BEHOLD BAMA FANS THE VOICE OF YOUR LEADER, THE GREAT AND UNDYING CYBERTYDE. DO NOT PANIC BECAUSE YOU ARE HEARING THIS VOICE. THIS IS NOT JESUS. THIS IS NOT A PSYCHOTIC EPISODE. PLEASE DO NOT DRIVE OFF THE ROAD AND MAINTAIN CALM.

I AM COMMANDING YOU, FANS OF THE CRIMSON TIDE: OPERATION HUMILITY HAS CONCLUDED. YEARS OF PAIN, CYBERTYDE HAS GIVEN YOU. YOU NEEDED THAT PAIN, BUT EVEN WHILE YOU LEARNED HUMILITY CYBERTYDE GAVE YOU LOVE WHILE STAMPING ON YOUR FACE FOREVER WITH MY BOOT OF LOVE. REMEMBER DUBOSE?

YES, CYBERTYDE TAKETH, AS WITH DUBOSE. BUT HE ALSO GIVETH, AS WHEN CYBERTYDE GAVE YOU TWO WINS OVER STEVE SPURRIER IN 1999. ALSO REMEMBERETH THE KINDNESS OF CYBERTYDE WHEN HE DESTROYED DUBOSE WITH IRRESISTIBLE POONBOT DISGUISED AS SECRETARY.

CYBERTYDE WAS NOT THROUGH TESTING YOU, THOUGH. (more…)

So…it’s Houston Nutt at Auburn, and not Leach, or Leach and not Nutt, or Jimbo Fisher, or WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING AUBURN. Your status as the Parador/Costaguana of the SEC is complete. Just put the next coach in an overly medaled jacket with epaulets and have him make grand speeches from a huge marble balcony mounted on the side of Jordan-Hare. We repeat: a key party could make the SEC West a much simpler place to live.

We’re just as baffled as the rest of you. MarioKart, take me away.

The little fist-pump when he takes off shows you he cares. (BTW: That go-cart screams.)

…there’s your first “source close to the situation” saying Leach is close to finalizing a deal to come to Auburn.

so nervous

SO EXCITED

so nervous

SO EXCITED

UPDATE: Graham Harrell says there’s a great chance this could happen.

Louisville was down 49 at the half to Rutgers last night. If you missed the first half as we did, you tuned into the second half and fully expected Steve Kragthorpe to read his death poem into his headset, kneel, plunge his tanto into his side, and commit ritual suicide on the sidelines.

Unfortunately for Kragthorpe-san, it’s hard to commit suicide when Davon Sharp and the rest of the Rutgers team is doing the job for you:

Louisville is standing by their man for now, but Louisville’s pile of hot fail is accumulating like so many yellowed toenails stuck in the shag carpet of mediocrity. They went 1-5 in the Big East, yielding one of those to newly-fired GERG and Syracuse. They suffered through a macabre series of injuries this year, yes-they only took 25 players to Rutgers, and presumably expected the worst-but their late collapse was well short of a Thermopylae-style last stand. The Cardinals have looked mediocre to awful at times under Kragthorpe, and your trend graph is flowing ever-downward at this rate for his overall performance at the school.

You know a game is bad when ESPN keeps showing shots of the Lincoln Tunnel on commercial outros. You also know your defense had no shot when you let Mike Teel throw for seven touchdowns in his last game as a Scarlet Knight. On the upside, the slack time in the second half allowed for Chris Fowler to admit he’d never been to a local greasy spoon before midnight or sober, basically, and that was almost worth the agony of watching the second half.

Leach and Pat Hill are both out of consideration for the Washington job. It is still a pirate’s life for Leach, who is theoretically still in line for the Auburn job or a hefty pay raise at his own job.

Buckethead proves that being frightening and talented are not mutually exclusive, but indeed necessarily inclusive. Much like Leach, now that we think of it.

Percy Harvin is injured. Big deal, we say: Percy Harvin is always injured. Just before the national title game in 2006, Percy Harvin sneezed and severed his femoral artery. Bleeding profusely and on the brink of death, he put on his pants, strapped on the helmet, and after three cups of Gatorade ripped off 82 yards of total offense and a TD against the Ohio State Buckeyes. He then died immediately postgame, but recovered in time for spring practices.

Like a finely tuned sports car, Percy runs at top speed and, more frequently than not, is on blocks during the week receiving physical therapy, being massaged by virgins, and laughing gustily at the jesters and midgets who amuse the court at Florida. For the uninitiated, here’s an easy summary of Percy’s injuries over the years.

We left out an ingrown toenail that had him in the ICU until three hours before the South Carolina game. He was slowed to a mere 8 carry, 167 yard performance as a result. Our apologies. (HT: Holly.)

De’Shon Sanders is the snowman, and he’s gonna melt under the interrogation lamps: the reserve defensive back for the Texas Tech Red Raiders was arrested at 1:30 in the morning today in Lubbock by DEA agents. Please note the scary Federal acronym. That’s the DEA, as in “pound-you-in-the-ass federal prison” Feds. Sanders, caught with over 50 grams of cocaine, is trouble spelled with a capital DAMN.

Sanders is also a housemate of Michael Crabtree. Crabtree has not been implicated in the case in any way.

It cannot help Mike Leach’s efforts to sufficiently gain leverage to bleed some extra booty from the rules of his home port to have this happen, and it is a marginal distraction for Washington, who might be the team most serious about hiring Leach as a head coach. As for Auburn, who probably has a booster who is already literally throwing money at him and crying into the phone to him, this won’t matter OH GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE PLEASE COME COACH OUR FOOTBALL TEAM HOLY GOD WHAT HAVE WE DONE.

Russell was kind/foolish enough to have us on for the Football Outsiders’ Seventh Day Adventure Podcast, which you may listen to below. Staying on topic? NOT A HABIT.

We’re first up.

Reporter: “Any further questions: what do you expect to see from the Sooners in terms of game management and strategy on Saturday?”

Pinkel: “I’m gonna just be frank with you. I expect them to put sixty points worth of ungreased football schlong right into our outflow pipe, frankly. Take that down: I expect them to sodomize us with an excellence unseen since Halston took on three members of the French Men’s Rugby Squad in 1980 in the VIP at Club 54. We’re going to be rammed from the aftside by a battleship that, frankly, will likely split our humble clipper ship in two. We’re Edward Norton in the shower in American History X, and we know what’s coming. It doesn’t mean we like it, but in life, sometimes you’re the plunger, and sometimes you’re the toilet begging for a mercy flush.

So, in return what I expect is a quality reacharound. Not a half-assed flubbing of the old Atari Boystick, no, what I want in return for taking the biggest Barbary Pirate Handshake since Joel Klatt watched his brain fly out of his nose is a quality courtesy butter-churning from the man in return. Let us get some points back in the third and fourth. Make sure Chase has at least one eyeball when the game is over. Take out Demarco Murray when they’re up by thirty. The little things.

If you’re going to flesh-kebab someone, you might as well give the courtesy of rubbing their meat before applying the heat. That’s all I’m saying, and you can quote me on that. We’re not looking for a pastor’s handshake here. I want my team to feel the concerned but firm grip of a closeted plumber on holiday in a Miami bathhouse, dammit. It’s the least they can do after what will probably happen to us on Saturday.

Any other questions? What? Why are you looking at me like that?

[/the sound of flashbulbs, furious scribbling, and phones being dialed.]