A personal message of encouragement to those men over 250 pounds running the 40 in the combine this weekend. Play this in the background for maximum effect.

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

--John Gillespie Magee

Fly fast this weekend, big bros. Fly free. Fly with the power of chicken's wings. Hundreds and hundreds of double-fried, savory chicken's wings.

We don't even really know what's going on here, but so much is right even in all the confusion. Dana Holgorsen is a bar wench, and that's works, while Rich Rod is cast as Javert, and that works as long as Javert gets to sing Josh Groban at one point. (He does.) Lane Kiffin's an urchin hitching a free ride, and gadzooks does that work on so many levels, while Urban Meyer's just manning a barricade and looking smug. Here, Nick Saban is a tiny orphan. This is not totally accurate, but it feels right, and we're not going to get in the way of what the heart wants. Roll 1848 Tide.

The ACC schedule is out. Death comes to us all, and to Maryland football even quicker.

ART BRILES SAYS YOU CAN LEAN, ROCK, OR EVEN DROP WITH IT. Baylor keeps up their murderous pace in games through a variety of innovative speed and flexibility drills, including a revolutionary knee flexibility drill that originated in Texas.

The Bears finished up winter conditioning with a big dance off this morning to the stanky leg!!

— Coach Art Briles (@CoachArtBriles) February 26, 2013

The first person to procure footage of Art Briles doing the stanky leg will receive a $5 Rax Roast Beef gift certificate from us. FIVE DOLLARS, WE SAY.

THE COW COLLEGE STAYS COWIN'. Mississippi State doesn't shy away from the label cow college, and that's why their winningest coach ever was a grumpy Holstein named Bud in the 1920s. Sing, milkin' ladies; sing with all your might, and then whip off a rubber glove to give the viewer the strangest boner ever.

OH NO BIG DEAL JUST EXCLUSIVE NEIL CALLOWAY NEWS. The former UGA OL scapegoat and UAB coach will be joining Bobby Petrino at WKU in an SBNation exclusive. Remember: we are your source for all important overpaid assistant news.

APOLOGIES: ONE MORE VISUAL. Landry Jones running the 40 OH MY GOD---

The hands seem to be the only part of the body on board with any of this; the rest are engaged in a bloody internecine conflict that Landry is lucky to have survived.

THOUGHTS, PRAYERS, ETC. UConn running back Martin Hyppolite is in serious condition after a head-on collision that killed one man in Connecticut. Hyppolite is in serious condition as of this morning, so thoughts, prayers, etc to him and his family.

ETC: Some stories will never die, like the time Miles Davis took too much cocaine and crashed his Lamborghini.

It's completely delusional to choose between the two, said college football grabbing a miniature pot pie from the waiter's tray of hors d'oeuvres. Why the cruising cabin of the proverbial sporting yacht is big enough, and the journey long enough, yes, for more than one captain at the wheel? And do they not work in shifts, piloting the soul through the dark rough waters of dreary life? Does a ship not have a full crew, and require teamwork? Isn't that right, college basketball?

College basketball then turns to college football: "Say, is that your penis, out of your pants and urinating in our punchbowl?"

College football: "Why, this?"

College basketball: "Yes. That."

College football: "LOL yup."

Well, maybe some punch-pissing is inevitable. Ditto for seeing what can't be helped but be seen in the regional covers, Miller and Jadeveon Clowney's birth scene included.

The draft is an odd time for a college football fan. Your previous estimates of players are wiped clean by pro scouts, who reduce bodies of work to a cold slate of numbers, isolated game footage, and leaked rumors about bad attitude and positive drug tests.

Scouts have to do this, or at least the measuring and film work because without measurements you're simply guessing instead of guessing with hints of empirical support. They also don't have the luxury college football fans have -- i.e., the freedom to leisurely watch players work in context, and not just in cutups and combine drills.

What questions can the college fan hopefully shed some light on in this year's draft? We're here to help.

Is Tavon Austin that fast? Yes. Tavon Austin is that fast, and not just unilaterally. He breaks tackles, forces bad angles with speed and cuts, and doesn't waste valuable pursuit time blipping around in the backfield. The terror with Austin comes in his constant movement forward even when faking and shimmying. He is also disproportionately strong all around, and that is why doing anything but wrapping up his legs completely is instant death for a defender, or in Oklahoma's case, an entire defense.

Do not watch number one on OU's defense because what is happening to him is a war crime.

Is Knile Davis really that fast? Another yes. Knile Davis is as close as you might get to a Frank Gore scenario in the draft in that he's a.) lost significant time due to injury, b.) played on a team past its organizational prime, and c.) somehow emerged on the other side of all that healthier and in better shape physically than he's been in a while. He also squats 600 pounds, played on a miserable and miserably mismanaged Arkansas team in 2012, and would be the kind of underrated high-ceiling player Bill Belichick would steal from under your nose. (And Bill Belichick has already stolen Knile Davis from under your nose.) One qualifier: he doesn't really make tacklers miss that often.

A player from Notre Dame you should actually consider drafting? They do exist. Tyler Eifert is one of them, albeit one of the pass-catching tight end types, and not your human anvil-type. (For that, just grab a Stanford player. Any of them.) Eifert is another player whose offense by design underutilized him -- he played last year with Everett Golson, a first-year starter, at QB -- and who showed up beautifully during drills. He was also the point guard on his state champion high school basketball team, if you like tangentially relevant evidence of athleticism.

Is Manti Te'o really that slow? Possibly, but the great issue for Te'o is finding his ideal body weight, and then putting him in position to be successful. He's got good play recognition, but struggles to get off blocks, something Alabama exploited to the hilt in the BCS title game and that's going to be hell for a middle linebacker playing anywhere. Te'o was never the kind of player you felt genuine fear watching, and fear seems to be an integral part of the linebacker's overall effect. The linebacker you felt genuine fear watching was Georgia's Jarvis Jones. (Psst: he also got blown off the ball by Alabama's offensive line.)

