The new server’s going up tonight. You won’t be able to comment, but that really won’t matter as most people can’t get to the site anyway.

Back in the a.m. Take cover.

The Blogpoll gets closer and closer to something resembling actual knowledge. We submit our draft for customer review. Give us constructive criticism and receive another blogpoll ballot tomorrow, plus an invitation to get a taste of Swindle Ass Ham, the connoisseur’s meat of choice.

Clarifications, addenda, and further invitations to ass-kissing follow.

LSU gets the nod over Oregon because they are more talented and do not have the injuries at wideout and running back that the Ducks have. Oh, and Glenn Dorsey’s a gravitational hole in the middle of the defense. We’re trying to avoid pitting the two teams head to head and playing out the matchup in our heads simply because that’s not what this is about at this point-it’s about absolute value. LSU’s just deeper across the board, and has played marginally tougher competition. It’s a call on the margins, but we’re making it. Disagreements may be lodged below; in return, see prior offer of ass ham.

Ohio State falls because tOSU still can’t defend a spread offense with good to great talent working against its defense. (wa-HAIII!!! See that good to great modifier, motherfucker! Taking the Northwestern card right out of your hands. The lotus does not fight the wind, nor does the dragon fear fire! wa-HAIIII!!!) They’re still very, very good, but they ain’t peaking, and that will get you Black Diamond sailing downhill quickly at the end of the year.

Plus look at any of the teams above them and consider their level of play, the general trend, and their over all record: is Ohio State playing above any of them right now? We don’t think so, and thus the nine spot for the Buckeyes.

You don’t get anywhere in this conference without Chan Gailey’s approval. The ACC teams are knotted up in the low teens, but the real deciding factor putting Virginia Tech at the Frank Beamer Event Horizon of the tenth rank (where Va Tech always seems to end up) is their flexilicious victory over FSU at home and the fact that they beat Georgia Tech, indicating that they are not potentially horrible. Virginia and Clemson both lost to the Tryptophan Man himself, Chan Gailey, meaning they can, from time to time, play horrible, horrible football.

Virginia Tech has only played one horrible game, and that was against this week’s current number one.

Florida’s below both of them because the secondary is still capable of bursting into flame at any instant. Do not stare directly at them, as intense attention may cause uncontrollable blazes that last for up to four hours. It’s a liability that has been proven to be too much for even the touchdown-chomping Tebow Smash! attack to overcome.

The rest is a complete mess, but give Illinois some cuddles and another tip to BYU for winning their last six games by a combined score of 190-89. They’ll beat the shit out of another hapless, unsuspecting bowl opponent this year again…like UCLA, for example? That’s got Karl Dorrell written all over it with Sharpie.

No Hawaii. If they beat Boise, we’ll rank them. Until then, they’re out.

Mississippi State owns their country attitude: cowbells in the stands, a buttoned-down gameday decor, and that entire section of the stands reserved for those who’ve lost limbs in gruesome farm injuries. (Not true! That’s actually a section in Kinnick Stadium in Iowa.)

How much do they really own it, though? So much so that the flyover for the Alabama game was done by what appears to be a crop duster or the Baron Von Richtofen himself flying all the way from Hell for the game.

Gadzooks! Was that the dashing Wiley Post? Or the rakish Jimmy Doolittle? Or perhaps Amelia Earhart, who overcomes the crippling handicap of having a vagina every time she bravely enters an aircraft! O, those wily aviators! Someday, might they fly to sun?

The little hysterical WOOO! at the end may be one of the most nuanced crowd noises we’ve ever heard: part shame, part acceptance, and part ironic barbaric yawp. Whatever-they can tie weather balloons to pigs and let the recreational shooting crowd loose on them as long as Mississippi State keeps winning. Bowl-eligible means you can fly whatever you want over the stadium, even if it does sound like a motorized go-cart with wings.

A clarification: From reader Bulldog, who invites us to eat him.

That was our President, retired Air Force commander Gen. Robert H. “Doc” Foglesong. It is his Mississippi State biplane. He always buzzes over the stadium before the game. So eat me and the rest of the bulldog nation.

Their president buzzes the stadium in his own biplane? Is he a botanist/humanitarian with a penchant for archaeology, arctic exploration, and jujitsu? Does this man have limits, we ask?

I’m out. Kiss my ass.

