Stewart Mandel lays his gherkin on the table and states unequivocally that Texas will not win its game in the ‘Shoe with OSU. Unless a whole host of things happen, thoughtfully provided with an asterisk, EDSBS.com-style:

* The author reserves the right to revoke his prediction under any of the following conditions: A) Another key Ohio State player accepts gifts from a booster and gets suspended; B) Cedric Benson and Derrick Johnson are suddenly granted an extra year of eligibility and return to Austin; or C) Someone steals all of Tressel’s sweater vests and after suffering a panic attack, he fails to show up for the game by kickoff.

Relax. It’s not new Notre Dame golden boy Charlie Weis. Rather, former Eli and Peyton Manning mentor David Cutcliff resigned today citing health concerns. Cutcliff was the assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach and was to provide insight into the college game to help Weis’ transition from NFL guru to college head coach. Now, following bypass surgery, Cutcliff will be taking some time away from the college game.

Call the landlord, ’cause rent’s gonna be late. It’s preview time, and we’ve invested our money wisely in an armful of preview guides available at our local mega-media mart, eschewing such frivolities as food for pages of glossy online casino ads and badly edited feature pieces on players who will likely break their leg in game two versus Northwestern Multidirectional State Tech, yielding their spot for an unheralded sophomore who will go on to win the Heisman the following year.
Our particular local mega-media mart had the three major publications most will-we scouted around the Atlanta area yesterday, and all the stores had the same selection: Athlon, Sporting News, and Lindy’s. There were a few highly individualized offerings: a fifty page mag on just the Georgia Bulldogs, a sixty pager on the Tennessee Vols complete with John Chavis nude centerfold, a two page pamphlet summarizing Chan Gailey’s offense. But on the whole we found the same thing everywhere.

America: land of choice!
Without further adieu…
Athlon Sports
Presentation: Ooh, so glossy. Athlon bets a lot on the college fan loving acres and acres of gloss: shiny paper stock, hundreds of color photographs, The graphics are huge and screaming for clarity, and you can almost hear the editors intoning over and over again: “user-friendly.”
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Or at least his readers do. Some time back we discussed the unfortunate dearth of Sports Guy columns. Well I’m happy to say that productivity in the workplace can slow again as he’s been back posting frequently again, including this gem of a mailbag.

Following the resignation of Mike Hobbie (to pursue other business interests), USF has promoted its passing game coordinator, Rod Smith, to offensive coordinator. The Bulls made this move hoping to provide continuity to their still young program. The Bulls are slowly but surely building a program in a hot bed of high school talent in west central Flordia. Joining the Big East should give them greater recruiting credibility and an opportunity to make a national name for themselves in a newly constituted BCS conference.