It would not be Wednesday without awarding that sexiest of Awards, the Mustache of the Day. Somewhat inevitably, we’re forced to give it to the man of the hour, the most respected international journalist of his time, and noted fan of table tennis and “shoot the dog.”

Jagshemash! Happy Mustache Wednesday, motherfuckers!

We can’t wait for one team to do this in really inappropriate fashion. We’re imagining something as comical as Wake Forest planting the big, waving WF in the middle of Bobby Bowden field, for example, complete with the grinning, soulless eyes of the Demon Deacon dancing for a full fifteen seconds on the FSU logo before getting trampled by Renegade.

Here’s Illinois version versus Michigan State. Remember, with John L. Smith, the ‘S’ at the fifty stands for SLAP!

The Blogpoll Roundtable this week comes to us courtesy of Cross Cyed, a brave soul blogging his heart out about the Iowa State Cyclones. We confess that we haven’t paid much attention to them since Seneca Wallace left the team to become the baddest second string Madden quarterback in all the land-seriously, just run the Matt Jones offense with him and you’ll whip ass ’till Armageddon-but Cross Cyed’s fine questions and self-deprecating humor mean we’ll have to think about more than just methamphetamine, pork bellies, and dust-covered despair when we think of Ames, Iowa. And now that we’ve given the most uncomplimentary of compliments, this week’s BlogPoll questions:

Besides Troy Davis, the only thing we remember about Iowa State consistently.

1. We’re about halfway through the season at this point. Have you gotten a gauge on your team’s chances this year to make noise in conference play, or is the team still a total freaking mystery?

Can your team be a total freaking mystery with a 5-0 record? Certainly, since we’re not sure whether Florida is a team waiting for the impending bubble-bursting or poised to explode in an unholy streak of ass-barbecuing football leaving its opponents holding their bruised balls like so many Aggie Corpsmen doing “the Squeeze.” Making noise is something we’re assured of: having already beat Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama, the Gators have avenged a ghost of yesteryear while getting a leg up on the slot in the SEC championship game. Since Georgia’s making mountains of molehills right now and juggling not one but THREE quarterbacks, we assume they’ve caught the Fulmer virus for this year and are firmly ensconced in a rebuilding mode. Take a victory over Vandy without the unholy arm of Jay Cutler and a South Carolina team that has to come to the Swamp this year, and you’ve got a pretty safe bet on making the championship game.

Miss Peaches would say that this would make our fried chicken the crunkest of all. However, we have two bellwether games that, in theory, should make small children weep, kill sparrows in flight, and force the keg taps to run red with blood on the schedule: LSU followed up by Auburn. The two best teams in the conference for the past few years both land squarely in our octagon. If we split these two, Florida’s got some chance of finishing in the national eye as a top ten team and possibly playing in a BCS bowl; if not, it’s Outbackish time again. But since we have no chance of winning either of these at all under any circumstances according to everyone on the whole planet, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

2. Many of the bigger conferences such as the Big 12 and the Big 10 use a rotating schedule to determine conference games each year. What are your feelings on the current system used in your conference? Does a rotating schedule work? Has your team always caught a break?

LSU for homecoming? Sure, we’ve caught a break. We like the rotating schedule, actually, even though probability saddled us with the devil’s spa treatment this year in the middle.

Why, you say? Because as a fan looking at the butt-end of the rotating schedule, i.e. Florida’s 2006 run, at least you’re looking at finding out precisely how good your team is, thus sparing you any nasty surprises at the end of the season. Florida, if they do make it through this stretch reasonably intact and with all essential pieces intact (slide, Chris, slide!), will be the football equivalent of Napoleon’s Old Guard: so battle-scarred they’ll be lighting matches off their bayonet scars.

3. In an effort to get to know more about college football, both nationally and regionally, what have you done to expand your college football horizons? Have you caught yourself watching games from other conferences, or taking an interest in games that show up on ESPNU or Fox Sports?

Definitely, if only to find out that they do, in fact, have a sport on the West Coast that closely resembles football. We’re weakest on our mid-major games, but have been watching way more now that Myles Brand’s dedication to the integrity of the student-athlete has football players working six nights a week now. (It’s true: we turned on ESPN2 last night at the gym and slagged around on the treadmill just to watch the end of the USM/Tulsa game.)

The best resources for us have been the Fox Regional Reports you can get on satellite and rifling through regional papers, in addition to just picking up the phone and calling people on the West Coast. In addition to waking them up three hours early on the weekend-sorry about that, Kanu-you’ve got someone to talk to while you and the cockroaches are the only people awake watching the end of the late Left Coast game.

4. What would you change about the current exposure your team gets, either on the radio, television, print, or on the internet?

Not a thing. We get plenty about our program since it’s lodged in the middle of one of the nation’s biggest states. Florida basks in good coverage from Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Tampa, Palm Beach, Gainesville, and the inimitable St. Pete Times, the best mid-size newspaper in the country for the buck.

As for “CBS hates my team, bleh, blah,” shit…it’s just that, total and utter bullshit. Announcers say stupid and smart things about teams all the time, and bear no obvious bias. People who take offense to this are the same people who, through one metaphysical device or another, are convinced that their concern rays influence the outcome of the game. (We’ll write more on “concern rays” later, a theory Dave Barry introduced about sports fans and their role in the game.) These people are gas-huffing imbeciles, and should make you a stiff martinin right now to atone for their dumbness.

5. During last Saturday’s game against I-AA Northern Iowa, Iowa State trailed 21-7 at the half. The Cyclone Marching Band played a variety of songs from animated shows, including selections from South Park titled “Blame Canada” and “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” Needless to say, the Cyclones outscored the Panthers 21-6 in the second half. If you had to pick one song for your favorite team to rally to, what would it be? Because we all know what they did for the 2005 White Sox, Journey and “Don’t Stop Believing” are not to be considered.

The best comeback song for Florida under Urban Meyer would be “Guns Blazing” by U.N.K.L.E.. We don’t come back quickly; rather, it’s a crushing, inevitable, bass-heavy thing, usually punctuated by a hundred small, brutal steps toward victory. Like the song, Florida starts off slow and seems to be going nowhere before picking up in a crushing, mechanical pace whose ultimate destination is black, evil doom for your team. It should sound like something being slowly and certainly strangled. It should sound like thousands of pounds of ice crushing something small, precious. It should sound like doom, and does.

Stuff. From other places. With facts ‘n numbers and stuff. Sometimes.

-Church of Albert enters the “Parallel Piece” sweepstakes with a College Teams/Superhero bit. Virginia Tech as Dr. Doom works for us, mostly because Dr. Doom rules.

-Peter finds his own case of geniune “Oklahoma Suks” beer. His description: “dark, rich, very malty.” Does that mean it tastes better than Miller High Life? Because that stuff is very tasty, indeed.

-In the stands in G-ville last weekend, a hubbub ensued in the rows above us. We weren’t sure what it was, but the only clue came when we overheard people saying “Yeah, the bitch is up there.” Mystery solved: Jenn Sterger, she of the fine Corinthian leather, was in the stands “covering” the game for CNNSI.

We have to wonder what’s going on at the Photoshop department at SI OnCampus, though. Pic one of Borat’s sister posing with a Gator fan:

Now check out the pic on page two, taken with some enthused Alabama fans who may or may not have actually been in the picture.

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