Our blogpoll is after the jump, and it’s the usual fine mess minus the fine. It was late, as well, and therefore not included in the current tally. We blame repeated viewings of the Big Ten Nutwork video for the delay. (more…)

The Big Ten Network’s new ads–where JoePa flies off the handle and nearly attacks the camera at the end–have been significantly improved by the staff at EDSBS.

GRR!!! Now applaud LSUFreek and pay him ten g’s just for breathing on the mike.

Teams: there are a lot of them. To help provide you with the most outstandingly mediocre coverage of college football, we have Chas from Pitt Sports Blather and the Fanhouse to tell you all one should need to know about the Wannstache, the destructive ball of yardage known as LeSean McCoy, and Pitt football. Enjoy.

Image from Souf Oaklin’, who feels the power of the Wannstache deeply.

One: what color is your season? In other words, please explain the metaphorical state of your program through the metaphor of color.

Blue or bluish-purple. As in everyone is turning that color from holding their breath about this season. Is this the season everyone thinks it could be? Will the injuries devastate the team once more? Just how crazy are we to put all this faith in the Wannstache?

Two: What historical nation and period do you resemble most right now?

It depends on whether I’m on my meds or not.

With Zoloft: United States, circa 1983. (more…)

“To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.”

PS. Yes, there’s EDSBS Live tonight, featuring our guest Ed Orgeron. Correction: we have no guest. Come listen anyway.

This picture is unrelated, because we cannot use the extremely copyrighted name “H—— Trophy.” Carry on.

The odds for the H——- Copyrighted Trophy Not To Be Trifled With are intriguing as always, if only because they attempt to quantify something that is both unscientific and entirely unpredictable: how a bunch of athletes and half-aware sportswriters, under the glare of a media blitz and without a full data set of observed performances or clear criteria, will attempt to choose the best player in college football.

It is speculative garbage in both its ingredients and in the final product, meaning odds based on the likely winner of this process are less than garbage, or some kind of subgarbage garbage talks about in hushed tones at cocktail parties. Even if the process for picking the Trophy Not To Be Trifled with were clearer, the idea of an individual award in a team sport is essentially repugnant to us to begin with, and thus our odds of really caring remain in the neighborhood of us writing this with a caffeine-free bloodstream. (Zero.)

Nevertheless, in the absence of actual football, subgarbage is what we’ve got. The most interesting odds:

Knowshon Moreno, 8/1; Chase Daniel, 6/1. Eh? Knowshon will get the full glare of multiple CBS and ESPN appearances. Daniel will get the occasional Musbergame and Fox Big 12 game. The media whore needle should move Moreno’s number a bit closer to Daniel’s, though the Missouri qb’s Eminem-esque storyline should help him with the media swing.

Sam Bradford, Oklahoma: 14/1. Not bad odds especially now that the sophomore kibosh is off (Viva Tebow!). Also has both knees, thus differentiating him from Jason White and the lingering regret of voters who went that way.

Michael Crabtree and Pat White: both at 10/1. With the promo push White has–and his relative proximity to national media centers and television exposure–having him even with Crabtree is cracktacular.

Dan Lefevour: 70/1 Ironic in that this may both accurately reflect his chances of winning, and may also be his TD/INT numbers in MAC games this year.

Jimmy Clausen, Notre Dame: 80/1 Odds only valid with purchase of red satin Jimmy Clausen drinking jacket.

Full updated odds from Bodog after the jump.

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Of course you need your own sawed-off pair of Texas Longhorns, Aggie fan. In response, Texas fans will soon fuel the growth of a market in collie head trophies, which the Chinese will be happy to supply. On second thought, disregard that first message. Neither fanbase has enough shame not to actually do this, which is one of many reasons why we both fear you, and love you. (HT: Dave.)

Indiana qb Kellen Lewis served a mysterious suspension this past spring, one of those fun undisclosed ones that keeps you wondering where the crime lies somewhere between “missed some class” and “was caught fighting apes in the simian research facility for fun and profit.”

Now we know what that suspension was for: excessive partying, and subsequent class absences and grade slippage. In his own words:

“I must have thought I was in Los Angeles, Calif., or something. I got into the rock star mentality and I took it way too far.”

Kellen Lewis speaks in abbreviations? 3000 yards passing and 700+ yards rushing just hint at the talent there. Perhaps it is best if he stays in Indiana, though, long term-wise: if he displays Hollywood-scale hedonism in podunkish Bloomington, the chemistry resulting from an exposure to actual live nightlife could be disastrous for Lewis. He will start Indiana’s opener, having won his way back into the good graces of head coach Bill Lynch.

Even when unaccompanied by thumping marching band music, Lewis does have his moments:

Hey. YOU!!!

You’re not very tough, or at least that’s what the Dapper Don thinks.

Texas always has a very polished team that has great talent, but they aren’t tough, they aren’t a physically tough team…My defense will get to a point where they will be mean, nasty and ornery bastards and that’s what you need for Texas. Texas will move the ball with tit-for-tat, screens and options, but we’ll make them pay a price whenever they catch one of those dinky passes. We’ll put three hats on them and make them not want to get up, that’s the way to beat Texas.”

