Posts by Brian Grummell at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

3 ... 2... 1 ... Splat, in a straw cowboy hat. Not sure whether this was a puke-and-rally scene or if Ohio State's star cornerback (formerly pictured at right -- we're working to add the picture again) executed the El Foldo maneuver and called it a night.

Background: Playboy invites players named on its preseason college football All American team to hang out, bond, and, well, party together before the season.

They take group pictures for the magazine, but otherwise have a lot of free time on their hands. Sometimes that free time is spent wearing silly straw cowboy hats. Sometimes it's spent with women you won't be taking home to mother.

... And sometimes its spent refunding your lunch and all the good stuff that had you so cheerful earlier in the evening. Dagnabbit (sorry, straw hat talking there).

More documented fun at the link. Hint: USC's linebackers dwarf James Laurinaitis.

Update: Looks like the thread was pulled with all the images from the event. Hmm. Most of the pictures in the now-escaped thread showed several Ohio State and USC players hanging out together, partying, with women, etc. Standard stuff. And of course the former picture of Jenkins above losing his lunch. You'll have to take our word for it. It was funny. Bent over puke on the sidwalk funny. Darn lawyers.

The SEC has long been known as a place where defense rules in college football. Maybe some of that had to do with the league's generally minimal focus on offense for so many years, but we can debate that in another entry. Regardless, its defensive credibility is rock solid.

But in recent years, a steady influx of offensive changes from coaches to schemes has balanced the league and made it all the more dangerous.

But, as noted at the Daily Texan, there's also been a barely noticed flow of defensive coaching talent away from the SEC. Former Auburn star defensive coordinators Gene Chizik and Will Muschamp have made their way to the Big 12. Chizik was Texas' defensive coordinator before being hired as the head coach at Iowa State. Muschamp, meanwhile, is Texas' new D.C.

Elsewhere, former Alabama defensive coordinator Joe Kines is now the D.C. at Texas A&M. Chances are, those three have been adequately replaced, but their departure and the SEC's changing offensive makeup seems to indicate a change from the All D, No O days of SEC past. I doubt wide open offensive football with not much defense like on display in the WAC ever finds a home in the SEC. OK, severely doubt it. But it is interesting to note a modest departure of defensive coaching talent as a steady wave of offensive coaching talent moves in.

Related: I wonder if this perks up the state of defense in the suddenly wide-open, quarterback loaded Big 12?

(Via: Football Rumor Mill)

This is heartbreaking.

Strolling the internets today I've already found two stories of college football championship rings being up for sale on eBay. Florida State and Auburn fans, you must be proud!

I realize hard times regularly happen to even the best of us, and good athletes sometimes get coddled and lose touch with reality and how to do the little things like manage their money. But this stinks.

Given the imperfection of college football's championship system, and the alignment of stars needed to even come close to a title even at a big time national power, it's almost absurd someone would want to part with an actual piece of evidence that they won a title. These aren't exactly like the "place" medals you get for competing in a basketball or football rec league as a kid, you know?

Especially damning is this happening to Auburn, where they didn't, in fact, win a championship in 2003/2004. But dammit if they didn't put it on t-shirts and a ring. Maybe I should be laughing, instead.

Like boom boom, world's gonna end crazy talk.

[USC fans] know that [Ohio State is] gonna slaughter the Trojans, and therefore they do not want me there at the bloodbath, since it's probably the last football game we'll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama.

Uh huhhhh. Oh, and the conservative Los Angeles based radio host wants his USC listeners to offer him tickets. Good luck with that.

Crazy as this sounds, I'm actually going to defend Hewitt a bit.

I won't defend the world's-gonna-end part, I'll leave that to our sister site News Bloggers to have fun with, but since we're talking college football here ... let it be known Hewitt is an unabashed Ohio State and Notre Dame (and Michigan) guy. USC naturally gets under his skin. I've listened to his show enough to know that one of his favorite things to do is bash USC. It's his schtick, and he gets particular glee from it considering the greatest chunk of his national audience is in USC-mad Orange County, where he also works as a law professor.

I've seen this act before and taken out of context it sounds crazy, but he truly is just being himself and hoping for a rise out of the USC contingent within his listening audience. As a person holding tickets to that game, I won't be offering Hewitt mine, nor do I think it will be a bloodbath in the Buckeyes' favor. But I am thoroughly amused at his opinion, which is what he was aiming for in the first place.

Now about that world's-gonna-end thing ...

(Via: Get The Picture / EDSBS)

I like Erin Andrews. She's blonde and pretty and as my colleague Brian Cook so eloquently put it, she's not terribly annoying. But to date I've managed to safely avoid the whole weird stalker thing if you don't count the whole "Why Did Herbstreit just call her Poopsie?" thing.

Others? Not so much.

If giving further oxygen to the "Erin Andrews + male admirers" phenomena is your bag, however, we've got great news: you can now own your very own Mr. Erin Andrews t-shirt.

