THREAT CONDITION: McConaughey.
Subject is displaying average intelligence, ability to watch television and read simply written articles in sunlight, is experiencing no headaches, and is walking around everywhere with this shirt off.

“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.

For my nextht trick…

On Thursday, our interview with former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer contained an inaccurate quote that requires immediate correction. The printed exchange should have read as follows:

RK: The best part about being SEC Commissioner? The blood. Oh, the rivers of sweet, sticky blood.

The excerpts in bold should be replaced with the word “relationships I developed over thirty years of hard work.” We regret the error. Deeply.

Wednesday’s Curious Index reported that Tennessee defender Eric Berry has found offseason employment as a wrecking ball for a high-end Knoxville area construction firm. In a statement released to EDSBS, Berry replies that he is merely a destruction enthusiast, and that this is only a hobby for the forseeable future, although he did express an interest in a career in missile interception. We regret the error.

On Tuesday, we reported that former Nebraska coach Bill Callahan donated several thousand of his old playbooks to serve as construction materials for levees in Iowa. A follow-up clarification and correction: Callahan only donated one, and it proved too large for transport even via heavy rail. Lincoln authorities are now considering burning the book to provide clean energy for the city’s residents. Engineers estimate that the massive playbook could burn for “up to thirty years or more,” potentially keeping Nebraskans warm for several decades or more.

Nebraskans are seeking alternative energy sources, as the incendiary Nebraska 2007 defense that kept hundreds of thousands of residents warm last year will no longer be constantly on fire under new coach Bo Pelini.

We regret the error. So does Nebraska.

Thursday’s edition of the Ryan Perrilloux Memorial Crime Blotter contained an inaccurate item. Troubled former Miami and Louisville linebacker Willie Williams did not, as reported by our staff, plead guilty Wednesday afternoon to charges of grand larceny, identity theft, aiding a federal fugitive, arson, money laundering, and telemarketing fraud. Williams pleaded “no contest”. We regret the error.

Monday’s note on Hawaii’s opener versus Florida included an inaccurate reference to Hawaii’s mascot, Vili. He does not, in fact, punt the fractured skull of Captain James Cook onto the field before every game. This in fact describes the opening gesture used by Bette Midler in her new Vegas show, “Bette! Fucking Hates Eloquent Doomed Explorers of the Enlightenment!” Only at Caesar’s! Tickets available now! We regret the error.

(Vili should punt the skull of James Cook onto the field before every game, though. That would be straight diggity, thurr.)

APOLOGIES: EDSBS has received written apologies from the athletic departments of Ole Miss and LSU, expressing their regret that the jettisoning of head coach Ed Orgeron and Crime Blotter namesake Ryan Perrilloux caused a subsequent 60% drop in available joke material to our staff. We would like to extend our thanks to the schools for their consideration in this matter.

CONDOLENCES REDACTED: On Wednesday, EDSBS announced the death of longtime television personality and college football columnist Horace Greeley. Greeley was, in fact, not a college football writer, but the editor of the 19th century newspaper the New York Tribune, and died in 1872, and not this week. He was not a notorious frotteur with a penchant for rubbing himself on fresh produce, either, and never proclaimed himself emperor of Baltimore, as was also reported here. This was all erroneously attributed to Greeley when it was in fact Clay Travis of CBS Sportsline. We regret the error. All of them.

On Wednesday, we reported that during a blocking drill in a Notre Dame defensive practice, a collision occurred between Pat Kuntz and co-defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta. The description follows:

…he decelerated from 120 miles per hour to 0 in 1.4 seconds, and gained two huge black eyes from the force of his own slammed-forward eyeballs punching him on the inside of the face. The impact blinded him for two days, during which we must imagine his response was to walk around and simply dare the world to put things in his way. Oh, and he also broke his back, arm, wrist, lost six fillings and the icing on the cake? He got a hernia.

This came not from any actual description of reality, but from a Cracked.com top six list describing the exploits of rocket tester John Paul Stapp. Stapp survived these injuries. Kuntz, however, died on impact with Tenuta. We regret the error.

Tuesday’s Pac-10 Offseason Roundup reported that senior USC linebacker Rey Maualuga was being held without bail in a West Virginia detention facility after being charged with biting a twelve-year-old girl’s arm in a Wal-Mart. Megan Templeton was, in fact, stung by a scorpion that had stowed away in a shipment of watermelons. We regret the error.

