The ND/Tech game here in Atlanta has filled the coffers at Tech unlike any home game in recent memory. Scalpers are pulling 200 bucks easy for the tickets, which judging from recent home interest in Chantastic! Tech football may be broken down thusly:

$1.25: cost of printing shiny ticket.

$3.25: actual interest in Georgia Tech football in Gailey era. (Mmm…pudding.)

$195.50: Holy shit Notre Dame!!! SCALP ‘TIL YOUR ARMS FALL OFF!!!

This isn’t surprising. Neither is the popularity of the story posted alongside the body of the online article, either. We’ve highlighted the piece we find most sidesplitting using the unstoppable power of Microsoft Paint:

We half expected the headline to continue…”and smile with glee.”

Via Nestor at Bruins Nation, we bring you the single most disturbed ex-communications major to ever drop out of school and decide that the path to salvation lies in working at the Smoothie King by day and filming oddball commentator fantasies in his parents’ basement at night: Hugh Johnson, whose name sounds about as legitimate as “Orson Swindle” or “Bronco Mendenhall.”*

Though you may cringe at first, we guarantee that by the third viewing the hard-drivin’ Survivor soundtrack, bizarre fantasy sequences, and ill-fitting suit will have you green with envy that Hugh Johnson isn’t hard at work wondering on camera if your coach will BRING DOWN THE WHAMMY!!! This, in case you don’t already know, is the new phrase of the season that all the beautiful people are using. Live it. Love it. Be it.

*We know he says that’s his real name. That’s because he is a liar. No one is named that anywhere in the whole wide world.

Our resident rambling, gambling man Solon, the pride of Mill Valley, CA, brings us his best effort at giving us the futures bets in college football that won’t have your friends guffawing at you as you wallow in a gutter of poverty in five months. Enjoy…

Greetings again all. Infrequent EDSBS contributor and resident gaming “expert” Solon here, reporting from beautiful Mill Valley, California, where my summer ended on June 9 when I purchased Phil Steele’s magazine from the local Waldenbooks. Today, I’ll jump into the college football futures betting market; surely some of you will think I am on the sauce with a few of these selections, but I swear that all of the alcohol has been put in the cupboard until January. That said, I reserve the right to crack open a bottle of the hard stuff if the Dawgs somehow manage to topple the Gators this season.

That cork stays in, Solon. In, we say.

For the uninitiated, there are a wide array of wagers you can make with regard to college football futures betting, and I am dipping into many of them. A lot of people do not want to tie up their money for the entire season, which is certainly understandable, but if you can get a good read on some of the teams going into the season, there is great value out there. Please note that if a wager is a ‘plus,’ it means you wager $100 to win that amount; if a wager is a ‘minus,’ it means that you wager that amount to win $100.

All odds are from Pinnacle Sports.*

(*I am not endorsing Pinnacle, although I have no reason to doubt their legitimacy. I’ll tell you this, assuming they are on the up-and-up-and I have no reason to suspect they are not-their odds are impossible to beat. They offer, by far, the smallest house take on sports betting that I’ve ever seen. When betting futures markets, this should be your focus, because often times the odds are ridiculously slanted in the house’s favor. If you know one way or another about Pinnacle, feel free to share your knowledge in the comments.)

WINNER OF NATIONAL TITLE GAME
Southern California (+776)/California (+2767)
Louisville (+2352)

(If I’d gotten my head out my arse sooner, I’d have much better value; last week, USC was at +1001, and Louisville was at +2800 or thereabouts; in fact, just yesterday, USC was at +852. Piss. That said, Cal was at +2632 and Louisville was at +2253 yesterday, so that’s a plus.)

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (#6 AP, #3 Coaches)
It is impossible to say how with any degree of certainty how well the current crop of “talent” at USC will pan out. Carroll’s track record, though, is hard to argue with; when Matt Leinart replaced Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer at QB, he proceeded to win 2 national titles and just failed winning a 3rd. I’d argue that the team Booty inherits isn’t any worse than the one Leinart did; Leinart probably had a better OL, but Booty’s probably going to have a slightly better D; both this team and the 2003 team were (are) well-stocked at WR, and both had (have) a massive amount of unproven talent at RB.

