ESPN gives a nice look at a recruiting story, which shows a bit of why Urban Meyer has had early success this recruiting season. Gatorsports.com lets us know about the Gators who’ve been named to the Maxwell and Bednarik Award watch lists. No surpise that Chris Leak is one. Also, check out Gator Country for a good profile of Reggie Nelson who has been trying for 3 years to become a Gator and thanks to his recent Associates Degree, has realized this dream. It could be a dream for Gator fans too as his size and speed combination is just what the Gator secondary has been missing.

The Virginia Tech Hokies have released their non-conference schedule for the next 6 years complete with enough cream puffs to make Auburn jealous such as Furman, Appalachian State, William & Mary, Ohio (no, note State) and East Carolina. There were a few notable exceptions though which could make for some interesting television in a few years. Most notable will be a visit to Baton Rouge to play the LSU Tigers in 2007 and a home and away with Wisconsin in 2008-2009.

Thanks to Sharon for pointing us in the direction of this exquisite bit of Photoshop mastery. The seventeenth century had oil painting; the 21st has cheap digital gag imagery. If you throw in antibiotics and electricity, we’d say we live in a superior era by far. The island, by the way, is Alcatraz. (Thanks to Six Meat Buffet.)

Heismanpundit fires the first shot of the college football revolution. Then CFR rogers up in response. Evidently, blogs are gonna change the way we watch and talk about college football from the top to the bottom.

In the college football revolution, are the little red books copies of Rammer Jammer? Warren St. John wishes it were so…
(more…)

Paul Finebaum thinks a contract extension for Tide coach Mike Shula is meaningless-shocking! It does contain a shot of top-form Finebaum haterade, sampled here for your pleasure:

Will it (a contract extension) stop the following riddle: Name three SEC coaches who have won three conference games at Bryant-Denny Stadium?

Answer: Phil Fulmer, Tommy Tuberville and Mike Shula (Kentucky in 2003, Ole Miss and Mississippi State in 2004).

Ouch.

Matt Hayes is still stuck with a case of the smugs in his latest article (”The all-knowing Wise Guy cometh”…agh…) It’s a shame he doesn’t have the forum to be a consistent wiseass in the form of a blog, but that should change: his blurby, punchy style would be ideal for the form. We’ve got to take issue with this, though:

Oregon. For the first time since offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford left to coach California, the Ducks will have a wickedly balanced offense.

Balanced, sure. But effective? The Ducks hired Gary Crowton, who’s climbed on the spread option bandwagon like it’s acid-wash jeans in ‘86. Crowton’s offenses always rack up yards-at La. Tech or BYU-but after months of obsessively watching the game tape from the Utah-BYU matchup from this past season-as well as this highlight tape set to some truly wretched rap-rock-we absolutely hate some of the calls Crowton makes at crucial points.

This one moment keeps bugging the hell out of us. Down 38-21 vs Utah with about a minute left in the third, Crowton calls a play action pass out of a huge formation…with exactly one receiver in the pattern. Utah, who blitzed like crazy last year, still manages to intercept the hopeless bomb for a touchback since…there’s only one receiver in the pattern, who also happens to be double covered. Down 17, and you call this? When your defense couldn’t stop the hot dog wrappers blowing down from the stands from getting past them? Just one call, sure, but another reason why we think Oregon could be a few feathers short of a whole bird this season.

This dog is still laughing at some of the calls Crowton made last year, as well as at your lack of “Duck Hunt” skills.

Marcus Randle-El, 19 year-old wide receiver for the Wisconsin Badgers and, yes, brother of Antwaaaaaaaaan Randle-El, pleads guilty to disorderly conduct in a March shoving indident involving his babymomma and a cell phone registered in another man’s name. He’ll enroll in a first-time offenders program as part of the deal, hopefully wise to two truths universally recognized:
1. One should never, never shove a woman, and…
2. Having a cell phone in a bad relationship is like tossing a handgun into a room full of toddlers; once someone gets a hold of it, someone’s in trouble.

Bedlam comes to Thanksgiving: the OU-OSU game moves to Thanksgiving, finally giving the world decent football on Turkey Day while giving men surrounded by relatives yet another reason to vanish into a fog of booze and tv .

Holiday-ay! Celebra-yeeete! It would be soooo nice…

Wisconsin is plum out of tickets. (They actually wouldn’t say it that way, though; they’d say something like, “Gee, we’re outta tickets, you know. Gosh, they really go once people get all excited like that. Go Badgers!”) Call Fiutak if you need any-he loves bloggers.