Stay classy, ‘Cock fans.

Particularly when you consider what one of South Carolina fans’ favorite urban myths about Georgia fans’ misbehavior is, this is rich.

A man was arrested during the South Carolina-Wofford game for urinating off the side of Williams-Brice Stadium.

The 22-year-old from Florence, whose name I’m withholding because he probably has enough problems, was spotted by a USC policemen while relieving himself “off the top level of section 27,” according to the incident report. (The report lists the man as being 6-feet and 280 pounds.)

This happened at about 8:30 p.m., sometime during the third quarter of USC’s 23-13 win. Section 27 is on the Fairgrounds side of the stadium, and – luckily for those below – is only about halfway up compared to the upper decks.

What?  No mention of whether any alcohol related products were involved?  Given this dude’s dimensions and his action, I’d be willing to bet it was a pretty goodly sized amount.

(h/t fellowdawg @ DawgRun.com)

The Tide isn’t the only thing that’s high.

Finebaum decides to count a few of ‘Bama’s chickens before they’ve actually hatched and comes up with this cringe inducing gem:  if ‘Bama wins Sattidy,

… the wisest course for President Bush would be to replace Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary and put Nick Saban in charge. Anyone who can turn Alabama’s football fortunes around this quickly might as well take a shot at fixing the moribund economy.

I guess there are people that eat that stuff up, but, geez…

2008 Las Vegas Sports Consultants Top 30, Week 4

The money boys are back with their top thirty, and there are a few head scratchers on the list.

Rank	Team	Rating	Previous	Notes
1	Southern Cal	115.2	1	Nations best team fresh for PAC 10 play.
2	Oklahoma	110.8	2	Can’t afford to take Horned Frogs lightly.
3	Florida	110.4	3	Any Volunteers to play this team?
4	Missouri	109.9	4	Pressed a bit by Buffalo. Bigger fish to fry.
5	Georgia	109.8	5	Played with a chip on their shoulder.
6	Texas	108.0	6	Had a hoot of a time over Rice.
7	Penn State	107.7	8	Paterno putting up points with “O”.
8	Ohio State	107.0	7	Pryor is now the man in Columbus…
9	Texas Tech	106.8	9	Red Raiders get a rest for conference play.
10	LSU	106.1	12	Staged nice rally and held on at Auburn.
11	Brigham Young	105.6	10	On cruise control. Disposed of Cowboys easily.
12	California	104.8	14	CSU could be tough test.
12	Kansas	104.8	15	Bye week, then off to Iowa State.
14	Wisconsin	104.2	16	Badgers pay a visit to the “Big House”.
15	Clemson	103.8	18	Host a Maryland team brimming with confidence.
15	Texas Christian	103.8	18	Big shot this week on a big stage.
17	South Florida	103.5	17	Visit upset-minded Wolfpack, who beat ECU.
17	Alabama	103.5	25	Ripped Razorbacks, turning some heads.
19	Oklahoma State	102.9	21	A pair of relatively easy games on tap.
20	Utah	102.8	23	Hard fought road win at Air Force.
21	Auburn	102.4	20	Tough pill to swallow against rival LSU.
22	West Virginia	102.1	12	Too many blunders to survive at Colorado.
23	Cincinnati	102.0	27	Impressive win over Red Hawks
24	Tennessee	101.9	21	Licking their wounds after being routed at home.
25	Arizona	101.0	NR	Big road win at UCLA.
25	Virginia Tech	101.0	28	Hokies earn big victory at North Carolina.
27	Wake Forest	100.9	NR	No touchdowns, 4-7 on FG’s in win over FSU.
28	South Carolina	100.8	24	Another cupcake should build confidence.
29	Nebraska	100.1	29	The Hokies invade Lincoln on a roll.
30	Michigan State	100.0	28	Continue to improve. Solid in win over ND.

LSU beats Auburn… and only moves up two spots to 10th?  Tough crowd.  Except these guys think Tennessee is the 24th best team in the country today.

But the weirdest thing on there is ranking Clemmins two spots ahead of ‘Bama.  Based on what?

Tuesday’s tidbits

Here are a few random things for you to chew on:

• The Gator Nation’s cockiness starts to grow after the Tennessee win.  You gotta love a columnist who grudgingly thinks that LSU has a “puncher’s chance” against the mighty Gators.
• And over at Orange and Blue Hue, Gatorpilot thinks that, for Florida fans, Tennessee is the new Georgia (a fair cop in my mind, too).
• Urban Meyer is pissed with the new clock rules… not because it’s costing his team wins, but because he wants more from life:  “Where are the points? Where are the yards? What are we doing? Let’s go.” How existential.
• Expect to see a lot more of this comparison making it into the narrative as we head towards Saturday night’s game.
• Finally, it sounds like some Idaho cheerleaders may need to go on a diet.  One of the reasons cited for a recent change in cheerleading uniforms is, um… none too complimentary of some:
  

  The previous uniforms didn’t flatter every member of the team, and some girls said their outfits were uncomfortable, Robson said.

  “Girls are just bigger these days, not everybody’s a size zero,” Robson said. “We’re not being a bunch of prudes.”

