COUNTDOWN: 3
“We cannot tell the exact moment a friendship is formed; as in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses, there is at last one that makes the heart run over.”
August 25, 2025
VISITING LECTURER: LSU JOSHUA ON, APPROPRIATELY, LSU
Teams: there are a lot of ‘em. In our ongoing attempt to bring you the most outstanding mediocre coverage of college football as we know it, we bring on visiting lecturer LSUJoshua, who will lecture today on Dr. Miles’ School for the Garishly Attired and Athletically Gifted. Enjoy.
One: what color is your season? In other words, please explain the metaphorical state of your program through the metaphor of colour.
LSU is crystal clear, as in our two BCS trophies and how it’s obvious by now that Les Miles knows more than you about coaching football. Make excuses or downplay all you want. Simple fact of the matter is that LSU among the tippy top of cfb elite and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, thanks largely to Miles’ ability to out recruit and out coach the rocket scientist you pay a South America defense budget for.
I challenge any man in this room to meet me in Kitchen Stadium. On the menu: your ass.
Two: What historical nation and period do you resemble most right now?
Cimmeria. Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aireus. It’s a great time to be a barbarian citizen of this Hyborean Age empire right now as the Tigers are enjoying their greatest stretch of success to date. A year like this used to be spent on the sidelines as we waited for new guys to mature for the next run. Now, extreme levels of talent and some of the best conditioning and coaching around have LSU always competitive, if not dominant. Upstart neighbors are brutally subjugated (Miss. St., Bama, Ole Miss) and we get the best of the serious competition, sometimes decidedly so.
Yeah, occasionally some wandering barbarian rhino out there might take time out of circumcisions to try and take a cut at us or some village idiot from the plains might to give us trouble, especially around the knees. (more…)
A THEME, CONT’D…
I implore you to stop. Please.
From Myles Brand’s bit in the Huffington Post on the role of profit in collegiate athletics:
Neither higher education, of which college sports is only a small part, nor intercollegiate athletics is truly capitalistic. They do not generate revenue to make a profit; they generate revenue to fulfill a purpose, to meet the mission of higher education.
From the Sports Business Journal:
The SEC’s total payout to its schools in 2007-08 was $63.6 million after the conference’s cut. TV revenue is distributed among the 12 universities and the league; each school received about $5.3 million this past fiscal year. Under the new deal, that annual number could leap to as much as $15 million per school, which is just shy of the projected average revenue Big Ten schools get from their TV deals each year.
Myles Brand: the Kofi Annan of college athletics. Please don’t shoot each other. Really. It’s quite poor form. We deplore this violence and violation of international law. Cease and desist or face sanction. No, that’s not a very polite thing to do with a tank. Heavens, are you throwing that woman into a deep-fryer? No, that’s not specifically against charter, but it’s certainly on the face a serious violation of her human rights. I fear you shall be receiving a sternly worded letter of rebuke from me, and a condemnation from the Security Council will narrowly pass, with China and Russia abstaining, of course…
WE BALLIN’, BABY. IT’S A SHAME.
We here at EDSBS would like to say that officially we are appalled by the demolition of the wall separating amateur sport and professional. The increasing sickness and greed surrounding college football disgust those of us who still recall the original spirit of collegiate athletics: the elevation and growth of the individual through physical effort in a team environment, the aspiration to the Greek ideal of honing both the mind and body for the unyielding rigors of life. It’s a kind of tragedy, but not the real tragedy of tragedies in the SEC’s impending megadeal with ESPN for all the SEC games not taken first by CBS Sports on fall Saturdays.
It’s a total tragedy. Pass the champagne, please.
The real tragedy: ESPN’s $2.25 billion buy-in for the SEC starting next year is not the dissolution of the borders separating college athletics-that was obliterated long ago, especially at the D-1 level where teams function as the de facto professional team for their geodemographic. The saddest part will be the loss of the three Daves, who first earned your derision, then your affection, and then finally your sarcasm-tinged but unending love in broadcasting the side-meat games of the SEC on Raycom Sports, formerly known to the O.G.s among us as JP, or Jefferson Pilot. (more…)
DEADSPIN PREVIEW OF FLORIDA: PETRIFIED COCKATIELS
The preview of Florida by us is up on Deadspin. it involves petrified and live cockatiels used in an act of sexual self-gratification.
APPY STATE: NEVER SWIM WITHOUT TERRIFYING MASCOT
Appalachian State rolls into LSU this weekend, which features actual football, REAL GODDAMN FOOTBALL GODDAMN FOOTBALLL STOP STANDING BETWEEN US AND FOOTBALLLLLLLL DAMN YOU!!!
Ahem. Saturday features, among many other games featuring real football, Appalachian State at LSU. Considering what happened last year at the Big House, just imagine the possibilities! Which include App State losing to LSU, the only thing that can and will happen despite ESPN frontloading their Saturday lineup with a 5:00 p.m slot for the game and much string-backed previewing.
BUT BUT BUT they’re going to die out there. Not by embarrassing margins, but by substantial margins nonetheless-24 points, according to Doc Sports, who for some reason has LSU listed as Clemson, which must be a cunning ruse by Les Miles in an attempt to give ASU some hope in the form of a Bowden Fumblegame early in the season.
What they won’t do, though? They won’t drown, because Appalachian State gets water safety like champions do.
(more…)
CURIOUS INDEX, 8/25/08
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Miami suspends seven for their opener against Charleston Southern, including starting qb Robert Marve. Despite Jacory Harris getting the start in the Hurricanes’ first game, Randy Shannon insists Marve will start at Florida in week two. The suspension results from an incident last fall involving Marve fleeing from police and breaking a side mirror on a car. The 300 yards passing he will have on Florida will result from our usual pass defense and Wondy Pierre-Louis celebrating in the middle of two plays and thereby surrendering long touchdowns.
Aaron Corp has the edge on Mitch Mustain at USC because Mustain has been struggling with his reads. Arkansas joke goes here. Dat dere Jevan-ah Snead done had a wild ride from Texas to Ole Miss, and what a time to trot out this-a tired but still darkly amusing wampus tale about dat rascally Urban Meyer: Once Snead got wind of the Gator’s interest in another quarterback, he was assured by Meyer that Tebow was being recruited as a linebacker. Though Tebow never ended up lining up defensively for the Gators, he was able to win a Heisman trophy as a sophomore at the quarterback position. Actually, Florida’s moving him to tackle this year. We swear on Urban Meyer it’s true. (This wouldn’t actually be an unsound idea with some extra calories and lifting, since he only went 9-4 and is really just a fullback who sort of throws the ball for 32 TDs in a season.) Vagabond linebacker Willie Williams, he of the all-star recruiting diary in the Miami Herald, has settled in at Glenville State in his attempt to rebuild his collegiate career. Comeback fuel for a former problem linebacker? Venison. On eating venison: “If you would have told me two or three years earlier, ‘Willie, you’re going to be eating deer,’ I probably would have looked at you like, nah, never, ever. All the best to Willie, who if he can make it at Glenville State can make it anywhere. Barry Switzer thinks it’s the “greatest rushing offense in college football,” and that it-the triple option-will fix everything at Georgia Tech. He also digs Glenmore Gin from the plastic bottle, because it doesn’t break when you drop it out of a car window, and it has that handy kung-fu grip on the back for easy sippin’. |
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