Action Football! On the Scene: SunBelt Conference Media Days - Day Two

While the BCS conferences' media days were getting all the publicity the last few days, they weren't the only game in town. Buddy and Rochester headed down to the Super 8 in Ruston, Louisiana for the SunBelt Conference's Media Days (July 20 and 21). Here's the report:

Tuesday, July 21

9:20 am
Got some coffee and a lemon poppy seed Otis Spunkmeyer muffin (strongly suspected they were the same muffins from yesterday; possibly same coffee - shame on you Super 8!). Rochester and I met up with Chris P., Gary, and Chris R. from The Rustonian and reviewed today's media schedule. After conculding that we could probably make up quotes from Middle Tennessee, Troy, Western Kentucky, and Commissioner Wright Waters, we decided to get out of there and either play some mini-golf, get some bottle rockets, or shoot off some bottle rockets while playing mini-golf.

9:51 am
Got into West Monroe which, conveniently, had both fireworks stores and a mini-golf place. Wondered how the "announcements and welcome" were going since all the journalists had "[S]kipped that suck-show," Gary (The Rustonian).

10:30 am
While Troy Head Coach Larry Blakeney and quarterback Levi Brown were (probably) taking the "podium" (room 212's dresser, after the tv was moved into the corner), Chris P. (The Rustonian) got a hole in one on one of those L-shaped holes. You know, the one where there's like a triangle in the corner so if you hit it right your ball will go off in a right angle.

11:00 am
Western Kentucky Head Coach David Elson and receiver Jake Gaebler probably started in on how they were excited to be a part of the SunBelt conference or whatever. Rochester ate a big bag of blue cotton candy and drank a Cherry Coke Icee way to fast and had to go sit down because he didn't feel good. Chris R. (The Rustonian) totally shot a bottle rocket through the windmill on the eighth hole. We all gave him high fives except Rochester who was behin the polar bear on the fifth. He said he didn't throw up, but we all thought he did. Sick!

11:30 am
Commissioner Wright Waters started his portion of the day. We finished our round at the mini-golf place. The last hole has one of those traps where the ball goes back to the main office. Only Gary kept his and, after we turned in our putters and started driving away, rolled down the back window and whipped it at the office. He only hit the wall, but if it hit the window, it totally would have broken it! We had to book it back to Ruston because Chris and Chris and Gary's teacher was going to pick them up and if they weren't late the probably would have gotten detentions. Plus, Action Football! probably would have been arrested for kidnapping.

On the way, we brainstormed some fake quotes that those guys could use in their story and then compared mini-golf score cards. Chris P. was three under, Chris R. and Rochester were one under (even though Rochester didn't play the last two holes because he "wasn't" barfing - yeah right!), Gary was one over, and I was, like, five over. What can I say, I suck at mini-golf, haha!

Anyways, the SunBelt Conference Media Days were kind of boring but at least we met some cool dudes.

Don't get to crazy this summer, Chris P., Chris R., and Gary! (p.s. "pancake nachos"...you guys know what that means LOL!)

NCAA Football Week By Week

Week Six

• Purdue a. Minnesota
• UCLA v. Oregon
• Washington v. Arizona
• Florida a. LSU
• Alabama a. Ole Miss
• Utah State a. New Mexico State

Nebraska a. Missouri (AF!) - Pretty slim pickin's this week, SportingNews. Given our established disdain for the SEC, I was reluctant to give a second nod to either Ole Miss or Florida (the former because we're skeptical, the latter because there'll be plenty of talk surrounding every game Florida plays - because, you know, they're going to get the best effort from every opponent blah blah blah), so here you are with a Big 12 North match up. I'm determined to watch more Big 12 football this season (along with, for reasons I can't really explain myself, C-USA), so I'll take my own advice and watch this one. I think I'll also take more of my own advice and go get a burrito.

Action Football! On the Scene: SunBelt Conference Media Days - Day One

While the BCS conferences' media days were getting all the publicity the last few days, they weren't the only game in town. Buddy and Rochester headed down to the Super 8 in Ruston, Louisiana for the SunBelt Conference's Media Days (July 20 and 21). Here's the report:

Monday, July 20

8:00 am
Check in to the Super 8 and pick up media pass. AF! was the only press other than the sports staff from The Rustonian, Ruston Junior High's student newspaper.

9:30 am
Grabbed a coffee and Otis Spunkmeyer cheese streusel muffin from the card table in the lobby. Continental breakfast/Media Day catering: plus - muffin selection; minus - no waffle maker with the batter measured out in Dixie cups like your finer chain motels offer....

