Joe Pa likes him some creampuffs-Penn State starts their schedule this year with South Florida, Cincinnati, and the ever-game tackling dummies of Central Michigan, meaning PSU gets off to a 3-0 start and the media goes all aflutter with Nittany Lion revival memes. We’re prepping the inevitable “Penn State revival story” that SI’s bound to put out in the October issue, as well as the “Joe Pa’s Last Roar” lines that will kick in if they finish with a winning record and qualify for a bowl. (Write it down-that one’s appearing somewhere.)

And wouldn’t it be a particularly unique bit of cruelty if, in his final game ever after announcing his retirement, they face a new-school asswipe like Bobby Petrino who won’t hesitate to play the part of hungry lion to Paterno’s little, frail wilderbeest? Petrino would do it, too, hanging 60 on him and throwing deep on him in the fourth quarter while talking up another school’s AD on his cell phone during the game.

Petrino would be happy to do the job.

We’ve mentioned it in passing a few times, but just for science’s sake, we present the latest chapter of “Separated At Birth.”

Mike Shula:

And Steve Carrell as Brick Tamland, semi-retarded weatherman:

Attention, Solon: college football odds are up all over the place. Fiutak’s got some good reciprocal back scratching going with Oasis, but ubiquitous Bet on Sports.com is always a quick reference, too. (For more, see the third installment of Fiutak’s recklessly speculative big game predictions.)

For entertainment purposes only, of course.

A few early head-scratchers for the hopelessly compulsive:

Bama by 2 over Florida? Again, if Brick Tamland weren’t coaching Bama, we wouldn’t mind this home winner pick. But it’s Shula v. Meyer, and the Gators will have had Wyoming and Tennessee to warm up the spread-option a bit with Leak. Bama, on the other hand, has one good offensive play, and it’s the one involving a guy’s big toe. Three the other way? No problem. Bama pulling this one out straight up? Highly unlikely. Take this bet while you can.

Colorado by 2 over TAMU Beating an old drum here, but Reggie McNeal will not lose a game against a team coached by Gary Barnett. Like levitation, throwing a fastball that actually rises, licking your elbow, and traveling faster than the speed of light, it’s just physically impossible for this to happen. (We see you at your monitor, bending yourself in knots while straining your arm closer to your wandering tongue. Unless you’re Gene Simmons or Janine Turner, it’s just not happening.) Maybe we are biased by the ginormous numbers McNeal’s been putting up for us on NCAA 2006-he’s like Vince Young with accuracy!-but we doubt he’ll flop and become this year’s Brad Smith under Franchione’s tutelage, since Coach Fran is no Gary Pinkel..and that may be one of the most obscure sentences we’ve ever typed.

We here at EDSBS love to jibe Fulmer for being horizontally challenged and running an incredibly loose ship up in Knoxville, but that is not to say he’s not a good coach. I mean, he did win a national championship and has been at the top of college football for over a decade. But he apparently is only the 5th best coach in the SEC if the Cincinnati Enquirer is to be believed. Despite that obvious flaw, the list makes for a good off- season conversation piece so check it out and let us know what you think.

Thanks to the hypocritical return of the twelfth game, the Gators and Canes will be free to mix it up again as they’ve done four of the last five years. Although the deal is not yet final, the agreement calls for the Canes to play in the Swamp in 2008 with the Gators traveling from Gainesville to Canesville for the return trip in 2013.

More penetrating commentary from Boi From Troy. Sometimes it’s just too easy.

In case you doubt his magnitude, Sexy Results shows you his skills by napalming UVA rival Virginia Tech.

- Tina Fey, Katie Couric and Melissa Stark are exemplary of the type of girls you would’ve met at a mixer at UVA. The only Tech female of note is the one that was responsible for the Supreme Court case U.S. v. Morrison, but that’s only because she got raped by the Hokie football team.

Medic! Bactine! Now! Our eyes are scalded just reading that.

We normally don’t do requests, but you can’t turn down Mom. In honor of the dissolution of her marriage, we take a gander at a few of the all-time great college football divorces.

