This is probably an instance of Jim Rome joking and someone else picking it up as serious news:

ESPN’s Jim Rome reported Friday on his “Rome is Burning” talk show that the Grand Rapids Rampage are one of two Arena Football League franchises interested in signing troubled LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, who was dismissed from the Tigers on Friday morning.

Yet that’s news to Rampage officials.

Jim Rome doesn’t really report anything, per se; rather, he says things in a hilariously downpitched voice in between long pauses and pat phrases like “RACK HIM” and fawning calls from listeners read off index cards.

But it’s nice of Brian Van Ochten to take him that seriously. We heard Ryan Perrilloux was going to play first cockracquet for the Moon Team in the INTERGALACTIC BADMINTON SEX LEAGUE. Someone go fact check that immediately. (Press contact for IBSL Vance Duggans, 404-555-1234. He’ll get back to you as soon as possible.)

In the meantime, the Sixty Million Dollar Motherfucking Dollar Man has inspired LSUFreek to new heights.

Run, Little Mac! Run!

The reefer man post was angling for Perrilloux rumors confirmation. None needed: the AP is reporting that Perrilloux is gone at last, having set fire to Les Miles house, eaten his dog, and then flossing his teeth with Mrs. Miles gold tennis bracelets failed a drug test, according to our sources.

This means that Perrilloux didn’t just fail one test, of course: at Florida back in the 90s, Jason Williams failed no fewer than ten tests before he got the boot. We suspect the same range of drug testing leniency applied to the immensely talented AND stupid Perrilloux, as in RYAN WE ARE TESTING YOU IN A WEEK HERE’S SOME GOLDENSEAL AND A JUG OF WATER MIGHT WANT TO USE THESE HINT HINT HINT.

Good luck, sixty motherfucking million dollar man! It was fun knowing you. With Perrilloux, LSU was starting the season at the forty fucking yard line.

Without him, they’re on the 20 with everyone else at best.

Brian brings us this week’s Cupdate, featuring an impressive defense and extension of Missouri’s lead thanks to a weed arrest for the Tigers, who have brought the fiya this Fulmer Cup season. Explanations, bad math, and failed rhetorical backflips follow.

Not pictured on the board but making their debut: Boston College. BC doesn’t make it onto the board, but with the arrest of defensive end Brady Smith for on-campus sexual assault (is that somehow worse than off-campus sexual assault?) and breaking and entering, the Eagles earn six points for the double felony charges. Even in their shame, Boston College fans would lie to point out that the six point score is more than the Notre Dame Irish scored against Georgia Tech last year in their opener.

Like Lance Armstrong in an EPO fit raging up the Alpe d’Huez, Missouri continues to pull away from the peloton with expert timing. Austin Wuebbels less than composed traffic stop fumbling earned the Tigers another 4 points this week, proving that when the competition gets close, the Tigers go to the no-huddle and being piling on points daring you to keep up.

Still missing: Florida? Miami? AND FSU? The Sunshine State’s gone soft friends. Blame the kind and benevolent governance of our fabulous governor Charlie Crist, who’s got the economy flaming despite the entire state taking it in the ass in the real estate market. They’re all simply too happy and well-governed to get tasered! (Crossing fingers, looking at the Florida team and hoping everyone’s got their gun locks in the fixed position on their assault rifles.)

Missouri lineman Austin Wuebbels deserves some credit, at least. Though caught with marijuana, a pipe, and beer in the car at 3 in the morning this Sunday, how did our man do on the sobriety test administered to him at the jail after his arrest?

After he was taken to the police station, Wuebbels successfully passed a sobriety test.

Give it up! He failed the possession exam, but THAT’S AN A IN SOBRIETY, PEOPLE!

Wuebbels was about to get off with merely a warning when police noticed him grabbing at something under the dash, a classic example of not living the smooth, baby. Police then found the weed, the pipe, and the booze in the car, presumably factors in why anyone would end up awake and speeding around a smallish town in Missouri at three in the morning. Wuebbels ended up charged with suspicion of possession of less than 35 grams of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of alcohol by a minor and false identification, all misdemeanors.

Even with the misdemeanor tag, that’s four points for the Missouri Tigers, who with three point-heavy arrests have tallied 20 points before the end of the spring semester in taking the lead in the Fulmer Cup. And for that, they deserve shame-claps a-plenty from the audience.

The big board continues to swell with fresh points. This week’s Fulmer Cupdate, as always, is brought to you by Brian, who continues to be hung like Reggie F’n Nelson.

