The cheese plate, if cheese were information flowing through the RSS reader.
--Brian's counting down the top ten college football moments of the year, because Yakety Sax never, ever gets old. We're sure the top ten will also include this:
--In coaching searches, the interview process usually generates more interest and insight than the eventual announcement of the winning candidate. Lane Kiffin impressed at his interview for the Minnesota head coaching position, but didn't get the job, which went instead to Someone Named Tim Brewster, which is exactly how we'll refer to him from now on. Charlie Strong also got an interview, a boon for the SEC because it shows that major programs outside of the South pass on the opportunity to hire obviously talented young coaches simply because they are black*.
--Speaking in the key of race-baiting: sportswriters may rejoice that Charlie Weis is still white and Ty Willingham remains black, since it's great fodder for filler columns. And in same article, see Bob Davie, announcer! Aficionado of ze camel hair jacket! Possessor of an unusually shaped cranium! And lastly, partisan ex-employee par excellance:
`When you lose to Michigan, you lose to USC and you lose to LSU in a bowl game by a significant score, there will be ramifications from that for Charlie Weis,'' Davie told ESPN radio, according to the Chicago Tribune.
``I think the shine is off, to be quite honest. I know going around the country talking to football coaches, particularly head coaches, I think a little bit of the mystique is definitely off.''
Pretty strong stuff. But Davie wasn't finished.
``It's hard to say Notre Dame improved this year with probably the No. 1 player in the NFL draft, (quarterback) Brady Quinn, with (receiver) Jeff Samardzija, with potentially five first-round NFL draft picks,'' Davie said. ``I don't think they're as good a team as they were last year. On defense they continued to go backwards.
``Notre Dame has had two successful seasons, two BCS bowl games in a row, but I think it's hard to say that the program is really going in a positive direction right now.''
Again, EDSBS is not liable for all damages incurred by flying office clutter or computer equipment tossed across cubicles upon reading that. Any and all inquiries may be addressed to John Wilner at Mercury News. Your cooperation is appreciated.
Sunscreen! Sunscreen, goddammit! WEAR IT BEFORE THE SUN STRIPS THE FLESH OFF YOUR SKULL!!!
--Ole Miss is hiring a defensive coordinator, the lackluster John Thompson. Thompson should be remembered as the man whose 'bucket 'a minnows' defense
confused Phil Fulmer when Thompson was the DC at Arkansas. Then again, the shining of the sun in puddles and dangling chains confuse both cattle and Fulmer, so take this statement with all due salt. (Did we mention that Phil Fulmer is very, very fat?) Nightmare fuel included in the following quote:
University of Central Arkansas athletics director John Thompson, a veteran defensive coordinator, would not confirm that he has received such an offer but said he expects to see a resolution to his courtship with Orgeron, "within the next day or so ... very, very soon."
Ed Orgeron is a-courtin'? We can only imagine the process involves:
1. Kerosene.
2. 38 pounds of boar meat.
3. The song "Feel Like Makin' Love" by Bad Company.
4. The honeymoon suite at the Tunica Comfort Inn covered in flame retardant, stain proof plastic sheeting.
--Coaching shuffling continues. David Lee, Cowboys' "quality control" guy, will return to Arkansas as the offensive coordinator this fall. His duties will no doubt include mowing the lawns of prominent Springdale High recruits' parents, since they're calling the shots now in Fayetteville.
(Let us take a second to bemoan the creep of corporate newspeak into the language of coaching. Fifty years ago, the terms were so much clearer, and so much more evocative of what actually happened on a football field.
There was Shorty, an old friend of the head coach who drank Early Times at 11 a.m. and slapped ace bandages on deep puncture wounds without anaesthetic or antiseptic. His name was "Doc," and predictably, he performed the pseudomedical services needed by the team. Those services consisted of applying dirty bandages and looking at clearly concussed lineman and running backs with compound fractures, all of which received the same diagnosis: "Get back in there, son."
Then there was Radio, the adorable retarded towel boy who actually wasn't retarded at all, but was actually running a numbers racket out of the lockerroom and paying off lineman to whiff blocks at key points in the game. But what we he know--he's retarded! DEEEEEERRRRRR.
Everyone else was called coach, and screamed a lot for no particular reason. No one in their right mind dared pluck a scat of scabrous corporate nothing-tongue like "quality control" from a management manual and place it in association with the grand game. Alas--language bleeds out the banality of culture one sickly syllable at a time.
But we digress.)
--Brian Van Gorder quits as coach of Georgia Southern. Dawgnoxious thinks he needs career counseling stat.
--Colt Brennan elects to spend one more year as a single young man playing quarterback in the country's most pass-friendly attack in one of the most stunning natural environments known to man. Brennan made his announcement wearing a lei and surrounded by callipygous but toned young women in bikinis who played with his hair and fed him smoked mahi-mahi by hand during the announcement. Why he did this rather than potentially playing for the Cleveland Browns is a matter of conjecture we'll leave to science.
Colt Brennan wipes away tears of joy as his pants are removed by his harem.
*This is the only reason Strong hasn't gotten a head job yet--the only reason. There's no other possible explanation beside booster and administrative reluctance to putting a black face on their program and their fear about cries of racism when and if they fire him. Considering what's happened at Notre Dame, that's hardly suprising. it does fire up this feed back loop, though: we don't want to be considered racist when we fire the coach, so we won't hire one, which gets us accused of being...racist.
This inanity keeps our defensive coordinator in our clutches one year longer, which is good. However, it denies a coach who's been consistently good for over a decade now the chance to rise to the highest position in his profession--which is a travesty. It's a matter of balls, quantities few ADs have to spare.
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