A good solid coaching tiff is just the thing to close the day on, we think, and no better coach to involve than Nick Saban, Alabama coach. (By definition, being head coach at Alabama equals being a ball of tar for any tiny story to stick to like so many downy feathers. It also means being paid 4 million dollars a year. No tears, please.)

Saban irked Jim Leavitt, USF coach, with the following comments in a Ray Melick piece in the Birmingham News:

“The distribution of players is not the same for everybody. There’s a significant amount of players who don’t qualify [at some schools] and they end up being pretty good players at some other schools. I think there are six guys starting on South Florida’s defense who probably could have gone to Florida or Florida State but Florida and Florida State couldn’t take them. And if you do a good job of recruiting that way …”

Leavitt snapped back in a response in the Tampa Tribune, not dissing Saban specifically, but certainly pooping on the idea that USF’s academic standards were giving them an edge of any sort in recruiting.

“I’m not down on [Saban]. Whoever gave him that information needs to correct it. Certainly this person [Birmingham News reporter Ray Melick], what right does he have to write an article without verifying all the facts. This is why I get disturbed sometimes, because now this article goes out.

He stopped shy of calling the piece “GARBAGE” or mentioning his age in conjunction with the story, but Leavitt certainly has a point. The Bulls’ starting running back Mike Ford initially accepted a scholarship offer to the Crimson Tide, as did teammate Jamar Taylor. USF also sits in the middle of America’s football-mad fourth largest state, which is nice for a start-up/upstart looking to feed off some gilded trimmings from Florida/Florida State/Miami.

(Oh, and they’ve got Singlet Guy. You can’t forget Singlet Guy.)

Saban’s had a rough week with the media in general. One exchange had him getting fed back his own words by a reporter in a testy faceoff at the week’s presser.

Reporter: (Oh, he’s going to get his question in) “You mentioned Monday that it could affect recruiting.”

Saban:…”I did?

We cannot overstate how awesome we think it is that Alabama really matters again as a football program, both because it’s restores some certainties to the universe and gives us the docudramedy that is Alabama football fandom. Throwing the mercurial Dark Lord Saban into this mix is something special, indeed-sometimes you can almost see him consulting the “Intergalactik Gyde to Hu-Mann Behavyur” he keeps under his cape during press conferences.

The pandemic of the Soulja Boy has found a perfect host in the organism we call a college mascot. Originally, we believe it was introduced into the population by Sebastian the Ibis, who cranked his original version in the OB with the sort of verve and authority in urban dance you’ve come to expect from the Miami Hurricanes.

Doing Randall Hill proud, we say. The next logical stop was Maryland, the epicenter of white boy hip-hop annexation. (more…)

Florida starting safety Tony Joiner was arrested for attempting to steal his girlfriend’s car back from Watson’s Towing company at 4:59 a.m. this morning. We have exclusive quotes from the police report.

Witness One: Hey, dude! DUDE! Is that your car?

Joiner: No, man. It’s my girl’s. Got towed while I was hittin’ it at the pad.

Witness Two: Hey, Tony Joiner! Can I have a kiss, man?

Joiner: Naw, man. All loved out right now. Been hittin’ it somethin’ fierce.

Witness One: Man, you’re stealing a car for her?

Joiner: Stealin’ it back, yeah. She’s worth it. Like making love to some kinda, you know, sexy drill sergeant racehorse womanbeast or something. Like Kiana Tom from back in the day with a snowmobile engine in her thang.

Witness Two: From Bodyshaping? Aw, man. She was unreal.

Joiner: She’s like that. It’s like the Daytona 500 when we get down. I gotta take pit stops and everything. Four tires. Lube. Chassis adjustments. Thanking sponsors and shit when I’m done.

Witness One: Sounds like a full-time job.

Joiner: It is. You gotta girl like that?

Witness Two: I do! She works at a Starbucks. Comes home, can’t sleep ’til two. Has to work it off with me.

Witness One: I’m his roommate. I call her “Jitterbuns.” She’s sounds like an espresso machine going off. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Joiner: (Laughs.) That’s tight. (Blue and red lights turn the corner.) Hey, that’s the police. I think I better drive this car back in, ’cause my ass is going to jail.

Witness two: That sucks. You know, we’re gonna have to tell ‘em about this. They see us.

Joiner: I know. Just tell ‘em I’m all rutted out and not thinking straight. Why else would a college kid be stealing a girl’s car back from Watson’s Towing at 5 in the morning, man?

Witness One: Is pussy-induced fatigue a viable criminal defense?

Joiner: ‘Bout to find out. I ain’t sharing evidence, though!

Witnesses One and Two: Bye, Tony!

Hannibal and Orson issue the stock report for the week that will be in college football based on the weekend that was. Remember: all advice given for entertainment purposes, by which we mean you should totally blow your porn allowance on mock-stock hedge fund speculation involving college teams. Hannibal will add his expanded summaries in a bit.

Orson’s Buys

We give props to Rich Brooks.

Kentucky For the nth week in a row, stock up on Rich Brooks’ Patented Energetic Oatmeal for Hip Oldsters Seeking Vim, Vigor, and Vitality, because Kentucky may be the class of the SEC East. (The keyboard just singed our fingers as we typed that-is that a Mac/Windows thing?)

No one except South Carolina in the SEC East defends the pass well, and they provide a natural complement to this strength by showing little inclination or desire in defending the run. Kentucky, despite the press hyperfocusing on Woodson, has the second best rush attack in the conference with Rafael Little, already flush with 547 yards rushing and the balance to their passing game. They’re balanced, they make adjustments, and they’re hitting a conference-wide dearth of talent in the secondary at the perfect time, which means their ninth-ranked defense only has to hold serve a few times to make things competitive.

(Again: the smell of burning flesh when typing…normal or not?)

LSU

“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.-Hobbes, Leviathan.

Oh, it’s dire times when you drag out the Hobbes. But there’s nothing left to believe in! NOTHING! Mutants wander the wastes. Oklahoma loses to Colorado. In two weeks, Rutgers, West Virginia, and Louisville all collapse like so many propped-up Papier-mâché 1989 Soviet satellite states. Florida loses with Master Chief at the helm (too many brutes!). Even USC struggles against a Washington team that, star-wattage wise, is a but a flickering, snapping flurorescent bulb of a team compared to USC’s 10 million candlepower searchlight.

For certainty’s sake…for Captain America…for Baby Jesus and Powerade. If Florida must get pummeled two weeks in a row, at least give us the sweet gift of certainty in the process. Let LSU be the Leviathan. And for fuck’s sake, don’t let it be the kicker who decides it. Beat us by thirty, LSU, or lose. At least that way, we get a victory along with our dizzying college football anarchy and disorder.

We’re buying out of hope that at least “certain doom” still has some brand name value. As long as Glenn Dorsey hunkers down at the line and his huge, mean ass looms like the black sun of hell setting on the forlorn landscape of the damned…well, there’s hope for doom, then. (more…)