CURIOUS INDEX, 6/30/09

Oh, you sexy Flexbone. Now with added passing, so you can avoid or at least mitigate those early skunkings against your brother when you fumble three times running the option and then have to pass like Mike Leach, but out of an option set just to have a chance at getting back in the game.

The best part about EA revising the NCAA series again and again is the annual admission of "Yeah, that always worked, because we did it to each other once the game came out, too."

Not to be a historical statistical nihilist, but let's be historical statistical nihilists. Cut any program deep enough with injury, and you will end up with a team bleeding out from the quarterback spot. Hinton and Blutarsky go back and forth on whether the SEC is experiencing a slump at the position. As a tangent to any and all discussions of whether the conference has a slump right now, just examine the OMG STELLAR SEC roster under center in 1995, which you probably in the fuzzy halcyon memories of yesteryear remember as a crew of titans lost to history.

Nope: just dudes, for the most part.

Ronnie Gordon, Vanderbilt. Freddie Kitchens/Brian Burgdorf, Alabama. Mike Bobo, Hines Ward, and Brian Smith. Barry Lunney, Arkansas. Danny Wuerffel, Florida. Peyton Manning, Tennessee. Jamie Howard and Herb Tyler, LSU. Josh Nelson, Ole Miss. Steve Taneyhill, South Carolina. Patrick Nix, Auburn. Derrick Taite, Mississippi State. Billie Jack Haskins, Kentucky.

Holy shit, we can only hope someone with a name like Billie Jack Haskins is at this moment kicking someone to death with a pair of alligator skin boots in the name of redneck justice. Also, as a point of interest, it should be mentioned that Vandy qb Ronnie Gordon had a 9/15, 2 INT, and 9 yard day against Alabama to open the 1995 season. You can't see it, but we're rocking the devil horns as hard as we can right now like it's a Ratt concert.

Regression to the mean is the norm in a multifactorial equation like that of quarterback production, and the current bubble of say, Big 12 passers is pretty much what you see in any major conference: around two guys who will get drafted, say one or two lesser but still notable qbs, and the rest are the Derrick Taites of the world, and will do quite well with a dealership or brokerage with their name on it one day.

Uncle Rhabdo, Your Least Favorite Relative. Rice is proposing mandatory testing for sickle cell trait across all NCAA schools, something they learned the hard way in 2006 when Rice football player Dale Lloyd II died of "acute excertional rhabdomyolosis," a condition often associated with the gene.

Uncle Rhabdo is not your friend: what happens is a rapid breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue through extreme exertion, with the resulting proteins traveling through the bloodstream and into the kidneys for bad things and occasionally fatal kidney failure. To show you how hard you have to work to get to this point without a genetic condition exacerbating the damage: rhabdo is particularly common in earthquake and bombing victims. So, yeah: if someone with sickle cell is going through their own private London Blitz during every brutal two-a-day, then you might want to test for that.

Dear Ed: XOXOXOXO, Sincerely, the Universe. Yes, that man, oh that man:

During one scene, each of the coaches greeted Bullock -- who is portraying Leigh Anne Tuohy -- at the front door of the Tuohys' home. Once inside, the coaches had to recruit Oher and the Tuohys' young son, Sean Jr.

"Orgeron came out of his seat and forearmed the couch," Tuberville joked. "The rest of us looked a little more in control."

Arkansas is your quiet blue-chipper here. DUI, off the team, and we're in need of some Fulmer Cup scoring updates like WHOA.