How long before someone gets their mug wearing this shirt blasted all over SportsByBrooks, FanHouse, etc. doing something stupid in the presence of the poor Ms. Andrews? Or at least, Photoshopping themselves doing something stupid. My money's on: not long.

(Via: Hot Clicks)

I wish I was joking. His name's David Buehler (Bueller? Bueller?) and he clocks a 4.49 in the 40-yard-dash. That's uhhhhh, really fast. Need proof? Posted below are times from USC's recent end-of-spring combine. Dude can fly.

Buehler came to USC out of a junior college where he was a safety as well as the kicker. Unlike 99.9% of kickers out there he's a legit athlete. Like 100% of all kickers, he's still a kicker, and being an actual football player does little to diminish their standing as football's second class citizens.



I wish there was YouTube of this, but I remember in a game last year probably against Washington State he hilariously ran down a kick returner from behind. You can go a decade and sometimes not see something like that.

In lieu of meaningful video, we'll leave you with Buehler mic'd up at a USC practice.

Since gas prices are the topic du jour these days, I guess we're bound to find articles like these where a couple struggles with all-important decisions about ... their expenditures towards college football.

That could be particularly problematic for K-State, a school with no major population base nearby. Wildcat fans are scattered from Garden City to Kansas City, and all will be paying a much higher price for weekend road trips.

"Any school that has a relatively small population and is not on the cusp of a metropolitan area, it's bound to have an impact," [Kansas State Deputy Athletic Director Jim] Epps said.

The greatest impact might be yet to come. While many fans seem willing to bite the bullet this season, that could change if gas prices climb even higher next summer.

For Zack McNett, it might mean giving up the football road trips altogether.

"It's a legitimate possibility," he said. "I'd probably just pay $50 to get all the channels and try to pick up as many games as I could on television."

How much of this is just water cooler talk about the economy and how much will actually be realized at the stadium and at the cash register I don't know. I have a feeling that unless gas prices really soar (like, $10/gallon soar), the impact won't match the worry generated by scary headlines. That isn't to say the impact of rising gas prices isn't being felt.

The University of Georgia's awesome English bulldog UGA VI died Saturday at the age of nine of congestive heart failure.

He is a dog so these things happen from time to time, and Georgia will most certainly have a succession pooch ready in short order. But it's sad news just the same, as UGA is one of the better live mascots in all of sport and a face for the entire Georgia athletics program.

UGA was a fixture "between the hedges" on the Georgia sidelines at football games, taking in his 'Dawgs and offering a few barks when the mood struck. He actually goes down as the winningest UGA in program history, as Georgia football went 87-27 during his tenure. How much of that was due to coach Mark Richt and how much was the good grace of UGA, we'll let you decide.

Regardless we enjoyed writing about him here. There was actually speculation last year might be his last before heading to retirement, but it appears a call to puppy heaven made that decision for his owner, Frank W. "Sonny" Seiler. Our condolences to Seiler and the entire Georgia athletics family.

Interesting trivia: Seiler -- and UGA V -- were prominently featured in the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil".

Much more coverage can be found at Georgia Sports Blog.

Context!

CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd wrote an article about USC offensive line coach Pat Ruel, discussing his itinerant career, accomplishments -- and man date with Pete Carroll before accepting the USC job.

Carroll worked all the angles. The two had been assistants together at Arkansas in 1977. USC's coach used picturesque Manhattan Beach to his advantage, taking his recruit to lunch there on a sun-splashed day.

"Pete's like a beautiful woman," Ruel said after taking the job. "The closer you get, you better look out. He is very charismatic. He can smile and make you feel like a million dollars."

I wonder who he thought of when calling Carroll a beautiful woman? Jessica Alba, perhaps? Or Halle Berry? Maybe Angelina Jolie? Maybe Cook's girl, Scarlett Johansson. Or maybe one of my favorites, Diane Lane? The world may never know.

One thing we do know, when your masculinity is set -- see: coaching offensive linemen and ownership of one awesome moustache -- you can safely get away calling your boss a beautiful woman. Just don't do it too often.

That apple fell far from the tree, politically. And, perhaps, in overall football competence.

So anyway, Penn State quarterback coach Jay Peterno spends some of his workday hours blogging in support of Barack Obama. I'm not here to judge but it seems an unusual use of office time for someone basically credited with the disastrous Penn State quarterback situation the last few years. And of course, Penn State fans are letting him hear about it.

By Joe Eb from York, PA Jun 20th 2008 at 9:52 am EDT And Jay you should be worrying about the offense of a college football team that has a LOT of questions, not blogging about Obama.

By Jay Paterno Jun 20th 2008 at 10:02 am EDT For your information our offense was #1 in the Big Ten last year in the only two categories that we really look at: the key situations of Red Zone and Third Downs (and to a lesser extent 4th downs where we ranked #7 in the nation).

Yeah. Read the whole thing for inevitable comment deletions, "Zach Mills" never-ending arguments and other hilarity.