9:40 am
Made our way to room 212, Commissioner Wright Waters's room and location of the Media Days meetings since there isn't any sort of meeting room at this Super 8. Room is right across from the ice machine. Lucky Commissioner!

9:45 am
Announcements and Welcome from Commissioner Waters: "Welcome to this year's SunBelt Media Days. We're expecting an exciting, competitive, and successful football season. Well, maybe not so much in terms of non-conference wins or bowl game appearances...but our conference play should be eleventh to none!"

10:00 am
Florida Atlantic Head Coach Howard Schnellenberger and quarterback Rusty Smith. Both Schnellenberger and Smith expressed their excitement to build on last season's 4-3 conference record to challenge for a SunBelt title. In response to a question from Chris P. (The Rustonian), Schnellenberger said, "Half-Blood what now? No, I haven't been to the pictures since I saw Patton in oh, about 1970. Although I did see a part of Batteries Not Included on USA some time ago and thought it was a hoot."

10:30 am
Florida International Head Coach Mario Cristobal and wide receiver T.Y. Hilton. Coach Cristobal deflected questions from Rochester regarding the FIU/Miami brawl from 2006 (Cristobal was an assistant coach at Miami at the time) saying that the brawl was "[D]istant past and not what the program stands for now." He tried to discuss their plans for 2009, but Gary (The Rustonian) starting making fart noises. It was hilarious.

11:00 am
Arkansas State Head Coach Steve Roberts and defensive end Alex Carrington. Did you know that Arkansas State are the Red Wolves? Yeah, neither did we.

11:30 am
Louisiana-Lafayette Head Coach Rickey Bustle and center Chris Fischer. "Second place in the conference [in 2008] is not good enough," said Fischer. "We'll be disappointed with anything less than the conference title." When asked how he'd feel if Lafayette had retained it's original "Vermillionville" monicker, and so maybe he could have played for the Louisiana-Vermillionville Vermillion Villains, he answered with a blank stare.

12:00 pm
ULM Head Coach Charlie Weatherbie and safety James Truxillo. They probably said something about their football team or season or something, but Action Football! was busy playing hangman with The Rustonian. Rochester beat Chris P. ("Obsequious") but Buddy lost to Chris R. (because what the hell is a "Demon King Piccolo" anyway?).

12:30 pm
North Texas Head Coach Todd Dodge and linebacker Tobe Nwigwe. North Texas's portion of the day was cut short because the guy from Domino's showed up early. And besides, 0-7 in conference last season? Those guys must suck. Big time.

That was it for day one. It sure did feel a helluva lot longer than, like, three hours.

NCAA Football Week By Week

Week Five

• NC State a. Wake Forest
• Maryland v. Clemson
• Louisville v. Pitt
• Syracuse v. USF
• California v. USC
• Oregon State a. Arizona State
• Stanford v. UCLA
• Kentucky v. Alabama
• Hawaii a. Louisiana Tech
• Air Force a. Navy
• Northern Illinois v. Western Michigan

Buffalo v. Central Michigan (AF!) - While NC State/Wake Forest is a legitimate contender for this week's game to watch (and certainly will be Rochester's pick...), I decided to go off the radar. The way these SportingNews picks work is they've gone through each team's schedule and decide which would constitute the most interesting or biggest game. The first team listed is the one from whose schedule the game is picked (so Cal's biggest game is USC) which is why the list is neither consistently "versus" or "at." Rarely is the game also the biggest for the second team listed. Buffalo/CMU is one of those rare occurances. So, zango! Top of the list! This game has two things going for it: first, Central Michigan is eyeballing the MAC West title (and the conference title, following); second, Buffalo is hoping to follow up last season's dream run with another solid year. There were a bunch of people that thought Buffalo coach Turner Gill deserved a shot at the big time after last year. While a championship season isn't necessary, a winning record should sew up a few BCS conference job offers in early 2010. A 2-10 season might cause that ship to sail (uh...the sewing ship, I guess, so as to not mix metaphors). Because no respectable program would give a small school coach a shot with a 2-10 record, right?

TuesDay in Football: 37 Days Edition

NCAA
I gotta be honest, there's not a whole heapin' helluva lot going on. It seems like the only thing anybody's talking about are conference media days which, let's face it, are boring as hell.

I suppose if I had to pick one bit of interest from all that chatter (excepting Tebow's cherry) it'd be that the BCS rules have been kajiggered to allow the possibility of a non-automatic bid conference team getting into the Rose Bowl. So...yeah, there's that.

