sorry for the lack of links ...

Apologies all around. As penance, here's my wife's absolute favorite Soup video ever.

"Yo holmes, why come she gets a cheeseburger?"

wlh

Well, our long statewide nightmare is over: Nick Saban hired an offensive coordinator. Oo-de-lally.
His name? Jim McElwain, coming to Tuscaloosa directly from Fresno State. Knowing naught of Fresno State, I can't say what this portends for the fall of 2008 and beyond. Perhaps one of the bloggers better than I can tell us more in the coming days.

In any case, yesterday was Super Bowl Media Day, an event that's so overexposed, complaining about how overexposed it is has reached the point where it's nearly as annoying as the overexposure was to begin with. That sentence didn't make any sense, and that's OK.
Here are some links to make up.

— Jemele Hill has breaking news: women like Tom Brady. C'mon, Jemele ... you should be better than that.
— The yuks in Coleman Coliseum lasted all of two days, as UT left the same way they came in last night. Bama Hoops has your complete analysis, which includes a very alliterative header. Well-done, guys.
— EDSBS has a national recruiting piece, which includes a dynamite video of Julio Jones. Those guys might not be inclined to read The Wiz today, which details more about why Urban Meyer may be leading Florida down the primrose path into NCAA hot water. That sentence doesn't make sense, either.
— Speaking of coaches people hate, SMQ has an entry about Dick Rodriguez.
— Finally, Sunday will bring us one of the great events in American culture: Puppy Bowl IV, a day-long Animal Planet event that's essentially a running loop of puppies wrestling one another on a fake football field. Here's this year's starting lineup — place your bets now.

wlh

You may not believe this, but I started out with an assortment of cool links for your viewing pleasure today. Sadly, Firefox did not wish for this to happen, froze up and caused me to curse.

So, instead, the links will have to wait until another day. Duck and cover, folks. Duck ... and cover.

wlh

Barely 90 minutes since I actually started working today, and already I'm thinking of flipping my desk over and storming out. Just one of those days, I suppose.

In any case, some links ...

— Um, is this for real? Did Mrs. Mark Gottfried really scream at Paul Finebaum on Saturday?

Apparently, Gottfried's wife confronted Paul Finebaum at halftime of Alabama's 20 point win over Auburn. So far, I haven't seen this discussed anywhere else. I have no confirmation as to what was said, although I highly doubt she was inviting him over for dinner. If it is true, we should hear much more about it tomorrow when Finebaum airs his radio show at 2:00 Central Time.

(Aw, man ... I don't want to have to listen to freaking Finebaum.)
— More from the Auburn game from Cecil.
Also, if you still haven't seen Senario Hillman's vicious dunk, here it is, courtesy of youtube:

— Snarktastic takes us inside the AAFL Draft. The AAFL seems doomed already.
— More on the offensive coordinator front from TD and RBR.
— Peter King sticks up for his boy in this week's MMQB.

wlh

Pippen on Ewing

One of my favorite all-time NBA dunks, even if I always rooted against those Bulls teams.

"This ... was an elevation elevation."

Add: And just for fun, here's a link to ESPN's highlight video of the win over Auburn -- worth it just for Senario Hillman's dunk.

Now THAT was an elevation elevation.

wlh

some Friday adulation ...

From Peyton Manning ...

Peyton Manning

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Hilarious. Incidentally, the idea (probably) came from a Sportscenter commercial from the late '90s:


Have a good weekend, folks.

wlh

The Party got some attention today at Tide Druid, which was cool enough that I felt the need to link to it. For the record, the dude in the picture isn't me. It's actually my brother. But that's not important.

In any case, I owe everybody some links after last night, which turned into a ridiculously long exercise thanks to a wandering referee and one of Talladega's girls suffering a broken nose. Not cool. I didn't get home until midnight. But I digress.

— Speaking of TD, he posted a really funny conversation yesterday, as he envisioned what it's like for Mark Gottfried to walk around the athletic complex and talk to other coaches. And if you're still interested in the death of Mark Gottfried, Bama Hoops has a post on how this season could still be salvaged.
— Drew of Deadspin has a fun rant about newspapers (MSMers, as he calls them) and their attitudes toward blogs.