Monday featured a “Halcyon Tussles of Too-Recent Yesteryear”
segment on the combatants in the 2003 Iowa/Iowa State game. In the report, we listed the weather in Ames as “overcast with scattered showers and hovering in the high seventies.” This was inaccurate; as several readers pointed out, the usual all-season conditions in Ames involve “biting daggerwind laced with ribbons of pissfire, a rain of burning slagshit, and periodic storms of boulder-sized burning balls of yak hair tumbling from the angry, indifferent heavens.” Thanks to reader Ted for pointing this out and providing the vivid description. We regret the error.

In Monday’s Where Are They Now feature, former Michigan linebacker Pierre Woods was inaccurately quoted as saying he intends to seek a job in broadcast journalism after retiring from professional football. Woods is in fact intent on pursuing a literary career and will self-publish his first book, A Children’s Treasury of Side-Boob, in September. We regret the error.

On Thursday, we reported that Phil Fulmer placed fourth in the money stakes for the King Crab season on this year’s The Deadliest Catch. This was inaccurate, as Fulmer performed better than that, finishing second, especially impressive since he catches and holds his crab-haul without the benefit of a boat. Corrected standings follow.

1. Time Bandit, $1.3 million
2. Phil Fulmer, $1.1 million
3. Northwestern, $929,000
4. Cornelia Marie $815,000
5. Ralph Friedgen, $542,000 (-$325,000 lost to “snacking.”)

We regret the error. Edgar Hansen rules.

On Wednesday this publication mistranslated an Agence France-Presse story on the spread of hepatitis and HIV in Iran. The Iranian government blames the country’s skyrocketing narcotic addiction rates on “the common border with opium-producing Afghanistan”, not “Bobby Petrino”. We regret the error.

On Monday, we reported that Auburn’s Sen’Derrick Marks had turned down the opportunity to be the cover story for SI this fall. This was incorrect; in fact, he has already agreed to the profile, and has completed his photography for the cover.

Marks: just wants the chance to roam free with dignity.

We regret the error.

Thus ends the Corrections. Enjoy your weekend.

If we’re playing the Social D, then it’s wrong time…or at least speculative wrong time. A long IM conversation with Russell from Football Outsiders prompted this question: what, if anything, does instituting a forty second play clock do besides put the onus on the officials to spot the ball faster? Even if the take 15 seconds to spot the ball–and watching this laggardly work by an SEC crew in this year’s LSU/Rebels game, that’s fairly brisk–it’s likely a push with the current system. And the more plays bit could come from the variable time that bleeds off the clock while the officials are pushing their walkers around spotting the ball. (Get them some offroad tires on those motherfuckers!)

So the 40 second clock may not be the real problem here, as Russell was quick and correct to point out. We were wrong, potentially, here, if the more logical types we know are correct.

The real-play shaver is still there, though:

“After a player runs out of bounds and the ball is made ready to play, the official will start the game clock. Under the old rules the game clock would not start until the ball was snapped. This new rule will not apply in the final two minutes of the first half and the final two minutes of the game.”

Hrm. it won’t be 3-2-5-e level trimmin’, but there’s some absolute time loss here without the promise of more plays. But that’s not the point here: we jumped the gun here and didn’t do our math correctly. See after the jump for the requisite self-flagellation.

BTW: pay no attention to the arrows. They’re corrections of corrections. Onward!

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	—
2	Southern Cal	—
3	Oklahoma	—
4	West Virginia	—
5	California	1
6	Florida	1
7	Oregon	1
8	Texas	18
9	Penn State	2
10	Georgia Tech	1
11	Rutgers	1
12	Wisconsin	1
13	Louisville	—
14	Nebraska	—
15	South Carolina	3
16	Ohio State	1
17	Tennessee	4
18	Boston College	1
19	UCLA	3
20	Clemson	1
21	Arkansas	1
22	South Florida	1
23	Georgia	1
24	Arizona State	6
25	Washington	1

Notes, apologies, blatant admissions.

We fucked up. Again. What you see above is the slightly more thought out blogpoll ballot we resubmitted after our morning meeting, two cups of coffee, and done with a checklist next to us in a methodical fashion. What you will see under our ballot as tallied this morning is a neglectful piece of trash submitted a minute under the wire pre-coffee on our way to a meeting. Therefore: Texas, we apologize, having left you off completely in a hurry.

