Plus Vince Young’s roommate had the last name “McCoy,” and Colt McCoy’s roommate has the last name “Young”! OK, that’s completely false, but ESPN Big 12 blogger Tim Griffin has found some remarkable similarities between the Texas teams of 2005 and 2009. Leaving aside the irrelevant “Y-O-U-N-G and M-C-C-O-Y both have five letters!!!1!!1!” coinky-dinks, there are indeed a striking number of parallels here, not the least of which is the fact that if UT takes the BCS championship this season, they, like the ‘05 squad, likely will have notched a huge title-game upset over a team that had been shoved down our throats for months as the GREATEST DYNASTY EVAR. Those who forget history, doomed to repeat it, etc. etc. etc.

All right, everybody, time for backstroke drills! Practice has begun for teams across the country, and some had an easier time of it than others:

RALEIGH – N.C. State’s preseason practice is off to a stormy start.

At one point, a sideline yard marker began floating in a stream of rainwater that had drained to the side of the field.

Not an auspicious beginning for a program that’s been touted for dark-horse status in the ACC this year, but when two of your first three games are against Murray State and Gardner-Webb, maybe you can afford to write off a preseason practice or two.

Neologism of the day. In other practice news, first-year Auburn head coach Gene Chizik, too, has begun fall practice on the Plains, which really isn’t that newsworthy in and of itself but is a good time to introduce a new word I’ve been meaning to get started. With Sylvester Croom gone, we need a new word to replace “Croomed,” so I propose that if a coach loses to a Chizik-coached Auburn team in such an embarrassing fashion that he gets fired, that coach will be said to have been “Chizzwhacked.” Go ahead, spread it around.

Meanwhile, in Tuscaloosa, an entirely different kind of whacking is going on. How did we miss this comment from Nick Saban at SEC Media Days?

“We appreciate our fans,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said at SEC Media Days. “They certainly give a lot of positive self-gratification to our players, which is the most important thing. . . . “

Further comment? None, thanks for asking.

First recorded instance of “pig sooey” in a rap song? We’re going to go with yes. Since we posted that ricockulous “Tim Tebow Song” video the other day, in the interest of equal time we’re now going to hear from one of Florida’s 2009 opponents: Arkansas, specifically wide receiver Reggie Fish. Behold: “I Ball.”

The title of “Next Barkevious Mingo” is not one we take lightly around here. SI.com’s Andy Staples scours the recruiting sites for the next great name in college football. God’s Power Offor retains a healthy lead in that race, but make no mistake, Indiana Faithful and Munchie Legaux will be mounting strong efforts down the stretch.

“In any particular time frame, could be three years, could be five years, could be two years, you could get your ass kicked, OK?” Delany continued. “It can happen. We’re not playing Little Sisters of the Poor. We’re playing the best football teams in their region.

“So were we 1-6 (in bowl games) last year? Yeah. Were we 0-6 in the BCS in the last (three years)? We were. Those are the facts. But take me from 2000 or 1997 to 2005; I remember when Michigan played Ohio State [in 2006]. We were the toast of the town, one versus two, game of the century.”

Jim Delany’s not too worried about it, really. He wouldn’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. He’s not worried at all.

Sounds like a reasonably nonchalant response to the issue, even if, as Doc Saturday humbly points out, it’s a problem that isn’t likely to resolve itself this season no matter what Delany says. For all the criticism we’ve heaped on the Big 10 commissioner over the past couple years, he sounds like a guy who takes a level-headed, matter-of-fact approach to problems instead of panicking, which is the kind of trait you’d want in not only a conference commish but also . . . an advice columnist:

Dear Big 10 Commish,
My husband and I have three children: a son who is in college and two daughters, a 16-year-old and a 10-year-old. My older daughter was an A student all through elementary and middle school, but her grades have deteriorated markedly since she started high school. She has a boyfriend now and has been spending a lot more time with him and his clique of friends, and a lot less time studying or helping out around the house; she hasn’t been particularly combative toward me or my husband, but that’s mainly because we hardly ever see her at all. A couple weeks ago I found what looked like the remnants of a marijuana cigarette on our back patio; I asked her if she knew anything about it and she said she didn’t, and that she had never tried marijuana or any other drugs. Can I trust her? Is it time for me to put my foot down and make her stop spending as much time with her boyfriend, or will that only drive her further away?
Concerned Mother in Battle Creek

Dear Concerned Mother,
Yeah, you’re probably right to be concerned. But these things happen. Anyplace your child goes, she’s gonna run into people or situations that might be less than savory, you know? Sure, her grades have tanked and she’s hanging out with people you may not approve of. But go back to her earlier years: She was the toast of her middle school, making straight As, doing well. I’m convinced that with the parenting she has, she’ll turn it around no problem. Now, is she going to dominate every year? Is she going to turn down pot every time it’s offered to her? Don’t kid yourself. But as long as she turns it down maybe half the time, pulls those grades up into B/C territory, she’ll get there.

