There’s no delusion like offseason delusion.

In the summer of 2002, if you visited the fever swamps of the Gamecock message boards, you would have learned that South Carolina was getting ready to deploy that season’s Heisman Trophy winner, a former baseball player named Corey Jenkins.

Jenkins didn’t win the Heisman.  In fact, if memory serves, he didn’t even make it through the season as the starter.  He did have one memorable moment, though not one that ‘Cock fans particularly cherish.

I only bring this up because it looks like we may have a new sheriff in town, boys.

So Nick Marshall is going to be a Heisman candidate this year. Birmingham sports radio has the rationale of a grandmother playing bunko.—
Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) May 24, 2013

Auburn fans are so cute this time of year.

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O Auburn, where art thou?

Is Auburn in decline?  Bill Connelly’s chart would seem to suggest so.

If you’re looking for the English translation,

If you completely remove 2010 from the chart above, you get a pretty clearly defined, seven-year downward trend. That Auburn not only bucked its trend and played at an elite level in 2010, but won a national title, is still just the damnedest thing.

Of course Matt Hayes would tell you that’s just the result of playing Georgia every year.

Friday morning buffet

You’ve just about made it through another working week.  Reward yourself by indulging in a few of these tasty morsels:

• Jeremy Hill’s lawyer thinks “them’s fightin’ words!” will make for a good defense in a criminal assault case.
• Will Friend thinks offensive line chemistry is overrated.
• The SEC has a new plan for lesser bowls:  the conference will pick the participants and will force lower ticket guarantees.
• The NCAA puts the kibosh on hash tags on football fields.
• If the general rule of thumb is that two starting quarterbacks are one too many, then Gus Malzahn has a problem.
• This year has seen a record number of early enrollees.
• When it comes to openers and bye weeks, Mark Richt’s teams have been above average.
• Pat Dye:  SEC! SEC! SEC!

Best “where are they now?” story of 2013

Former AU coach Trooper Taylor will help coach Auburn High school football next year.—
Christina Chambers (@chambc1) April 30, 2013

He’s just waiting for a call, peeps.

Tuesday morning buffet

Mercifully, it’s a Tebow-free buffet.

• “The cool thing is I would’ve beat the crap out of my body and now I don’t have to,” Pollack said. “I couldn’t do what (David) Greene has done and be an insurance guy. I have to have football in me and it’s in my blood. If I weren’t doing this I’d be coaching.”
• Here’s a suggestion to let current players serve on the selection committee.  Would they be paid for that?
• David Greene likes what he sees out of Georgia’s offense.
• How bad was Auburn’s offensive line last season?  This bad:  “Ball carriers got back to the line of scrimmage less than 80% of the time…”
• Fighting the NCAA – it’s not just for Jerry Tarkanian anymore.
• Athlon ranks the SEC running backs, and Georgia finds itself with #1 and #4 on the list.
• Before you ask yourself what kids like Bray and Geathers were thinking by leaving school early for the NFL draft, consider that they could have taken steps to keep the option of returning to college after the draft, but chose not to do so.
• Tech fans, the AJ-C has your consolation for the lousy draft right here.
• Mark Schlabach’s preseason top 25 list (I know, I know) is ordered by which teams have the easiest path to an undefeated season, which is how you get Ohio State at number one and Louisville fourth.
• Or if you’d prefer to look at another man’s win projections for next season’s top 25, here you go.

Practice makes perfect.

Auburn reviews itself in the wake of the Selena Roberts story, finds nothing to see there, moves on.

Oh, Auburn, you’re so Auburn.

You can take the Auburn out of Chizik, but you can’t take the Chizik out of Auburn.  From yesterday’s spring game comes this news:

On the second play of the third quarter, Reese was leveled by cornerback Jonathon Mincy and was down for several moments before walking to the sideline. Mincy was assessed a 15-yard personal foul penalty for targeting a receiver above the shoulders and ejected.

Getting ejected from a spring game takes some work.  And the scuttlebutt was that Mincy was taunting after the hit.

Best tweet I saw about this was somebody speculating whether Mincy would have to miss the first half of next year’s spring game.

Thursday morning buffet

Come and get it.

• Bill Snyder says college football “was in a bad place”, then goes on to claim that the sport can self-correct.  That makes him half-right.
• “Recruiting is still all about relationships.”  Some relationships make me want to fwow up, I guess.
• The 2012 Charting Project takes a look at fourth down plays.
• Vandalism at Williams-Brice!
• Today’s wait, what? moment comes from Auburn WR Sammie Coates, who claims “… we’ve got the best wide receivers group, I think, around.”
• Sammie, here’s what a good receiving corps looks like.
• Mike Leach says the conferences are all the same, except for one thing about the SEC.
• Mark Sanford uses football as an excuse to trespass on his ex-wife’s property.
• For an undefeated team, Ohio State was kind of meh in conference play last season.  (Of course, you could say the entire conference was kind of meh in conference play last season.)

Insourcing

As I like to say, some posts just write themselves.

How you like me now, Selena Roberts?

After swearing on a stack of bibles that he was innocent, noting that he had turned down multiple plea deals, Mike McNeil pleads guilty to armed robbery charges.  That’s how you build credibility as you accuse all sorts of folks of bad dealings.

Selena’s an Auburn grad.  Maybe her big piece is some sort of reverse jujitsu move to make her school look better as her story falls apart.  It’s as good an explanation for the mess as any.

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UPDATE:  Roberts says it’s all good.