A blog is a blank website with roughly 17 trillion potential applications. You can use it to make stupid ... jokes. You can use it to post pictures of your trip for your family and friends to check out. You can use it to sell t-shirts. You can use it to show ... naked pictures of Crissy Moran dry humping a balance beam (I strongly recommend this option). It has no rules. No supposedly built-in set of ethics. No style guidelines. It's a blank canvas, for you to do with as you please.

Here's the thing Drew doesn't appear to be considering in his ranting: most of the people making these comments he's referencing are old. Now, I love old people. My parents are old people. My grandparents, too. And my mother-in-law.
But old people don't change easily, if they change at all. And old people are not accepting of new ideas. There's a lady in our office who refuses to even attempt to do anything with a PC, because "I don't know anything about PCs." Explaining to her that the differences between a PC and a Mac are almost nil at this point, or that it's just as easy to use one as the other, would be a waste of time. And why? Because she's old.
I'm just saying that many of the current breed of crusty columnist won't wake up to the difference between blogs and journalists, and they won't accept that the two can work together. And why? Because they're old people, and old people don't get stuff like that. Just wait until we're old and we're complaining about our kids.
— I usually try to stay away from recruiting as much as I can, but OTS has a very thorough rundown
Also, I found this story interesting — Auburn's apparently on the verge of losing a recruit who doesn't want to run the spread.
— Speaking of Auburn, an opponent next fall has an eerie familiarity.
— Capstone tells us why South Alabama football may already be in trouble.
There's probably nothing to the idea that Fran would come to Mobile. But if he really is interested, what about his wife, Kim? Wasn't she the one who HATED Alabama, didn't like the attention of being the wife of the head coach in Tuscaloosa, and thanked her husband profusely for "bringing me home to Texas?" What's changed since 2002? Am I missing something?
— SMQ tells us about the power of a crystal ball.
— Finally, EDSBS has Trev on video. That's right, folks ... Trev is back.
Word.

wlh

Wednesday youtube ...

Gives us one of the great dance parties in American history.

Janet Reno's Dance Party

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Apparently, the starting of this blog today inadvertently killed Heath Ledger. Oops.

In any case, thanks to all who gave me their input in migrating this site. As I've stated many times before (and as the "about me" section will continue to state), this isn't a "Bama blog." I'm a 'Bama grad, yes, but I'm mostly just a sports junkie who watches too much television. As much as I appreciate people like Capstone Report, 8Box and TD considering part of their fraternity ... I'm just not. And that's the way it is. I love those guys, though, and I'll continue to link to them at every available opportunity.

And with that, let's dole out some links.
— Simmons hands out some awards today, and asks the one question I was (sort of) surprised to hear absolutely no one ask.
Didn't Troy Aikman and Joe Buck have to discuss Favre's Level 5 stinkbomb during the telecast beyond just alluding to it a couple of times? What about Peter King, who didn't even mention Favre's grisly performance in his normally comprehensive MMQB column? With all the breaks Green Bay got in that game, if Favre had given his team even a C-plus, the Pack would have won.
— While you're at ESPN, you may as well read TMQ, who correctly asserts that Norv Turner's decision to punt from the Pats' 36, down by 9, with nine minutes to play in the game (the Chargers never got the ball back), was the worst coaching decision of the playoffs and may have been the worst coaching decision in playoff history.
First, the Patriots have the best offense in football history, so the odds of getting the ball back quickly without New England scoring were very low. Second, you need a touchdown and a field goal and are in field goal range. Why aren't you at least attempting a field goal? Sure a long field goal try might not work, but punting is guaranteed not to work! Next, San Diego coaches should have decided already, when the Chargers had third-and-10 on the New England 36 at the 9:36 mark, that they would go for it on fourth down. The opponent is the highest-scoring team of all time; you will not defeat those guys by passively punting the ball away late in the game. Yet rather than use "four-down thinking" and call a draw or similar play on third-and-10 so the fourth-down situation would be more manageable, San Diego's coaches called a midrange pass on third down, then, facing fourth-and-10, shrugged and punted.
— RBR discusses the most pleasant surprise of 2007. Click on it and you'll be happy, too. I promise.
— Finally, TD gives us a disturbing video, courtesy of Texas fans.

wlh

greetings ...

Thanks for showing up to the all-new Billy's Dance Party, a name inspired by Rev. Matt Miller, who learned to dance from this post and this one on the old LJ.

More coming later.

wlh