‘Cause it’s Friday, you ain’t got no football, and you ain’t got s#!t to do. Break yo’ self, fool — the preseason USA Today Coaches’ Poll has been released in all its premature, ghostvoted glory. Rest assured Holly and I will get around to a withering dissection of everything that’s wrong with the coaches’ rankings later on today, not the least of which is the fact that some of the teams they ranked may not have even started fall practice yet, but for right now let us rejoice in a sign that the college football season truly is a-comin’. Kind of like when they start putting up the Christmas-sale banners in the first week of October.

This has been “Scary Thoughts” with Eric Berry. The battle has begun at Tennessee for the title of Other Safety Besides Eric Berry, and no less than Berry himself says both Janzen Jackson and Darren Myles Jr. have “a lot more natural ability” than he did when he stepped onto the Tennessee campus. Here’s a thought for Lane Kiffin: Why not just let the other team’s offense have the ball every series and play defense the whole game? Can anyone honestly say Berry isn’t the biggest scoring threat the Vols have on their entire roster?

It must be the winning record. It’s very slimming on you. Don’t look now, but Stoops might actually have whipped Arizona into a solid team — so solid, in fact, that Stoops himself has unloaded 20 pounds his Wildcats upset BYU in last year’s Las Vegas Bowl. In other nutritionally healthy news, there’s nothing spectacularly shocking about this Alabama notebook, we’re just amused by anything applauding a 354-pound man for his weight-loss diligence.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Bronco. Boise State says they’re not dwelling on their home opener against Oregon this season, but who’d blame them if they did? You can’t really accuse someone of “looking ahead” when the game they’re looking ahead to is their first game of the season, particularly when their opponent’s QB promised to “take it to them” a couple weeks ago. If you’re scoring at home, BSU punked Oregon 37-32 in Eugene last September, and host the Ducks on the Smurf Turf on Sept. 3.

Rolling with the Neu. Rick Neuheisel’s son Jerry, a presumptive member of the class of 2011, is starting to get some recruiting buzz, and though he looks sort of like how we imagine a member of the Swedish women’s track and field team might look, we know better than to bet against anyone with Neuheisel DNA. (Presumably, as a student at Los Angeles’s Loyola High School, Jerry will be at least an ancillary beneficiary of the breakup of the infamous Los Angeles Football Monopoly, though we can’t say for sure until we’ve seen the documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission.)

It’s going to be an interesting family Thanksgiving in the Bowden household. For the first time in ages, the only member of the Bowden family fielding any questions about national-title expectations is — Terry, despite bringing back only one offensive starter on his (Division II) North Alabama team. Imagine Stephen being the lone member of the Baldwin family to get any Emmy buzz in a given year and you’ve pretty much approximated the head-scratching factor here.

Profiles in headline understatement. The Virginia Cavaliers are looking for big-play wideouts, says the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Or, you know, big-play anybody, that’d be good too. (Cue my dad, UVA undergrad ‘71, Med ‘77: “We’re still the closest thing to a public Ivy in the country, Thomas Jefferson founded us, GRRRR ARRRGGGHH.”)

File under “Longtime rumors confirmed.” It’s official: Joe Kines “speaks another language.” The city of Tuscaloosa just collapsed under the weight of its collective lack of shock.

What? Oh, yeah, star QB, football, blah blah whatever. Ex-Longhorn hero and current Tennessee Titans QB Vince Young makes a very edifying appearance in the “What I’ve Learned” feature of this month’s Esquire, and while some of you are sure to beef with his promise to “be the next black quarterback to win a Super Bowl,” I’m not commenting on that one way or the other, mainly because I’m too distracted by the feature on Christina Hendricks of “Mad Men” immediately preceding the Young article.

Yes, I know that’s about as lazy as segues get, but y’all have been very good this week, and the very least I can throw your way as a show of gratitude is a little bunda. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.

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.

