Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.

SWINDLE, HOLLY, ‘FREEK (Las Vegas):
24 hours in and all still with beating hearts. Dates tomorrow with Red River Shootout, Arkansas-Florida, USC-Notre Dame, Sakerlina-Alabama, and whatever else we can catch in the sports books. Leave your travelin’, viewin’, and drankin’ agendas below, and put in a good word with your gods for us, you angels.

It’s been a harried, busy day in Vegas, so let’s just frame the upcoming day in the proper light with one note: it is an oddity in modern college football that Mack Brown and Bob Stoops get to line up and play the part of Itchy and Scratchy again eight years after Roy Williams superman’d Chris Simms and Texas into defeat. Consider how much has changed, and then consider the rare treat in a game of ever-increasing turnover of having two coaches who have not only taken turns beating each other, but have done so in a rich variety of excruciating ways. No other ongoing, vibrant rivalry has two coaches so willing to take turns incinerating each other, sometimes via a blowout, sometimes with a freakish play like the one above, and sometimes in shootouts like last year’s track meet. The 11:00 am kick is a travesty, but the spite inherent in the rivalry only gets richer when you consider the game of cat and mouse played by two of the best coaches of their generation. And by cat and mouse game, we do not mean hide and seek, but something more like this.

An enchanted meadow. In Missouri.

Oh, Knights of Auldwyn! You shall ne’er triumph against our merry troupe, assembled from only the most enchanted wooded glens and dales? Forsooth, relent in thine advance or taste our magick, the strongest in all creation and Boone County!

Knaves of Auldwyn, more like it! The Tigers Templar hath a boot steak for your dinner, for this be our land you hath traipsed upon! (more…)

…after extremely careful calculations (i.e. a hotel pad and some hasty chickenscratch) we have determined that the thirty dollars from yesterday’s offered apology bet goes to: Notre Dame over USC, straight up.

Mr Swindle, you’ll never regret this. Think of this as the first day of the rest of your life! You may have been unable to get into Notre Dame, but you’re not alone there: many people can’t realize their dream of going to Notre Dame thanks to its rigorous admissions standards and challenging curriculum. In fact, you may be surprised to learn many people most people make the mistake of never even applying to Notre Dame or visiting. This is clearly evidence that “the elected are sometimes the self-selected.” This is a line from my forthcoming motivational and personal growth series “Elect Yourself! Running For the Presidency of Your LIfe.” I have enclosed a copy for review, which would be great if you could do by next week, tweet to your followers, post on Facebook, and suggest to other writers and friends via social networking sites over the coming months. I am available for interviews immediately, but book now! When this thing takes off, you’ll want to be on the ground floor, just like you’ll be in old Notre Dame’s return to glory after betting on them Saturday.

Thank you, Tommy, for your endorsement, and for your terrible motivational book, which we will use for the golden chalice we purchase after raking it in when the Irish, playing with machetes, cut their way through the jungle grass in South Bend en route to a 3-0 win. Matt Barkley will be lost to the Trojans for three weeks when he becomes disoriented, is separated from the group, and lives off sprinkler water and stale popcorn until he is found by the grounds crew somewhere around the 30 yard line.