New cheese follows newish/soon-to-be-more-important starters around our beloved college football.
Name: Chris Rainey
Substantials: Tiny. Fast. Jiggle-equipped. Aware of all three and prone to showing it. 5-9, 156. Forty: somewhere between 4.24 and 4.4, depending on which reality currency you accept as legal tender. Once beat Noel Devine in a parking lot footrace. Fast enough to be a dick about it and get away with it.
Connotations: Little: the actual name Rainey is a derivative of "Rainer," German for "deciding warrior," and a variant of the first name of Simpsons icon Rainier Wolfcastle. The implications are clear: if you do not like Chris Rainey, perhaps you are a homosexual, too. Also, Rainey probably does fall asleep on a pile of money and beautiful women, since he's already infamous for the phrase "It's good to be Chris Rainey" in connection with some improper gifting at the high school level.
Position: Quarkback, Florida.
Favorite President: John F. Kennedy, because he (like Rainey) preferred the company of white girls. Mmm, pancake ass just like mom used to make.
Benefits: 110 touches up for grabs: that's the lump sum of Percy Harvin's total role in the Gator offense Rainey can eat from this season, total chances he'll likely have to split with fellow microspeedster jeff Demps. Demps probably has more straight-line speed, but Rainey's advantage comes in his ability to split frames and vaporize from spot to spot with lateral jukes and ability to move in tight spaces. He makes hash from trash fairly often, and has good hands as a receiver, as well (though he only had 3 catches on the year last year, his practice catches and spring game receptions indicate little problem playing in a wideout role.) A plug-in horror with battery power for miles, and surprisingly strong: he shook off a number of ankle tackles in 2008. Even getting just half of Harvin's total would get him boggling numbers.
Downsides. The periodic outbreaks of dickishness that could get him in hock with Meyer quickly, and put him in the inescapable tiger pit of Meyer's Cave of Condemnation. (The one where Kestahn Moore set up his own suite due to fumble problems. The cable bill's still in his name there.) Rainey's only real possibility of failure comes via natural or self-inflicted injury; otherwise, he's a stat whore looking to walk the streets of Awesometown, USA.
Prospects: Superb, lest he trip over his tongue on the way to glory. Rainey looks to see significant time playing in all phases of the scoring game: returning kicks beside Brandon James, taking the ball out of the backfield on handoffs and options, and getting the ball in the short receiving game. (GET IT SHORT HAHAHAHAHA.) He's a difficult telephone booth tackle and a set of sad taillights in the distance should you miss a tackle. The best defense is probably to send him complimentary letters praising him above all other team members--that kind of injury may be the most damaging of all to someone as candid and flamboyant as Rainey.