F$#@ Sooners, get money. Packing two of the last three national-title trophies and gunning for another one in ‘09, Urban Meyer is getting a raise that will jack his salary up to an even $4 million a year, meaning that not only Urban but entire future generations of Meyers will be makin’ it rain for the indeterminate future. Before you ask, yes, Les Miles has a clause in his contract that entitles him to make at least $1,000 more than any other conference coach, but apparently it only kicks in if Miles wins the national title this year — thereby saving LSU from having to give The Hat a quarter-million-dollar raise for going 3-5 in the SEC last season. (See, if they just gave Les the highest salary in the conference, they’d only be spoiling him; this way, he learns the value of money.)

You know how to start a car, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow. West Virginia wide receiver Jock Sanders, last seen propping up an unusually weak Fulmer Cup effort by the Mountaineers with a DUI charge, may be able to bring an end to his indefinite suspension from the team if he “handles a series of requirements.” This includes completing an alcohol-awareness course, speaking with high-school groups about the dangers of DUI, and our favorite, having a “test lock” device installed in his car that will basically require him to breathalyze himself and prove he’s sober before he can start his vehicle. This is probably gonna sound weird, but I’ve always wanted to try one of those things — though my gadgetary curiosity here is of the singular ride a Segway/use an ejection seat/get Tasered variety that involves trying it once just to see what it’s like and then never, ever having to do it again.

Cue the “It’s not your fault” scene from “Good Will Hunting.” Louisville running back Bilal Powell is trying to put his fumble in last year’s game against Kentucky behind him and look ahead to 2009. Is it just us, or does it seem like he’s taking it a bit too hard? His fumble accounted for only a fifth of UL’s turnovers in that game. Trust me, Bilal, there’s more than enough blame to go around for the FAILsplosion that was Louisville’s 2008 campaign, and they’ll be coming after Steve Kragthorpe with torches and pitchforks long before they get around to you.

I don’t know the guy, but I’ve got two kidneys and he needs one, so I figured . . . Elsewhere in the Big East, Syracuse head coach Doug Marrone, charged with cleaning up the HAZMAT spill that is the Orange’s football program post-Greg Robinson, says he’s “been hearing good things” about the progress made by former Duke basketball player and not-ever college football player Greg Paulus, who allegedly is still in the running for SU’s starting-QB job, in summer conditioning. Be that as it may, signing Paulus period still strikes us as the kind of decision that will be very much in the running for inclusion in a Bad Idea Jeans commercial by the end of the season.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed GERG is king. Speaking of Robinson, the situation at Michigan is apparently so dire that the addition of Gerg as defensive coordinator is being seen as one of the team’s biggest bright spots heading into 2009. (Yes, we know Robinson was an exemplary D-coordinator with both the Longhorns and the Denver Broncos. But a 3-25 Big East record is the kind of failstank that wouldn’t be quickly forgotten even if he’d only been hired as the night manager at a 7-Eleven.)

What, by playing them within 30 points? Late entry in the race for saddest quote of the offseason: Washington State coach Paul Wulff’s insistence that his Cougars “have the opportunity to surprise some teams” this year. I’d like to believe that, Paul, I really would, but I’d also like to believe that Lacey Stockbauer is going to end up with two tickets to this year’s Texas-Oklahoma game and offer me her extra one. In other words: na ga happen.

The header on this video is “One of the worst offensive series ever in college football,” and if you limit the definition of “worst” to “a series where, while not turning the ball over for a change of possession or a score, the offense displays repeated, consistent, and diverse ways of stepping face first in front of the red boxing glove on an expanding arm time and time again,” then yes; we’re talking about what might legitimately be not one, but the worst series of offensive football every played.

Ladies and gentlemen: Nicholls State versus Northwestern State. Northwestern has the ball on the Nicholls State 47, and is down 33-14. Watch from between your fingers if you have to.

1st and 10: incomplete pass. The best drive for Northwestern State all drive, as it is merely an incompletion.

2nd and 10: Illegal procedure, NW State. Also, an oncoming pass rusher flies sideways into the qb’s knee after the play.

