Just as we were about to post another wacky Ohio story, our own choice state of residence sprouts this unnatural news tumor:

Georgia was giving the Jacksonville Dolphins a 93-77 pounding Tuesday night at Stegeman Coliseum when the teens allegedly ran from their seats to the court floor and — according to a university police report — attacked the two mascots.

Mascotin’ ain’t easy, and in this case it led to two drunken 18 year olds attacking both the costumed mascot and inflato-mascot with knives. This case clearly manifests not just a real dislike or irrational, displaced hatred vented on an unsuspecting pair of mascots-this is a stabbing, and as you may recall, stabbing=passion.

How anyone musters the passion-and complete disregard for all standards of conduct-to stab a man/woman dressed up like an anthropomorphic dog is beyond us. It should, however, attract the attention of the shadowiest of our government’s paramilitary units. If a person can get enraged enough to stab a mascot with a pocket knife, assassinating foreign leaders with precision weaponry should be a relative walk in the park.

Why couldn’t they have stabbed Lil’ Red? His palsied gait haunts our dreams.

First, we would like to thank Subcommandante Wayne for dropping by. He will be unable to fulfill his duties due to a sudden, unscheduled road trip to Las Vegas he insisted on taking. His mother, carless with Wayne gone, is sure to be unhappy about this. Wayne was last seen tearing ass on I-21 with a box of Magnum condoms and a case of Busch Light in the front seat.

The Subcommandante’s whereabouts reported, we begin the roundup of the finest bloggery around: BLOGTOBERFEST.

-Top billing to SMQ, whose smart juice ne’er runs dry. Read him for an actually substantive review of tonight’s Las Vegas Bowl. Why his server doesn’t melt with readers is a sad testament to humanity’s talent for ignoring talent. Time nips him a link via Andrew Sullivan’s blog, which means gay conservatives will suddenly acquire a taste for college football beyond the current rabidly interested level.

Read this man’s blog. It is awesome. Not reading it is a moral and spiritual failure on your part, and you should be very ashamed for it.

This will surely mean more business for..

-Boi From Troy, who reportsthat USC’s Garrett Green is running the scout team offense at quarterback and doubling up at safety. He’s the Sanjay Gupta of the Trojans, but tall and not overcompensating. He’s also going both ways. Just saying.

-Cool Hand’s got the next Real Men of Genius commercial.

-Marcus Thomas attempts to further rub off some of his belovedness in an often contradictory, obviously pained interview with the Orlando Sentinel. Ze quote:

At lunch with a group on Monday, Thomas recalled how his conversations with Meyer used to go.

“All the time,” Thomas said. “On a regular basis.”

Meyer saying this does not seem beyond expectation, mostly because we believe football coaches of all colors and breeds would do and say next to anything to motivate and intimidate players, up to and including fighting them with glass strapped to the players hands, kidnapping family members, and making them High School Musical until they confessed to shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

-The article also reports that it was not a second marijuana positive scuttling Thomas’ last chance at Florida, but a positive test for GHB, the “date-rape drug” also known as Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate also known for alleged anabolic steroid-like effects. One eye-popping nugget nestled deep in the article follows:

But UF sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity because federal law prevents the release of specific information about students, say Thomas failed another drug test during the season — this one for Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate, or GHB — and that his dismissal was permanent.

So against federal law, sure, but by the way, dude was totally GHBed up.

Is this overkill leaking by an administration jutjawed and ready to fight even the slightest challenge to its authoritay? The agent’s surely prompting Thomas to address the media and clear up the issues depressing his market value in the draft-note his prompting, unusually helpful role in the mock-interview-but information protected by federal law and leaked to “sources” does not constitute a proper or ethical response to an agent gambit.

-Haka wars! The Las Vegas Bowl gets a non-whore related storyline as Oregon and BYU get slapfighttish over proper use of the Haka, the traditional Maori war dance BYU has performed pregame during the Bronco Mendenhall era. Organic irony alert: a Maori dance adopted by a Mormon university’s football team causes controversy in a bowl game in Las Vegas. Thomas Friedman, the world IS flat!!!

-Bonus Ohio coverage: Sometimes, Frosty gotta die, too.

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The Subcommandante has taken over our bowl previews for today. Good luck!

