Just practice, you say? Quite right, boy-o. You’ll watch it anyway just to see something resembling football, especially if you get a peek at Cornelius Ingram floating a beautiful flanker pass to a surprisingly smooth-handed Chris Leak.

The spread doesn’t look half as jumpy or strange as it appeared last year, even in the relatively tame confines of practice. (Video courtesy of Scout.com)

Courtesy of WATB: Bud Fernandez, the equipment manager for thirty years at Florida, died last Friday. It’s the community that makes college football a different animal than other sports, and Bud was very much a part of that. He will be sorely missed.

A rare problem in the offseason: too much to cover. But here’s a slapdash review of the most interesting spring games unfolding across the college football nation this past weekend.

-Run for the hills: Art Kehoe, the former ‘Canes line demon who Coker pinkslipped following the Peach Bowl debacle, has been officially described as:

“arguably even more intense than live-wire head coach Ed Orgeron”

In the name of all that is holy, stay out of this man’s way; a mere glance in your direction could snap vertebrae. His side romped in the Ole Miss spring game, and provided still more buzz around an Ole Miss program bound for great improvement in the fall. Even if they muddle around at 5-6-likely, given the continual talent imbalance they have as a smallish SEC school recruiting in a smallish talent pool-it’ll be one of those “scare the piss out of you” 5-6 records, since they’ll likely jump around the field like mutant fleas until talent differentials and the forces of football gravity take hold. They’re still a year away, despite having all the good karma that comes with having a player named BenJarvus Green-Ellis on their team.

Art Kehoe: like, FPS Doug intense.

-Clemson spring game: quarterbacks throw a combined 7 INTS. Laura Lauren Bowden takes pants off in celebration.

-G-Day, the ‘Dawgs spring practice game, was a sloggy, waterlogged affair we would have attended had we not been obligated to wear our seersucker suit at our sister’s wedding and drink a bit too much champagne over the weekend. Kyle and Paul both have their summaries of the game here. Stafford appears to look the part of starter, with Joe Tereshinki offering the best bet in terms of “won’t fumble, won’t throw picks, won’t run off to Honduras with Cuban model in midseason and disappear for six weeks” for the coaching staff. Considering Richt’s cautious-some would say grannying-attitude toward play calling, doughboy JT3 likely has the spot nailed down for opening day. All name team nominee? TE NaDerris Ward.

Your turn, Joe.

-USC’s spring practice had to be frightening for Trojan fans: no RB, no Reggie Bush, and the dawning of a new era where they might lose one, even two games a year for a while until the beast gets fully retooled. (GADZOOKS!) Boi has a nice bullet-point summary of what he noticed, including Brian Cushing’s change in hairstyle and offseason weight gain, Mark “Dirty” Sanchez’s lack of length (insert Billy Packer joke about “he’s so long, he’s hard to handle when he penetrates” gag here,) and the surprise fill-in at running back for USC, linebacker Ryan Powdrell.

Not long; does, however, have the poofy hair of a potentially successful USC qb.

Spring practice is great for a number of reasons, one of them being an excuse to take fresh photos out of context and place captions beneath them. To wit:

Phil Fulmer marks a wary, fearful youth as “MID-MORNING SNACK” at Tennessee’s Spring Fan Day.

As our headline announces, Woody Hayes’ reanimated corpse is wandering the Buckeye state at this instant demanding brains, a decent cup of coffee, and Jim Tressel’s address after seeing the news that Ohio State-dancing to Phil Knight’s demands for new product, classic logos be damned-will be wearing something resembling a marriage between some toss-off Wisconsin jerseys and the New Mexico Lobos’ pants this fall.

We hope Woody’s brain-crazed quest to stop this before it happens succeeds, if only to provide a definitive statement of just how jankety most of Nike’s “synervations” look when put on athletes moving at top speed through the honest glare of daylight. To give distraught Ohio State fans some solace, it beats Cheatypants’ first suggestion for new unis:

Tressel’s first suggestion fell predictably flat.

Sadly, both FSU and Tennessee’s spring practice games did not end by meteor strike, mass smiting, or other program-destroying calamity.

In Tennessee’s case, the rebuilding of Erik Ainge’s destroyed psyche has moved along nicely thanks to some undoubtedly sound coaching by new/old/retro OC David Cutcliffe and the benefits of a completely subdued, blitz-free defense. Ainge may have been pitching into a hamstrung defense, but going 14-22 for 210 and 2 TDs without throwing a pick, fumbling, or laying down and weeping on the turf as he did frequently last season in any situation spells good news for the battle-scarred junior. The Orange got their ass handed to them by the White, 34-7, by the way, if that means anything.

Florida State’s spring game, despite tinkering with a points system to cover up Jeff Bowden’s unearthly suck as an offensive coordinator reward the defense for making plays, showed off Jeff Bowden’s unearthly suck as an offensive coordinator. Or showed off Mickey Andrew’s annual collection of ball-hawking GED psychocadets-we can’t really decide which one. The big news came when Myron Rolle, the man so concerned with his academic future that he decided to attend Florida State, stepped in front of a pass for a 67 yard INT return for a TD that had bystanders screaming OMG WTF. Bowden’s comments: [gurgle] applesauce…Matlock….[mumbles incoherently]

Bowden watched practice “enthusiastically” and even “commented” according to FSU spokespersons.