USC’s schedule, as it is most years, is a bitch; 6 road games-5 in conference play-and none of them against bad teams. Fortunately for them, though, the toughest games on the schedule (Oregon, Cal, and ND) are all in LA. And, their schedule is organized in such a manner-closing with Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame, and @ UCLA-that even with an early loss, running the table at the end will put them in a position to play for the National Title.

CALIFORNIA (#9 AP, #12 Coaches)
Cal’s team last year was an oddity; a Jeff Tedford-coached team with a great running game, a strong D, and very poor production out of the QB position. Even with their limitations, they could have very easily still gone 11-1; they lost to UCLA in the last minute, lost to Oregon in OT, and had a 3-point home loss to Oregon State.

As for this year’s edition, the D should be better, and as long as the OL can come through the running game will be strong again as well. The pass offense should be upgraded tremendously; not only are they in better shape at WR, but Longshore will no doubt be an upgrade at QB. Even if he proves ineffective and is replaced, Ayoob will be markedly better than he was last season.

Speaking of gambling…Joe Ayoob, ladies and gentlemen!

Cal sits in a good position, at the fringes of the Top 10. A win over Tennessee will vault them into 6-7-8 territory, and between the opener and their game at Arizona on November 11th, the only road games they have are against Oregon State and Washington State; so long as they can do the business at home and win those, they will probably be in the Top 3 when they go to Arizona, and a win there should put them in a position to stake their claim for a spot in the National Title game when they play USC.

And, given the lateness of the game against USC, it’s possible that even with a loss to Tennessee in the opener, 11 consecutive wins could get them in the Championship game.

In any event, I like the USC/Cal winner to make it to the title game.

LOUISVILLE (#13 AP, #13 Coaches)
If a team from the Big East is likely to run the table and get into the title game, it is probably Louisville, not West Virginia. Not only does Louisville host West Virginia, they will be looking for revenge from last year’s game, where Louisville lost a 24-7 lead in the last 8 minutes, with an assist from the officials, who botched an important call on an onside kick (for which the Big East later apologized). Louisville’s schedule also includes a home game against Miami, putting them in a much more likely position (than West Virginia) to be well-regarded by the pollsters in the event that they go undefeated.

I have two concerns about this Louisville team. While their O is loaded at the skill positions, they are a little light on the OL; the last time they were in a similar position, they stumbled to a 7-5 finish in 2002-to be fair, this year’s OL is markedly better than that year’s edition, as is their talent at the skill positions. Of greater concern, Louisville’s pass defense is fairly weak; they return everyone this season, but given the way they played last season this is not necessarily a plus. Fortunately for them, outside of Miami and Pitt, there is probably no one on the schedule who will have the ability to exploit this weakness.

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS
ACC: Clemson +500
Clemson should be solid this season, they lose little on offense other than QB Charlie Whitehurst, who, quite frankly, disappointed me last season. I think new QB Proctor will be at least as good, if not better, and their running game should be solid with the tandem of Davis and Merriweather running behind an OL that returns all of its starters from last season. On D, they had strength in depth last season, and all of this season’s starters have logged plenty of minutes.

Clemson was probably better than their 4-4 record in the ACC last season. They lost 2 games in OT (BC, Miami) and had a 1-point loss on the road against GT. This season, I like them to win all 4 of their home games; as long as they can split their 4 road games, it should be enough to get them to the ACC Championship game.

Among Clemson’s wins was a 35-14 demolition of this year’s consensus selection the ACC Atlantic, Florida State. As hard as it may be to believe, the score in that game was deceptive; FSU’s TD came off a blocked punt and their O only managed 2 field goals. Truth be told, I look for BC to be the toughest challengers to Clemson for the ACC Atlantic title, not Florida State.