2nd and 15: False start, NW State. General look of confusion as players fuddle around as if someone has abandoned them coachless on the sideline.

2nd and 20: Ball on the 43. A near interception, which would have been a merciful stroke of fate. Instead a holding penalty is called, and the penalty sets them back even further to the 33 yard line.

2nd and 30: Sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot, and sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot and remember that your foot is made not of human flesh, but of high-grade explosives. The quarterback kicks the ball, which is an illegal kicking penalty taken at half the distance to the goal from the end of the run backwards to find the ball. Hold yourself fo the resulting count:

3rd and 61: The second best play all drive, as the qb is pressured, does not step out of bounds and into a waiting tree shredder, and throws the ball out of bounds outside of the tackle box.

4th and 61: Punt. Well, presumably punt. We really don’t know what happens here. Perhaps they actually do get the punt off; perhaps the punter takes the ball, attempts a fake, and is struck by an 18 wheeler speeding out of control off a local highway and over the hapless special teamer. Maybe it’s blocked. Whatever happens, the universe decided to truncate the video here, and with good reason, too. You don’t see the Joker kill anyone in the Dark Knight’s scary videos, either, but they’re still enough to give you screaming nightmares for weeks.

_

We have the technology.

Your 2009 national champions: Florida, Iowa, Ole Miss, Texas, West Virginia, and/or Virginia Tech. So sayeth Rivals, anyway. Grab your pitchforks and torches and head on over; they’ll love to hear from all of you.

Headlines that are not about what we thought they would be about: “Spiller’s a walking time bomb”. They mean that in a good way, sadly.

At this point, it can’t hurt. Much. Syracuse practice sessions, available for your judgment: “Marrone likes opening spring practice because it places greater scrutiny on the players to perform at a higher level.”

BEHOLD THE MUSTACHE WEDNESDAY CURSE! Right around the time we were touting Noel Mazzone yesterday, this clown was being introduced as the new Pitt OC.

Yeah, we don’t like him. Can’t put a finger on it…[surreptitiously rubs upper lip]

Uh, it was weed. Matt Simms lands at Some College, California.

There is a nagging question about a suspension last season over which Kragthorpe put a cloak of secrecy.”He’s a young kid,” Phil said without hesitation. “I don’t expect him to be perfect. I do expect him to live with his experiences. He’s a good person. I’m not ashamed of Matt. He learned from his experience in Louisville.”

International All-Name All-Stars. Why should you care about Tongan rugby players testing poitive for drugs in Japan?� For answers, peruse this article, notable solely for the presence of teams named Sungoliath and Brave Lupus. ]]> http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2009/02/19/curious-index-2192009/feed/ 30 http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2008/08/14/when-life-gives-you-jock-itch-make-jockitchade/ http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2008/08/14/when-life-gives-you-jock-itch-make-jockitchade/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:43:48 +0000 Orson Swindle http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/?p=5755 The Trojans are suffering through both the injury of their starting quarterback and an epidemic of some former Russian Military jock itch let loose upon their blue chip ladystands. Our take is over at the Sporting Blog, but here and only here can you purchase the shirt that, Trojans fans, you must be wearing when USC takes the field with a burning desire to compete and scratch away the memories of losing to Stanford.

Rubbing our whiskered chin, let’s revisit history here…Stanford has a toxic, staphylococcus-infested couch…time passes…then Stanford suddenly not only beats USC, but then the following spring USC comes down with an outbreak of jock itch so crippling it actually sidelines players? Jim Harbaugh bows to no man or bacterium. Let the conspiracy theories begin.

2007: Recently unsealed medical records indicate that Patrick Cowan’s knee problems were an aggravation of a previous injury sustained while reenacting the mattress surfing scene from Disney’s Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement:

1991: Tommy Maddox sits out the entirety of spring practice after overturning a campus vending machine in an attempt to procure an extra can of Fresca.

1988: Troy Aikman is rushed to the hospital after ingesting a packet of silica gel he found in his new cleats, misses week of practice leading up to USC but recovers in time to take the field.

