LIFE SOMETIMES SHOWS YOU THE FUTURE AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT. If you saw yourself from twenty years in the future, would you recognize it? We did last night.
Middle Tennessee might have lost the game on the field and in the postgame--you go, Austin Boucher--but they're undefeated in the stands.
THE COTTON BOWL, THE ODD LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BCS BOWLS WHO CAN'T SEEM TO FIND HIS WAY TO THE FAMILY REUNION. The Cotton Bowl is tonight, and you will watch since Les Miles is coaching and therefore reality will be warped, time will melt, and grass will be eaten. ATVS has their preview, and IATTM has theirs, but you know the improbability machine will be engaged and working overtime tonight, and that all preparation is really futile in the face of what will actually happen. As Mike Sherman is fond of saying, "Hhmmm grumble nnngghh what um yeah."
WE DON'T FIND THIS SKETCHY AT ALL. Alabama legislators can buy BCS tickets at face value, which is proof that if you pull at the strings of any large contribution to an athletic department in the state of Alabama, you will eventually unravel the sweater covering the oily flesh of a human sewer rat (or Alabama legislator. Same thing, really.)
EXCELLENCE IN ADVERTISING. The Little Sisters of the Poor have a pretty sizable advertising and promo budget, it seems.
EXCELLENCE IN MARKETING. Your spite can be converted to dollars, but most go through an Auburn-branded rubber stage first before doing so. Then someone in Oregon pees on it, and all are made happy. Adam Smith has to be thrilled by this, both because of the miracle of capitalism working yet again and because Scots just love peeing on things as a sign of disdain. (Via.)
SO YOU'RE SAYING THERE'S A CHANCE! Harbaugh is not going to Miami, at least, so THE DREAM IS ALIVE, Michigan. Tony Sparano should come back, win 12 games, take the Dolphins to the playoffs, and then spike his resignation letter through the owner's car with a grouper gaffe in 2012.
GONE, GONE, GONE: Janoris Jenkins for Florida, Ryan Mallett and the Family Arm for Arkansas, and Mark Ingram and others for Alabama. The Tebow documentary last night did a superb job of capturing what's coming their way for the next few months, including a stomach-dropping cut edit at the end. We had to go look up where he went DENVER OMG SO CRAZY!1!!11!!
HUGHES HIGH MUST HAVE BEEN FUN TO WATCH. Gus Malzahn's wife once traded a car for a used fax machine, one of the many amazing things you can learn in reading George Schroeder's piece on Malzahn's roots in Nowheresville, Arkansas.
COUNTRYFIED. Muschamp is just in his first month as Florida head coach, but he does have the twangy good ol' boy thing down pat, and that should be comforting to those who found Florida's previous two head coaches to be horrible interviews. (And they were.) (It's the fourth interview or so in the queue.)