Deadspin posted a pic, taken by an Alabama fan in Jacksonville, FL.  The fan claims the photo looks like a silhouette of dead ‘Bama coach Bear Bryant.

Come on now.  Even by hysterical college football fan standards, this is insanity.  It’s a cloud.  It’s a random collection of water molecules; not god sending you a message that he loves Bear Bryant and the Tide.

What’s next?  A tornado in the shape of Nick Saban’s hair?  Maybe a hurricane swirl that looks like Mark Ingram’s mustache?

I know football is life down there.  I know nothing matters more than the Tide and their place in the college football hierarchy.  I know that you think the rest of us are all soft, wishy-washy, communists who don’t know anything about ball and commitment to the team.  I understand all that.

Clouds?

Oh, and one other thing, that cloud looks exactly like Bear Bryant.

Thomas, who red shirted last season, was arrested after being tased Sunday morning at 4:51 am. He was found nude (of course) in the upstairs bedroom of a house. When police arrived at the scene, they told Mr. Naked to get on the ground. Like most people who are awake and naked at 4:51 am, he refused, assumed a ‘three-point’ stance and made a move for the officers.

ZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAPPPPPP!

That’s Rose Bowl level mischief right there. Oh yeah, he got kicked off the team. Then there’s that.

Hey buddy, let me help you with something. This goes for you and all of your fellow football players at Oregon State and every other program for that matter. There are exactly zero scenarios that will require you to assume a three-point stance outside of the football field. None. If you feel the need to ‘put your hand in the dirt’ (or in this case the carpet) and you aren’t playing a game or at practice, don’t. Stop what you are doing and re-evaluate what is going on. Because odds are, you are about one ‘snap’ away from going to jail.

Your boss at the insurance agency won't have you assume a three-point stance. Or, if he does, you should quit. The sales manager is not going to see how quickly you can get off the line and get to the quarterback. Just stay on two feet like, I don't know, a person, and calmly let them arrest you without you being forced to ride the lightning.

Those guys in the blue uniforms, the ones with the guns and the sticks and the thousands of volts of electricity strapped to their belts; those guys aren’t the other team. They aren’t protecting their QB, they are trying to get a naked guy out of some woman’s house who doesn’t want random naked dudes in her house at 4:51am.

Go Beavers. Let the football season and all of it’s associated, fantastic criminality begin!

Garrett raised big bucks for the school athletic department, and stumbled into the hiring of Pete Carroll as head coach of the football team, and built the beautiful Galen Center, but he was also at the controls when the NCAA came in swinging an axe. He was either complicit in the payment of players like OJ Mayo and Reggie Bush, (unlikely), or was purposefully ignorant of what was taking place in his own backyard for fear of what he might find out if he asked some simple questions, (probable).

However, worse than being intentionally stupid was being brazenly arrogant. A full day hadn’t passed before Garrett went before a group of Trojan boosters and declared,

“As I read the decision by the NCAA, all I could get out of all of this was … I read between the lines and there was nothing but a lot of envy, and they wish they all were Trojans.”

Huh? He may as well have dropped his pants while at the podium and relieved himself in front of everyone, it would have had the same effect...he was shown the door. The football program gets slapped down for three years because of rampant cheating, recruiting is damaged for years on your watch and THAT is your response? See ya’.

Years of being secretive, elusive, and hostile towards the media may have worked when the football team went BCS title hunting every year for the better part of a decade, but once you got popped for cheating, you needed to do a little more than go to the ‘Everyone wishes they were us’ card.

As for Pat Haden, it’s both great news and a little scary for the millions of front runners who call themsevles USC football fans. The car flags and license plate frames that dot the city when the Trojans are in the Top Five may be hard to find in the immediate future.

The good news is that Haden is, by almost unanimous account, an honest, hard working, and aboveboard operator. What happened on Garrett’s watch will not happen with Haden as the headman in Heritage Hall.

That's also the bad news.

Corners won’t be cut, agents will not be allowed to roam the sidelines with envelopes stuffed with cash and real estate deeds. Someone will be asking questions, not looking the other direction when someone shows up with a new car.  He is already sending back Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy.

Men’s basketball coach Kevin O’Neill won’t be able to get away with a Tim Floyd-esque, ‘OJ Mayo just called me and said he wanted to play here. Is that cool?’ explanation as to how the country’s most visible and sought after high school basketball player showed up at a school across the country; a school with no basketball pedigree.