NFL
Pretty much all anyone's talking about is Mike Vick's conditional reinstatement. By all accounts, the condition of his reinstatement is a five game suspension. Look, you can't defend Vick's actions (neither the dog fighting nor the obstruction of justice), but a five game suspension on top of two years in prison sort of seems like piling on to me. I mean, the barrier of entry to Vick was all ready high: two years out of professional conditioning to a quarterback who's relied almost solely on his elusiveness is strike one; the nature of his misdeeds ensures a slew of protests wherever he plays regardless of the PR work, strike two. Teams may have been able to look past those, but that he'll not be able to play until a third of the way into the season? Strike three?

It occurred to me that Bo Pelini looks like Bill Henrickson from Big Love slowly turning into Remy from Ratatouille.

NCAA Football Week By Week

Week Four

• USF a. Florida
• Wisconsin v. Michigan State
• Indiana a. Michigan
• Houston v. Texas Tech
• Rice v. Vanderbilt
• New Mexico v. New Mexico State
• Temple v. Buffalo
• Kent State v. Miami (OH)
• Arkansas State v. Troy
• North Texas v. Middle Tennessee State

Texas Christian a. Clemson (AF!) - As a Wisconsin fan and given what happened in East Lansing last season, I was tempted to make that game our pick. Then, I considered Houston/Texas Tech; chances are good the teams will combine for 100 points at least. In the end, though, TCU/Clemson won out for two reasons: one, it seems likely that TCU will start the season ranked somewhere around #20 and I can't say I know much of anything about them (what can I say, I haven't gotten to the Mountain West part of the SportingNews college football guide); two, while putting together the list of "games to watch" I was surprised at the number of times Clemson showed up as opponents. At least somebody at the SportingNews thinks they're worth a damn, so that's good enough for us. Watching this game will allow me to kill two birds (seeing what the deal is with both teams) with one stone. And probably, like two or three beers.

FriDay in Football: 41 Days Edition

NCAA
Will lower expectations help Georgia this season? Couldn't hurt, I guess. As a Wisconsin fan, I've noticed that the team has done better when they start the season unranked. So that's something....

Boise State will play at Virginia Tech in 2010. It doesn't mention if it's a home-home series (a phrase I've always disliked...I understand it means that each team gets a home game but my brain doesn't work that way; I think it should be "home-away." So there.), but at least if it's a one-off it's not at Boise State. The novelty of that blue field wears off a few minute into a game. Then it just gives me a headache.

NFL
Goody Goodell seems poised to give Mike Vick the go-ahead for signing with a new team. But then might suspend him another four games? Um, okay.... I'da thought that the two years he spent out of the League would be sufficient (not to mention the shit ton of animosity he, and the team that sign him, are likely to get in the future) was punishment enough, but Goodell does what Goodell wants....

Finally, while not really news, Football Outsiders has an interesting article about tabletop football games. I never played them myself - nor did I get into D&D or Magic: the Gathering or comics (Tecmo Super Bowl was my poison, I guess) which is a bit odd, because that's the sort of nerdy bullshit that should have been up my alley as a nerdy kid - but I had a friend that played Strat-o-matic baseball (who, not coincidentally, also played Magic...). The game seemed simultaneously interesting and boring-as-hell. Anyway, with fantasy baseball playing an integral part of The 40-Year Old Virgin and Fanboys being made (though direct to video) and every goddamned toy and board game ever made being optioned for films, if you don't think there's a movie about tabletop sports games in a pipeline somewhere, you're fucking nuts.

At first I was looking for a picture of nerds playing tabletop games, then nerds generally, then I remembered Fanboys and then I was like, "No reason not to post this picture...." It's like, "Hey, Kristen Bell, I'd sure like to Leia!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

NCAA Football Week By Week

Week Three

• Boston College a. Clemson
• North Carolina v. East Carolina
• Miami v. Georgia Tech
• Kansas State a. UCLA
• Texas Tech a. Texas
• Marshall v. Bowling Green
• Alabama-Birmingham a. Troy
• Arkansas v. Georgia
• Fresno State v. Boise State
• Idaho v. San Diego State
• Utah a. Oregon
• Akron v. Indiana
• Toledo v. Ohio State
• Eastern Michigan a. Michigan