For three sources to all say the same thing in information-stingy Ann Arbor is a strong indicator of actual reality here: Lloyd Carr will announce his retirement Monday following the Ohio State game.

Set Miles in motion, as he’s got to at least be on the priority list of coaches to face. Also page Tedford and knock the dust off the desks in the Michigan football offices, since none of them will be staying under a new regime. Cue a piqued Tressel, who has to be curious what rough beast/retread/tyro/NFL refugee will fall into possession of the Most Despised Opposing Headset.

And exit Carr, who leaves with a national title, a clean record on program probation, and a reputation as giving the least predictable halftime interviews ever: refusing to divulge even a hint of information about injury, hugging Suzy Shuster after a brief quote, or ripping Todd Harris after being asked “a stupid question” about Michigan’s conservative play at the half. Carr was a curmudgeon off his meds during a game, railing at kid-speckled lawns, clueless linebackers, and staring icily onto the field as the clock wore down on victories or losses-either way it worked, Carr stayed entertainingly crotchety to the end.

What else will we miss about Lloyd Carr? Not much, really. He never manifested much of himself outside the locker room, though there were flashes of a charming personality and giving man. He never changed much, which was great! Michigan stayed on an even keel during his tenure no matter what happened. He never changed much, which sucked! His offenses clung to the same plays, he stayed loyal to assistants when their schemes were going rancid on the field, and generally gave Michigan football at its worst a dirge-like flavor of ancient obstinacy mixed with joyless, plodding tactics.

We love writing career obits of the glowing sort, and would like to write one here: a coach with a 121-38 record and a national title deserves that. It’s hard to do with Carr, though, both because of his personal elusiveness and the pattern of disappointment and near-miss flirtation with national titles and wins against Ohio State that marked the last five years of his tenure. (Hey, they did win Big Ten titles in ‘03 and ‘04.) It’s counterintuitive-writing about someone so successful should be like breathing. Yet with Carr, there’s a difficulty in this, especially given how tired Michigan fans are of losing bowl games to teams who coach rings around their “rock-throwing” coaching staff. It’s time for him to go, and without a trace of sentiment, tears, or nostalgia.

Not that Lloyd gives a shit what we, you, or Daniel Dennett thinks of any of this. He’s done, and you can kiss his ass. He’s off to coach rugby in Australia with BFF Russell Crowe. Whoever takes over the Durmstrang Institute of Football Studies now-that’s the story from here on out. It’s never too early to start tracking planes, people. That’s what the FAA and flight manifests were invented for in the first place.

We’re trying one teeny little test post here, tempting fate to see how malicious the internet gods are today. But read a burrrrrrn like this one, and you do what you must do when someone says something horrible and horribly accurate about someone suffering through a miserable time in their lives. You share it with the world, naturally.

Charlie Weis is the world’s highest-paid intern.

Oh, Greg Couch of the Chicago Sun-Times, you burn like the sweet tang of aerosolized capiscum.

That’s a picture of our server right now. It’s shitty, and we’re working on replacing it. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience, and remind you that riding underneath the train is not advised, but is certainly exciting.

You can’t have a modern bathroom without a bidet. I know what you’re saying, now: what kind of man uses something French to lick his ass that can’t be charged anonymously to a credit card as “PERSONAL SERVICES, INC” from a Lyon hotel room? Not me, you say!

Wrong. It’s time to show some modern fluffy sensitivity and stop smearing the brown ghost of last night’s pot roast around your ass and get with the squeaky-clean, watery goodness of a behind blasted immaculate with the gentle but firm touch of a bidet.

We’ll even show you how to make your very own, extremely masculine Ohio State bidet just like the one that keeps Tressel’s trundle clean every week on ABC. Ready?

Step one: the bidet. Be careful-you can overpay for your bidet, as some built-in toilet/bidet models can run into the thousands of dollars. We can only say that the decision is yours, but for value’s sake the extra water you’ll use with a separate bidet is negligible. We say keep them separate to save a few bucks, and pick up a model such as the Kohler “San Tropez” for no more than $500 total.

Step Two: Installation. Don’t make the mistake of just drilling a few holes in the floor, hooking up a pipe, and firing away at the old log-mouth with a poorly installed bidet. Precision matters here. First, make sure your tiling is level, and that you’ve got your piping lined up accurately. Trace the outline of the bidet on the floor, and crack out the chalk line and level to make sure the bidet is attractively and evenly placed next to the toilet.