1. John Heisman and the entire city of Atlanta (and wife), 1919.

John Heisman usually included this in his preseason speech to players:

“What is this? It is a prolate spheroid, an elongated sphere in which the outer leather casing is drawn tightly over a somewhat smaller rubber tubing. Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”

Heisman presumably said this before he went through a divorce. Heisman did drive Georgia Tech to a 102-29-7 record during his tenure at the school,but what ultimately gave him the boot wasn’t a disgruntled alum or a single losing season. Heisman’s nasty divorce settlement in 1919 required his departure from the city to avoid any social embarrassment for his wife.

This extreme proviso makes you wonder what a jealous, heartbroken John was like with a couple of gin rickeys in him in public, right? Maybe he was one of those screaming, teary “No one loves you like I do-no one!” guys; maybe he just spoke loudly and in embarrassing terms about their sex life in crowded parlors. “Lest it burn your ears, Cosgrove, I warn in you in advance, but in my time with her I came to understand that Ms. Lily, my own dear wife, you see, had acquired a spot of the SHANGHAI POX in her previous travels as a free-spirited lady.” (Cupping hands around mouth toward rest of room:) “DON’T TELL A SINGLE SOUL.”

Heisman left for New York, and went on to coach at Columbia and Rice, but never enjoyed the degree of success he had at Tech again.

Heisman: Not the “amicable settlement” type. Just ask Cumberland College.

2. John Mackovic and the entire University of Arizona football team, 2002-2003. A protracted, nasty divorce complete with pleading, begging, fighting, and ultimately a drastic departure by Mackovic. A 10-18 record and 11 straight Pac-10 home losses didnt’ help Mackovic’s case. Plenty of coaches have struggled, you say; ahh, but not too many have earned the shitstorm contempt of a full-blown player mutiny as Mackovic did toward the end of the 2002 season, with half the team giving up on the animatronic coach and his Tom Coughlin-esque coaches in very public fashion. (Relationship-wise, we’re thinking it was less Ike and Tina, and more like Michael Bergin and Julia Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy. Or maybe Joan Crawford and the universe in Mommie Dearest. )

John Mackovic’s soul mate warns you: at Arizona, there will be no wire hangers.

A tearful-and shamelessly televised-team meeting followed, with Mackovic struggling to well up some tears as he promised to be a better communicator. The reconciliation was brief, though-coaches fled the sinking ship like rats, Mackovic continued to act like the Tin Man, and after losing to Oregon, LSU, and Purdue by a combined score of 166-30, Arizona gleefully wrote Mackovic a $900,000 check to go away and collect rust somewhere else.

3. Maurice Clarett and the entire state of Ohio. In 2002, the entire state of Ohio started a love affair with the thick-legged frosh Clarett, a violent, dramatic fling complete with huge games, injuries, and ultimately a life-saving play in the national championship matchup with Miami that gave the Buckeyes the national title (along with a suspicious pass interference call Miami fans still stroke out about.) Clarett appeared poised to assume a position in the Buckeye pantheon…after all, he was just a freshman.

Clarett’s Luciferian fall hit terminal velocity in a matter of months following the Orange Bowl. First there was getting caught with stolen goods in his car after a burglary call. Well, not his car exactly…and that’s when the NCAA started to pay serious attention, fishing around his academic records and discovering Clarett was a veritable rotten log of NCAA rules violations. Second came the accusations, recriminations, and ultimately the tossing around of the term “liar” toward anyone involved with Clarett-including Jim “Cheatypants Sweatervest” Tressel, whose reputation nationally has never quite recovered from the Clarett fracas and subsequent NCAA investigations.

Clarett left burning sensations Buckeye fans still can’t shake.

Ultimately Clarett’s accusations fell flat, helped by the fact that he neglected to answer his phone or bother to call NCAA investigators back once. He challenged the NFL’s entry rules, lost, ran a 7.12 in the 40, and signed a free-agent contract deal with the Broncos, which means that lazy, moody Maurice will likely run for 2,000 yards this season. In the meantime, flies still continue follow Tressel around like stink on bad fish, robbing Ohio State fans of the complete, untainted joy of a national championship, and giving a bad name to a formerly respectable piece of clothing, the sweatervest. (Come on-Fred MacMurray wore one all the time in My Three Sons. That’s virtue, dammit.)