Mississippi State bang-bangs their way onto the board with a murky “shooting incident” on campus in Starkville last Friday. Two players were involved for certain: Michael Brown and Quinton Wesley were both sent screaming off the team with all due speed following the shooting, and others may be involved since the Miss State roster was sporting a few conspicuous holes during their spring game Saturday. (Urban Meyer finds all of these punishments harsh.)

The incident began with the source of all trouble, naturally: a convenience store.

MSU Police Department Lt. Don Bartlett said an altercation at a convenience store near the campus — the B-Quik store on East Lee Boulevard — occurred a few hours before the incident at Zacharias Village and “may have been the motivation” for the gunshots at the residence hall complex, The Starkville Daily News reported.

H.I. and the entire Tennessee football team agrees: convenience stores are hellmouths of trouble for the young mind, with their slushees, cheap beer, lotto tickets and pork rinds. Virtue is staying away from them entirely, kids.

Cincinnati lights up a few points–two points, to be specific–for Terrill Byrd smoking weed in his residence. Well, at least he can buy booze on Sundays, unlike the good citizens of Georgia, who instead must drive to a bar, where they get hammered, buy some fried food, and then hit the roads after drinking. Sonny Perdue, don’t you have rain to pray for instead of persecuting the lazy alcoholics of this fine state? Lazy alcoholism at home is a family value in the South, dammit.

(We don’t actually know if one can buy booze on Sundays in Cincy. All we know is that Sonny Perdue can go fuck himself with a corkscrew for limiting our personal freedoms in the name of winning a few Jebus voters in Crisp County.)

Missouri still sits atop this thing like a prize drunken peacock, but several teams sit in striking distance. Just a few misdemeanors separate Tennessee from Mizzou, and if any team has the gumption, abundant convenience stores, and raucous, enabling campus environment to make this thing happen, it’s Tennessee, dammit.

Middle Tennessee picks up three points for felony marijuana possession thanks to Walter Dozier, who certainly looks to be into distribution like Rick Ross:

According to the arrest report, police seized a large ziplock bag containing three smaller bags of marijuana, digital scales, a box of baggies and six 12-gauge shotgun shells.

Every day he’s hust-a-lin’.

Dozier should be in much better shape than Rick Ross, since for a man who does so much hust-a-lin he keeps quite a few bills in his gut-wallet. Nevertheless, he caught a charge (he caught a charge?) and earns three points for the Raiders. Sun Belt what!

Brian presents the big board for the week. A smattering of notes on what was a quiet weekend follows.

Remember: Illinois and Mizzou are both victims of one player’s outstanding contributions. Depending on your semantics, then they’re not really winning as a team effort. That award would, at this point, go to the West Virginia Mountaineers and the nine points they earned last week for a large “intent to distribute” marijuana arrest. Tennessee is just a disorderly conduct or DUI charge away from nipping into the team lead, however, a move that would restore the earth to its proper axis, return to the king to his rightful place in Gondor, and get Arrested Development back on the air again.

Missing in action: A few obvious preseason faves miss the list completely, making them sleepers just waiting in the weeds to explode onto the board, or otherwise tranquil programs with shockingly little to worry about in the discipline department. Where’s former champ Marshall? Or heavy preseason favorite Arizona State? Or even Purdue, a team with consistently high scores throughout the short history of the cup? And whither Florida, Florida State, or Miami? Florida’s already got a point for a piddling underage drinking charge, but none of the big three has anything to show in the way of taserings, drinking while flying a blimp, discharging weapons in crowded daycares, or trafficking in exotic animals.

The Florida points are on the way in an update, so don’t bitch about it in the comments. This ensures one person at the least will bitch about it in the comments.

The West Virginia Mountaineers add some fire to the Fulmer Cup, staying high in the West Virginia hills with an ambitious-sounding charge of “felony possession of marijuana with the intent to deliver.” The reason we say the charge reeks of an almost admirable ambition: they had intent to deliver, dude. Following all the way through like a champion. Holding the rope, as it were, and sticking to the task at hand with the sticky-icky.

One thing the players cannot be accused of: staying cool under pressure. Man, just be cool. Seriously. Don’t say shit. That’s how a gangsta does it. Don’t. Say. Shit. I mean–

Deputies found packaged bags of marijuana in the vehicle and in Ingram’s right shoe. After Ingram allegedly told one of the deputies there were also drugs at his apartment, investigators found more marijuana and bags used to package the drug in a bedroom.

