A darkened office in Columbia, Missouri. Gary Pinkel works slowly through a film series from the morning’s practices. A knock comes at the door.

Pinkel: Come in.

Assistant: Coach, we got a request to list five preseason Heisman candidates from USAToday. Want me to do it? I mean, assistants fill this kind of stuff out all the time, and that never goes–

Pinkel: No. Better let me just tell you. Ready?

Assistant: Sure. Fire away.

Pinkel: Tebow, Bradford, McCoy, um…and I’m kind of stuck after that.

Assistant: Me, too. I mean, besides them, who really is there out there that can…

[A GREAT RUMBLING OF BASS AND MUCH SHAKING] (more…)

The offices of the Wisconsin football program. A radio blasts Saliva. BRET BIELEMA lifts weights in a tank top. A RECEPTIONIST enters.

Receptionist: Mr. Bielema, your 1:30 is going to be late.

Bielema: No problemo. More time for me to get my swole on before I get my fuck on. He gestures to his penis as he says this.

Receptionist: Coach, I really don’t need to know about that.

Bielema: Whatever, Sue.

Receptionist: It’s Edie, sir.

Bielema: Sure, Eddie. It’s not big deal. It’s natural. Our bodies are natural. Nothing to be afraid of.

Receptionist: I just don’t think it’s very professional of you to point at your..um…

Bielema: My Madison Poon Taser? My Fucky the Badger? Schlong Dayne here, the powerback that goes slow and hard up the middle? My Hairy Alvarez? I make my living with this Eddie. This coaching thing is just extra balls on the nut-train for me. I—

[A GREAT RUMBLING OF BASS AND MUCH SHAKING]… (more…)

Scene: Columbia, MO, 9:38 a.m. Monday, December 1st. Gary Pinkel works in his office, signing requisitions and making phone calls.

[BEEEEP!!!!]

Voice from speaker: It’s your wife on line three, Coach Pinkel. I’m patching her through.

Pinkel: Tell her I’m busy right now. I can’t look at carpet samples.

Voice from speaker: She’s insisting. I’m not making an enemy of her, Coach. Here she is.

Pinkel: Dammit, don’t–

Mrs. Pinkel: The berber just doesn’t work for me. The texture on my feet kind of hurts my teeth when I walk on it, you know? Gary? Are you even listening to me?

Pinkel: Baby, we just lost to Kansas. I know the contract extension was nice, but I can’t really think about spending it when we just lost to–

[A GREAT RUMBLING OF BASS AND MUCH SHAKING]… (more…)

Last night Central Michigan trotted out “Vegas gold” uniforms, an inapt name for any shade of gold in Las Vegas. (Unless you’re referring to the gold fingernail fungus that shows up when your immune system collapses in hour 72 of an 84 hour bender there. That’s about the same color.) It leaned more toward the urine end of the spectrum, and with yellow you go Oregon “banana attack” or nothing, in our opinion.

So, hope then that the Missouri Tigers, already a tad down over losing two games they thought they could win and thus only being kings of the 493 billion square miles of the Big 12 North, avoid the pissy overtones when they trot out the “golden” unis they’re rumored to be using against KU. The early projections are not…um…promising.

That’s close to nail fungus yellow there. Of course, go too far and you get into food colors, and Mangino food association quick offramp to fat joke yes let’s not go there we just did apologies.

Tennessee Football Offices. 11:30 a.m., November 4th, 2008.

Fulmer: Well, that does it. I’m off Atkins for the next month.

He takes a donut from green and white box. A solitary tear runs down his cheek.

PF: I just…what am I gonna do with the rest of my life?

[A GREAT RUMBLING OF BASS AND MUCH SHAKING]… (more…)

Music plays through Charlie Weis’ headphones in his office. Game footage rolls in the darkened room. Feathery images of players move forward, rewind, and then move forward as the large man examines the the play from every angle.

Weis: This music…I just don’t understand it. I need to understand it, though, to get at my players. If only there were someone who could help me get more emotion out of my players, and help me understand the soul of this…music…

[A GREAT RUMBLING OF BASS AND MUCH SHAKING] (more…)