I’m Richie Cunningham, and this is my lovely wife Oprah. Allow myself to introduce . . . myself: I’m Doug Gillett, proprietor of Hey Jenny Slater, occasional contributor to Dr. Saturday, and jet-setting international jewel thief; along with the lovely Holly — fellow Doc Saturday contributor, EDSBS associate editor, and L.A. Times Kitten With A Whip Award winner three years running — I’ll be gingerly manning the controls of this blog for the next week and trying like hell not to wrap it around the very first tree I come across. As a gesture of goodwill, I hereby promise to be at least 70-75% as funny as Orson at all times; if you’d like to send me tips, love/hate mail, or grainy boob shots, shoot them to heyjennyslater.blog at gmail.

You call it a “low bar”; we call it “reasonable goals.” UCLA linebacker Reggie Carter is happy with the play of redshirt-freshman QB Kevin Prince in spring practice, as evidenced by this glowing praise:

“He doesn’t move around a lot and he doesn’t flinch,” Carter said. “He stays in the pocket and he makes the right decision. If it’s there, he throws it, if it’s not, he keeps it. That’s all I need. I don’t want him to throw the ball to other people. As long as somebody on our team has the ball, I’m happy.”

Even the venerable Los Angeles Times can’t resist snarking off a bit at this comment, but there’s a marketing opportunity here for UCLA if they want it: Give out “STOP FLINCHIN’” T-shirts at games and make that the theme of the 2009 season. It’ll become the must-have wannabe-gangsta accessory in SoCal within days.

“Is this heaven?” “No. It’s Waco.” The buzz is slightly, uh, buzzier in central Texas, where Baylor fans are being treated not only to non-backhanded, genuinely optimistic projections for their football team this year but also to the delicious catnip no true CFB fan can resist: NEW UNIFORMS! Oh, to be in Waco, now that new unis and realistic bowl expectations are here!

He’s so laid-back, it’s intense, man. Things are equally sunny in Ames, Iowa, where first-year head coach Paul Rhoads “has transformed the button-down, strait-laced approach favored by Chizik and embraced a more relaxed, high-energy style.” That seems like a bit of a tightrope walk there, and we have no idea how Rhoads is managing it, but either way he already seems to be more invested in the Cyclone program than Chizik, who, to hear his former players tell it, was frequently “relaxed” to the point of complete apathy. In other news, Rhoads says that teaching his “single-wing pro-style spread offense” has been a challenge, but that he’s still trying to maintain an “intensely involved, hands-off” relationship with his players.

The University of Arizona: Slightly less desirable than a nut house. Accusations of having an “inferiority complex” get lobbed at places like Auburn and Michigan State and Georgia Tech all the time, but take heart, kids — at least your alma maters weren’t literally a consolation prize. According to the U of A’s student paper:

“The University of Arizona didn’t start out in a traditional fashion,” said Theodore Gatchell, an aerospace engineering junior and campus ambassador.

Gatchell explained that the UA was born in Tucson in 1885 only because the Tucson representative of the Arizona Territorial legislature showed up late to a meeting.

“The city of Tucson had hoped to receive the appropriation for the state’s mental hospital, which ended up going to Phoenix,” Gatchell said.

The town was so mad that it got stuck with the university, that the Tucson representative to the Arizona Legislature was greeted with a barrage of rotten fruit on his return home.

Ouch! Tucsonians, take a lesson from the city of Tempe, which was faced with similar disappointment. They were chosen as the home of Arizona State University even though what they really wanted was Arizona’s first legal brothel, but they managed to make it work for them, and in the end they got both.

I’M A MAN! I’M 220!!! Okie State QB Zac Robinson is bigger, more muscular, and more option-y heading into the 2009 season, says coach Mike Gundy. Other than kicking a puppy, Bobby Reid had no comment on these developments.

