The Orgeron is out at Ole Miss, according to Joe Schad of ESPN, who’s practically an honorary coroner today after announcing both Callahan’s termination and now Orgeron.

We’re heartbroken. The Orgeron Era can’t die. He just…he just can’t. He’s big, tough, and aggressive, just like a Hummer! He’s gettin’ pelts on da rakrootin’ trail! He gotta da Jevan Snead a-comin intah da Oxfahd fo-a throwing da heapah touchdowns in 2008!

In all seriousness, this is sad as hell. We’re left looking through the scrapbook now, watching the photos bubble up under our tears.

Just one more time, for old times sake. Play it Jo-Jo. YOU PLAYED IT FOR HIM, NOW PLAY IT FOR US. (Slams fist down drunkenly, tears gleaming in our eyes.) Play it again, Jo-Jo.

We imagine Robert Khayat did this over the phone, since you’d have to engrave the Orgeron’s name on magical shackles a la Hellboy to restrain him before telling him he couldn’t come back to work in person. They’d have to call in Rasputin for the whole thing.

This leaves the pesky question of who will take the Ole Miss job. Exquisitely timed as always, Ole Miss has fired a coach just in time to compete against Texas A&M, Michigan, Nebraska, and god knows what other larger, more monied programs will fire their coaches in the next ten minutes–not to mention the vacancies gaping after the guys who fill those positions leave their current positions.

We all know people that are bad at their jobs; you may even be one of them. This is why it’s fun to look at and make fun of people who are historically bad at their jobs. These are some of my favorites:

Franz Berliner, Captain, LZ 129 Hindenburg

Flew the world’s largest balloon into the world’s largest needle. Not sure what he was doing, but I don’t think it takes hindsight to see that Franz was not watching where he was going. His poor floating skills singlehandedly brought down the entire Zeppelin Industry. 

Mort Lipshitz, Fire Chief, Chicago 1870-1871

Far be it from me to tell a fireman how to do his job, but jesus, Lipshitz*, you gotta let the whole city burn? I know there are intangibles here, but generally the recipe for doing your job successfully is: see flames, add water. So you were saddled with horses, buggies, and lanterns, but come on, firefighting is no profession for excuses. You really dropped the ball here, brother. To add insult to injury, they’ve named a soccer team after your failure. You are on the Mt. Rushmore of fuck-ups.

Charlie Weis, Head Coach, Notre Dame

Charlie Chalupa’s not just famous for his girth anymore. He’s led the Irish to their worst season in school history. The offensive guru has also led this tactiley talented team to their worst offensive season in school history, which is no easy task. He compiles his failures with blind arrogance and the cocksure attitude of someone who’s wildly successful at their job. He’s being heavily rewarded for his failures too. No matter what he does from here on out in his coaching career, this season, this trainwreck, this audacious failure, will be his legacy. Chew on that, Charles.

M Beanie, Boy Toy Wrangler/Driver, George Michael

This job seems pretty easy -

Step 1: Find a fucktoy for a rich, faded, liquid-hipped pop chanteuse a couple times a week.

Step 2: …

Step 3: Profit!

M was good at it too. He had Michael elbow deep in ass for a year. However, in an embarrassing parallel parking incident, Michael carped one time too many and his driver quit, leaving M holding the keys. When M was promoted to driver, things went to hell in a handbasket. In the past year alone, Mr. Michael’s been arrested three times for drunk driving, twice for soliciting sex in a park (who knew that was illegal?), he’s been to rehab twice, had Hoof & Mouth Disease once, and is now the more pathetic of the two (2) former members of Wham! This is a bad year and elevates Beanie instantly into the Hall of Fame.

Pam Ward, Broadcaster of Iowa football games, ESPN2

Pammy is not pretty. This is no crime, to be sure, but she sought out a career in television so I think this shows a tremendous lack of self-awareness. She also talks for a living and her voice is… unfortunate. Her voice has the deaf tones of a demolitions expert and all the warmth of a well digger’s ass. To complete the hat trick, she talks about football for living and doesn’t know anything about football, at all. She is positively the worst announcer in the history of man.