Now take a drill and make two 3/16″ holes in the floor for the anchor. Don’t forget your sealant! This all-important element will save you from nagging leaks and drips in the future, and you’ll thank yourself for the extra effort later.

Connect your pipes, drain, and you’re almost there.

Add some style. In this case, we’re going to jazz up the bidet with a familiar loving face. We’ve taken an image off the internet, printed and laminated it, and blown it up on an 8X12 scale. Then we we did a quick outline of the image on some pressed 1/16 inch aluminum, matched up the image, and cut a quick 1/2 inch hole to allow for the bidet faucet to poke through. Make sure your faucet hole is just big enough-a tight fit is essential here.

Take the mounting and run a quick solder and seal job around the faucet, and we’re ready to scrub. Oh, and don’t forget the waterproof sticker at the bottom of the trough for effect.

Step Four: Get that undercarriage Musburger-clean! Pardner, even in defeat no one washes your Buckeye balls more thoroughly and forcefully than the Brentster. You’re looking live! At my ass being cleaned just like Jim Tressel’s is on a weekly basis! Turn on thE water and feel the force of America’s announcer getting you a squeaky kind of clean only previously possible
with four hours of feverish man-amour. (more…)

The rundown from Pete Carroll’s enchanted grotto, dictated to a stunning naked woman while we were busy trying to pull our swimsuit out of the intake pipe. We’ll be down here all day, since it’s nice and we can do EDSBS Live! from here too, 7-9 p.m. EST. Join us and have a Mai Tai, won’t you?

Ohio State, loss-enated. We need to watch a replay today, but from what we’ve seen the crux of the matter was the scrambling of Juice Williams at the end of the game securing first downs and squeezing the life out of the clock. That and the curse of Skip Bayless saying Todd Boeckman was a Hei*m*n candidate. You can’t defeat that kind of negative mojo.

Mike Patrick tends to bloat. Mike Patrick could not let Todd Blackledge off the hook for being a natural ectomorph despite eating the gravy-covered delights of college town diners weekly on Todd’s food segment.

“I’m amazed you’re not five hundred pounds.” And then Patrick kept the gravy jokes coming, but not in that friendly, ha-ha way, but in that bitchy, “you-never-gain-a-pound” kind of way. Mike Patrick can’t stand it when pretty, skinny Todd eats whatever he wants!

Suck it, Tedford!

Shawn Crable cost Michigan 30 yards in penalties on Wisconsin’s first drive, negating a pick on the first drive of the game for Wisconsin. Crable wasn’t alone, though-Michigan’s usually quarterback-hostile defense looked worse thanks to Tyler Donovan holding onto the ball until the last possible second, practically begging for the game-ending injury he eventually suffered: a huge bruise to the hand streaked with Michigan blue paint fro a helmet.

Jack Ikegwuonu of Wisconsin fought the most fascinating battle of the day, desperately swatting at The Manningham and hoping it wouldn’t get angry and run away too far with the ball. Subtract that teeny little 97 yard touchdown, the longest in Michigan history, and he mostly, sort of, kind of did that.

Hey, let’s just peek on that USF/Syracuse game for a sec. Allen Cray gets a horrible, horrible INT for USF in the Syracuse game. Off a helmet, lateral, into Cray’s hands. This is quite literally what we saw the instant we turned on the game. This was immediately followed by a lightning score by USF, a lazy throw through neglectful coverage on a TD to Carlton Mitchell. The Carrier Dome feels like a mortuary in orange.

Completely out-of-context announcer quote one: “You’re all about the O, Dave.”-from the Texas A&M/Mizzou FSS broadcast.

in that game, we had a brief window into the head of Dennis Franchione and Stephen McGee when Texas went for it on 4th and 9.

McGee: We’re going for it on 4th and goal from the 9? (more…)

Illinois 28, Ohio State 21. The season in the boathouse continues. MAO!

Illini are indeed getting better and better, and Ohio State runs aground at home.

This is the open thread for the college football weekend with bite. Enjoy.

I am harboring a wicked girl-crush on Katee Sackhoff. She plays this cigar-chomping, firewater-swilling, foul-mouthed, enticingly damaged badass (like Tim Riggins, only a hot girl), and she does it on the best show on television (it has killer robots in space; do not argue this point), along with your most recent Mustache Wednesday honoree. There is nothing not to love. More proof after the jump.