No, dammit, we want CONFLICT! Colt McCoy and Sam Bradford are friends. Yeah, that’s real great for them and everything, but kinda anticlimactic, no? When one of them is caught banging the other’s girlfriend, call us. ]]> http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/08/03/curious-index-832009/feed/ 15 http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/02/17/its-not-right-but-its-okay/ http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/02/17/its-not-right-but-its-okay/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:11:51 +0000 Holly http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/?p=9067 That The Humanitarian only wants what’s best for his angels is a fact disputed only by cads and ne’er-do-wells.� If no one’s saying he’s crying into his pillow at night over losing Sanchez, that’s only because Carroll never sleeps.� But going on the record a month later and saying early-departure quarterbacks have a 62% failure rate?� That’s just cold, girl.

Sanchez, by the way, has gotten the hang of the oh-it’s-just-about-the-game two-step with a quickness that would make FaRve proud:

If a quarterback sends the wrong message at this week’s NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, it can cost him $10 million or more.

That’s why USC’s Mark Sanchez and his handlers are especially careful these days about the signals that he’s sending. With the top of the draft still very murky, and Sanchez a legitimate candidate to go No. 1, everything counts — every impression he leaves, every word he utters, and every minute he spends preparing to wow talent evaluators.

His message: Forget Tinseltown, I’m all about football.

“There’s a lot that comes with being an ‘SC quarterback,” said Sanchez, who was initially reluctant to be interviewed because, he said, he wants to stay under the radar before the combine.

Emphasis ours, because the day an SC quarterback is serious about shunning the spotlight is the day the football monopoly in Los Angeles is actually over. Well played, young sir.

Masters of Fulmer Cup Nano-engineering. Georgia continues to add to their total in baby steps. Points to be assessed in an entry later today, but the reported footage of the barfight suggests that the action was fast, furious, and ended the way all barfights should.

Peter points the way to archived preseason college football polling records, which after 1985 seemed to firm up in the department of not having unranked teams popping up to steal a national title from the aristocracy of the perpetually ranked. (See: Imaginationland BYU ‘84 team.)

The average? The eventual national champion since 1985 was, according to extremely detailed statistical analysis performed by a Georgia Tech graduate, ranked 6.28th. If this proves anything, it proves that the the real lesson here is that the AP’s apartheid-esque policy against decimal points in ranking will only continue to make them look like imbeciles in the long run.

(If you would like a more statistically favorable manner of losing your money than gambling on college football’s eventual national champion, we suggest roulette horse racing, or anything else at all besides NASCAR betting, which is even dumber. Better yet, take your money and just send it to us at EDSBS, P.O. Box 281, Noah Brindise Place, Kandahar Afghanistan 28828.)

Tony Barnhart is out at the AJC. The south’s best sportswriter, Tony Barnhart, takes the buyout from Cox to leave the paper, no doubt for meatier bones offered by ESPN. Heh RTWT MSM BOO insert other blog cliche here INDEED. Of special interest: Furman Bisher was paid off in his his currency of choice–barter–and Terence Moore was retained, as was Mark Bradley, meaning Atlanta has the brainless two-headed experimental Russian dog of sports columnist we so richly deserve at our terminally-ill daily.

Can we invest in someone else’s life insurance policy? Richard Tuitu’u, Arizona’s only experienced tackle, just quit Arizona State’s football team. The combined 22.8 neocortical neurons of Rudy Carpenter’s brain cells just filed a blanket petition for asylum in “the country of wherever men in helmets killing us in huge numbers aren’t, please.”

Eat an entire casserole–um, sorry, that’s hot dish–by yourself. Then run sprints up and down your driveway until you vomit. Then have your closest Yanomamo neighbor fire a stinging plug of the powerful hallucinogen ibini up your nose with a blowpipe, and then place a sack full of live, buzzing horseflies on your head.

Then, listen to this. Or just listen to it. You could probably get the same effect without all the preceding nonsense…but like Billy Dee Williams and good times without Colt 45…why take the chance? (HT: The Wiz.)

My father would drink. He liked to drink. When he became drunk, he became mean. He would curse at only the brown tiles on the floor, because he was a racist, and would slap my mother until she bled. And by my mother, I mean my father. He would slap himself.

It was indescribably brutal.

To please him, I played sports. At first, I tried diving. I remember my first diving match event. My father screamed at me from the stands. �Where�s your helmet?� I tried to explain to him that in diving, you didn�t need a helmet.

�The little man in the aquarium has a helmet!� he insisted.

�We�re not in an aquarium!� I screamed back.