How on earth is Sheldon Richardson going number one in some mock drafts? Because he fills out the profile of a defensive tackle nicely? Richardson never really stood out as a dominant force along the line, particularly in Mizzou's first year in the SEC when they finished an unremarkable ninth in conference in rushing defense. He does fill out all the numbers a defensive tackle is supposed to have, but watching him play was nothing like watching Star Lotulelei or Sharrif Floyd work. But he's a good quote, and I'm never against good quotes getting more signing bonus money than they should.

Who is that quarterback who's probably not really first-round grade, but is a quarterback and thus could float into the first round? Maaaaaaaaaatt Barkley, the USC quarterback whose swan song of a senior season imploded and finished with him watching Georgia Tech manhandle USC in the Sun Bowl.

You're supposed to not remember things that happen in El Paso, though, and this is where the issue of Barkley's potential gets so difficult to scout. Barkley pressed his senior year as a quarterback and did so with reason: USC's defense hemorrhaged yardage, his offensive line lost serious meaningful playing time to injury, and the Trojans spent a lot of time playing from behind. Barkley, a durable starter, eventually succumbed to all of it and finished the year in a sling.

And this is why talent prospecting at any level burns holes in the stomachs of those responsible for it: some portion of it was Barkley's fault, and some of it clearly wasn't, and that exact percentage will remain a mystery forever. He will interview well, most likely pass the necessary tire-kicking by scouts, and will rise based on the obvious pluses of being a pro-style QB with zero character issues and plenty of starting experience. He will also be a bit short for the position, prone to risky throws, and will have zero escape speed from the pocket at the pro level. He's a bit of a risk, so bet carefully.

P.S. I really liked Matt Barkley as a college player, and suspect he could be average-to-good as a pro, which I swear is not damning with faint praise. (Too much.) He's also the kind of draft pick a conservative organization with little imagination could run to in a hurry.

But what if I'm REALLY into putting it all on red? Hello, Tyler Bray. Tyler Bray spent his offseasons at Tennessee throwing beer bottles into parking lots and jetskiing in a dangerous fashion. He spent his football seasons running for his life and throwing balls downfield that JaMarcus Russell would consider ill-advised. Bray never had anything like real run support or defense at Tennessee, resulting in a spotty but often brilliant career of him trying to throw the Vols into the game single-handedly.

He will make some of the stupidest throws you have ever seen, and some of the most astonishing ones too, and remember neither five seconds later. Think of Bray as the horse in the stall too dangerous to break, and too powerful not to try. Additionally, he might be the person for whom a paycheck instills more discipline than any amount of school spirit could. (Am I saying Tyler Bray might have a mercenary streak? Oh, yes. Yes I am.)

More in the NFL:

• NFL Mock Draft: We have a new No. 1

• Monday's NFL Combine winners and losers

• Linemen run the 40, set to Chariots of Fire

• Tom Brady's new deal includes $30 million signing bonus

• Who will trade for Alex Smith?

• "Best player available" and other lies

The Big Board as always is brought to you by Boardmaster Brian. He's been laid up in the Reggie Nelson Wing of the Men's Hospital of [CITY REDACTED] with a terrible sunburn on his manparts. It's hard to keep something that big covered completely. Awards and clarifications follow.

BAMA UUUUUUUUUUUUUP. Gonna be a banner week at Hank's Houndstooth, since it all goes half price when Bama wins a national title, and for this week Bama totally has the Fulmer Cup Late February BCS Title For Total Points In A Completely Imaginary Rating Of Program Chaos.

The Big Board is wearing houndstooth thanks to four players' arrests for, among other things, punching the daylights out of students and taking their stuff. We would like to repeat: rather than use any of the cunning or clever methods for theft devised by ingenious criminals throughout our history as a species, Alabama players Eddie Williams and Tyler Hayes decided to simply walk up to someone and wail on their skulls until they lost consciousness.

That's power football, criminally speaking, and enough to get Hayes, Williams, and conspirator D.J. Pettway second degree robbery charges. Additional credit card fraud charges--a class C felony in Alabama--take the total to five felony charges between the four men. Throw in the firearms charge Eddie Williams got the weekend before all this broke, and that's a standing sixteen point total for the Crimson Tide.

The arrests are making roster cuts for Saban easier than they should be, dammit, but when you're Alabama in 2013 luck just follows your ass around like flies to a shitpile.

MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE. Tearin' the club up with a genuine clusterfuck of a bar brawl, because Sun Belt is the fun belt you wear on college football trousers. Three players given a shambolic mess of misdemeanors indicating hilarity and a deeply failed escape from the police put MTSU at a tie with Florida at nine points.

FLORIDA. Purifoy's pot charges have been dismissed completely, one of the few cases in which we'll reduce points. (Remember no plea deals considered.) Changes will be reflected in next week's board.

UTAH. A horrendous domestic violence case gets Utah fourteen points, but no team consideration since it was one player and one player alone who decided to resolve a domestic dispute by trying to electrocute the mother of his children in front of one of them. There aren't many hard and fast rules in life, but not doing that in any scenario ever seems like one of them.

UGA. Georgia continues to redefine minor points totals acquired in innovative fashion, since reporting a book stolen after selling it back to the bookstore is something we've never seen before, and probably won't ever see again. One point for Georgia, the team that redefined scooter crime and once got cited for "emerging from an alley."

PENN STATE. Accidentally kicking a window out is still kicking a window out, and that'll get you one weird point, Penn State.

WHISKERY DOOM.

Sources tell us Jim Bollman is expected to accept the Michigan State OC job

— FootballScoop Staff (@footballscoop) February 27, 2013

Jim Bollman, in case you don't remember, was the offensive coordinator whose 2011 horrorshow met the horrorshow 2011 Florida offense and lost to it in a bowl game, but Mark Dantonio loves him some walrusball and cannot be denied. The Big Ten's offensive coordinators include Al Borges, John Shoop, and Greg Davis. #BACKWARDSTOTHEFUTURE

WE WROTE SOME COMBINE THINGS. Honestly, no idea about the Sheldon Richardson bubble at the combine.