Tennessee a. Florida (AF!) - Even with two games featuring three teams still fighting for national respect (Fresno State - who failed to come close to the lofty expectations many had for them at the beginning of last season - against Boise State - while most casual football fans probably know they've been successful lately, few likely realize they've gone 35-4 over the past three seasons - and Utah - who could actually be better than the team that beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl last year - at Oregon), Tennessee at Florida will have the best storyline of the week. After Lane Kiffin spent the off-season bizarrely putting his foot in his mouth time and again, his first taste of SEC football comes not only against Florida, but in Gainesville to boot. You should probably expect Florida to win by nearly ten touchdowns, but in the extremely, extremely rare event that Kiffin's "singing Rocky Top all night" prediction comes true, not only would it be a frontrunner for Upset of the Year, but Tim Tebow would probably committ seppuku at the 50-yard line immediately after the game.

NCAA Football Week By Week

Week Two

• West Virginia v. East Carolina
• Michigan v. Notre Dame
• Minnesota v. Air Force
• Iowa State v. Iowa
• UTEP v. Kansas
• South Carolina a. Georgia
• San Diego State v. Southern Utah
• Wyoming v. Texas
• Bowling Green a. Missouri
• Troy a. Florida

Ohio State v. USC (AF!) - As these weekly previews progress, it's likely that we'll stop picking chalk for the Game of the Week, but, like Virginia Tech/Alabama, I couldn't not pick this one. I did hesitate since probably before the season starts ABC will be pimping this game. Hard. The consequences of this game could be pretty severe. While nobody's really giving a Big Ten team a chance to play in the BCS National Championship I say don't be too sure. There are only two games that should give Ohio State trouble this year and this is one of them (at Penn State on November 7 is the other). A relatively high ranking heading into the season and an early season win against Southern Cal - a distinct possibilty considering the game's in Columbus, the Buckeyes are lining up with a presumed-more-composed-and-game-ready Terrelle Pryor, and the Trojans are in a rebuilding (or "reloading" if you're in the "a program like USC don't rebuild..." camp) year - could set the stage for an eventual #2 - or God forbid #1 - ranking everbody loves to hate. Still, though, as long as there's a human component to the BCS rankings, I expect a two-loss SEC, Big 12, or even Pac-10 team to have a better shot at the NC than an undefeated Big Ten team.... Oh, and if I hadn't picked this game, I'd have gone way off the radar with Texas at Wyoming if only because how in the hell did Wyoming convince Texas to play them in Laramie?

NCAA Football Week By Week

Listeners to Action Football!'s podcast know that we like to rip stuff off. For instance, when we discussed NFL weekly recaps and previews, we used the Quad Fours (CBS Sports' Pete Prisco's Power Rankings). While we're determined to do our own power rankings this year, that doesn't mean we're done ripping off other people's work.

Though we don't have the recording date set, like last year our first episode will be an NCAA preview and as a starting point, we'll use The SportingNews' top 25 and conference predictions. (Speaking of top 25s, this year will be jettisoning Action Football!'s Amalgamated Top 25 for our very own picks. Whether that will be one list we agree upon or two that we each keep remains to be seen, but our first probably won't be until a few weeks into the season because, frankly, what does anyone really know now anyway?)

This is basically a long-winded way to bring up the always excellent SportingNews College Football preview magazine (on newstands now!), which will be our reference for our aforementioned "starting point." In each team preview, they list one "must see" game. We've gone through all the FBS teams and compiled those games by week, and will list them for you here over the next few weeks along with selecting one game as the Action Football! pick (subject to asterisks, I guess, since I'll be the one picking them and Rochester may have other ideas). What's the point in listing games to watch at least six weeks in advance (today's) and as much as five months in advance? Well, to be honest, it's easy content. And also, it's never too early to put the Louisiana-Lafayette/Louisiana-Monroe game on your Google calendar....

When the season starts, we'll repost that weeks SN picks to save you the trouble of searching the archives because we're good like that. Anyway, without further ado:

Week One

• Florida State v. Miami
• Rutgers v. Cincinnati
• Illinois v. Missouri
• Oklahoma State v. Georgia
• Texas A&M v. New Mexico
• Memphis v. Ole Miss
• Tulane v. Tulsa
• Oregon a. Boise State
• Washington State v. Stanford
• Nevada a. Notre Dame
• New Mexico State v. Idaho
• BYU a. Oklahoma
• Colorado State a. Colorado
• Ohio v. Connecticut
• Miami (OH) v. Kentucky
• Western Michigan a. Michigan

Virginia Tech v. Alabama (AF!) - I very nearly went with Memphis/Ole Miss since everybody seems to be jockin' the Rebs and Action Football!'s not buying what they're selling, but I couldn't not pick this one. With Virginia Tech a somewhat fashionable darkhorse National Championship pick and Alabama looking to show that their late season #1 ranking before ending the season with two consecutive losses (Florida in the SEC Championship game and Utah in the Sugar Bowl) wasn't a fluke both teams have a bunch riding on this one.