�Don�t question me in front of your mother!� he said, pointing to a man in his mid-fifties named Harold sitting in the stands.

I jumped that day with a forty-five pound diving bell around my head. When I hit the water, I broke my jaw and fell unconscious to the bottom of the pool. My old man had a way of teaching me lessons about determination like this. He also carried a cattle prod with him, and would use it on anyone who disagreed with him while insisting they call him �Neptune Jones.�

Neptune Jones, you dreamer you. I can�t hear a bug zapper without feeling the warmth of remembered love spreading through my pants. Love is what I call it, at least, and it gets me thrown out of public pools who don�t understand my story.

Then I played baseball. I remember my first game like it was my last game, like it was the last time I would be with my father, like some golden flake of divine forehead dandruff floating from the head of God, if God had God-eczema and really had to scratch, and it all fell from his forehead, but you know without burning like big asteroids made of dead God-skin when they re-entered the atmosphere.

Also, when the flaming chunks of God-skin came down, they didn�t crush anyone or fall into anything critical to national security. If my father taught me nothing besides determination, it was faith.

In addition to this, he taught me how to clean a fish with a set of standard house keys.

I tried to make him happy playing baseball. I stood there, dazed in right field. The ball headed right to me. Thinking of Proust, I smelled madeleines, and not the urine of fear running down my leg, nor of the wolves standing mere feet away.

Where I played baseball, wolves were an unending threat. There was also a French bakery in right field. This phantasmagoria was my childhood.

I struck out, a perfectly common embarrassment made humiliating by the fact that I hadn’t noticed my teammates had switched my bat with a three-foot salami

My father was so drunk and angry that day. He left the stands and walked home all the way to his native Finland.

He killed many bottles along the way. And men. And whales. And men inside of whales. My father was his own Jonah, and alcohol was the whale, except that he drank the whale, presumably from a huge metaphorical chalice or paper bag.

Trying to understand him, I joined the crew of an illegal Japanese whaling boat. They taught me love, the art of tattoo, and how to fire 120 pounds of rocket-propelled metal through the heart of a slow-moving sea mammal. It’s why I’ve been divorced three times.

I left the boat with a strong back and a weakness for Asian schoolgirls. I miss it sometimes. I’ll go down to the Florida Keys, rent a tuna can with an outboard motor, and cruise inlets looking for manatees. You can stroke them, and they’ll let your scratch their bellies. They’re like big, amiable sea cattle, really! Just like a cow, especially in the way they bleed for hours when you shoot them with a gun.

Oh, I guess I should mention that my dad divorced my mom forty years ago, rejected me as his son, re-married, raised a healthy happy family, and died peacefully in his sleep having never spoken to me again. Not exactly the closure I was looking for, but whatever.

He was also not the man I referenced earlier. That was Steve. Steve’s pretty cool, actually. My god, can that man smack the scabs off a leper!

Guess I should have made that clearer. I apologize.

Song of the Lukewarm Potsticker by Spencer Hall and Matt Ufford will be released by Harper Collins later this summer.

Dear sirs,

We write today on behalf of a major university with a reputation which was created over the years of hard work and academic excellence by those who sought to create it. We saw your advertisement in this article on your Big East conference, and it was no one but our own institution of fine reputation we thought of at once.

The advertisement read:

So you want to be a member of the Big East?

Join the club.

In no manner of impertinence or inconvenience should we wish to trouble you in the least, but our university would very much like to be invited to your club. Our invitation is accepted, and we should like to join this illustrious Big East we have heard so much of in our time, having spent much time readying ourself for this in the Middle Eastern conference which, due to circumstances beyond our control, we feel we must sadly bid farewell to at long last.

So much is to be offered by our university! The high institute of Laser & Plasma, the Al-Kindi Medicine College, and the Ibn Al Rashid Center for Education are a few you have undoubtedly heard discussed by you peers in the various fields. Consider, too, our recently developed limb and eye replacement center, among the busiest and finest in the world! Nowhere will you find a set of skills so fine as captured by the staff and faculty of our university.