1984: Steve Bono undergoes season-ending surgery to his left foot after becoming entangled in a mall escalator.

1983: Rick Neuheisel is held out of the Arizona State game following a “Sun-In incident.”

1972: Mark Harmon misses four games with a sprained face.

1966: Gary Beban slices off entire left hand opening a can of pears, is held out of Rose Bowl.

1961: Billy Kilmer misses the College All-Star Game after dislocating his shoulder while removing tags from a new mattress.

1943: Records from this time period are spotty, indicating only that Bob Waterfield did not play in the first two games of the season due to “freckles”.

In all seriousness, for rills: This does suck, we’re in no way looking forward to playing a UCLA team that’s at anything less than full strength, because where’s the fun, and we wish a speedy and actual recovery to Olson and the rest of the Pac-10 QB casualties.

The “not da U” Miami football player accused of aggravated burglary and assault, Zachary Marshall, has a waterproof, game-tight excuse for his barging into a strange apartment and allegedly placing a pillow over the face of one of the apartment’s female occupants.

The lawyer representing a Miami of Ohio football player accused of assaulting a female student in her dorm room says the player was drunk and entered the woman’s room thinking it was his own.

So, it’s customary for him to arrive in his own apartment and then smother whomever’s lying in his bed with a pillow. In the Jerramy Stevens guide to love, this is customary, but we suspect he might have just panicked, tried to shut up the girl once he realized he had a live screaming girl on his hands, and then realized he was actually suffocating someone before doing a mad Andre the Giant wind sprint out of the place.

All in all, the Continental would have been proud of the mucho suave way this was executed and handled. Jason Bourne would have handled it the same way, with the possible addition of killing someone with a phone book on the way out (but only in the most involuntary and remorse-inducing of ways, of course.)

(P.S. The Cincinnati Enquirer adds insult to self-inflicted injury:

Police say his bulky physique helped distinguish him from other suspects.

When he’s a tiny 180 pounds and in the throes of manorexia, we’ll blame your toxic sizism, you bastards at the Enquirer.)

Dear sirs,

We write today on behalf of a major university with a reputation which was created over the years of hard work and academic excellence by those who sought to create it. We saw your advertisement in this article on your Big East conference, and it was no one but our own institution of fine reputation we thought of at once.

The advertisement read:

So you want to be a member of the Big East?

Join the club.

In no manner of impertinence or inconvenience should we wish to trouble you in the least, but our university would very much like to be invited to your club. Our invitation is accepted, and we should like to join this illustrious Big East we have heard so much of in our time, having spent much time readying ourself for this in the Middle Eastern conference which, due to circumstances beyond our control, we feel we must sadly bid farewell to at long last.

So much is to be offered by our university! The high institute of Laser & Plasma, the Al-Kindi Medicine College, and the Ibn Al Rashid Center for Education are a few you have undoubtedly heard discussed by you peers in the various fields. Consider, too, our recently developed limb and eye replacement center, among the busiest and finest in the world! Nowhere will you find a set of skills so fine as captured by the staff and faculty of our university.

Also, we understand you require the fielding of an American football team. We assure you that though we have not in the history of our fine university been afforded the opportunity of having a football team of the American variety, we are invested in the process of recruiting players at this moment. We assure you their reflexes have been honed in a manner your players have not experienced before, and that loud noises and sudden impact will not faze them in the least.

We are also used to working with substandard facilities and difficult conditions, so beginning as the little brother of your conference will be no problem. We also do not have a direction in our name, unlike this Eastern Carolina who also wishes to sully your conference.

In conclusion, we would love to join your conference immediately or as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

The faculty and staff of Baghdad University, a.k.a. the University of Baghdad.

p.s. We are also willing to relocate the entire university to the eastern seaboard of the United States for the sake of you and your members’ convenience as soon as possible. It is of the deepest generosity and respect to you that we offer this.

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.

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”.

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.

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.)

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.