–yeah, well, so much for the “staying cool” part of that speech, Scarface. The best possible defense at this point will be to claim that the kids were using Arnold Schwarzenegger’s old post-workout recovery techniques to enhance their performance, albeit without wearing the “Arnold is numero uno” shirt.

He’s leading the life you all want to live, people, and do not deny it. Oh, and nine points for West Virginia, putting them in an extremely competitive stance in the Fulmer Cup.

The Fulmer Cup 2008…now with theme song! God bless Garage Band loops.

MP3 File

The Fulmer Cup enters its third year of existence as college football’s premiere offseason time-waster and the only established measure of which teams really do have the least well-behaved student-athletes in the sport of football. In case you aren’t familiar with the system, we’ll recap the rules and even show you an example of the scoring, since the University of Tennessee–appropriately enough–gave us an example this weekend to open the scoring for this year.

Points are awarded for player arrests. These have to be current football players and verified charges, so if Uncle Jimboridicus calls and tells you that he swears he saw someone being stuffed into the back of a squad car…no dice unless we’ve got a wire report or an arrest record. Also, if it’s a graduated player, or someone who’s already declared for the draft…no go there, either. Coaches can count, but relatives of players do not.

The rules for scoring are as follows, but are not limited to:

* Murder: 5 points.

* Rape: 4 points. Downgraded to one if either participant is wearing a clown mask.

* Bestiality: 4 points. It’s a form of rape, really, no matter how much the goat has had to drink. High point value justified further by the fact that it involves having sex with an animal. You could say this was unthinkable, but in the past year alone two stories involving college athletes and at least the association with barnyard bonhomie of a most intimate degree have been reported, including the EDSBS Official GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD: the arrest of Oregon State player Ben Siegert for stealing a sheep used in a study on homosexuality in sheep.

* Grand Larceny: 4 points. We use this as a catchall for players being involved in crime so outrageous and well-planned it can only be described as ‘nefarious,’ ‘professional,’ or ‘legislation.’ Applies to large drug rings, chop shop operations, and the Haitian human trafficking ring that’s been run out of the Miami locker room since ‘93. (We kid! They didn’t get that thing humming ’til ‘95 at the earliest.)

* Hitting Girls: 3 points. We’ll downgrade this to 2 if the girl can hold her weight and requires daily medication to prevent her from gouging her own eyes out (since those were the ones we always ended up dating, and we understand); or we’ll upgrade to 4 points if the damage includes intensive care. Dad always said never hit girls, so we take this one seriously. Dad also said always double down with split aces, too, but we’ll be damned if we didn’t end up selling bone marrow in Macau the last time we followed that bit of advice.

* Car theft/Assault/Driving through houses drunk/Drug possession of the Tyrone Biggums variety: 3 points. “Drug possession” never sounds all that bad until you add in ‘crack cocaine,’ which is society’s signifier that your life has gone from that of high functioning simian in a complex society to that of a rat with electrodes in your brain’s pleasure centers hitting a pedal in a glass box in a lab. Weed? Par for the course, especially if you’re NFL-bound. Crack? Break out the Sports Century ‘Weepy Sonata’ music, because the story of your descent from boundless potential has just begun, and they haven’t even begun to show the grainy shots of 130-lb you huddled in a shelter on Skid Row.

* Fightin’ in ‘da Club/Weed Possession/Standard DUI: 2 points. Any scenario involving group fighting of a thugged-out, ‘we run this place’ variety, and marijuana possession of the nickel bag level. Possession of 100 pounds of marijuana is a totally different thing, and takes you right back up to the 4 point ‘nefarious’ level.

* Drankin’/Suspended License/Assorted petty misdemeanors: 1 point.

Crave it: The Fulmer Cup.

There is a fair amount of wiggle room here, especially given the degree of the crime and the zest with which is was committed. For example: there’s DUI, and what we’ll call Estonian DUI. Some poor kid who had one too many beers gets pulled over with a .09 BAC? That’s standard DUI. Some coach gets pulled over, say on a desert lane somewhere in Arizona, for instance, with a .45 BAC and a can of ether? This calls for bonus points, an award determined both by reader input and by Queen of Hearts Rules. (Orson is the Queen of Hearts here, and if he says off with its head, then it’s off with the head.)

The updated scoreboard will be maintained again by Brian “Hung Like Reggie F’n Nelson”, who will get an even cooler nickname this season if he keeps it up. Scoring is maintained in detail in the archives here, but somewhat more conveniently talled by our close personal friends at SAS Wiki at their indispensable Fulmer Cup page.