Pat Haden might ask a follow up question that Mike Garrett never would. Something along the lines of “What, do I look stupid? I went to Oxford, you idiot. What do you mean OJ wants to play here? How? Who is setting this up? Rodney Guillory? The same guy who screwed us with Jeff Trapagnier? You want to have the NCAA set up shop on campus and have them start asking even more questions? Get the hell out of my office.”

The program will be cleaner, but don’t anticipate it being better. The days of nearly free houses for player’s parents are probably done for a while. Lane Kiffin may have been able to do Lane Kiffin things if Garret was the one looking (or more to the point not looking) over his shoulder. With the NCAA already gutting the Trojans for the next three years, Haden can’t afford to let Kiffin do what he did in Tennessee, namely, play in the NCAA gray areas and hope it goes his way.

USC did the right thing in making a change, Garrett was ultimately responsible for what went down while he was in charge (so is Pete Carroll for that matter), and he needed to go.

Pat Haden is a solid choice. A Trojan, a former athlete, and bright mind (Oxford!). Just don’t expect another run of seven straight BCS games. You need envelopes full of cash and free houses to get that done.

1.Yes, I know it is about money; TV deals; money; getting into the BCS; money; competing with the SEC; and money. I just don’t care. If you thought any of this was about anything other than money for the last 40 years, you are as dense as Jeremiah Masoli.

2.Nebraska going to the Big 10 is hilarious. That the Big 10 took the fourth best team out of the Big 12 as their signature move is very funny. Nebraska may pack their stadium, sell lots of gear, and live and breathe football, but they are not national players. Actually, scratch all of that. They are the perfect Big 10 team.

3.Basketball simply doesn’t matter. How do I know? Because Kansas is practically radio-active in the race to find a new conference. Kansas basketball is about as ‘blue chip’ as it gets, but Kansas football is a dog and because of that, no one wants them. The NCAA tournament might be a blast to watch, the best thing to bet on, but when it comes to mattering with ADs and university presidents, it couldn’t matter less. Maybe if Mangino were still there, things would be different. They would for me, I know that much. I miss him already.

4.The football is going to be fantastic. A conference with Texas, Oklahoma, and USC is immediately the best conference in America. FACT. Suck it, SEC.

5.Oklahoma being lumped in with the ‘five other schools’ is priceless. Texas and ‘five other schools’ will join the Pac-10. Oklahoma was just put into the same category as Texas Tech. That’s funny. Very funny. They had an inferiority complex to begin with and now this. Hey, at least you matter more than Washington State. I guess.

6.‘Bye-bye’ to the charade of the Pac-10 being an ‘academic’ conference. Cal, Stanford, UCLA are now in the same conference as Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. You sold your academic soul for football. Never speak of academics again. Not with the Cowboys and Red Raiders in your house.

7.Finally the people of Corvallis and Pullman will have cities to make fun of. Lubbock and Stillwater are not popular vacation destinations.

8.USC is in big trouble. Sanctions, loss of bowl games, and two new monster teams that are going to battle them for recruits and headlines. New coach plus sanctions, plus loss of scholarships, plus Mack Brown in LA living rooms equals Lane Kiffin getting his ass kicked.

Or so we have been told. It obviously isn’t nearly as difficult as all that because Oregon quarterback, errrr, former Oregon quarterback, Jeremiah Masoli was able to do it and do it well. And as recent developments prove, he might be one of the biggest idiots in the state of Oregon, if not the entire west coast.

Masoli, who was on probation after stealing laptops and a guitar from a fraternity, was kicked off the team for being colossally stupid. Masoli was stopped by police for a routine traffic violation, cited for driving with a suspended license, failure to stop, and possession of a small amount of marijuana.

Stoo-pid.  Or, as Homer Simpson says, "Stupid like a fox."

Not the weed. I don’t care about that. If he likes to get high, whatever. His stupidity got him run, not the weed. Sure, the weed was the kicker, but his lack of basic human intelligence got him booted. If he is so stupid that he couldn’t stay out of trouble for one year, then he is too stupid to be on a football team. If he is so stupid that he couldn’t drive a car with a suspended license and weed in his pocket without getting pulled over, then he sure as hell isn’t smart enough to be on the team. If he is so stupid that he couldn’t come to a full stop despite a suspended license, weed, and knowing he was this close to being off the team for being a thief, then he deserves to get sent home.

Jeremiah Masoli is incredibly stupid. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.