WednesDay in Football: T-Minus 43 Days Edition

NCAA
Some guy got kicked off Penn State's football team for a DUI. Since when is a single DUI grounds for dismissal especially at Penn State?

There was a break in at Texas A&M's football complex. According to the story "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You" - which, apparently, is the name of a song traditional at UT although it most decidedly conjures images of The Hills Have Eyes...like, "The Eyes of the Hills of Texas Are Upon You"... creepy - was written in athletic tape. Although that hints at some sort of UT students involvement, don't count out the possibility of it actually being staged by A&M students to make it look like it was done by UT students. Like in The Best of Times when Robin Williams dressed up as the opposing mascot and splashed paint on the wives/cheerleaders in order to get Kurt Russell fired up to play the big game and HOLY SHIT IS KURT RUSSELL'S CHARACTER'S NAME REALLY RENO HIGHTOWER? Good lord, if I ever need to change my name from "Buddy Randolph" it's going to be to Reno Fucking Hightower! Anyway, while some "athletic items" were stolen, all you really need to do to sabotage A&M's football team is to allow Mike Sherman to be the head coach. Zing. The best part of the story, though, is that "burglars" is used in the headline. "Burglars." Classic.

NFL
Now, I'm not saying Ben Roethlisberger's a rapist, but come on. I mean really....

And speaking of Goody Goodell, Der Kommissar may meet with Mike Vick this week. Of course, people are going to assume the meeting's related to reinstatement, but I'm not buying it. My money's on tips for starting a League sanctioned dog fighting ring or advice on coming up with a totally bitchin' alias.

BURGLARS!

What the hell happened to Freedom of Information Act?

Oh my! My hats off to you, fellow pervert. What the article doesn't say is where the camera was found, what it had on the tape, or who put it there. I mean, what the Sam Houston State does "a private moment" mean? So, in true spirit of the blogosphere and the ever deteriorating validity of modern media, I am going to make random guesses on all three and hope a wire service takes it and runs with it:

1. The camera, placed in Erin Andrews's closet, filmed an hour and a half of Ms. Andrews crying in the closets and ensuring herself, "Tebow will get another year. Tebow will get another year." The police are holding Jesse Palmer in connection to the crime.


2. The camera, placed in Erin Andrew's bedroom mirror, filmed 20 minutes of Ms. Andrews looking in the mirror and saying repeatedly, "Fuck you, Hannah Storm. I am a blond. Fuck you, Hannah Storm. I am a blond. Fuck you, Hannah Storm. I am a blond."


3. The camera, placed in Erin Andrew's bedroom mirror, featured a drunken same sex hook-up with Suzy Kolber. In the tape, Ms. Andrews looks drunkenly into Ms. Kolber's eyes and mutters, "I wanna kiss you." There is also a reference to "shoving a lil' something into your ESPN2". It was also called "The Deuce".


4. The camera, placed in Erin Andrew's bathroom mirror, shows a man who looks like Tyler Perry. However, after 45 minutes of make-up, Mr. Perry appears to become Ms. Andrews. (Ed. Note: GODDAMN! THAT TYLER PERRY MOTHER FUCKER IS IN EVERYTHING!)


5. The camera, placed in Erin Andrew's bedroom mirror, shows her in a head to toe latex outfit. 10 minutes later, a man with a paper bag enters the room. Ms. Andrews pays him money, the man places the paper bag on the foot of the bed and then goes off camera. Ms. Andrews cuts a hole in the mouth of her latex suit and opens the bag. She takes out a large silver torpedo-shaped object. Fumbling with her latex gloves, she struggles with silver object. After 5 minutes, the man comes back into camera and snatches the object from Ms. Andrews. He unwraps the object. It is a foot long meatball hero from Salvio & Paulie Pizzeria-magorium. The man leaves and Ms. Andrews proceeds to go to town on that hero.

