THE CURIOUS INDEX, 2/17/2012

THAT IS A VIOLENT FRUIT. VEGETABLE. WHATEVER. Delta State, home of the Fightin' Okra, show the proper method for explaining how you explain having a fruit/vegetable/unclassifiable plant matter as your mascot. Answer: YOU DON'T.

Well-executed play there, Delta State. Just try pulling that shit at Ohio State, brah. They're all waiting for the call for walk-ons, and we are not exaggerating, since the reason everyone at OSU wears jerseys is the widespread belief that, like ancient Spartans, any one of them could be called into combat duty at any second. They will deny thinking this if you ask them about it. That is how you know they are lying.

CALLING THOSE AFOREMENTIONED WALKONS. We're going to write a bit more about the horrors of undersigning later, but one specific detail about undersigning's damage to collegiate athletics? The dilution of athletic talent by the filthy hoi-polloi of walk-ons. Ahem:

Dear [student name], UF students interested in walking on to the Gator Football team, please visit the Florida football office at 4:45 on Friday, February 17th. The football office is located on the second floor of the stadium on the West side. Please enter the football office via the Bill Heavener Football Complex entrance (located on the corner of Gale Lemerand Drive and Stadium Road). If you have any questions please contact the Football office by email footballmail@gators.ufl.edu or by phone 352.375.4683 x4100. Thank You and Go Gators!

Scholarship athletes of Florida, protest this appeasement of the looter class at once! Don't go Galt, though. That's strictly the province of Maryland players under Randy Edsall, and you really don't want to bite the political stylings of the ACC.

A.C. LEONARD IS SUSPENDED, BUT NOT GONE. Will Muschamp suspended him indefinitely, so he could in theory return to the team. How this will happen when the testimony in the case has Leonard dragging a woman out of an apartment by her hair is difficult to reconcile with "giving a shit about things your players do," but maybe she was actually a giant and very hostile possum, and this is all a horrendous misunderstanding! (Probably not!)

ALABAMA IS CUTCO KNIVES. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE. HELLO RECRUIT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CRIMSON TIDE.

PLAYING LSU 18 TIMES IN 18 YEARS AND ALABAMA JUST THREE WOULD BE PERFECT. Bill C's answer to the SEC recruiting jam is simple: eliminate the rivalries without any real significance, and protect the good ones with a ferocity. Hello again, Florida/LSU and Alabama/Tennessee; goodbye, Vandy/Ole Miss and Arkansas/South Carolina. Bill's setup also keeps the SEC's oldest rivalry, Auburn/UGA, alive. So easy, bros. DUHHH.

LOUISIANA STATE IS VERY POPULAR IN THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA. It's not the knockoff Adidas shirts we saw that had the word "airport" on them, but they're close.

A LETTER TO THE PARTNERSHIP AT THE END OF THE WORLD. If the Classical were going to write about college football, well, of course it would be about the impending Mountin' USA conference.

ETC: House of Sparky does the "this thing is like this thing," but it's done well so applause all around. Martin Amis wrote a book about Space Invaders, and is deeply ashamed of it. Slobber-worthy recruiting video well sure. Anthony Shadid, Packers fan and foreign correspondent, died yesterday of an asthma attack. He was very good at both things, and will be missed. The Daily Show pretty much ends any discussion on Jeremy Lin from this point out.