General Pickett, Confederate General, Battle of Gettysburg

You don’t need to be a military strategist to see why this was the turning point in the Civil War (GO NORTH!!! WOOOO!!!). I’ve been to Gettysburg. I’ve seen the battlefield and I can tell you, it’s no small jaunt. It’s really flat, but it’s a hell of a long way from one side to the other. I made it in cargo shorts and running shoes and I was tired and crabby as shit when I got to the other side. Also, I did it in March, not in July when Pickett made his hike. I can just imagine doing it with a musket and those fucking hideous wool unis! Were they a marching band or an army? Horrible fashion choice on their part, nearly as bad as their walk directly into the line of fire across that field. The Confederacy suffered a casualty rate of over 50%, many of which were Pickett’s men. Pickett’s Charge** was the beginning of the end for the South in the Civil War. Bad move, George.

Lucious Picard, Dialect Coach, Kevin Costner for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Costner was doing what all American actors do when they’re surrounded by “yes” men, he decided to take a role with an accent. The studio fearlessly cast the paunchy 40-ish rock hound as the young Brit Robin of Locksley. All they needed was someone to help the would-be archer to sound authentically British so they went with wunderkind Lucious Picard from the Royal Albert Hall of Drama. This did not go well. Costner’s accent came and went like a Yorkshire breeze; when it was good it was bad and when it was bad it was awesome. Sadly, unintentional comedy is not what they were going for and Picard spends these days replying to Madonna’s fan mail using “British sounding words”.  

* Mort would be higher on this list (or lower?) but he made the best bratwurst chili in the history of man. This cannot be discounted.

** Pickett’s Charge inspired the Lost Cause, which was one of Beck’s best singles from his “mopey period”.

It’s a smallish game between two no-name teams at some undefined competitive level of high school football. Yet the simple, Windows Movie Maker-crafted message of the video should call shake traumatic memories loose from your brain with amazing effciency of a horrid, pants-wetting terror felt when watching the nightmare unfold in front of your eyes: quarterback flushed, running, pursued by an unstoppable mob of faceless baby-skewerers, looking to throw, and then…

NO NO NO NO NO NO. Sometimes, when the pass is bad enough, we can actually yell in that low-pitch slo-mo voice you hear at the end of the video. Doug Johnson, you gave us that talent, and for that, we thank you. It’s handy for scaring the shit out of drive-through clerks late at night, or for phoning in those pesky but necessary ransom demands over an untapped public phone.

Andy Staples has the police calls of the Tony Joiner arrest. They’re gripping stuff in that, “Hey, I can hear dudes yelling in the back” kind of way. The caller identifies him as “Tony Joiner of the Gators,” which shows that celebrity of even the local sort is the gift that never stops giving.

For the moment, Joiner’s case remains on the books pending a decision by the State Attorney regarding his case. The towing company wants to settle the deal out of court, but pressing charges isn’t completely in their hands–the state may decide to press charges anyway, a decision most message boards are happy to ascribe not to the dictates laws of the state and the evidence of the case, but to the football loyalties of the attorneys and judges involved.

Whether Joiner starts at LSU is up to Meyer now. We have a whole shiny dollar to wager that he will.

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.)

A quick run through the notebook prior to EDSBS LIVE!!!’s review show tonight.

The patient in blue is unresponsive and not breathing. Put a stethoscope to his chest, and you will hear…meowing? Yes, meowing.

College football’s Dien Bien Phu: it’s already happened.

