IT'S A SPECIAL TIME OF YEAR. Easter is a special time. Spend it with those you love, reflect on the bounty and potential of the coming year, and spend the first real weekend of spring enjoying the weather. A quiet, hopeful song of contemplation to get you in the right frame of mind.
YEAAHHHH SHOTS SHOTS SHOTSSHOTSSHOTS
WE REMAINS UNAWARE OF ANY BRATWURST-RELATED CRIMES BUT ACKNOWLEDGE THE REPORT. Mark Richt is aware of the police report suggesting bratwurst-chomping UGA players got into a head-slapping fracas with a pair of married UGA students, but questions remain: what did the wife say to the offer of "black dick?" More importantly, what did the husband say? Did this kick off a tense and often emotionally riveting journey of sexual discovery for the two? Where the hell do you get a brat in Athens late at night, and why haven't you told us about it? Do UGA players indeed have fuck swings ready and installed in their dorm rooms? (If so, this certainly explains why you don't see them out brawling in bars, and their relatively low Fulmer Cup scores.) Is this happening on April Fool's Day the weirdest offseason incident timing ever? Yes? Well, that's one question of many disturbing ones answered.
MISSING ANOTHER POINT. Finebaum's latest column is meta-meta, thus proving that writers in the offseason tend to write about writing no matter their format. He's somewhat right about the fall of the beat writer, who now operates under greater strictures than ever, but skips over one key angle about the rise of "fan-driven" coverage: fans themselves evolve and change and splinter into camps based on their needs and the team. The perfect example of this: SBN cohort Tomahawk Nation, who benefitted immensely both from the gag orders on anything critical of Bowden at Warchant, and who through much hustling have built a huge community over there--and not one we think is overly fawning of the new bosses, either.
Fans will migrate if the coverage is overly critical--take the miserable press situation in Michigan, for example, where the press seems to think they're unearthing laundered millions in a CBO report every time Rich Rodriguez has a minor subject/verb agreement error in his press conference patter. The reverse can happen, but fans will only swallow sunny pablum as long as it has some basis in reality. The only difference between fans is their tolerance for said pablum, which varies wildly.
WHICH IS WHY THEY'LL JUST END UP DOING IT THEMSELVES. Athletic departments will, for coverage, just attempt to bypass the process entirely and do it themselves. Hey, look at those awesome videos on UrbanMeyer.com! (They are, for the record, quite awesome.) And that exclusive video interview of Paul Wulff done by Washington State! (Because, um, no one else was there with a camera. SAD HORNS.) Coverage isn't moving in one direction: it's moving all over the place, and splintering, and evolving into every more squirmy and befanged forms by the day. /endmediatalk
DISNEYWORLD AS AN ANNUAL VISIT OKAY KEEP TALKING. Underage Big East players could be trying to steal beers off the tables of newly cleared tables in Epcot's Germany pavilion if rumors are true, which they sometimes are. Given the options, nabbing the Orlando market isn't a bad move at all, and sets up a hellacious conference rivalry with UCF along I-4. Additional perks: adding UCF fans to the Big East milieu, who are new and therefore like to FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
ANDREW LUCK CAN THROW A BALL THROUGH A FENCE. Not literally, as far as we know, but the rhetorical flourish is not unappreciated in a report about his recovery from having pins in his broken finger removed and returning to practice without a hiccup.
PLEASE TAKE LANE KIFFIN HE WANTS NAY CRAVES A LIVE-FIRE ZONE. The Coaches' Tour, one of the best things you get to read about annually, is cranking up again. We have made all the suggestions we care to make.
MARCHIFORNICATION INTERNET MELTDOWN. You may not even understand everything going on here, but your heart will.