WINS OVER/UNDER
Florida State UNDER 9.5 wins +102
There’s a lot of good options out there for over/under betting-for example, I think Notre Dame and Tennessee are dead-certs to go under 10.5 wins, and 8.5 wins, respectively-but the trick is finding a winning bet with good value. In the case of Notre Dame, they are -188 to go under, and Tennessee is -168 to go under. As a result, the only thing that really jumps out at me this season is Florida State.

Although I was at the SEC Championship game and didn’t get to see much of it, the ACC Championship game-a game in which, statistically, at least, they were considerably outplayed-made a lot of people forget just how bad Florida State was last season. Outside of wins over 1-10 Duke, 4-7 Wake, 1-10 Syracuse, and The Citadel (a game which was 10-3 at halftime, by the way), FSU either lost or was pretty fortunate in the rest of their games. Miami couldn’t do anything on special teams; BC was down 14-0 due to turnovers before they got going, and then their QB got injured; a PR TD broke the game open against VT; another PR TD, along with a fumbled PSU snap deep in FSU territory, made the Orange Bowl competitive. Simply put, this was not a good team last season.

Solon doesn’t think much of FSU. Neither does Jeremy Mincey.

And, this season, they should be even worse; the two strengths of the team last season were the special teams and the defensive front 7. Their punter-who averaged a net 35.7 yards last season-has graduated, as has gamebreaking punt returner Willie Reid. They lose 4 starters from the front 7, but they included three 1st round picks and a 5th rounder; as a result, they will likely be considerably weaker against the run. On O, they return 6 starters to what was a poor unit. They averaged 94 ypg rushing last season; they averaged less than 90 ypg against 1-A opponents, and 59 ypg against teams with winning records. Despite the return of Booker, they have lost Washington and with only 3 starters back on the OL I do not expect significant improvement. QB Weatherford returns for his sophomore season, during which freshman starters often regress. With such a weak running game, he will have to throw passes at a rate of around 40 per game, as he did last season, and opposing secondaries will be excited about that, given his 18 INTs last season. He will have to improve by leaps and bounds for this team to come close to 10 wins, and I do not see that happening.

The schedule does to Florida State some favors, and they have 4 automatic wins from the start (Troy, Rice, @ Duke, Western Michigan). At best, I see them splitting their other 8 games. My honest assessment is that they will go 7-5 during the regular season; if this occurs, I believe this will be Bobby Bowden’s final season in charge.

And that’s what I’ve got.

Please note that all of these selections are provided for entertainment purposes only. Enjoy the season.

He’s suave. He’s unstoppable. He’s going to shower his rainy love all over the eastern American college football scene. He’s Ernesto, and with a magnificent Latin Loverish name like that, who can forgive him for the ridiculous Snidely Whiplash ’stache he’s sporting here?

Si, senor. You are irresistable.

We’re a little behind the curve here, in case you didn’t notice. We just bought a pair of the deckest jeans; they’re really big everywhere, but especially through the pant legs, so you walk around like you just don’t give a fuck or something. And this rap group Onyx? They’re just awesome. And just in case you haven’t had one yet, the Big Montana at Arby’s is off the chain! Especially with gobs of horsey sauce. Eat one of those and you’re ready to start your own ‘zine or something.

One last thing we have to turn you on to: USC football. We’ve been sitting around the EDSBS offices leafing through our old ESPN Magazines, and we’ve come to a crazee conclusion. (It’s not wack-just crazee! Like Crazee Bone from Bone Thugz ‘N Harmony, the awesome singing rap group from Cleveland or Omaha or someplace like that. They’ll see you at the crossroads right after the first of the month.)

That crazee idea is this: we think Pete Carroll’s gonna be all right at USC. In fact, we think they might be national championship contenders when it’s all said and done. You know, once they shake off the cobwebs from the Paul Hackett years. With some phenomenal recruiting under his belt, he may be ready to say WASSUP!!! to success. WASSSSSSUUUUUUUP!

