientific American article we skimmed on the toilet one day, there has to be a parallel universe where you’re being killed on a Youtube clip. In fact, there’s one where you’re this Texas Tech wide receiver getting his sternum shattered by a TCU d-back. And that parallel universe utterly sucks for you.

Last week, if you missed it, a huge asteroid of stupidity sailed by the planet, narrowly avoiding contact with the planet that would have extinguished life as we know it forever. This particular asteroid of imbecility only missed placing a large and well-defined period on the sentence of human existence because it appeared on CBS Sportsline without a Clay Travis byline, and therefore whiffed past most of us without a sound.

Only brave men and online status keep us safe from the menace of asteroids.

Dennis Dodd authored the piece entitled “Smoke but no fire: Banished Barnett blackballed.” Its topic: shocking enough, the alleged (we’re using that word as hard as we can) “conspiracy” against the rehiring of Gary Barnett, former coach at Northwestern and Colorado.

SMQ responded (pre-vacay/oasis/sabbatical to do “real life stuff” whatever) by first gimpifying, then bullwhipping the case into the corner with logic, and then forbidding it from speaking for a year in conclusion before renaming it “Howie.” His demolition–and we mean complete, total, laying waste to-age of the piece--is all you’ll need to read regarding the monumental, colossal, Lawrence Of Arabia style epicness of the piece. Dodd should have exited the Barnett interview with a twenty in his pocket for his troubles, or at least a crisp Alexander Hamilton and some Teriyaki Flavored Coach Barnett Buffalo Jerky.

The least Barnett could have done: a Hamilton.

What we didn’t expect following this, though: the fountain of support for Barnett following the piece. It’s been an outpouring, really, of testimonials and advocacy from a diverse group of professionals, world leaders, cultural figures, and celebrities we didn’t even know watched college football, much less knew who Barnett was. They’ve been emailing us and calling non-stop, and we thought that in the interest of fairness, we’d let them talk.

Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia.

“Gary is obviously an exceptional leader, a gifted communicator, and just the kind of individual with a proven track record of success to lead a Division-1 football team to success. I would not hesitate to cut off this man sitting next to me’s arms to prove my deep and abiding respect for him. (more…)