Also, we understand you require the fielding of an American football team. We assure you that though we have not in the history of our fine university been afforded the opportunity of having a football team of the American variety, we are invested in the process of recruiting players at this moment. We assure you their reflexes have been honed in a manner your players have not experienced before, and that loud noises and sudden impact will not faze them in the least.

We are also used to working with substandard facilities and difficult conditions, so beginning as the little brother of your conference will be no problem. We also do not have a direction in our name, unlike this Eastern Carolina who also wishes to sully your conference.

In conclusion, we would love to join your conference immediately or as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

The faculty and staff of Baghdad University, a.k.a. the University of Baghdad.

p.s. We are also willing to relocate the entire university to the eastern seaboard of the United States for the sake of you and your members’ convenience as soon as possible. It is of the deepest generosity and respect to you that we offer this.

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.

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.”

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.)

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. Monsoon rains, zero offense, and no fewer than 15 collisions that had the NTSB investigating each one–all of that led to a 6-3 score, three hours of dismal viewing, and, shockingly, two upright quarterbacks at the end of the game.

Leading us to our thesis statement: we don’t think running quarterbacks get injured any worse than drop-back guys. Knee-jerk Jerry Sportsradio guys may opine the fate of running quarterbacks like Tim Tebow all they like, but we propose that in the end, true running qbs face an overall risk of injury than passing qbs. You may not want them on your Odyssey of the Mind team afterwards, sure. But they’ll probably be in better shape than your average Wooden Indian Chris Weinke-type after the game.

Contradictory point: Weinke was durable as hell! Helps to have FSU’s offensive line, too.

As a test slice, we’ve taken the Big 12 from 2006, one of the few conferences with a really nice split between systems employing classic drop-back passers and combo, spread-option-y type run/pass threats. (We tried the ACC first, a complete failure since the ACC favors the dropback qb almost exclusively…which may be a comment on the conservatism of the league as it stands overall, and is another piece entirely. But in summary: their qbs are on couches compared to the Big 12)

Looking at the Big 12 just last year, the numbers in terms of lost man-quarters are:

Big 12 QBs:

Dropback:

Baylor: Bell, three games (ACL)
Kansas: Meier, four games (shoulder)
KSU: Freeman/Meier no games
Nebraska: Taylor, no games
Oklahoma: Thompson, no games
Texas: McCoy, one game
Texas Tech: Harrell, no games

Running:

CU: Bernard Jackson: no games (154 rushing attempts)
ISU: Bret Meyer: no games (137 attempts)
Mizzou: Daniel, no games (147 attempts)
OSU: Reid, one game (119 attempts)
TAMU: McGee, no games (146 attempts)

Yes, it’s thin-slicing, as it’s just one season out of a hundred or so on the books, and no indicator of anything resembling conclusive empirical truth. Yet…one game total for the runners, and seven for the dropback guys. Factors? You’ve got a trove of them: offensive line protection, the individual conditioning of an athlete, acts of god, etc. They all matter.

However, the physics are on the side of the running qb most of the time, since not only are they bringing momentum to the table, they have more of a choice on where and how to disperse that momentum. The dropback qb has little choice on this, with their only real options being a.) attempt “roll with it,” a very difficult maneuver with a high d20 roll attached to it, or to scramble blindly and risk an even larger hit on the run, since onrushing defenders have microseconds longer to build up even more hitting power.

Ask our lawya Eric Crouch if you don’t believe us:

Note that in our little micro-survey, the most durable dropback guys play in quick-toss systems: Texas Tech and Nebraska, Leach/West Coast play-calling schemes that call for the ball to be out in eyeblinks. The germ of this whole thought came from the hopes of SEC fans re: Tim Tebow, Florida’s baby rhino of a quarterback who will play a full season of college ball for the first time in 2007. He’s playing in a system that’s not contact averse or particularly dawdly with the ball: option runs, quick passing, and misdirection are the MOs of the spread option.

If the slice of the 2006 Big 12 and our residual memory is any indication, Tebow may be safer if he runs more, rather than standing in the pocket and waiting for impact. The truth of quarterback durability at the collegiate level may be counterintuitive: it’s not about avoiding punishment, but managing it intelligently at the margins. And sometime that, oddly enough, may mean seeking it out from under center rather than avoiding it altogether.

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.”

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…