This means less to Texas than it might to other teams, since we all know how starving for attention and acknowledgment the Longhorn football program is. But if you see our blogpoll ballot and notice the mistake, save the comment and just call us imbeciles as we are. This would be a correct statement.

As seen on TigerDroppings: the Geauxrilla.

Fear the Geauxrilla. LSU is number one by proof this year. Offensively: they’ve demolished a decent MSU defense to begin, and then merc’d Virginia Tech’s defense in week two, allegedly among the best in the nation. Defensively: reduced Sean Glennon to cinders, which is easy enough, but also crushed VT’s run game from the onset. Weaknesses exist–watch their offensive tackles against decent competition for one–but right now they’ve cleaned the most impressive plate of anyone at the buffet.

South Carolina won, but……like all teams that live by the skin of their teeth, their climb will be slow and steady in the polls. We had them overvalued to begin with, so this market correction is less a matter of punishment, and more one of curbing irrational exuberance about their season.

Rutgers, babeee!!! We’ve undervalued them, especially in light of their actually playing defense in the Big East. (Even if they allegedly yell “YOU GOT FUCKED UP!” to Navy. Rutgers, have you ever considered replacing Vandy in the SEC? You’d fit right in.) South Florida nudges in following a win versus Auburn, who may or may not suck completely. Their quarterback literally chucks and ducks at this point waiting for the impact of oncoming rushers.

Bullish on the Pac-10, who erased a daunting slate of competition this past weekend. Cal may be too high, but we’ll happily hop Florida over them provided they beat Tennessee in fair to impressive fashion this weekend. Oregon earns points for properly euthanizing Michigan, who really was in a lot of pain.

The knot of the SEC: The absolute value of Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas are all difficult to calculate right now. For all intents and purposes, they’re treading water in this poll and either a.) about to swim, or b.) preparing to drown. If Florida trounces Tennessee, we have this crazy theory that Phil Fulmer will be in serious, malicious trouble. That Nutt guy, though–he could lose by fifty to Alabama and no one would care. Seriously. They love him up there with cuddles and fairy dust and everything.

Dropped: Hawaii. Well, it was Louisiana Tech. Only Mike Dubose loses to La. Tech from big boy football. They didn’t lose, but they needed miracles, and that’s enough (along with TCU’s loss) to frighten us off the upstarts for a week or so. And Colt Brennan only threw for 400 548 yards? DOES HE HAVE CANCER WE WANT TO KNOW?!?!?!

If you’ve got warrants, don’t appear on camera or take a weekend job where you will appear on camera in front of millions. That’s our best advice to whomever is getting a custom escort from local authorities here following the South Carolina/Georgia games.

The image first surfaces at OnlineAthens and has gone viral on message boards, mostly because it seems to confirm what every one thinks about the SEC anyway, but it’s not what it seems. According to our source (yea! a veritable source!) the man is most likely one of the chain gang, an irony in itself, and not an SEC official. The chain gangs are hired by the schools hosting the games, so this is not–we repeat–NOT an SEC official being carted away immediately following a game.

Not that we haven’t supported that idea from time to time…(HT: Micah.)

Al Groh: forever rockin’ to 98.5, but not the worst.

At least Groh produces NFL draft picks, one of the bits of evidence Stewart Mandel cites in his list of the five worst coaches this year to prove how bad Groh is. (Braves and Birds, file and save for the next installment of “Duel of the Jews“. You’re welcome.) He also plays a wicked synthtar on Guitar Hero, and has produced a whole line of instructional booklets.

There’s two examples far worse than Groh or even local mayonnaise sensation Chan Gailey, he of the 7-5 regular season mathematical equilibrium.

1. Sylvester Croom. No one wants to put him on this list because of the huge, huge challenges Croom faces as the head coach of a program located in a town lovingly referred to as “Starkganistan.” They do exist, but Croom’s made a slew of mistakes as head coach, most notably attempting to run his version of the modified West Coast offense (a complex, often too complex system for college) with personnel who can’t possibly execute it. In three years, he’s failed to find talent to match, either.

Croom: sadly, not very good.

Logically the only other person who could be worse than Croom. Of three victories last year, two preceded the losing coach’s firing or “departure”: Mike Shula at Alabama, and Watson Brown’s departure at UAB. Croom’s only other conference win not over Ole Miss or Kentucky…

2. …would be the one that got America’s other worst coach fired.