KNEES ARE TERRIBLE THINGS. Warren Norman, the 2009 freshman of the year, will end his football career at Vanderbilt because he no longer has functional knees.

MIKE MACINTYRE SAYS COLORADO HAS MORE RESOURCES THAN SAN JOSE STATE. That means things were really, really bad at San Jose State, where he and his staff had to raise money to go on recruiting trips. He is currently at Colorado, where a team that receives a gigantic check from the Pac-12 did not have enough chairs to hold an offensive line meeting. The takeaway from this is that Mike MacIntyre likes very difficult things.

HOKIE HI TO YOUR GIGANTIC NEW MOTH MAGNET. Lane Stadium's teeny video screen will be replaced by merely the eighth largest video scoreboard in college football. Is Bud Foster gonna watch Jason Statham films on it late at night while sitting in a camp chair finishing a 12 pack or three? Oh you bet your camo-clad ass he is.

WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE. Texas A&M's Christine Michael slept through two interviews at the NFL Combine, but really you can sit in bed, ask yourself insane questions about whether your mother was a prostitute or not, and then simply email your answers to NFL GMs to prove you can work remotely and can be trusted in the offseason. (They may not ask whether your mother is a prostitute, as Jeff Ireland of the Dolphins did. They may also ask if your dad is one.)

THAT IS ONE WAY TO ANNOUNCE IT. Ole Miss linebacker Ralph Williams is leaving the team for unspecified reasons, and announced as much on Twitter. This makes it official that not everyone is signing with Ole Miss in 2013.

ETC: THEFT IS FASCINATING.

Walrusball: the forbidden dance. (Because Jim Bollman looks like a walrus and calls plays like one too, you see.)

1. Read this.

2. And then focus on this part in particular:

(Craggs:) We did what we could to get those "critical components," but we weren’t betting our shirts that Notre Dame or anyone from the Te’o camp would to talk to us. It’s fun to imagine some frictionless plane of journalism where potentially hostile sources return phone calls and grudgingly fill in all the blanks out of some sense of duty to the truth, but that’s now what we were working with.

3. That "Frictionless plane" doesn't exist. Anyone who's dealt with the onion of PR, SIDs, agents, family, handlers, or anyone else standing between you and an honest answer from the subject knows what's at the middle: nothing, a trained hollowness incapable of giving any answer to a question.

4. Worse still, when confronted with a story like the Te'o case, the subjects themselves--Notre Dame and Te'o--might just outright lie or ignore the question. Even if Deadspin had contacted them, what answers do you think they would have given regarding well-researched facts the reporters and writers had already established? Did you see Jack Swarbrick and Te'o talk in the days following the incident? Do you think calling them would have accomplished anything besides tipping the story, making things worse, and sending the Te'o camp scrambling to look for a soft, questions-free landing place to offload a couched, vague PR statement?

5. The playbook for crisis response is now so fucked and truth-y that in many cases it makes contacting the parties involved a solicitation of a polished lie. Deadspin could have contacted Te'o and Notre Dame. They would have gotten nothing, since that is the ingrained reaction of organizations to inquiry: issue a statement saying nothing, and then find a sympathetic ear to tell their story in exchange for future access.

6. That's not just an online/blog problem. It's something I know mainstream journalists struggle with, too.

7. The response from schools/teams/etc. will be that they will work with those who vet their sources, are "responsible," and practice good journalism. Some may mean this, but most mean doing things easily, stepping on no toes, and letting the subject act as dominant partner in the relationship. This assumes your subject or interlocutor is not hostile from the start when in fact they are, from the start, opposed to telling you anything.

8. Starting on a war footing with the subject seems extreme, but it's way closer to the truth than the kind of hagiography that made the Paterno/Sandusky case and Te'o so jarring. Deadspin starts with wary hostility for a lot of reasons, but the most compelling to me is that it builds a necessary skepticism into process from the start. It is honesty, the sort that only seems like open warfare to those who'd prefer the parlor politics of easy entertainment journalism.

9. TL; DR. If someone's going to deny you equal footing from the start, then start chopping at the knees until you see eye-to-eye.

10. If someone asks you stupid questions, they deserve the answers they get, particularly if they rely on a Girl Scout cookie joke to play gotcha at the end.

1. Read this.

2. And then focus on this part in particular:

(Craggs:) We did what we could to get those "critical components," but we weren’t betting our shirts that Notre Dame or anyone from the Te’o camp would to talk to us. It’s fun to imagine some frictionless plane of journalism where potentially hostile sources return phone calls and grudgingly fill in all the blanks out of some sense of duty to the truth, but that’s now what we were working with.

3. That "Frictionless plane" doesn't exist. Anyone who's dealt with the onion of PR, SIDs, agents, family, handlers, or anyone else standing between you and an honest answer from the subject knows what's at the middle: nothing, a trained hollowness incapable of giving any answer to a question.

4. Worse still, when confronted with a story like the Te'o case, the subjects themselves--Notre Dame and Te'o--might just outright lie or ignore the question. Even if Deadspin had contacted them, what answers do you think they would have given regarding well-researched facts the reporters and writers had already established? Did you see Jack Swarbrick and Te'o talk in the days following the incident? Do you think calling them would have accomplished anything besides tipping the story, making things worse, and sending the Te'o camp scrambling to look for a soft, questions-free landing place to offload a couched, vague PR statement?

5. The playbook for crisis response is now so fucked and truth-y that in many cases it makes contacting the parties involved a solicitation of a polished lie. Deadspin could have contacted Te'o and Notre Dame. They would have gotten nothing, since that is the ingrained reaction of organizations to inquiry: issue a statement saying nothing, and then find a sympathetic ear to tell their story in exchange for future access.

6. That's not just an online/blog problem. It's something I know mainstream journalists struggle with, too.

7. The response from schools/teams/etc. will be that they will work with those who vet their sources, are "responsible," and practice good journalism. Some may mean this, but most mean doing things easily, stepping on no toes, and letting the subject act as dominant partner in the relationship. This assumes your subject or interlocutor is not hostile from the start when in fact they are, from the start, opposed to telling you anything.