Trojan Wire’s got this video of their new quarterback John David Booty, who’s really lucky to be a person with three names not in jail for multiple murder or a sex crime. The video makes it look like USC’s got some talent on offense, which has totally been lacking since Keyshawn Johnson took his damn ball and left town. We’ve only got one problem with the video: do you want to make a video of your qb playing to a song that talks about how “it’s going down?” What? Him? That’s bad in one way, as in getting sacked, and ambiguous in another way.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to feed our Tamagotchi. Adieu.

Much as we pick on the WWL, we count ourselves as fans of Herbstreit… if for no other reason than what a freaking life he’s leading. Talk about dream jobs. Anyway, he has come out with his sixth annual Herbie awards, which consist of a variety of his picks as best players and favorite things about college football. Aside from not including the Ole Ballcoach on his list of favorite playcallers, one thing really stood out to us about this list… the “All Uniform Team”. Is Kirk a fan of the Boi from Troy… not that there is anything wrong with that.Â

Life is good for Kirk Herbstreit.

Todays word of the day: shitbag.

Definition: Oh, how about this for starters.

(We didn’t set that up, btw. Here’s what irks us in the page info:

“Copyright 2005 by Fulmer Cup.” See? Shitbags.)

Usage: “Someone who would set up a site using your bit without asking permission even once and then do so poorly is, for lack of better words, a total fucking shitbag.”

Cease and desist, pigfuckers.

We asked SMQ to give us a bit about the Southern Miss/Florida game on Saturday, and he responded with the depth, feel, and sheer volume you’ve come to expect from him. He’s also more than just a little invested, since he’s a USM alum and therefore sort of cares a bit about the game. Thanks to him, we now know that USM’s got a player who actually killed someone on their team. Get your knowledge on below:

1. You’re selling us on why we should quake in our boots at the mighty Golden Eagles: explain the one offensive and one defensive reason behind ourcringing, wobbly fear.

I wasn’t going to attempt to sell the team on its “giant killer” reputation, because I think that’s
overwrought, and much less likely to happen now than four or five years ago. If this were any year between 1997 and 2001, I’d be about three times as confident of a possible upset, and very assured of a respectable performance.

If you insist, though, the scariest proposition about Southern Miss is always the “giant killer” tag. USM’s gone on the road in the last ten years to beat Georgia, Alabama and Nebraska, taken out top ten, undefeated TCU at home, and played the hell out of Tennessee, Nebraska, and Alabama on the road and that very good 2004 Cal team in Hattiesburg in eventual losses. The list of big wins and near misses prior to the past few seasons is fairly epic.

You should really, really quake if Southern Miss does knock you out early on. The last two big “upset” road wins came over a highly-touted Alabama team that wound up 3-8 and an unranked Nebraska team that finished 5-6 (and, truth be told, dominated the USM game aside from
Joe Dailey being Joe Dailey on about half a dozen plays). The “marquee” wins in between were at home to defending Big Ten champ Illinois (final record: 5-7) in 2002 and No. 8 TCU to win the C-USA title in 2003. There’s much less to hang the hat on recently than we like to admit.

Last year’s team was about as lucky as it could be to extend the winning streak to 13 years. I was feeling the impending doom of 5-7 with this year’s team, but here are a couple reasons I1ve been feeling a little better:

Shawn Nelson: A 6-4, 230-pound sophomore tight end who’s definitely an SEC-caliber talent. Really a receiver at heart: the tight end has been forever an invisible blocker in USM1s offense, but Nelson was so good they got him involved often enough for him to lead the team in catches and touchdowns as a redshirt freshman. The receiving corps in general is pretty good, and Nelson’s the guy I want to see with the ball the most. “New Orleans Bowl MVP” may not have much cache, but he was it.

Damion Fletcher: Hate to mention him, because he’s an OMG Freshman!, and therefore inevitably overrated at this stage. But the last true freshman running back to play for Jeff Bower was Derrick Nix in 1998, and even if the undersized Fletcher is the stylistic antithesis
of the “Baby Bull,” he’s getting rave reviews from Bower in press conferences and will definitely play. This is a surprise, because freshman usually see very little playing time early on, he wasn’t all that highly recruited and the top two guys, Cody Hull and Larry Thomas, are back from last year (Thomas will start Saturday). It doesn’t take a whole lot to compete with that underwhelming combo, but the fact that Fletcher has asserted himself so quickly without
very high expectations might be a sign he’s a special player. I really have no idea.