A person with basic human intelligence, the ability to eat, breathe and not fall down when you walk, would have decided to A) not steal, B) not drive with a suspended license, C) not roll a stop sign while driving with a suspended license, D) not roll a stop sign with a suspended license and weed in his pocket, or E) all of the above.

Masoli did none of these. Enjoy the CFL, assuming you can find your way to Canada.

Roll Tide, errr, Kid

Child abuse is not always a physical act. Just because there aren’t any broken bones or bruises doesn’t mean that people aren’t unusually cruel to children; often times their own.

It could be emotional abuse, sexual abuse, or even the abuse of neglect. But perhaps the most sinister instance of child abuse can be found in the name parents choose for the child.

Enter JJ and Jackie Redd of Tallassee, Alabama. You can probably see where this is going. They have welcomed a new child into this world and bestowed the name Crimson Tide Redd on the baby.

No. Really. They did. Seriously.

But they insist they are not lunatics, and will call him Ty. The mother says they are going to let the future serial murderer young man decide which team he wants to be a fan of.

"If (Auburn) offers him a scholarship, then I'll be happy for him to go there. We don't have plans to tell him who to be a fan of."

Right. You aren’t telling him what team to be a fan of, you are just assuring him a lifetime of misery by naming him after a football team. Good looking out, mom and dad. Look, people choose names for a variety of reasons. family, tradition, favorite authors, characters in books and movies, and yes, even athletic heroes. But an entire team? Hopefully they have decided to start a 529 fund for the young man. Not so he can attend Alabama, but rather so he has enough money to afford the therapy he is going to need for the rest of his existence.

I hope the kid grows up to be a happy, successful, well-adjusted member of society; I really do. But considering a college football team means as much to these people as it apparently does, it wouldn’t totally kill me if the kid decided he wanted to be a fashion designer or a figure skater either. The Johnny Weir of Alabama.

Roll Tide. The kid, not the team.

Without the glasses he doesn't look a day over 82.

This can’t be happening. This is a bad dream, a cruel joke, a hoax. Joe Paterno doesn’t wear his Coke bottle glasses anymore?

Nope.

According to a report on Fight On State, a Penn State blog:

“I had trouble reading for the last six months, so I went down to Philadelphia to the Penn Scheie Eye Institute,” the 83-year-old said. “And the guy says to me … I think we can fix that up. So they went in and did it. I don't really need glasses any more.”

This is terrible. Joe Paterno without his trademark specs? This would be like Bear Bryant giving up the houndstooth hat; you know, if he weren’t dead and everything. This is Lou Holtz without his lisp, Mark Mangino without his sextuple-X windbreaker and Lane Kiffin without that clueless, yet smug, look on his face.

And looking at the picture, he may want to throw those things back on. At least when he had the Hubble Telescope on his face, you didn’t really notice that he also has the world largest nose. JoePa, get some frames made with some clear glass and get them back on immediately. That giant, fleshy, beak shouldn’t be forced upon anyone.

Good luck on the recruiting trail without the specs, Joe. I don’t think anyone will recognize you, they will just think you are some senile old man with a unicorn horn jammed in the middle of your face.

I thought people were supposed to look better when they lost their glasses. Guess not.

I feel good, for now.

Florida head coach (for now) Urban Meyer is not going to be the next coach of the Dallas Cowboys, despite rumors to the contrary. Said rumors are believed to have started from rival coaches attempting to poach the Gators top rated recruiting class.

High school running back Mack Brown, a Gator commit, says that he heard some crazy things regarding Meyer’s coming and going.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

“They would say, he’s tricking ya’ll — he’s going to the NFL to coach the Dallas Cowboys,” Brown said. “I was like ‘What?’ There’s no way.”

Ok. He’s not going. Fine. But someone might want to ask him again, later today. Or tomorrow, or the day after that. Maybe someone should run the Cowboy question past Meyer after a bad practice and see if his heart is about to pop again. Apparently he makes those kind of decisions based on the quality of the morning workout.

Meyer created this environment. He is responsible for opening this mess. He is the one who quit, then didn’t, then sort of quit, then said he would be back for spring practcie. Of course the other greaseball coaches in the SEC and other leagues were going to try and use that to their advantage.

You're right, I look ridiculous.

It’s up to the recruits to try and figure out what is real and what isn’t. Meyer to the Cowboys might be the most ridiculous idea ever. If he was about to give himself an M.I. coaching college football with an athletic director who loves him, why would he sign up to be Jerry Jones hand puppet?