8. Starting on a war footing with the subject seems extreme, but it's way closer to the truth than the kind of hagiography that made the Paterno/Sandusky case and Te'o so jarring. Deadspin starts with wary hostility for a lot of reasons, but the most compelling to me is that it builds a necessary skepticism into process from the start. It is honesty, the sort that only seems like open warfare to those who'd prefer the parlor politics of easy entertainment journalism.

9. TL; DR. If someone's going to deny you equal footing from the start, then start chopping at the knees until you see eye-to-eye.

10. If someone asks you stupid questions, they deserve the answers they get, particularly if they rely on a Girl Scout cookie joke to play gotcha at the end.

Sweat is just your fat crying. Blood is just your heart spitting. Kool-Aid is what is excreted when fat people's teeth are frightened. There's a weird juice that comes out of Charlie Strong's scalp when he's excited. If you towel it up, wring it out, and drink it you'll add 300 pounds to your power clean and see in infrared for days afterward.

Did you know Alabama has a smoothie bar in their weight room, with smoothies and everything? And a Bod Pod, so Nick Saban can fat-shame you with data. Perhaps we've now learned the secret behind Nick Saban's powerful mind control of his players: to give you delicious bulk-gaining smoothies, make you bigger than you've ever been before, then put you shirtless in the bod pod and go "Great, but...if you could only lose those last five pounds, kid. Then you'd be perfect."

Nick Saban will always say this, because as we've said before, he is everyone's abusive husband who wants you to be just this much better than you are. No, no, you look good, Alabama football, we guess. That little ripple of fat over the belt loop is okay if you're into comfort, yanno. You're comfortable with a little bit of weight, and you're probably beautiful on the inside, is what Nick Saban is saying while not sounding like he means a bit of it and spray-painting the words "MEDICAL SCHOLARSHIP" on the wall.

P.S. He knows the air don't have calories, is what he's saying:

(VIA)

They only let him talk in public twice a year or so, and that is a complete bleeding shame because Scott Cochran, like every other strength coach on the planet, is a husky voiced dervish incapable of modulating both his enthusiasm or the volume of his speaking. He's a lot LIKE YOUR FRIEND on the internet who's incapable of not RANDOMLY TYPING IN ALL-CAPS when he wants to MAKE HIS POINT YEAAHHHHHH.

Upon review, Scott Cochran may be an all-caps-freaky blogger who escaped their sad fate being chained to a laptop in a dingy kitchen, got a shitload of weights and torture machines, and then set out to become a kind of walking Ritalin inhaler for the world. He gave the media a TOUR of the new Alabama WEIGHT ROOM YESTERDAY. There was enthusiasm. There was a little white man singing T.I. lyrics to a snack bar. There was magic.

1. "HUUUUUUUUUUUGE! BIGGEST BADDEST WEIGHTROOM IN THE COUNTRY!" In the first two minutes Cochran loses control of the volume of his voice three times, including a PLAAAAATFOOOOORMS that is totally deserved at the 1:30 mark, because in-ground Olympic lifting platforms are totally fucking awesome, Scott.
2. "I'm BIIIIIIG ON THE JOCK ROCK." Scott Cochran demanded a boomin' system for the weight room. If there is a humorous God, he will ensure that Cochran actually plays Jock Jams, Volume One through the speakers, and that Alabama has to do burpee pull-ups to the tune of "Strike It Up."
3. "YOU CAN HAVE WHATEVER YOUUUUUUUUU LIIIIIIIIIIKE."After six minutes of watching Scott Cochran, we now want new things for ourselves. We want to be champions. We want to start doing neck exercises for no reason, and building smoothie bars and snack bunkers into every part of our home, and no, shit, you're right, Scott, 37,000 square feet for a gym is not only reasonable, it's MANDATORY YEAAHHHH BUDDAY.
4. We also would like a full album of Scott Cochran yell-singing hip-hop standards of the 2010s.
5. "I"M TELLIN YOU IT'S FIYAAAAAAAA." All strength coaches should be from New Orleans, and all strength coaches should be Scott Cochran and suffer the same benign brain injury that makes you yell
6. The Alabama weight room does have tvs, but it's only to broadcast footage of weightlifting. Alabama's gym is the weightlifting gym where you can watch infinite loops of people weightlifting while you lift weights.
7. In conclusion, this is the baddest shit ever, and Alabama has a short blonde gremlin from Louisiana in charge of the whole thing. There are probably better uses of money in this world. But do any of them come with Scott Cochran singing T.I. and bragging about the insane number of reverse-hyper machines they have? No, no they do not.
8. That "You can have whatever you like" yell is already a ringtone, or will be in the next fifteen seconds.

The Independence Bowl is now officially the Advocare Bowl. You may say to yourself: oh, Independence Bowl! Where art thou sexy flanks, thy endless Missouri versus someones, thy occasional freaky snow bowls! We say to this: never fear. For now you can have your very own Advocare Bowl, and in the process free yourself and your family from the fear and uncertainty of financial insecurity.

It's this easy. Simply mail an envelope filled with money to ADVOCARE BOWL SALES C/O STEVE WHO LIVES IN SHREVEPORT, LA. How much money? Only one to a million dollars less than the amount you want to get back from getting your very own Advocare Bowl! You will be sent an Advocare Bowl, along with instructions on how to sell Advocare Bowls to your friends.

Can I put together an Advocare Bowl myself? An Advocare Bowl can be assembled almost anywhere. Even in St. Pete Florida and Mobile, Alabama! You don't even need an allen wrench.

Do I have room for an Advocare Bowl? If Albuquerque, New Mexico does, then so do you.

Do I need to let the government know about this exciting business opportunity? You mean "non-profit venture," and no!

How is this profitable? We're so glad you asked. You are given referral money for encouraging friends, neighbors, and everyone else you know to open their own Advocare Bowl. You ask: doesn't that reduce the value of mine? Not on this demand curve, which is so ridiculous we call it THE DIAMOND CURVE.

