CURIOUS INDEX, 2/25/08

The Orlando Sentinel is getting Fark-y with its coverage of college football, and god bless them for it.

He does get to crush Bobby Bowden's windpipe with his mind every November. The Crackberry's a nice touch.

Pelini wins 'em over with grit, crippling armbars. We were sitting in a camp chair in New Orleans getting a tarot card reading when Bo Pelini jogged by--not that we noticed, at first, since in passing he looked like your neighborhood MMA fighter out for his morning roadwork. He's a fearsome-looking man in person, and according to the New York Times, knocking 'em dead at Nebraska booster lunches with his deep array of kata garumas, leg-holds, and chokeholds.

Having Corn God Tom Osborne play warmup duty doesn't hurt, either.

Osborne, who grew up 25 miles south of here in Hastings, said all the familiar faces reminded him of his first date with her. He said she slapped him three times.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, holding the crowd for a beat.

“She wanted to make sure I wasn’t dead,” said Osborne, whose set jaw and stoic manner can famously make him look somnambulant.

Rick Neuheisel's wife slaps him twice every day, btw, but not for the same reason.

South Florida's damn cheap. And if you'll remember the final quarter of the Rutgers/USF game this year, you'll see why. Offensive coordinator Greg Gregory may make only (Ahem: "only") $120,000, but with the Rutgers defense swinging unblocked hammers at Matt Grothe, the USF offense literally had no hot reads against the blitz. Nothin'. Zip.

He got that wood! Darren McFadden gave the full monty to NFL Draft Combine types, and verified he brings that wood to all phases of his life:

That’s where news got out that Arkansas running back Darren McFadden is not only battling a paternity suit, but that he told a team during an interview Saturday night that he has two children on the way. In addition to meeting with the Falcons, he met with the Raiders, who pick fourth in the draft, and several other teams.

The Falcons are looking into backgrounds now. No idea why. Also, when NFL fans ask you "OMG who the fuck is this McFadden guy?", you may claim you were not surprised to see him run a MOTHERFUCKING MOTHER OF GOD 4.27 at the combine.

Combine the two pieces of news, and flash forward to a time eighteen years from now when Next-Gen Mcfadden 2.0 runs a 3.9 at the combine, finishing the race with shoes burned clean off his feet.

Bitches be causin' problems. The Bryan/College Station Eagle solicited responses from readers concerning the replacement for the collie Reveille, the Aggie mascot who retires this year. The response was "vigorous," meaning in this case "far more disturbing in its intensity and volume than the newspaper expected." The good thing? Seemingly everyone wants the Corps of Cadets to pick a mutt from a shelter to honor the first Reveille, a stray picked up off the side of the road, though some are far more specific than others about how this should happen.

"Early each spring, ceremonial representatives of A&M and the Corps of Cadets should visit the Brazos Valley Animal Shelter, meet the available dogs, learn about their personalities from the shelter folks, and select the next Reveille that very day. Reveille would then go into mascot training on campus during the spring semester, and graduate (be commissioned as mascot and member of the Corps) at the end of one of the spring graduation ceremonies.

"During the summer, there would officially be two Reveilles, the outgoing Reveille and the incoming Reveille. This would greatly reduce the travel and public appearance demands on any one dog. Both dogs would be loved and sought after. The outgoing Reveille would be officially retired during halftime of the first home football game of the season. The incoming Reveille would then serve as sole mascot for the fall and spring semesters, and complete its 1.5-year tour of duty at the end of the summer, when a new Reveille takes over. There would be no shortage of homes willing to adopt this dog, who at the beginning of the story had no home at all." -- John Nielsen-Gammon.

We were going to make fun of that suggestion, but...we actually like it. Go muttish, Aggies. Bob Barker urges you to spay and neuter your pets, but in a clean veterinary setting, not like Jackie Sherrill did.