The Ellis T. Jones III award, neglected last season, will make a return to the scene this year. The ETJ3 is given to the player who makes such an astounding individual achievement he cannot fairly be considered to be part of the team. This is designed to offset not only the impact of one bad egg on a whole team, but also to recognize outstanding effort on the part of the individual. Think of it as the Davey O’Brien Award, but for stealing car stereos instead of passing.

Now, for an example: Tennessee wide receivers Gerald Jones and Ahmad Paige were showing some recruits around this weekend. Light stuff, really: a nice cruise in the ride, a few joints firing away in the ashtray, and the one excuse a cop needs: a busted tag light. Paige granted police permission to search the car, they did, and now we know what explains Tennessee’s blunted deep passing game this year: two possession charges, one for Paige and one for Jones, and the first points of the new season go to the Cup’s namesake, the University of Tennessee.

The tally:

2 points each for possession, meaning a total of 4 for Tennessee. You count them each, and considering the piddly amounts involved, you’re not talking Tyrone Biggums/Nate Newton levels here.

Let the race begin! When the fat man says it’s time to dance, it’s time…to dance!

Also check out Miami Hawk Talk’s preseason rankings. They’re bullish on Arizona State, and why not?

Call it the belated correction edition. Explanations, corrections, and outright apologies follow. HT as always to Brian, who is hung like Reggie Fuckin’ Nelson.

Illinois’ amazing comeback. Penn State looked so close to edging Illinois on a silly alcohol citation before five out of seven charges were dropped in the case against Anthony Scirrotto, one of the football players involved in the apartment fight we cannot help but refer to as “Bootgate.”

For speed’s sake, we’ve dropped Penn State six points immediately, and really should be somewhere around Michigan’s ranking and definitely below Florida. In true flubalicious fashion, Team Redacted yanks victory from the jaws of defeat, resulting in a stunning comeback for what appears to be a victory for Illinois in the 2007 Fulmer Cup. And as with most things [NAME REDACTED], it comes through no actual accomplishments of excellence of their own.

Arkansas DE: “Ecstasy got da best ah me.” Playing football is stressful, so why not relax? And when we say relax, we mean really, really relax, as in cranking up a joint and picking up a little MDMA on the way to a friend’s house.

The officer asked Harrison to step out of the car. The police report says Harrison consented to a search and told the officer he had “just a pill” in a pocket of his cargo shorts. The officer reported finding a small plastic bag containing one blue Ecstasy pill.

Hill got hit with felony controlled substance possession, which is three points there, plus a slew of driving citations, including the shame of having no seat belt on at the time of the arrest. Ever heard the oft-cited rule that drunks survive crashes because they’re so much more relaxed than sober people? Stoned people rolling on X must have an even higher rate of survival, especially me, since their erect penises break the windshield glass on impact like one of those spikes you can buy in case you find yourself trapped underwater in your car.

Award ceremony: Wednesday, 3:00 p.m, when the FC season closes. It’s gonna take a miracle to knock off Illinois, barring an Arizona State football bank robbery, renaissance Miami block party turned shootin’ ‘n lootin’ riot, or the inevitable exposure of the illegal human cloning operation that’s been producing slow, accurate white quarterbacks for Michigan for thirty years.

Lamarcus Coker, Tennessee Vols starting tailback and alleged savior of the Tennessee run game, will only be running stadium stairs for the immediate future as he has been suspended indefinitely by Phil Fulmer for violating the team substance abuse policy.

Yes, go ahead and play this during the rest of the piece. We’re Florida fans. We know from pot-smoking athletes of astonishing ability. Plus the protagonist is named Smokey, a name Tennessee fans feel great affection for already.

Sadly, as indicated by the Rick James soundtrack above, Coker allegedly did not live up to his name by being caught with his snoot in a furrow of fine Peruvian pep powder, but rather by reportedly being caught generic weed, which at Florida would earn him a tidy suspension for the Cal game at best. Coker’s not helped by being a multiple offender at this point (it’s his second drug-related offense,) or by his being the test case for Tennessee’s new drug policy. The policy gives athletes extra “strike” counts, increasing from three to four, but makes those reinstatements a more arduous process, including mandatory counseling sessions and the like.

