It wasn’t raining tonight, bitches. (Img: photoshopper Solarcane.) This is your overnight thread. EDSBS The Magazine and the Alphabetical begin cooking now, which is why we’ve placed them both to marinate in a bath of vodka and psychoactive medication. See you tomorrow.

Jim Donnan of Buster Sports joins us to lower his Q rating irreparably, discuss the SEC in general (and Tim Tebow and head injuries, natch) and give us quality Barry Switzer stories involving Kool and the Gang. Joanna, we looooooove you. Enjoy.

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Hitman Monkey doesn’t like doing this, but it is his job: EDSBS Live is off tonight due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control. We promise to make it up to you in several ways.

1. We have a guest for next week’s podcast working who should be spectacular.

2. We’ll buy you a beer if we see you in person. Really, we will, even if you’re into the quadruple-brewed Belgian monk nectar made from hops rolled on the clean, peachy ass-cheeks of Brussels’ finest maidens.

3. We’ll have a show next week of exceptional length and outstandingly mediocre execution. You know, ladies, like most of the really well-hung, good-looking men you’ve ever slept with. (Average men: like Avis, we try harder.)

We are joined this week by Janie Campbell of the Seventh Floor Blog, who discusses Miami, their early success in the college football season, and the supreme iciness of Jacory Harris and his LV scarves.

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We’re a bit backed up by actual life today, but please know that we do have our annual Stabby Stab-off with Holly pending, and the above video of Peyton Manning’s history of IMMENSE SUCCESS against Florida to tide you over. Oh, he has a Super Bowl ring! We’ve never heard that retort! It’s like he never failed three times in a row with increasingly miserable results! That all–POOF!–goes away! <—NOT AT ALL EVER

Clay Travis joins us for this week's podcast, where we discuss how Jonathan Crompton just needs a tender loving hand and a little patience to blossom into a magnificent starting quarterback, his estimation of the Florida game and its likely outcome, and why he cannot get a press pass from the Florida Sports Information Office.

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Burn…you will burn…you will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell…

There is a special place in our blackest of hearts for Tennessee, and it is entirely personal. We don’t especially like where we’re from, mostly because it’s one of those places where ketchup is considered spicy, the slightest wrinkle of oddity is cause for grave concern, and country music of deplorable quality bubbles from its pores like congealed fat hardening on the surface of fetid stew. You like it? Great. We don’t, and that’s why we live in Atlanta, home of Adult Swim, a quiet but huge adult industry, a horde of swamp real estate investors spending money poorly, and a crumbling infrastructure and half-assedness more suitable for our tastes. Interstates are magnificent things.

We have, from birth, hated Tennessee: the indigestible-to-the-eyes shade of orange, the somnolent pre-games, the sludgy brand of football designed to eke out wins by field goals, their abuse of a fine coonhound by putting an inherently curious dog in front of 100K and daring it not to go insane with overstimulation. (Watch Smokey sometime: he is seconds away from cracking into an insane rage. We can’t blame them.)

In terms of rivalry, though, things had gone limp in recent years thanks to Urban Meyer’s superior coaching acumen, Erik Ainge’s ability to cough up a game when you most needed him to, and Tennessee’s complete inability to score points when it mattered. It felt hollow, after a while: rivalry requires a certain degree of competence on the part of your opponent, a bare minimum of respect for their inability. It is difficult to respect an opponent who lets you play the part of Dr. Manhattan: you point, they explode, and suddenly you’re the child giddily holding the magnifying glass.

This all assumes you don’t find someone to genuinely loathe on the other team. Ahem.

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Bruce Feldman of ESPN The Magazine is our guest this week on the EDSBS Podcast. We talked to him as he was working at USC's media day, so you may hear some noises behind him. These are the kind of noises associated with the process of winning forever, and will not do your ears any harm. In fact, you may find yourself doing work faster, being a better person suddenly, and looking in the mirror at a suddenly perfect complexion. You are welcome.

He goes about 20 minutes, then Peter and ourselves ramble over the rest of the week that will be, including a doubling-down on the Wannstache upset pick (Go Buffalo!) and an early call for Houston to upset Oklahoma State.

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Steele! Phil Steele, the master of football data collation and regurgitation, joins us for a mad dash through the first weekend's action. It only takes 20 minutes or so, but that is because Phil accomplishes in a third of an hour what it takes others three to do.

Now jump out of your office window. You have fifteen seconds or you will be found in noncompliance. Phil Steele commands you.

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O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.