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We all know people that are bad at their jobs; you may even be one of them. This is why it’s fun to look at and make fun of people who are historically bad at their jobs. These are some of my favorites:

Franz Berliner, Captain, LZ 129 Hindenburg

Flew the world’s largest balloon into the world’s largest needle. Not sure what he was doing, but I don’t think it takes hindsight to see that Franz was not watching where he was going. His poor floating skills singlehandedly brought down the entire Zeppelin Industry.Â

Mort Lipshitz, Fire Chief, Chicago 1870-1871

Far be it from me to tell a fireman how to do his job, but jesus, Lipshitz*, you gotta let the whole city burn? I know there are intangibles here, but generally the recipe for doing your job successfully is: see flames, add water. So you were saddled with horses, buggies, and lanterns, but come on, firefighting is no profession for excuses. You really dropped the ball here, brother. To add insult to injury, they’ve named a soccer team after your failure. You are on the Mt. Rushmore of fuck-ups.

Charlie Weis, Head Coach, Notre Dame

Charlie Chalupa’s not just famous for his girth anymore. He’s led the Irish to their worst season in school history. The offensive guru has also led this tactiley talented team to their worst offensive season in school history, which is no easy task. He compiles his failures with blind arrogance and the cocksure attitude of someone who’s wildly successful at their job. He’s being heavily rewarded for his failures too. No matter what he does from here on out in his coaching career, this season, this trainwreck, this audacious failure, will be his legacy. Chew on that, Charles.

M Beanie, Boy Toy Wrangler/Driver, George Michael

This job seems pretty easy -

Step 1: Find a fucktoy for a rich, faded, liquid-hipped pop chanteuse a couple times a week.

Step 2: …

Step 3: Profit!

M was good at it too. He had Michael elbow deep in ass for a year. However, in an embarrassing parallel parking incident, Michael carped one time too many and his driver quit, leaving M holding the keys. When M was promoted to driver, things went to hell in a handbasket. In the past year alone, Mr. Michael’s been arrested three times for drunk driving, twice for soliciting sex in a park (who knew that was illegal?), he’s been to rehab twice, had Hoof & Mouth Disease once, and is now the more pathetic of the two (2) former members of Wham! This is a bad year and elevates Beanie instantly into the Hall of Fame.

Pam Ward, Broadcaster of Iowa football games, ESPN2

Pammy is not pretty. This is no crime, to be sure, but she sought out a career in television so I think this shows a tremendous lack of self-awareness. She also talks for a living and her voice is… unfortunate. Her voice has the deaf tones of a demolitions expert and all the warmth of a well digger’s ass. To complete the hat trick, she talks about football for living and doesn’t know anything about football, at all. She is positively the worst announcer in the history of man.

General Pickett, Confederate General, Battle of Gettysburg

You don’t need to be a military strategist to see why this was the turning point in the Civil War (GO NORTH!!! WOOOO!!!). I’ve been to Gettysburg. I’ve seen the battlefield and I can tell you, it’s no small jaunt. It’s really flat, but it’s a hell of a long way from one side to the other. I made it in cargo shorts and running shoes and I was tired and crabby as shit when I got to the other side. Also, I did it in March, not in July when Pickett made his hike. I can just imagine doing it with a musket and those fucking hideous wool unis! Were they a marching band or an army? Horrible fashion choice on their part, nearly as bad as their walk directly into the line of fire across that field. The Confederacy suffered a casualty rate of over 50%, many of which were Pickett’s men. Pickett’s Charge** was the beginning of the end for the South in the Civil War. Bad move, George.

Lucious Picard, Dialect Coach, Kevin Costner for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Costner was doing what all American actors do when they’re surrounded by “yes” men, he decided to take a role with an accent. The studio fearlessly cast the paunchy 40-ish rock hound as the young Brit Robin of Locksley. All they needed was someone to help the would-be archer to sound authentically British so they went with wunderkind Lucious Picard from the Royal Albert Hall of Drama. This did not go well. Costner’s accent came and went like a Yorkshire breeze; when it was good it was bad and when it was bad it was awesome. Sadly, unintentional comedy is not what they were going for and Picard spends these days replying to Madonna’s fan mail using “British sounding words”. Â

* Mort would be higher on this list (or lower?)Â but he made the best bratwurst chili in the history of man. This cannot be discounted.

** Pickett’s Charge inspired the Lost Cause, which was one of Beck’s best singles from his “mopey period”.