The Cronicas roll on...
Our theory of SEC football scandals involves several stages, outlined below.
First: the spurning! At one point someone pisses someone off about something. This is then aired on a message board, blurted out on talk radio, or vented in a drunken boosters luncheon so virulent it's spoken of in hushed tones years later.
Second: the infection. The story spreads as people circulate emails from trainers, guys who wash cars for the university spill their innermost secrets ("I saw him calling someone real sneaky-like in the parking lot of his office last night!") and talk radio begins to hint boldly around the story. That asshole on your message board with an endless well of "insider information" claims to know the real story, which he wishes he could tell you but WHOOO! would that be trouble.
Third: Thermidorian Period. The raging peak of the scandal, where even the coach and administration get too stupid to just shut up and let the lawyers enter the fray for them. We just passed this in the Nutt case last week, where everyone's issuing fevered press releases (including university car wash guy) and the "inside info" asshole on your board disappears just for effect.
Fourth: Enter the lawyers. The scandal putters out in a succession of frivolous lawsuits, legal proceedings, and increased billable hours for every scheisty lawyer in arms' reach of the case.
We have officially entered the Fourth Stage of Las Cronicas de Boss Hawg, as John David Terry, bold taxpayer, has filed the first legal salvo in the Houston Nutt Saga by accusing university bigwigs of not adequately investigating the Teresa Prewett emails to Mitch Mustain, the ones showing a grown woman calling a 19 year-old a "fag" and gently suggesting that he transfer from the University.
Mr. "I'm not named Richard Dean Anderson and I still have the gall to use three names" then, after filing the lawsuit, presumably went back to his rustic cabin for lunch.*
*Yes, we're calling you hillbillies. Because this whole thing makes Arkansas look like bone-sucking, muscadine-wine sippin', knuckle-dragging goatfuckers. And that's sad because we come from Tennessee and Florida, two places with similar PR issues. Fortunately, the lawyers are in force now, which means the worst thing you can accuse anyone of now is being overly litigious--this is ouuuuuuuuuurrrrrr counnnnntreeeeee...
**Yes, the song is about Tennessee. But dammit, we wanted some Spike Jones this morning.