He wants to get away from the craziness of the college game to go work for Jerry Jones? Go work for an owner who gets more camera time than the star quarterback, the world famous cheerleaders and the billion dollar stadium combined? That was going to prevent him from having his ticker burst like a water balloon? Right.

Nick Saban, errr, ‘other coaches’ are going to have to come up with a better scheme than that.

The Bro or Manzier?

Alabama nose tackle Terrence Cody will eat. Then he will eat again.

Cody, a two-time All-American at Alabama, weighed in at a very tight 370 pounds at the Senior Bowl. From looking at the picture, he doesn’t look an ounce over, well, 370. By all accounts Cody is a good guy, a soft-spoken guy, who just can't push away from the table. He was over 4-bills at his juco before Alabama 'slimmed' him down to the high 300s.

This is not a 370-pound guy, who has it spread over all the right places on a 6’5’’ frame. This is a 370-pound guy who has it spread all over like melted plastic on a scarecrow. Not a good look.

NFL executives are already concerned about his weight and his ability to give them more than one or two downs per series.

NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock:

"However, because he's so big and there's been these weight questions off the field, I'm not sure he's going to sneak into the first round. How many snaps are you going to get out of Cody? And are they going to be high-level snaps?"

A fair question, to say the least. If this is how he is taking care of his assets when he is not getting paid, how hard is he going to hit it when he has a bank account full of money? Theoretically, he should be in the best shape of his life right now. This would be the time that he is staying on the program, eating well, hitting the gym and making himself look as attractive as possible to potential buyers. Only he's not. 370, and a bad 370 at that.

Cody doesn’t get it.

"I'm going to work harder and start getting back on my diet and stuff, and just do what I've gotta do," Cody said. "I'm going to get my weight down, and when I get to the combine I'm going to be where I want to be."

This guy could stop the run.

Wrong answer. You shouldn’t have to get in shape for the combine, you should already be in shape. Maybe you are the one guy who will work harder, who will do more, who will be more disciplined after you get everything you want. I am sure it will be much easier to stay with a reasonable diet, go to the gym and stay focused knowing that even if you don’t, you already got paid.

Caveat emptor, NFL. And no Terrence, that is not a new kind of fried sandwich.

We are....S-C! And we have the litigation to prove it.

By Brian Beckner:

Like a Jerry Springer rerun with two jealous chicks fighting over some occasionally employed, oversaturated and undernourished trailer park Casanova, the University of South Carolina lost its battle with the University of Southern California to use the coveted “SC” logo on its athletic gear. While a crushing blow to its ego, this is a blessing in disguise for South Carolina. Because although the school may have an unfortunate mascot, the disputed logo is absolutely drenched in vinegar and water.

From the LA Times:

“Would a reasonable person confuse a USC logo on a garnet-and-black ball cap in Columbia, S.C., with the same letters on cardinal-and-gold sportswear worn by a Trojans fan at the Coliseum?

Apparently so, a federal appeals court has decided in rejecting a petition from the Palmetto State to use the letters on baseball team clothing for the University of South Carolina Fighting Gamecocks.”

Why exactly anyone would want to appropriate the USC look is still a mystery? Did the good people of the Palmetto State not already have a means of immediately recognizing a d-bag? Or was it just the opposite? Was the southeastern bedazzled jeans, skintight Ed Hardy, hoop earring and excessive gel set just looking west for the ultimate accoutrement? Unfortunately, thanks to a panel of three federal judges, the world will probably never know. For the foreseeable future the westernmost USC will get to keep its prized logo, and now that this matter has been adjudicated both schools can move on.

At least you still have the cool rooster logo.

This is probably a blessing in disguise for Atlantic SC anyway, emulating the University of South Central would probably have led to unfortunate outcomes. What’s next for South Carolina, an army of convertible white BMWs for its student body? Will their commencement ceremonies include additional seating for Daddy’s “secretary?” Can the coeds be allowed an extra week at spring break for elective surgery convalescence? Are the fans of the school’s football team currently being coached in liberal use of the term “we” when referring to the team’s play?

The sad thing is that SC South is a state school. That means the South Carolina taxpayers had to pay to litigate this foray into douchebaggery. Were the tables turned USC West could just recruit its army of excessively divorced alumni to pay the freight. Or do they wait to call in that favor until it’s time to hire a football coach, or get a marginal running back an SUV? And for a school that hates being referred to as “Southern Cal,” they sure are protective of those initials?