So Coker’s likely not shot the Vols’ entire season in the foot with the finest of Cletus’s turkey-killin’ blunderbusses…yet. He is suspended indefinitely, a punishment which Urban Meyer called “harsh.” That suspension could easily be lifted in time for substantial playing time, we think, given the rules in place. The really humorous part: Fulmer initially announced Coker’s absence as the result of a “medical condition,” which plan to break in as soon as possible in our day job.

Boss: So you’re not coming to work.
OS: No, it’s a medical thing.
Boss: What kind of medical thing?
OS: The kind that makes Widespread Panic sound reaaaaaaaaaaal good right now, actually. (COUGH)

In the meantime, like Smokey, Coker ain’t got shit else to do. We suggest he beat up neighborhood ruffian Deebo with a brick to boost his status and help redeem himself in the eyes of the community. And by “Deebo,” we mean “Phil Fulmer.” Trust us–we have no ulterior motives whatsoever.

Blogtoberfest: for the reader who always hurries their team to the line press A press A press A NOW!!!

TWO IMPORTANT SITE NOTES FIRST!!!

1. Taking SEC Media Days reports all day.
2. Looking for someone to work some video for us. Someone with chops.

That is all.

Pittsburgh defensive end Joe Clermond turned the Wannstache into a Weedstache for a day with his arrest for pot possession.

Sir, may we search your car?

Considering the cloud of acrid, slate-gray smoke we’ve seen at most of the hip-hop shows we’ve been to, Clermond could have been charged with this simply with a quick blood test, since the THC load of a casual bystander at a show is probably enough to prosecute.

Clermond led the Panthers in tackles for losses with 16 and a half last year.

SMQ looks at the mercurial life of Oklahoma’s quarterbacks. Judging from the offers dangling in front of their faces, the most difficult part of being quarterback at Oklahoma would be turning down the generous benefits provided by handy and helpful local businesses. (more…)

This week’s big board appears below. Notes, corrections, and a whole slew of embedded updates follow:

UTEP may not catch Illinois, but do not blame the lack of effort as the reason why they’ll fall short of a Fulmer Cup title. The Miners score 13 points in their debut on the board thanks to a right cracker of an FnDC incident, complete with vivid, rarely cited charges like “assaulting a public servant” and “attempting to take an officer’s weapon.” Teamwork got them here, people: five players earned charges in all, with Tufick Shadrawy and Brian Wilkins earning the lion’s share of the gold strike themselves.

UTEP coach and roving roustabout Mike Price can’t really comment too much on the case at the moment, and with good reason: he’s recovering from surgery he underwent last week to put a stent in his heart to relieve pressure on a blocked artery. Guilt trip ‘em, Mike–show ‘em the flesh zipper like Krusty would.

Minnesota is already getting more exciting under new coach Tim Brewster–exciting like a wacky Euro-sex party with your close friends Mystikal and Andrew Lauder! Minnesota’s had some kind of nasty sexual assault case brewing for a while, yet the arrest of Dominic Jones for probable cause of criminal sexual misconduct has no apparent connection to the past allegations of third degree sexual assault earlier this spring.

Minnesota picks up four for what in essence is a rape charge. Jones is being held in the Hennepin County Jail without bail, which is not a good sign for him.

Finally, we award one point for weed possession to South Carolina, whose recruit Quintin Richardson may earn a point as he’s currently enrolled at SC and therefore eligible for Fulmer Cup points despite never having strapped on a Cock helmet for South Carolina. Richardson was picked up following a report of shots fired at an apartment complex. A police search ensued, and Richardson was found Holden Caulfield. William Holden. You know what we mean, man.

Richardson may also want to avoid the apartment complex altogether–this is the same apartment complex where Richardson was stabbed last month in an fight over a lady. Hell, we avoid towns where we’ve gotten bad roast beef sandwiches–stabbing would certainly do the trick as far as blacklisting a spot on our daily rounds.

The big board is in need of some updates. Follow along below.

First, old business. A weekend of Vegas debauchery delayed this score, but Bobby Maurice Purify polished up an already impressive resume of offseason naughty (two counts of assault, failure to comply, resisting arrest and trespassing five weeks earlier) with an arrest on suspicion of drunk driving at 12:25 am last Friday. Purify, already Nebraska’s leading scorer for 2007 without putting on a single pad, racks up another two points pending further details on the incident. Coach Bill Callahan has indefinitely suspended him and offered no further comment other than that he remains smarter than you can ever hope to be, you fucking redneck.

UGA’s Fulmer Cup points never come from a dark, malevolent quarter of human nature. (more…)