Wassup bitchez! Subcommandante Wayne comin’ atcha from the O-H-I-Oh Oh Oh. Orson-total dick I can type that ’cause it’s my site today hahahahahha!!!-told me to do a bowl preview. I told him to suck it, ’cause the Subcommandante only takes orders from three men: the Commandante Jim Tressel, Commandante Emeritus (that means “dead” in Greek) Woody Hayes, and Lemmy. So again, let’s review the lesson here…oh yeah: suck it, and suck it. Your homework will be to learn this lesson and learn it well. OSU RULZ!!!

Wayne reminds you: OSU rulz.

Anyway, the Subcommandante’s giving his badass Druid a little breather after a ripping WoW session to give you a bowl preview. ‘Cause again: the Subcommandante knows no master save the Buckeye Lords. And Lemmy.

Name: The Pioneer Pure VisionLas Vegas

Motto: “Whores!” Dude, you can totally get a whore in Las Vegas. So that’s the motto: “Las Vegas Bowl: You need whores, and we’ve got ‘em.”

I’d move there if I had the money. And IF OHIO DIDN’T OWN WITH STEADINESS!!!

Intrusive Corporate Sponsor: The Subcommandante doesn’t see a sponsor here, since I’m thinking the Pioneer Pure Vision thing must be some tribute to the pioneer spirit or something, and how pure it all was when they stopped in the desert a thousand years ago and said: “We need a place for whores and gambling, and this looks perfect.” Whores, man. Ass for cash with class. Again, if not for the Grand Am, the Buckeyes, and all the tasty sweatpant candy rolling around the bars here, man, I’d be rolling the bones in Vegas and livin’ pimpin’ like it was Yahtzee.

Respect must be paid here, though. That’s the spirit that built America, people. Asskickers looking for a place to put their whore corps and just LFMing all over the place in search of loot.

Founded thousands of years ago, man. And Wayne’s feeling the history.

Tradition Rating: Since Las Vegas was founded a thousand years ago, this must be off the scale. Back then they played football wearing armor. That’s why they never passed, because they couldn’t see the ball through the little slit they had in the front. They also let live tigers and shit loose on the field. (more…)

Subcommandante Wayne will be along in a bit. There’s some actual news going on, and let’s not let Wayne near that, shall we?

In an era where some professors cower and even abet the scullduggery associated with many D-1 football programs’ academics, one professor has stood up and said NAY to grade-fixing. That brave soul refused to give yet another break to a shiftless student, stood up for the standards that made that university great, and simply said: the line must be drawn hyah!

(And actually, we’re pretty sure they said exactly that and in that voice, since this is Georgia Tech, and that’s exactly what Picard said versus the Borg when he flipped out at Alfre Woodard, except he said “Reggie Ball” wherever he’s talking about the Borg. Oh, and he probably didn’t accuse Ball of decimating whole worlds, either, though Tech fans rightfullycould.)

That brave professor may also be acting entirely of spite and self-interest as a football fan, too: their actions in effect ended Ball’s career one game shy of its likely dismal coda in the Gator Bowl. Ball has been declared academically ineligible along with cornerback Kenny Scott, and has played his last game as a Yellow Jacket. (Pause for cheers, tears of relief, peals of bells ringing through the humid air of Atlanta, sound of one undergrad whooping as he achieves level 60 in WoW.) Taylor Bennett, a backup with little experience outside of mop-up duty against Duke, will start for the Jackets in the bowl. He cannot be worse, and this is mathematical fact you cannot contest or challenge without looking foolish.

Calvin Johnson had no comment at the time, but his hands did issue this statement through a representative:

We’d like to say that we’re relieved that our long, personal nightmare has come to a conclusion. Working with Reggie may have made us look brilliant, but we’re tired of trying to make foie gras out of pig snout, five rusty bolts, and a pile of pencil shavings. We’re pro, but we’re not David Blaine, for chrissakes.

#21’s hands

Though university officials could not comment directly on the ineligibility issue, inside sources have leaked allegations that Ball’s ineligibility stems from his age. Rather than the declared 22 he claims to be, some suspect Ball’s age to be much lower than previously thought, with one source claiming to have a copy of a birth certificate showing Ball as having a birthdate of August 13, 1990.

This would make Ball an extremely mature-looking 16 year old, something Tech fans have long suspected. When asked about this, coach Chan Gailey had no comment.

Ball, meanwhile, plans to continue his studies at Stone Mountain High School in May, and is excited about the prospect of playing college ball for a big team. “I think I can catch on with a HBCU or maybe even a MAC team,” said Ball from his dorm at Georgia Tech on Wednesday. “I’m going back down to the developmental leagues for a bit, but it’s gonna be good for me. The opportunities are limitless from here.”

Ball: optimistic.