We give your company bonuses for each bowl game you sell, and then plug you straight into the ESPN MONEY GRID. Then you just sit at home, rake in the money, and enjoy the life you and your family have always dreamed of living.

You may ask: but this seems too good to be true? The answer is yes, but there are lots of hard questions in this life, like "What's an Advocare?" and "Why does my milkshake taste like bleach?" Those are questions best answered by attorneys, aka the people you pay to deal with the pesky real world for you.

Let them do the talking while you do the walking, and just put that money in the envelope and start your journey to financial independence today. Don't think of it as a mountain you can't climb, but instead as a pyramid topped with the golden key to your future.

P.S. Best of all, your Advocare Bowl earnings are all TAX FREE, because you're doing this* for the kids.

*Driving a van full of hookers into a country club pool

LOOK WHO BACK. Mark Mangino is going to join the coaching staff at Youngstown State, his first coaching gig since Kansas and the best match between mascot and coach since gopher-y Jerry Kill took over the Minnesota job. We welcome back Marky M, and the exploding office walls that will result from his thunderous re-entry into college football.

IT COULD BE THAT 40 TIMES ARE NOT VERY ACCURATE IN HIGH SCHOOL. At almost every level and in almost every case, athletes in the NFL combine tallied 40 times significantly higher than their reported high school 40 times. Yes, even Landry "Lightningass" Jones.

When will we stop using that GIF? Never. Never, ever, ever.

RELATED TO LIGHTNING SPEED. Tavon Austin really has always been satanically quick, just with greater and even more unfair differentials between him and his pursuers.

WE JUST GIANT FOOT AND DIAMONDS OKAY UNC-- No idea, UNC. No idea whatsoever. We see that foot outline, and we just start thinking about Barefoot Wine and ice cream shaped like feet.

THE NEXT JADEVEON CLOWNEY, OR AT LEAST SOMETHING ELSE TERRIFYING AND NOT OF THIS EARTH. His last name is Hand, and that means his nickname is already some image of divine vengeance.

ETC: Hey, look at you, Pinellas County, all fancy with your fluoridated water and stuff. I knew you were GUMBEL GUMBEL GUMBEL GUMBEL. Oh my god beaaaaaaaaaaaars.

It is a point of debate on the internet how to properly purchase and enjoy bourbon. We thought we'd clarify with a simple user's guide on how to drink bourbon, which you should be drinking because bourbon is delicious, and fast becoming one of our nation's favorite alcohols to alcohol it up with.

A few tips from a pro

1. Buy some bourbon. You'll know it's bourbon because it will say "BOURBON" on the bottle. If you are not sure if the bottle you are buying is bourbon, ask the sad man in an apron stacking Glenmore Gin handles at the end of the aisle if the bottle is bourbon. He is a divorced man with $45,000 in student loan debt seconds from suicide, and is an expert on bourbons and crying.

2. You should start with a bourbon that is brown. Bourbons are supposed to be brown. If someone pours you a bourbon and it is clear, you should say, "This is not brown, and cannot be bourbon! I am an expert!" Then you should drink it, especially if it's a radioactive medical marker because it's not easy to steal those from the hospital and you should reward that person's hard work and generosity accordingly. For the record: most bourbons are not radioactive.

3. Open your bourbon. The first smell that greets the nose should be ALCOHOL. Alcohol is the key ingredient in bourbon, a poison that depresses the central nervous system, slows the flow of oxygen to the brain, and in large doses can kill you. If your bourbon does not have any, then you are drinking water that has been left to sit in a nasty wooden barrel for a decade. Seek medical attention if you are not already dead.

4. You may also taste and smell other things. Bourbon drinkers claim to smell and taste a wide range of flavors and scents in their bourbons. These may include:

• Wood
• Mud
• Dirt
• France
• Burnt hair
• Vanilla
• Tacos
• the sound of a Whig politician diving into a mudhole fleeing an angry mob
• Ass
• Old wood
• Hammers
• Money
• Pennies
• Butterscotch-flavored kerosene
• Fur of a middle-aged hunting dog
• Fritos

You never know what you'll taste in yours, so the only way is to try it yourself.

5. Ice. Ice is controversial but it is important to remember that this is your bourbon. A bit of ice can add flavor. A lot of ice can numb your tongue and mouth, and make the alcohol application process that much faster. You should probably put as much ice into your glass as possible to put as much alcohol into your system as fast as possible. Warning: this will dampen the important pennies and hunting dog flavors.

6. Pour bourbon into a glass. The glass is important. It should have only one hole at the top and none in the rest. You can also use a plastic cup if you are clumsy and know you are going to drop the glass. You may not drink bourbon out of a boot no matter how many Westerns you saw where this happened. Cowboys also ate straight off campfires, bathed in barrels, and pooped on cactuses. They had some serious problems matching objects with their proper use, a classic sign of pervasive low-level arsenic poisoning from bad well water. (People in the old West did not start drinking too early, but rather not early enough, allowing milk and water to poison their brains as children.)

7. Now drink your bourbon. Some may tell you to swirl the liquid around your mouth. These people do it not for flavor--this is a common misconception--but instead for hygiene, attempting to kill the germs inside your filthy, rat-infested disease-cannon of a mouth. Bourbon comes from Kentucky, where "Your teeth or your liver" was the only question on the state medical board until 1959. The correct answer was tricky: "Bourbon." Let the rich alcohol flavor wash over your tongue and facepiece.

