You all know where my focus has been this week, but there has been much afoot elsewhere in the blogosphere and I wanted to direct your attention to the best of it in case you might have missed some of the more noteworthy nuggets. For your edification, these are they:
". . . And to the zoo with Georgia Tech?" I hate it that the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets are going to a good any bowl game, but at least they’re facing the Iowa Hawkeyes, which means they’re being subjected to the righteous and hilarious wrath of the guys who started an Iowa weblog because they thought what Orson Swindle’s sense of humor lacked was a sufficient appreciation for the sublimely profane and hysterically absurd. Take it away, Black Heart Gold Pants!
There’s a joke from the movie "Airplane" about how Louisville likes its coffee to be made here, but I’m not going to make it. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but Charlie Strong is the new head coach of the Louisville Cardinals. Speaking as someone whose alma mater’s offense has spent the last decade or so being stymied by the defenses fielded by Coach Strong at one SEC East rival or another, I can say this day is long overdue, and say so both selfishly and appreciatively. U. of L. got itself a quality head coach, and, while we have to think the Florida Gators (who lost a step after losing their offensive coordinator to the Mississippi St. Bulldogs, and who likely will lose another after losing their defensive coordinator and Tim Tebow in one fell swoop) are due to fall back to the pack a bit in 2010, I don’t like the fact that both we and they are looking to hire defensive coordinators at the same time.
Kid Rock plans to steal this headline for his next album. Speaking of new head coaching hires, the SB Nation headline of the week clearly was the one atop Gobbler Country’s report on the hiring of Mike London by the Virginia Cavaliers. You just don’t get enough Warren Zevon references anymore. By the way, if I ever come up to the plate for an at-bat in Turner Field, I will have them play "Lawyers, Guns, and Money" over the PA system. The foregoing sentence contains the single most useless piece of information I have ever shared with you, and that is saying something.
Where Lane Kiffin blows smoke, there’s fire. Don’t get me wrong; Clay Travis is a friend of mine, at least according to Facebook. However, when he undertook to demonstrate the ephemeral nature of the allegations against the Tennessee Volunteers in a detailed twelve-point exegesis, it seemed to me---and also, apparently, to C&F---that he protested too much. (Also, the headline was a bit sophomoric. If you’re going to go suggestive, why not go with "NCAA Suggests Term ‘Hostesses’ Ends With Six Superfluous Letters"?) Clay is a graduate of Vanderbilt’s law school, so he is familiar with this axiom: "When the law is against you, argue the facts; when the facts are against you, argue the law; when both are against you, pound the table." We are now taking donations to buy Clay Travis a new table, because he just reduced his old one to kindling.
Giving a player I root for an award named for a guy who coached at Auburn, Clemson, and Georgia Tech is like giving David Frum an award bestowed by Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Who should win the Heisman? The better question is, "Why should you care?" The answer is: "You shouldn’t." This has been a public service announcement.
Here’s a hint: the best candidate was once the victim of an inadvertent ethnic slur from the mouth of Jill Arrington, back in the pre-Erin Andrews days when Jill Arrington was the hottest thing stalking (or being stalked on) a sideline. If you haven’t yet voted for David Pollack as the defensive lineman of the decade, do so right now. If you want to bring along a few recently deceased citizens from Telfair County in alphabetical order, more power to you.
I have a hard time believing Aaron Murray wouldn’t have done at least as well. I was impressed with this at first, but then I realized that there’s nothing worthwhile about being third in any category in which Jonathan Crompton ranks fourth.
As a believer in limited government, I once supported the election of a horse to the legislature, secure in the knowledge that he would vote "nay" on everything. I have abandoned politics (except as it relates to football, of course), so, in the spirit of bipartisanship that can only arise from the ambivalence of a former political science major who now recognizes that there is a reason why the Sugar Bowl happens four times more frequently than the Iowa caucuses, I am pleased to add a second name to the list of Georgia Congressmen whom I endorse. (Oddly enough, this happens at the same time that objective journalists are endorsing my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, an office I am not seeking.) You already knew that Representative Jack Kingston (R.-Ga.) was a great American; now you know that Representative John Barrow (D.-Ga.) is one, too. As their distinguished colleague, Representative Corrine Brown (D.-Fla.), would have put it, Congressmen Barrows and Kingstey are superb to all other legislator.
Why they didn’t wait on the bloggers’ ballots before computing the final BCS standings, I have no idea. The final regular-season BlogPoll has been posted and the Alabama Crimson Tide squeaked by with 77 of 78 first-place votes to become the nation’s new No. 1 team. I received some gentle chiding in the "Wack Ballot Watchdog" rundown and was the runner-up for the designation "Mr. Bold," which went to the one guy who voted for the Texas Longhorns in the top spot.
In closing, I would like to recount a conversation had between two friends of mine as we walked to Sanford Stadium for the 1997 Georgia-Auburn game. It was not the coldest Georgia-Auburn game I have ever attended---1995 still takes the top spot in that competition---but it was plenty cold and one of the fellows had been drinking heavily. The one who had been drinking heavily said he was warmer because he’d been drinking heavily. The one who hadn’t been drinking said, "Actually, alcohol doesn’t make you warmer, it just makes you feel warmer." The one who had been drinking heavily gave the one who hadn’t been drinking a hard time over that statement, and he has continued to do so in the twelve years since, but I believe it applies here as well; viz., this posting may not have made you more well-informed, but it should have made you feel more well-informed. In a season of looking at the glass as half-empty, that ought to suffice.
Go ‘Dawgs!