Schnellenberger just called you a man too afraid to wear suspenders, Texas. Or he did this, like, a week ago and we didn’t notice. FAU does play hard–their first half against Florida last year was feisty, and only the inevitable talent differential landslide buried them. The knock against Texas not being physical seems odd, though: a top ten run defense, a 17th-ranked run offense, both harbingers of what we would dub a “physical” football team.

We mean, um, YES SCHNELLY. We bring you offerings of our finest retiree-grade rum and Marshall’s menswear in tribute.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!!! We present our preview of all that will happen in the upcoming season. All of this will actually happen in the manner described. If you do not want to know more about the script for the upcoming season, please avert your eyes now.

–North Carolina State will lose to South Carolina when Steve Spurrier, down 17-3 at the half, inserts Steven Garcia into the starting lineup. Garcia will lead the Gamecocks to 28 unanswered points, but will be lost for the season when he becomes involved in a barfight in the early fourth quarter.

–Missouri/Illinois, after nine overtimes, agree to settle the game with a competitive weightlifting match between coaches. This ends badly.

–Ryan Perrilloux plays a superb game for Jacksonville State against Georgia Tech, completing 22 of 34 passes for 279 yards and 3 TDs in a 41-24 loss to the Yellow Jackets. He then retires for a quiet evening of crochet, which helps keeps his hands busy, and watches a marathon of HellDate on BET in the hotel room to unwind. (more…)

“When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.”

LSUFreek would like to point out that though Trindon Holliday didn’t qualify for the Olympics, LSU runner Richard Thompson did. He finished second running for Trinidad and Tobago, beating Walter Dix of Florida State, who celebrated winning bronze by losing by thirty points to Florida. Both would have performed much better had they removed their football helmets.

Next time: helmets off? Got it.

At SMQ’s new digs, much musing is laid on the quarterback situation in the ACC. The Big Ten’s not exactly impressive, either–your triple platinum name is “Todd Boeckman,” who had a season high of 253 yards against Penn State last year. We’ve never heard of him, but wish him luck handing off to Beanie Wells.

Arizona’s TE Rob Gronkowski is impressive and can eat footballs whole, if the picture included with this article is to be believed.

The opportunities for jokes if somehow the Michigan Wolverines had a miraculous season and pulled off a bowl matchup with Georgia would be endless. No pullout from excellence seems likely for WLA and their glorious gift to the people.

It’s good being Chris Rainey, avowed white girl man, in his natural milieu.

Jordan Steffy will again be given the privilege of losing the starting job a second time to Chris Turner, something the gentlemen at Hell in a Red Shell are just bouncy giggle happy-thrilled about:

Yes, that same Steffy who sucked so badly that we were all happy to have Turner under center, and made everyone assume that Turner was the presumptive favorite to be the starter this fall. And since, we’re here to ask the hard questions, we’ll do just that:

What. The. Fuck?

Josh Portis will play in spots, something his mother is just enraged about, frankly.

The Wiz is moving to his very own site. Be advised.

Neither of them were such supple, funky dancers. OMG MISSOURI LOST ITS BEST LINEMEN. Blutarsky addresses the question of overreacting to Trinton Sturdivant’s season-ending knee injury, and why this isn’t affecting Missouri’s buoyancy in the polls.

We’re officially on record as thinking that naming a Bo Schembechler-themed merlot is sacrilege enough to wake the dead into a punching rage, though it’s hard to be enraged about much of anything when the schedule for SEC games has been leaked (blanket allegedlys here.)

We at EDSBS, however, love making a cheap buck as much as anyone else, and therefore pitch the following beverages to the masses. Consider yourself a little focus group, if you will: tell us how you feel about these beverages on a scale from “would drink out of [IMPOSSIBLY ATTRACTIVE FAMOUS PERSON'S ASSCRACK]‘ to “would not drink with a loaded blunderbuss held to our heads.”

Sylvester Croom’s CRÜM. Smooth. Strong. Those who hold on fourth and one, hold CRÜM.

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Brian, who is hung like Reggie F’n Nelson, provides this week’s emergency edition of the Fulmer Cup. Now with more siren to denote lack of time to score points and looming finality to this season’s FC race. Scanty details and refusals to change anything at all follow the jump.

9.0 ypc, 0.16 BAC. Zach Luckett, a wide receiver at Virginia tech, earns the Hokies four points for a DUI and operating a vehicle under a revoked license. The offense is Luckett’s second DUI, but with a 0.16 BAC he’s not even at the Eddie Sutton level of automotive drunkenness. (To be fair: Eddie Sutton’s average may be a 24 hr. constant measure, not just a one-time thing, so Luckett could only top him for short periods, anyway.)

It’s officially garbage time, leaving only two teams really in position to catch Alabama: West Virginia and Missouri. The viability of any team really exchanging places with Alabama is low, low, low: practice is in full swing, players are worked to the bone and under close supervision, and the math doesn’t look promising. Only the promise of returning students, opening week parties, and a slightly weakened out-of-drinking-season tolerance to booze holds any hope of significant change. Kappa Delta rush party and Everclear Sidecars, you’re our only hope!