Scorn pain: either it will go away or you will

Teams: there are a lot of them. In our effort to bring you the finest “bullshit” coverage of college football, our Visiting Lecturer Series today welcomes Notre Dame blogger Subway Domer. Like Run Up The Score, he doesn’t choose Changes In Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes for the answer to the dreaded Jimmy Buffett Challenge, and for this we salute him already. Enjoy.

One: What color is your season? In other words, please explain the metaphorical state of your program through the metaphor of color:

Green? Notre Dame and the color green have had a long history together. That history has been both kind, and cursed. For years, the lore of green jersey games and of championships won by the players that wore them has been passed on from generation to generation.

However, there are several types of green that Notre Dame has seen over the past 30+ years. The menacing, yet ugly Kelly Green from the 1977 team that the 2007 team “honored” by having their asses handed to them by USC 38-0.

How about the Super Willingham Green that the Irish wore versus Boston College in 2002? (more…)

Michigan is on the board in the Fulmer Cup thanks to the DUI arrest of running back Kevin Grady, who took some of that fine new conditioning Michigan had and rounded it out with some impaired motor skills drills behind the wheel of a car. This bit of cross-training earns Michigan the first points of the In Rod We Trust era, a sum of two points for hearty Midwestern driving.

He also looks very drunk and very unhappy in this picture.

We’ve been there. Ask gin.

If there’s not some kind of tire-flipping, stair-running hell waiting for Grady, we’ll be disappointed. Though how you’ll be able to discern this from the rest of the EEEEEE Barwis! training, we don’t know.

The SEC made a quiet change to their academic policies regarding non-qualifiers at their meetings in Destin. The new policies would allow more non-qualifiers to begin school and bring their grades up prior to playing for a given school’s team. Each must be approved by SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. To provide the pro- and con- sides of the issue are Buxton Lewis the 4th and one promising non-qualifier football recruit.

I am appalled by this, and by my maid’s ineptitude, as well.

Point: Athletics Are Dangerously Compromised By This New Ruling and I Am Appalled By This.

As a prominent local businessman and graduate of the University, I cannot state strongly enough how appalled I am by the new policies regarding academics and athletes. I, like anyone else, enjoy watching my team play competitive football on Saturdays, and pay good money to the athletic department for a modest fifty-seat box, personal champagne bath to watch games from, and make sure that despite sending my children to private schools, they understand and appreciate the traditions of college football by attending games at my alma mater.

Excuse me.

Consuela! If there’s dust on the mantle like last week I will be very, very displeased! La migra! you understand that, don’t you? LA MIGRA VIENE AQUI! Rapido clean-o, por favor.

I apologize. You see, this is a slippery slope for we fans of the game. (more…)

The Index and other festivities will be somewhat delayed today due to our speaking gig at CoSIDA, the convention of sports information directors in Tampa. They want to know what blogs are, who writes them, and if hot blog groupies exist. They do, by the way-I have seen exactly six of them.

In the meantime, we have footage of the reception to my opening remarks.

May God have mercy on our soul.

9:04 a.m. We’re underway. If lanyards were feral pigs, this place would smell-they must be good for free lap dances at Mons, or free smoked mullet from Ted Peters’. Our professorial type is joining us from speakerphone from Denmark, and is booming like the voice of of the dead in the discussion. Remind self to make appearances like this from now on.

9:22 a.m. Bill Smith of Arkansas quotes Houston Nutt’s “those darn internets.” Nutt just got mentioned in the same sentence with Marshall McLuhan. We love the SEC.

9:29 a.m. “Bloggers amplify opinion.” We go to 11!

9:45 a.m. “What bloggers do we trust?” Um, me, of course.

9:56 a.m. Another watershed moment: just said the words “reality will win out in the end on the internet.” New mission statement is living to regret ever saying that.

10:08 a.m. The other guy in this discussion talking from the ceiling is awesome. It’s like having God in the room, but without having your face melted off like a Nazi.

10:13 a.m. “At the saturation point, will bloggers duke it out like in Thunderdome?” Oh, we can only hope this comes true.

10:24 a.m. Of course we’re blogging this. It’s not sneaky. We have the laptop open on the desk. It’s an intelligent, well-spoken conversation, and I’m very impressed by the discourse.

11:16 a.m. Okay, post-talk socializing concluded. No punches thrown, no Buzz Bissinger moment, and all the questions were fair, well-put, and thoughtful. But a legitimate question from the SID at a very, very large school: if we are going to have a civil relationship, what happens when you say something like “To Florida fans, [NAME REDACTED] was a liar”? Good question, and we’re not sure. The short answer is that for schools, handling blogs is probably best done with a long, well-padded stick. It’s what we would advice to anyone handling a blogger, ourselves included.