8. Bourbon mixes and pairs with many things well thanks to its flavor profile, once described by someone we just made up as "a whole farm buried in a slag mine and then strained through the drawers of a werewolf." Try the following combinations, or experiment yourself:

• Bourbon and ginger ale
• Bourbon and ginger beer
• Bourbon and cheese popcorn
• Bourbon poured into the bottom of a Blizzard and taken into a children's movie
• Bourbon and gummy bears
• Bourbon oh god there is really nothing else on in the world except Chopped it's on everywhere forever and why how did this happen bourbon
• Bourbon and stale uncrustable found under couch=depression tiramisu

9. Continue to drink your bourbon. You should take time to savor the alcohol flavor and the wistful feeling one gets drinking bourbon. Imagine yourself on a porch in Kentucky watching the sunset, and the fireflies buzzing, and the heat of the day receding as you watch the night creep into the trees and the land around the house. Hear the shotgun cock behind you. See the owner of the house standing in their underwear, also drunk from bourbon's delicious alcohols, demanding to know who you are, and what you are doing on their porch drinking their liquor out of a boot. (You're not even supposed to do that!) Run, powered with the speed that only real Kentucky Bourbon can give you, knowing that you've just shared another special bourbon experience with a new friend, one who at this moment is running far faster than an overweight man in boxer briefs should be capable of, particularly when leveling a Mossberg shotgun at your running figure. Shit, did you remember a barbed wire fence being at the end of this driveway? And dogs? Oh, bourbon, you've done it again.

10. Don't buy Evan Williams. Everything else is fine. Evan Williams is made with Everclear and incinerated stray dog ashes.

The 10pm Duck Dynasty on A&E last night had 8.6 million viewers - more than any game on NFL Network last season.

— TVSportsRatings (@TVSportsRTGS) February 28, 2013

It is unfair to compare the two, really: the NFL network isn't in as many homes as A&E, etc, etc. But know this: America still loves football, but it really, really loves men in beards with thick accents shooting waterfowl.

THAT'S JUST A PICTURE OF LANE KIFFIN. The face looks confused, but the hair? STUNNING.

EVERYONE GETS A CELEBRATION. Texas is posting highlights of their spring practices filmed with some kind of GoPro in an aquarium on a boom. It's still pretty cool, particularly because you can see how tight coverage is in the endzone, and also because you can laugh at players simultaneously celebrating a touchdown and a successful goal line stand.

This footage was posted on Youtube and not the Longhorn Network in the hope that someone, somewhere, might actually have the chance to watch it.

LET'S REWARD A JOB DONE. UCF's continued love affair with a terrible human being would mystify you if you were not familiar with the rest of UCF football history.

RE: TERRIBLE HISTORIES. UMass survived their first season in FBS football by winning two games: one on the field, and one against those at UMass who wanted to move the team back down to FCS immediately. Bill C is way, way kinder than he should be here, but he's nice like that.

TIM BREWSTER'S TWEETS, REVIEWED. It's amazing what a few days and a new situation can do to fine works of literature like Tim Brewster's tweets, and how hot your chili can indeed get reading them if you're a recently jettisoned Mississippi State fan.

GARY ANDERSEN, JOB CREATOR. Hiring a new special teams coach with a quickness after Jay Boulware bolted for Oklahoma, and presumably finding "The right guy" this time. It's a good time to be a Nevada assistant, presumably because one can simply say "Chris Ault pistol fairy dust is all over my ass" and coaches will snap it up.

ETC: Our old producer from SDFB went to Gabon and made a film about people taking acid in the jungle, but you probably already suspected that. We enjoyed this guide to NBA hand signals quite a bit. Winston Churchill's iconic scowl, explained. BRO WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR HANDS. This jetski may have some altered imagery in its ad. RIP, Paul Bearer.

Bracketology is an overused tool, but there may be a bold new frontier to explore using America's favorite structure for competition: valuable journeys into self-discovery. To test this I volunteered myself and attempted to remember the stupidest things I had ever done. The results were terrifying and painful, but science does not care about your feelings. It only wants answers.

[click for full-size image]

A few notes before we start. This is an incomplete summary of the stupid things I have done in life by necessity. Once I got started, the list grew to an unmanageable size, and what you see here is merely a sample. I have excluded things that happened naked involving other people to protect their identities, because no one needs that association spoiling their image. There are several illegal acts here because if you're not cheating you're not trying in life.

There is no numerical seeding because once I started I realized that all of these are fairly stupid to some degree, and well past the border of total objective evaluation. Seeding is random, with acts being loosely grouped into four categories: Misadventure, Consumption, Judgment, and Taste. These, too, are fairly arbitrary, and have been used mostly as a convenience.

The first-round matchups are described below:

Misadventure

FENCES vs. BATTERY FIASCO. Childhood stupidity of trying to jump every fence I saw, often resulting in grievous injury. Opponent: the time I confused the colors red and black while jumping a battery. Expensive electrical error is a powerful favorite here, but a large-headed, clumsy child eating dirt in slow-motion is a dangerous underdog.

CHILDREN OF MEN ALONE vs. HOT DOGS. Watching Children of Men alone in a post-Katrina New Orleans in a sketchy hotel with wire-meshed glass in the windows is a harrowing experience. Then again, so is eating 10 hot dogs in 10 minutes after eating a bacon-wrapped hot dog topped with avocado prior to the competition, something I did because "you don't wanna have too much room down there."

10K DISASTER vs. COLLEGE APPLICATION. This memory may not be accurate, but I don't think I applied for college until a month before deadlines, and thus turned in SAT scores and a fistful of McDonald's Monopoly pieces as my resume. I asked my dad for my taxes and he panicked. "WHY? WHY? ARE YOU WITH THE FEDS?" I also once ran a 10K in Target shoes I bought the night before without doing any sort of training, and finished behind a fat shirtless man sweating pure butter.

STAIRWELL FALL vs. WRESTLING A TURTLE. Went to work with the flu; passed out at the top of a concrete stairwell. Woke up at the bottom to the sound of ambulances. The turtle wrestling didn't start as wrestling, but when you try to ride a sea turtle you're going to end up slapfighting a turtle. (Spoiler: you lose.)

CARBONATION INCIDENT vs. DOGFIGHT. Tried to carbonate an already carbonated beverage because "it wasn't bubbly enough." Ruined a ceiling in the process. Dogfight was partially from necessity, but even if it's your dog in trouble, the idea of jumping into a dogfight and punching a half-German Shepherd, half-Boxer is a very stupid one and a very good way to get free holes in your hand.