Brandon Sumrall: I have a big soft spot, as all Eagle fans should, for Caleb Hendrix, who stepped in off the bench because of an injury in his first game after being moved from receiver to cornerback as a sophomore to miraculously knock away a sure game-winning
touchdown from Matt Herrian to preserve the Nebraska win, and hasn’t left the lineup since. That said, he and newly-installed starter Jasper Faulk are an iffy pair of senior corners, and adequate at best. The depth there is horrifying. Which brings me to Sumrall, the bright spot in the secondary at strong safety, where he made a ton of tackles, a couple big hits and
five interceptions in his first season as a starter. Another guy who’s good enough to start at some SEC schools.

What should not happen on Saturday, inshallah.

The linebackers: Humongous things are expected from undersized but fast outside guys Gerald McRath and Tokumbo Abanikanda. USM has had a different linebacker win C-USA Defensive Player of the Year in three straight seasons, and those two are going to be
counted on to continue that tradition. Both come in technically as new starters, but McRath supposedly was going to play a lot at a crowded position as a true freshman in 2004 but went down injured in the preseason, then came back to make six tackles and return an interception for a momentum-changing touchdown at Alabama, won conference Defensive Player of the Week, and broke his leg the following game against McNeese State; Abanikanda had a little hype as a true freshman, played very little, and made seven tackles and a sack in his first start in the bowl game. Not a sparkling resume, and the optimism might be a projection towards 2007 and 2008 rather than an immediate inducement to tremors from Florida fans, but last year’s starters, James Denley and converted fullback Wayne Hardy, are hopefully on the back burner
for the long haul. Recent developments could push McRath into the middle and keep Denley outside, which is less desirable.

The Middle of the Defense: The other linebacker in the starting mix is Marcus Raines, a physical beast with a manslaughter conviction for kicking a guy’s head in at age 17. (more…)

God bless the people at the Wall Street Journal: when they deign to cover football, especially grubby ol’ college ball, they do so with the attitude of your most savage accountant whipping up a razor-sharp prospectus. The prospectus in question this time is the WSJ’s ongoing survey of college football programs and the success of their recruits, which uses a six-point scale to measure not only how high college players are drafted out of their respective programs but how positive their impact on their NFL teams actually is.

Squatting happily atop the pile are the two state universities from Florida, Florida State and our own beloved University of Florida. The recruits from both schools not only garner high draft picks; they also make their teams better. As much as it pains us to say this, that’s no surprise with Florida State, who according to the WSJ “blew away” the competition. Two words answer why: Derrick. Brooks. Another name helps, to: Mickey Andrews, the evil, frog-mouthed, dirty, skunk-souled bastard whose defenses have maimed Gator offenses for the better part of two decades now. The driving force behind the program now comes from his presence, and he’s the one responsible for turning FSU’s defense into Rushmore Prep for the NFL.

And while this certainly looks happy-making for Florida-the NFL’s rife with Gators now-the survey brings little good news for Alabama. Taking Shaun Alexander out of the equation leaves Alabama with precious little to claim in the way of value added for draft picks. Ditto for Colorado, whose NFL class is aging out of significance.

Freddie Milons. Yeah, that guy’s gonna be unstoppable in the NFL!

Joe Paterno? The hardest of the hard, according to Losers With Socks:

Few know of his elaborate tastes, however. JoePa reportedly has an insatiable appetite for Italian race cars, quality mescaline, and classy amateur porn. Before his untimely death, Eazy-E was once quoted as saying that JoePa “could snort more blow than a Peruvian army.” He is an avid collector of hot tubs.

Check out the other “Mickey Rourke-hard” members of the list here.

We’re pretty sure Rich Brooks would qualify somewhere around “Christopher Lowell”-hard.