Take it as a given that no one–Michigan fans, App State fans, and college football fans as a whole–properly understands the magnitude of the event that occurred in Ann Arbor yesterday. And phenomenologically speaking, “event” is the correct word: something exploded, flames, hot air, and bright light followed, and no one was quite sure what happened even after looking right at the damn thing. It’s football’s Tunguska Event. It’s the French losing Dien Bien Phu to the Vietnamese. It’s like finding a sex tape starring Rosario Dawson and Seth Rogen where she’s left winded and and destroyed on the mattress. Buster Douglas watched the game yesterday with approving nods, in between shoving entire cheeseburgers into his mouth.

In more prosaic terms, Michigan’s tackles didn’t protect Henne, All-American Jake Long included. App State’s ends wheeled around them with ease throughout the game. Henne didn’t need the additional pressure, since he seemed scattershot from the beginning, spraying awkward passes around like a freshly divorced 38 year old at a singles’ bar. Hennebriation was the rule of the day as he consistently over/underthrew receivers, pulled down passes in fidgety indecision, and failed to convert critical passes when Michigan desperately needed them.

Other longstanding Michigan bugaboos emerged, too: an inability to cope with the spread offense, an arrogance in telegraphing plays by formation and motion, and the sneaking suspicion from watching that Michigan is locked in 1983’s finest strategic nostrums and not budging, digging in the heels of their Pumas while rocking an REO Speedwagon t-shirt you’d kill to wear to the club on Saturday night.

These patients appear to have no problems, and are busy using syringes to shoot whiskey at each other, doctor. The State of Georgia flourished on the gridiron Saturday. Tech beats Notre Dame, and then UGA takes the Greatest Offense On Earth and reduces them to 14 points and squabbling on the sidelines during the game. We didn’t see minute one of this game, but can say that Georgia looked far more impressive against a ballyhooed Okie State team than our own mad #6 pick South Carolina did against the Ragin’ Cajuns of University of Louisiana-Lafayette, who only lost to the Gamecocks 28-14. Spurrier called the ‘Cocks “just a bunch of average stiffs” after the game, where the Cajuns limited opportunities for SC by running the daylights out of the ball with quarterback Michael “It’s not delivery, it’s” Desourneaux.

This patient has one troubling sign, sir. Specialists are required. Only two salient points emerged from Florida’s game with the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers.

1. Tim Tebow has a very, very large arm. Actually, he has two of them. One, he throws footballs a very long way with; the other administers justice to the wicked of the greater North Florida metropolitan area 24 hours a day, and sometimes takes special missions at the behest of the President of the United States.

2. Kyle Jackson is still the last man on the tackle pile and still takes bad angles on tackles. Against WKU, this is troubling. Against Tennessee, this is hemorrhaging.

This patient has multiple personality disorder; request sedation immediately. Notre Dame trotted out a Big Lots discount version of the spread option for a quarter and a half with Demetrius Jones against a Georgia Tech defense eventually happy with sacking ND’s qbs nine times on the game and limiting the Irish to three points. Evan Sharpley came in to stop the bleeding, but the incineration of Jimmy Clausen’s redshirt points to further schizophrenia for Notre Dame, who is not NOT rebuilding. No, not at all.

This patient has the dreadlocks of power, sir… Auburn snoozed through its opening matchup with K-State before doing what Auburn teams usually do: pulling out magical plays from deep in their ass, something they have a knack for doing on the defensive side of the ball. This year’s wearer of the magical defensive end braids of power remains Quentin Groves, who inherited them from Stanley McClover. After Brandon Cox woke up and threw a fourth quarter td to put Auburn up 16-13, Groves blew past two KSU blockers who laid nary a glove on him as he hit 398 pound quarterback Josh Freeman, causing him to fumble, weep, and renounce any false gods he might have been worshipping at the time. The fumble went for a td, and thus three quarters of solid work by K-State (and three somnambulent ones for Auburn) will go down in the books as a 23-13 win.

And in the auspicious debuts department… Tom O’Brien’s NC State team displays that flashy T.O.B. charisma by dropping a 25-23 matchup at home to UCF, who went up 25-3 in the first half before nearly frittering away the lead and the upset. O’Leary will later claim the win was a 65-3 blowout on his resume. Don’t trifle with the Golden Flashes, son: Iowa State drops their opener 23-14 against Kent State. Gene Chizik, welcome to Hell.