Penn Wagers, all is forgiven.

Arizona State uses its famous “twelve-man stand” defense to keep Moreno out of the end zone in the fourth quarter:

I still bet Georgia scores with a healthy Brannan Southerland on the field for that play.

Seriously, I laid off complaining about the officiating because in the vast scheme of things it wound up having no effect on the way the game played out, but that’s just embarrassing.  Counting guys on the field before a goal line play is run is straight out of Refereeing 101.  Evidently that crew took a correspondence course from Joe’s School of Truck Driving, Bartending and Officiating.

I hope Georgia gets to insist on SEC officials in next year’s game in Athens.  If those Pac-10 clowns show up and do that poor a job again, it’ll get very ugly, very quickly.

Dawg stat watch, ’08 version

If you’ll remember, last year I decided to track Georgia’s progress in seven statistical categories that had one thing in common:  Georgia excelled in all of them every season in which it won the SEC East and played in Atlanta.  Here’s the list:

1. Hold opponents under 17 points per game.
2. Finish at least +8 in turnover margin.
3. Average better than 380 yards per game on offense.
4. Finish in the top five in total defensive yardage.
5. Finish in the top three in first downs.
6. Finish no worse than third in passing yardage.
7. Finish at least third in sacks.

Again, there’s no claim that there’s a causal relationship here; it’s strictly a correlation of what went right in the good times (’02, ’03 and ’05).

I tracked this stuff last year until after the UT game, when I became convinced that the Dawgs would not make an appearance in the SECCG.  Since it’s a new year, it’s worth taking a shot at seeing how much of a bellweather these seven items are this go around.

So here’s where Georgia stands currently (per the official SEC site):

1. Defensive scoring:  13.8 ppg
2. Turnover margin:  +3 (+0.75 pg)
3. Total offense:  450 ypg
4. Total defense:  8th (275 ypg)
5. First downs:  2nd (21.5 pg)
6. Passing offense:  2nd (260.8 ypg)
7. Sacks by:  2nd (10)

All in all, that’s a very good start.  The only stat that’s not on target at present is the defensive yardage ranking, and the Dawgs are about 25 ypg away from the fifth slot in that category.  I’ll continue to follow this as long as Georgia stays in the hunt, so we’ll see how things play out.

They’re so respectable.

You’d think these would be heady days for ‘Bama football, and you’d be right.  A 4-0 start, capped with a big opening day win, a top 10 ranking, a huge game with the third ranked team in the nation coming up this Saturday and you’d think Saban and his players would have plenty to focus on and talk about.

Not enough.  Not nearly enough.  Not when there’s a blackout in town, boys!

First, the Big Kahuna felt the need to make a fashion statement of his own.

Alabama coach Nick Saban responded by, you guessed it, blacking out today’s news conference. There he was, at the podium, sporting a black Alabama polo shirt…

“Well, this is the only shirt I could find when I woke up this morning,” Saban said, laughing, before growing serious. “Those kinds of things only means something if you let it. Like those old Notre Dame teams that wore green jerseys and that means you’re not supposed to beat them. Or Joe Theismann talks to them Friday night, you’re not supposed to win that game. If all that does mean something to you, I guess it’s a problem. But they have good football players, that’s what we’re concerned about, not how they dress.”

No word yet on whether Saban will don a broadcast headset at his next presser to make a point about how he won’t let Munson’s retirement affect him either.

But there’s more!  Saban’s charges aren’t just sensitive about shirt colors.  They’ve got something to say about an incident that happened last year… that didn’t involve their team.

“Whenever we get in the end zone, we act like we’ve been there before,” receiver Mike McCoy said. “It just adds to our fire, but we wouldn’t do anything like that. We act like we been there. We are a respectable team.“

That’s cool, man.  Really.  It sounds to me like your respectable team is respected by the guys that will be wearing the black jerseys.

— Jeremy Lomax said his neck is feeling better and expects to play Saturday. He was in green Monday and didn’t get in on any contact drills, but said it’s almost certain he’ll be on the field against Alabama. “It would take a lot (to miss the game),” he said. “I’m ready to go. Fired up to get back out there, especially versus Bama. It’ll be a great challenge, a great atmosphere. I’m excited.”

— Mo Massaquoi was the leading voice in pushing for the blackout this week. “It was just something the seniors thought would be a great idea. We approached Coach Richt with it. We knew a lot was going to be riding on this game, and we just wanted to give the fans something to rally behind. It’s really a tribute to Alabama. They’re a great team, we’re a pretty good team, and we just want to go out there and put on a show.”

— Corvey Irvin certainly isn’t taking Alabama lightly: “I’m excited because I want to see what I’m made of and see what my other teammates are made of, to see where we’re really at. This will be, to me, the best team we play this year. I don’t want to back myself into a corner, but they’ve got some really good guys, and they’re going to play hard.”

Nothing like a good case of faux concern to get a team motivated.  I figure we’ll be hearing something before week’s end about Georgia players dancing.  That’s when you’ll know this whole respect deal has jumped the (crimson) shark.