Dear Big 10 Commish,
My wife and I have been married for six pretty happy years, but one thing has never been resolved in our relationship: Her mother hates me. She didn’t approve of our relationship to begin with because I worked a blue-collar job and wasn’t a regular churchgoer, but even after we got married she continued to make passive-aggressive comments toward me and even criticize the way I raised our daughter, who is now three. Well, I got laid off from my job three months ago, and that’s kicked my mother-in-law’s critical comments into overdrive: The other day my wife related a conversation in which her mother advised her flat-out to ask me for a divorce. Is it time for me to confront my mother-in-law and tell her to stop making my life harder than it already is?
Son-in-Law Under Pressure

Dear Son-in-Law,
Wow. Tough situation. But in a marriage that lasts any length of time — could be three years, could be six years, could be fifty — you could get your ass kicked, OK? We know how mothers-in-law are, and you’re not going up against some little sister of the poor here. You’re going up against a real overprotective ball-buster. So what do you do? Well, these things are cyclical — relationships get worse and they get better. So there’s no point in rocking the boat, just sit back, keep looking for jobs, and wait for things to get better on their own. And if you really end up in a bind, have another kid, that usually clears up a lot of problems.

Dear Big 10 Commish,
My husband and I are both nearing our fifties, and both our children are in their twenties and out of the house. My husband is starting to show a lot of signs of being clinically depressed. He rose through the ranks pretty quickly at his company but has been passed over for several promotions the last few years, and when he comes home from work in the evening he doesn’t even want to talk about his job. He’s fallen out of touch with most of his friends and even some of his own family members. I’ve tried to get him interested in some of the old hobbies he used to love — golf, tennis, rare book collecting — but nothing seems to arouse any passion in him at all. Then, out of the blue, he bought a handgun a couple of weeks ago, and one day I came home from work to find him sitting out on the back porch, holding the gun in his hand and just staring off into the distance. I asked him what he was doing and all he said was “nothing.” I feel like now is the time to have an intervention of some kind, but . . . how do I even go about it?
Worried Wife in Evansville

Dear Worried Wife,
I know things look bad right now, but you gotta look at the bigger picture here. Over the last 20 years or so, he’s maintained a solid career and raised a couple kids who seem to be doing pretty well for themselves — sounds like a pretty good track record to me. So has his career kind of stagnated? Yeah. Has he lost interest in a lot of the things that used to make him happy? He has. But go back ten, fifteen years ago — he was getting promoted right and left, he was the toast of his company. Would he be doing better if he were playing in a different company, a different industry? Probably, but it’s a little late to be making a career change now. Just let this thing run its course and he’ll get back to where he used to be. Sounds like he might have a new hobby in gun collecting, anyway — try nurturing that, see where it leads. With the career and family he has and a new hobby or two, he’ll be fine.

Like a finely tuned sports car, Percy runs at top speed and, more frequently than not, is on blocks during the week receiving physical therapy, being massaged by virgins, and laughing gustily at the jesters and midgets who amuse the court at Florida. For the uninitiated, here’s an easy summary of Percy’s injuries over the years.

We left out an ingrown toenail that had him in the ICU until three hours before the South Carolina game. He was slowed to a mere 8 carry, 167 yard performance as a result. Our apologies. (HT: Holly.)

So, here we go. It’s time; there’s absolutely no arguing that, but for a city and a team threatened by the remotest hint of change the balance of the season looms dark and our natural pessimism has finally found purchase.� Even with both feet in the FIRE HIS ASS YESTERDAY camp, I was never going to be entirely comfortable when this day came.� He’s the coach of my childhood, the devil I know.� Six weeks ago, I wrote,� “It�s our time at the edge, and the stay will be neither brief nor pleasant.”� I had no idea.

But if there’s anything to celebrate here with complete joyful abandon (for me, campers, for me), it’s that Chris Low scooped the living hell out of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, a terrible paper with a simpering buffoon of a sports editor in John Adams.� Save your preening, sir—you’ve had a public, exhausting vendetta against the guy for years and today you got beat.� ABIGAIL Adams would’ve had that story first, and that bitch has been dead almost 200 years.

Please, people of Alabama: have mercy upon the endangered elephant. As we speak, you or one of your brethren is crouched in the bed of a safari truck, aiming a high-caliber weapon at the oblong skull of a bull elephant somewhere in the wilds of Africa.

Though you may be tempted to shoot it, sell its hide, and then immediately place its knee ligaments in a transplant cooler bound via air freight for Tuscaloosa, do not: Terrence Cody’s timing belt-sized MCL, sprained though it may be, requires no replacing, per ESPN reports:

Alabama coach Nick Saban is supposed to update Cody’s situation later today. He’s expected to miss the next week or two, but should be back in time for the LSU game on Nov. 8.

This is good news for the elephant, since you will not be taking the ligaments from its knee to put in Terrence Cody’s knee, a joint of similar size and load-bearing strength. This is also good news for Alabama, who have taken advantage of Cody’s mutant size to play a 4.5-3 defense and take the Tide to the fourth spot in rushing defense nationally. The Cody Effect was just as prominent in his absence Saturday: Hinton points out that Ole Miss scored on the drive Cody left the game and took five of the next six drives into Bama territory.

If you have already pulled the trigger and shot the elephant, however: give your guides ten percent, sell the meat as “jumbo buffalo” in the markets of Dar Es Salaam, and see our close personal friend Amir Massoud at the docks in Zanzibar for assistance with the rest of your “luggage.” He’s good people.

If his history of playing through hasn’t impressed you yet…well, perhaps a helpful chart will.

(Illustration: Holly.)

��Tis the maddest trick a man can ever play in his whole life, to let his breath sneak out of his body without any more ado, and without so much as a rap o�er the pate, or a kick of the guts; to go out like the snuff of a farthing candle, and die merely of the mulligrubs, or the sullens.