Not all n00bs fumbled day one: Randy Shannon had the ‘Canes looking muscular, if not offensively viable quite yet, against a decrepit Marshall team (every time we looked over, Marshall’s qb was being bent in half by some brute in orange. Good signs for Miami.) And Mark Dantonio, seeking a “win of respect”, hitched Michigan State to the enormous ass of the mighty Jehuu Caulcrick for a 55-18 win against UAB, who it must be mentioned was being coached in the first game of the Neal Calloway era, who spoils our “trend of two” by being a rookie coach getting shellacked in his first game.

Jake Locker is the new pirates, who are the new Chuck Norris. Syracuse continues to sink into the mire under Greg Robinson, but even with the entire team giving up on themselves in the second half, hybrid Tebow/Young type Jake Locker looked impressive in Washington’s 42-12 victory in the humorously unairconditioned Carrier Dome.

The full–and we mean really, really full–Fulmer Cup report comes later today. But we must pre-empt and give you this amuse bouche from the blotter in South Bend, Indiana, where there actually are prostitutes.

Derrell Hand, 20, a University of Notre Dame defensive end/nose tackle, was arrested and jailed Thursday afternoon for allegedly propositioning a prostitute.

Hand, who was suspended indefinitely from the team Friday, was released from the St. Joseph County Jail on $250 bond Thursday.

Go pimp one for the gipper, nurse. He’s fading.

Hand was picked up as part of a sting operation by the South Bend police department. His defense should be that he merely speaks like that to not only every woman he meets, but every man, as well, as part of an undiagnosed Tourette’s tic.

Judge: How do you plead, defendant?

Hand: Whateva, trick, fat dick that’s sick gotta spit one quick before I flip. How much?

We’d call it Irvin syndrome if we hadn’t cried like a pussy watching the Playmaker get inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and ask his wife and kids for forgiveness for being a less than perfect father. (Sniff.) Hand should just go ahead, transfer to BYU, get a DWC in Provo, and therefore unify the “inadvisable crime to commit at religious college” title belts.

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…)

AP–BATON ROUGE, LA. Les Miles made an incendiary appearance on a local radio show in Baton Rouge last week, lambasting the Pac-10, USC, and the Big 12 for what Miles insinuated were their weak schedules and overall quality of competition. Miles then shocked listeners by attacking 11 year old Hayley Lafontaine, a local Baton Rouge child and neighbor of Miles.

Hayley Lafontaine, Les Miles hates your ass.

Miles began the tirade by responding to a query about a hypothetical matchup between USC and LSU in this year’s BCS championship game.

“I can tell you this, that they have a much easier road to travel,” Miles said. “They’re going to play real knockdown drag-outs with UCLA and Washington, Cal-Berkeley, Stanford — some real juggernauts — and they’re going to end up, it would be my guess, in some position so if they win a game or two, that they’ll end up in the title [game].

“I would like that path for us. I think the SEC provides much stiffer competition.”

Miles’ rant then snowballed into a critique of his former conference as head coach at Oklahoma State.

“The Big 12 is a conference that might have two really pretty good teams, maybe four. I think the Pac-10 may have one or two really good ones. The ACC certainly, arguably, has some quality teams.

“I don’t think there’s any conference out there that has as many quality teams as ours.”

Not done, Miles then lambasted neighbor Hayley Lafontaine, an 11 year old student at Malducul Middle School.