ROCK CLIMBING vs. SUNBURNS. I was really bad at it and almost got killed by a piece of falling rock on Whitesides in North Carolina, but there was a time in American history where everyone rock climbed, kayaked, or mountain biked. You had to choose one or you didn't graduate or something. On the other side, sunburns are literally the stupidest thing in the world because getting a sunburn means you have forgotten that there is a giant ball of burning gas in the sky for half the day of every day of your life. I have done this multiple times.

MOTORCYCLE vs. CHINESE BUS. Rode a motorcycle for a year and ran broadside into the side of a car one night, then drove to work with one good handlebar insisting I was okay because shock helps you make excellent, clear decisions. Rode a rural Chinese bus line once voluntarily. Bus drivers routinely turn the lights off at night going over mountain passes "to save gas," because that is how cars and physics really work.

SKATEBOARD vs. PISSING CONTEST. A toss-up between eight-year-old me beginning a skateboard career by going down a hill shoeless in a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts and the time in Boy Scouts when we decided to test the veracity of the timeworn phrase "pissing in the wind." Making a cliche about a scenario should forbid the need for testing, but stupid is reckless and never sleeps. P.S. the skateboard incident ended with me breaking my arm with my head flying off the skateboard. It's the leader by collateral damage.

Consumption

BOUGHT NEW CAR vs. PIZZA. Bought an item that lost half its value the minute it left the lot, and that makes it a clear favorite over anything ever involving pizza, the stupidest food ever for its a) total lack of nutrients, b) inability of the body to regulate intake, and c) being made of sawdust and horsemeat in many instances. I will eat too much of it sometime during this stupid, stupid weekend because this happens every weekend.

GOLDENEYE (SLAPPERS) vs. CANDY. Another stupid food eaten in horrendous quantities makes the Big Dance, mostly for the time we ate nothing on a hungover New Year's Day but a bag of LemonHeads and a 12-pack of Newcastle. The sensation of its aftermath is best described as pure electric sorrow. Goldeneye with "Slappers only!" has the lowest spot on my "time wasted/pleasure derived" scale, since it was both stupid, frustrating, and dammit I'm playing it again right now.

EATING WEED vs. OYSTER SOUP. The one time I ate marijuana resulted in a lengthy concert hallucination that I was a bug being pinned to the seat by a solid needle of sound, then realizing I was crying uncontrollably and out loud. In the other corner we have "eating oyster soup to cure nausea," a piece of advice that did work because heavy vomiting, in certain amounts, does in fact cure itself.

GOLDSCHLAGER vs. VALDOSTA. The liquor that is a poor man's idea of a top-shelf liquor -- "It's got gold in it and it tastes like candy! It's practically an investment in fun!" -- never, ever resulted in good things, ever. Valdosta is here because I once drove there at 11 p.m. on a dare, broke down on something called "Snake Nation Road" without cell phone service, and was eaten by coyotes.

SNORTED X vs. MIKE 'N IKES. The favorite here feels like someone stabbing a shrimp fork into your sinuses and leaves you blind and crying for five minutes. Mike 'n Ikes are on here because I have no control over the amount I eat despite them just being sugared horse hoof with chemical flavoring, and having no ability to make anything about your life better in any way.

WHIPPITS vs. EAST ST. LOUIS. There is no reason to do whippits ever, no matter how bored you may be. East St. Louis is on here because a band trip in high school stayed there, and who wouldn't think a group of teenagers couldn't find fun, love, and companionship in the bombed out basement of America's hidden Memphis walking around at 10 p.m.?

SHAMPOO FOR LOVE vs. PADDLED. One of the more ill-advised moments of adolescent decision-making resulted in the use of a particular shampoo for a particular moment that caused a SPECTACULAR AND PAINFUL ALLERGIC REACTION IN A VERY PERSONAL AND INTIMATE WAY. Choosing paddling in an elementary school discipline scenario is going to get blown out here, but someone has to face The Great Shampoo Mistake in this tournament.

BETEL NUT OD vs. DAYS OF OUR LIVES. I did drop "Physics for ADD Kids" because it conflicted with the gripping season of Days of Our Lives where Marlena was possessed by the devil. This was stupid, but will likely lose to the supreme stupidity of chewing a betel nut loaded with some kind of amphetamine at a Taiwanese bowling alley. Days of Our Lives never made me pass out and seize in front of a horrified group of friends.

Judgment

GRAD SCHOOL vs. DROVE FLOODED CAR. Grad school is never a great idea, but it does pale in comparison to driving a car left in a flooded parking lot in Florida around because you are very, very stupid. The standing water and smell were nice accents, but the black mold that flew out of the air conditioner made the experience exquisite.

DRUNK COAT BUYING vs. CIA. A drunken holiday shopping trip. A coat that looked fine. You, handing your wife a coat that it turns out is a XXXXXXXXXXL, and can cover a piano with ease. Your wife, crying because you were shopping drunk. This probably ties with, "I wanted to be in the CIA and actively pursued this with no other options, because who doesn't want to be an Amway agent for freedom abroad, and attempt to get strangers to betray their country for $400 a month."

SOCKLESS INTERVIEW vs. JOUSTING. Went to a real job interview without putting on socks as an unemployed adult. (Got job.) Jousting was a game in middle school involving two kids jousting with sticks on a rail tie placed over a deep drainage ditch. Concussions. Just, lots and lots of concussions.

DROVE WITH BROKEN BONES vs. PNEUMONIA. Fell off a pull-up bar and landed on a weight left on the floor, breaking a bone in my lower back but driving home by myself because of total stupidity. Pneumonia is a dark horse here because of the official, doctor-certified nature of the stupidity. (The doctor straight up told me I was stupid for ignoring it, so it was confirmed by science.)

INSURANCE vs. DRUNK ON A MOTORCYCLE. Scary stupidity -- driving a motorcycle drunk in a foreign country -- meets an inability to ever really get insurance totally right. My twenties were a cavalcade of legal follies trying to get and keep it while simultaneously having a driver's license; my thirties are just admitting I have no idea how insurance works, and writing checks to cover the ignorance.