A Raspberry Retort

Last week, NC State LB & the people's champ, Nate Irving, was in a car accident. He has been listed as doubtful for the season. It has been speculated that he might be out for 90% of the season. However, Action Football! has unnamed sources that state, "the car accident was extremely severe" and "Irving is lucky to be alive". Yeah, I am that kind of wired to the Triangle. I am like a straight version of J. Edgar Hoover. Caulton Tudor, who might writes for the News & Observer and abuses small animals while high on stolen pain medications from Iraq war veterans, wrote this article last week on the Nasty Nat Irving car accident. He makes some points, but that dog just doesn't hunt.

The fact about THE NC State University football without Nate Irving was that it was not just Nate Irving who was out. Sure, Russell "The Like Muscle" Wilson was out for some of the same games as Irving comes into to play. Yet, Tudor does not take into account the fact that Micheal-Alan Cash (God, I was hoping NC State would get a DE named John Tango!) and Clem Johnson (Wait, there is a black guy named Clem?) were out concurrently with Irving during some of NC State uglier loses last season. Also, last season was a record for Coach Tom O'Brien on the number of players he has on the DL. O'Brien's record and training staff, that he brought from Boston "Chestnut Hill" College, have a history of players not being hemmed up too long or even a being on it to start.

M-A Cash and Clem Johnson turned out to be great players in Tom O'Brien system last year. Clem Johnson was one of the first real signs of leaving the Chuck Amato system of man coverage, where a player needs to be able to run like a damn gazelle and may need to tackle someone from behind on the 1 yard line, to the Tom O'Brien/Mike Reed system of zone coverage, where you need to hit the living Buh-Jesus out of the man in your zone and make sure he-no-wanna-catch the ball again. Cash was just a typical O'Brien tackle, gumming up the works in the middle and making the offenses problems that much worse. When all 3 players were together on defense, well, good thing happened (see UNC game 2008).

Losing Irving hurt the team this year, undoubtedly. But, in major college football, you need to be ready for such problems and be able to adjust to it quickly. I am sure that Dwayne "The Shelby Sensation" Maddox is ready. Plus, it is July. There is plenty of time to adjust. I hope that Nate Irving gets back healthy and ready to play in 2010, more the former than the latter.

How's this for a lazy-ass post?

So you should go over here and read this. You probably won't regret it.

Yoo-hoo! Whose the bear?

I was perusing the latest copy of The Sporting News. They had a preliminary top 120 for college football. It was a bit different because they asked other people in the game their opinions of the poll that they had. This isn't all that amazing except they felt it might be a good idea to talk to Kent State RB Eugene Jarvis. TSN has Kent State 118 out of 120. That has to be one of the worst things to happen to the Kent State student body in the last 40 years.

Not too bad of an article, except Notre Dame is 18th on the poll. Wha?! If it was a man pole, then I could see putting Notre Dame 1st. But, 18th?! Zam! TSN asks Chicago Bears DE and former IU Hoosier, Adewale Ogunleye, his views on the poll. His response:

"Whoever put Notre Dame in the top 30 needs to be fired."

Mr. Ogunleye is vying for Marshawn Lynch's position has Action Football!'s favorite player. And it might just work.

WednesDay in Football

NFL
Apparently, LenDale White's tired of LenWhale cracks because he's vowing to keep his weight down. Chances of that actually happening? 0%

Speaking of playing percentages, Charlie Batch told the 2009 NFL rookies that there's a "'100 percent' chance of a league-imposed lockout in 2011." To be frank, the only thing Charlie Batch is qualified to discuss as being 100% certain is his chances of appearing in a used car commercial.

NCAA
It seems like the only break NC State's Nate Irving can catch is a broken leg. And a collapsed lung, I guess. Seriously, though, the Wolfpack's defense last season was a different beast with Irving in the line up. It'd be a pretty sever blow to the team if he missed much or all of this season.

At the risk of this turning into a suuuuper nerdy rant, ex-college football players have got to stop suing Electronic Arts over using their likenesses in the NCAA football games. First it was Sam Keller, now some jerkweed that even Rutgers fans haven't heard of. First off, if these dudes won their suit, EA would just have to make every player in the game one inch taller or shorter, five pounds heavier or lighter, and shift each number up or down by one. As long as the rosters and players are editable, somebody will fix them, upload them to an EA locker, and all that effort will be for naught. Secondly, if anybody had a legitimate claim that EA was profiting from their image, it'd be somebody like Tim Tebow or Jahvid Best, because I can guarantee you that nobody but nobody bought NCAA 04 specifically to play as Ryan Hart....

I saw this at EDSBS. I defy anyone to watch this and not peek at their calendar to see how far off September 3rd is.