“Never…and I mean never…have I seen such a thoroughly mediocre and pisspoor performance by a child in all aspects of her life as in Hayley Lafontaine. (more…)

Chan Gailey remains the coach so willfully bland it’s hard to get to infuriated at him over anything, really. What one can do with free clearance is laugh at him, especially in those moments when he decides to do something un-Chantastic, like gamble with strategy. There’s nothing better than watching someone disinclined to wagering bust out the crazy stick and fly in the face of the odds–it’s like watching a Mormon melt down and lose the family nest egg at the blackjack tables in Vegas. It’s saddening, disturbing, and funny all wrapped into one unwieldy metaphorical hush puppy.

Watching Jim Tressel do this last season in the title game versus Florida was close…but nothing really tops the succinct poetry of this clip from Gailey Year Zero, or the exceptionally prescient bit of commentary that precedes it.

Enjoy your weekend, and remember: sometimes, you just have to take a knee.

Ronnie Wilson, best remembered as the hopefully former Gator lineman who pulled an AK-47 from his trunk to “scare” a man who followed him out of a Gainesville nightclub a few months back, has finally been formally charged for the offense. The tally:

State Attorney Bill Cervone said Thursday that Wilson has been charged with one count of battery and one count of discharging a firearm in public. Gainesville police had recommended Wilson be charged with a felony count of aggravated assault and a count of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Don’t blame the nefarious tentacles of Florida boosters for the reduction in charges–blame Florida’s TOTALLY AWESOME and tourist-friendly “Shoot First” law, specifying that a person may “use force, including deadly force, against an intruder or an attacker in a dwelling, residence or vehicle under specified circumstances; creating a presumption that a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm exists under certain circumstances…”

Wilson, for the record, is 6′3″, 316 pounds. His lawyer better hope the “threat” in the case is big–like, Nikolai Valuev-sized kind of big.

Didn’t you play the part of a Persian in 300, dude?

Wilson is not currently enrolled in classes, but “would like to remain at UF.” Urban Meyer will conclusively kick him off before the judicial hearing in August, and thus assert himself as a disciplinarian! It’s opposite day yay!

Ahem. He’ll totally be back and in the starting rotation by November when he gets his conditioning back. We’re already resigning ourselves to this inevitable and sad fact of having a Lou Holtzian coach. Stop looking at us like that–we suddenly feel…threatened…(reaching in trunk…)

That whole “this is sparta” business?

Um, we retract. Welcome back, Billy. Didn’t mean to kick you down the well just yet.

Countless Africans really are wandering the streets of Lagos and Lome wearing “USC: BACK 2 BACK CHAMPIONS!!!” and “BRADY QUINN: HEISMANTASTIC!!!” t-shirts. Or at least we like to think so after reading about how hypothetical merchandise like “Buffalo Bills: Super Bowl Champs” tees and hats wind their way down the supply chain and onto the backs of Malian herdsmen.

An eagle-eyed reader saved one such example of neverwas memorabilia for us, however, and sent it post-haste to the Swindle Reptile Farm on Highway 78. The taste is a bit fresher on this one, however, and endlessly sweet for us.

Busted Memorabilia presents: the “Make Florida an Urban Myth” t-shirt.

The front:

Available in brilliant scarlet.

The back: (more…)

Have a great weekend!

It’s only a minute long! It’s practically boosting your productivity as we speak. Play it anyway, since it’s short, it’s the soundtrack to this entry, and someone gets knocked the fuck out by what appears to be a brick at the end of the video.

UConn football player Brandon McLean was arrested twice in four days last week, having a few bad days in a row, singing a sad song and not turning it around at all, if his behavior’s any indication. Two incidents both of the largish domestic variety got him the pair of arrests, putting him squarely in line for anger management classes behind Andy Bernard and Alec Baldwin.

Note this, as well, from the Hartford Courant article:

UConn police charged McLean, 21, with one count each of threatening, criminal trespass and breach of peace after Wednesday’s incident. He faces a second breach of peace charge for the Saturday incident.

Threatening? Nice pick, UConn police. This ordinance must be unenforced in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Alan Branch would have gotten several a day just walking around looking like himself. A point for each offense and a bonus point for two arrests in four days takes UConn to five points total.