CHINESE COP FIGHT vs. NASCAR. I nearly got into a fight with a cop in China when I lost my ticket on a train. I would have DIED. The possible fatality pales in comparison to the mismatch of driving a NASCAR machine without a driver's license. (Not street legal anyway, closed track, but no paperwork in Alabama does risk deportation and jail no matter who you are.)

9 YEARS WITHOUT THE DENTIST vs. ORANGE PAINT. It would be more understandable if fear were involved, but simply forgetting to go to the dentist for over two presidential terms is just first-rate stupidity at work. Painting a rented room a brilliant shade of orange in winter is stiff competition, however.

GOT MARRIED AT 21 vs. JOBS. It worked, but that doesn't mean getting married at 21 isn't a very stupid idea. Jobs just covers every attempt to get a job ever, all of which were unsuccessful and stupid and resulted in surrender and then accidentally falling into real, non-stupid jobs.

Taste

YELLING AT BLOGGER vs. POETRY. Yelling at a blogger at a conference when drunk is a terrible idea. Writing poetry and taking three -- THREE -- undergrad classes in it is worse, particularly the section with all the 20th century spoiled white guys who throw themselves off bridges because they made the very stupid decision to be poets for a living.

BLACKJACK SWITCH vs. GOATEE. Playing two hands of blackjack with stupid rules that don't really improve your odds? OH SIGN ME UP, CASINO ROYALE YOU CRUEL MISTRESS. The goatee was a terrible, awful decision, but it was 1998 and Stone Cold was okay with it.

SPIN DOCTORS vs. PIPE. I went to a Spin Doctors show, but it is its own punishment. Trying to smoke a pipe as a 21-year-old, however, is an unpardonable sin. Put that down, 21-year-old me, you're not in a goddamn Wes Anderson movie and never will be.

SWING DANCING vs. GIN. I wasn't into swing dancing, I just went once and it was so bad I feel like confessing it before anyone finds out about it. Gin is on here for the night in DC when I drank two giant solo cups full of it with a Navy underwater demolitions man. Never drink with people who have the words "demolition" in their job title.

LAW SCHOOL vs. BOAT SHOES. These are the same thing, but boat shoes probably advances thanks to me having worn them for years without thinking about it, while only entertaining the idea of law school. I was born in Tennessee. This isn't to ask forgiveness, but to merely explain how bad things happen to stupid people.

BASEBALL vs. BILL HICKS. Being a former baseball fan is bad, since it means you found it interesting at one point, and there he is, trapped in time, uselessly wasting hours possibly spent doing anything else than just staring at a Chicago Cubs baseball game, burning the precious oil of life without a thought. I also loved Bill Hicks when I was 12 because I hadn't had a really terrible untenured and recently divorced professor yell at a class for an hour about unfunny things yet.

DRUNK PING-PONG vs. MULLET. Playing a real ping-pong tournament in a terrible drunken state was a terrible idea. So was the accidental mullet we had when we were 16 and said, "No, don't give us a mullet, but keep it short on the top and long in the back."

BAND NAMES vs. BANDED COLLAR. Every band name I thought of at the age of 13 or so is a screaming chunk of astronomical stupidity. I also owned a shirt with a banded collar once, a purchase that automatically qualifies you as a sexual predator in 18 states.

More from SB Nation:

• NFL Mock Draft: New names rising in first round

• SB Nation exclusive with Bobby Petrino, football mind

• Uffsides: Von Miller talks with SB Nation

• ESPN has a "SportsCenter" problem, not a hockey problem

• 3 reasons why the NBA playoffs are better with the Lakers

• Dennis Rodman: The unwitting diplomat

This was the final question on Jeopardy on March 4th:

You sometimes forget the big picture, i.e. how life might look to the vast majority of Americans, those who somehow in their passage from the cradle to the grave do not feel the sweet caress of college football. They're out there, and they're the terrifying silent majority, doing things like still buying music heard on the radio and naming their children "Jayden."

But these are Jeopardy people. Smart people. People of such defining taste they question their answers, and use a tasteful hand-held buzzer instead of some grotesquely proletarian buzzer. When asked about one of the most recognizable mascots in college football, surely these bright young minds would leap to the answer and receive the firm, almost-approving Trebekian nod.

"A bit unusual to consider a car a mas-coot." Oh, we hear the Canadian condescension in your voice, Alex Trebek. Surely Erin won't fuck it up--

ERIN YOU BLITHERING BAG OF ORGANS AND WASTEWATER. MIT's mascot is Tim the Beaver, chosen because beavers are industrious and, like many students at MIT, have to file their foreteeth down to keep them from growing through their lips.

The next man--a man, who by probability has a higher chance of watching football--has a name that sounds something like "Dial and Went." He will answer this easily and---

Goddammit Dial and Went. You had such promise. You made a guess a clumsy robot would have made, because Michigan does make cars, and Jim Delany is crying now. He's in the corner crying into this cheap scotch and you are the one who made him do it, Dial and Went. Goddamn the giant empty skullquarium that gave your mother and now Jim Delany such pain.

At this point we know want Sara, who according to Alex "really struggled with this" question, to just get something close, since we're all but sure she's going to take this layup, pick up the dribble, and fire a bounce pass directly into a screaming child's face in the second row.

SARA YOU DISRESPECTED THE MAC YOU BLIGHTED WASTE OF OXYGEN WEARING A TEAL CARDIGAN.

To top it off, Alex says "the rambling wreck...and a heckuva engineer," because Alex Trebek is as much a representative of Canadian brilliance as Carson Daly is for American intellectual prowess. None of you win anything, this studio should be burned down, and Paul Johnson is waiting outside your house with a flamethrower.

CONTRARY to what everyone else has reported using a picture from last year, there is no documented evidence Steven Orr Spurrier has taken his shirt off in spring practice yet. Winter will be with us for at least two more weeks, greens will be hard and bouncy for the next four, and we just won't be very good at much, dangit, for at least the next six weeks.

This message brought to you by the Steve Spurrier Shirtless Meteorological and Male Body Image Society. (Intensely watching Steve Spurrier and his behaviors in the wild since 1992.)