The brain trust that runs ESPN into the ground has decided to suspend Tony Kornheiser for two weeks from his PTI co-hosting duties for his criticism of ESPN SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm’s recent attempts to up her MILF factor with age-inappropriate wardrobe choices.

The irony that they are punishing their viewers with two weeks of Dan LeBatard and Bob Ryan far more than they are punishing Mr. Tony (who I am sure is just heartbroken that he gets to spend an extra hour a day in the Barcalounger) appears to be totally lost on the suits.

Update: Deadspin claims that the real reason TK was suspended is due to different comments he made in the same rant about Chris Berman’s shilling for NutriSystem and ESPN’s acceptance of said advertising.

The SEC is going to fix its officiating problems by… blaming the messenger:

Commissioner Mike Slive told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday that coaches who violate the conferences’ ethics rules against criticizing officials in public will face a fine or suspension instead of receiving public reprimands when they first act up.

“It became clear to me after last week that I was no longer interested in reprimands and the conference athletic directors and university presidents unanimously agreed,” said Slive, in his eighth season as the head of the SEC.

Well, I’m not an SEC coach and, frankly, Bobby Petrino, Lane Kiffin, and Dan Mullen are my least favorite coaches in the league, but when a quarter of your league’s coaches think your referees are incompetent or worse—with commentators on television openly suggesting the refs are making calls to help Bama and Florida keep their national rankings—the problem isn’t the coaches’ airing of grievances, however whiny they may sound.

Instead Slive needs to get together with the other BCS-conference commissioners and assemble a new plan for refereeing big-time college football. With the BCS and regular-season television money that the conferences are raking in, the least the conferences could do is work together to produce a competent, national pool of refs to assign to regular season and bowl games, rather than the motley hodge-podge of officials that are used now.

The romance of our age between Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush has come to an end. Oh, the humanity.

Margaret Soltan links and excerpts reactions from SDSU and LSU students to their institutions’ abilities to spend ridiculous sums of money on athletics salaries in the midst of budget crises.

So it turns out that the Head Ball Coach was, after all, the man responsible for exercising independent judgment depriving Tim Tebow of his presumed rightful place as a unanimous first-team all-SEC selection. Now, on the world’s hierarchy of snubs, this may rank slightly behind the Honduran army’s failure to care very much that their de facto ex-president Manuel Zelaya is playing hokey-pokey with their border, but we can rest assured that ESPN was on the case with intrepid reporting not seen since BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan’s exploits in foiling the Iraqi information ministry.

And ESPN remains on the case today, with columnist Pat Forde brazenly calling for coaches to fill out their own ballots or Let Someone Else Vote rather than spend their valuable time doing things that are more useful to society. We all know that voters in the other college football polls are devoted full-time scholars of the game, watching all 60 minutes of all 120 (and counting!) I-A (sorry, FBS) teams in action every week before painstakingly filling out their ballots without consulting anyone else or, heaven forbid, just recycling their ballots from the previous week with a few “bumps” based on watching the 5–10 minutes of highlights from an entire day that ESPN chooses to show on College Football Final between Lou Holtz’s bouts of senility and live shots of the GameDay crew in a pitch-dark stadium parking lot surrounded by drunk, screaming teenagers. And if the college coaches can’t uphold these fine traditions, well dammit, let’s find someone who can.

I am having some difficulty wrapping my head around the pseudo-controversy surrounding the all-SEC team. Here are the facts as presented by Chris Low @ESPN:

1. Coaches cannot vote for their own players.
2. Tim Tebow was not a “unanimous” selection, where “unanimous” is defined as getting 11 votes (see #1).
3. Jevan Snead got a vote. Presumably from Urban Meyer, who couldn’t vote for Tebow.
4. Nobody else apparently received any votes.

Left unclear: can coaches abstain or cast a tied vote?

Also left unclear: is this supposed to be based on past performance or expected performance in 2009? Tebow clearly has the longer track record than Snead, but I have a mild feeling that Snead will be a more effective quarterback than Tebow in 2009.

Maybe Spurrier voted for Duke or something.

EDSBS says the role of Ed Orgeron in The Blind Side will be played by… Ed Orgeron. This may be the first movie ever made about American football with English-language subtitles.

I think a good time was had by all at my (first annual?) Super Bowl party at the humble abode on Sunday; the company was nice and the game didn’t disappoint, despite KGNS forgetting to hit the “HD switch” in the control room until near the end of the first quarter, a glitch I called in advance in my invitation email. And while I predicted the final score exactly wrong all-in-all it was a pretty good evening, capped by a classic Office episode. A win-win-win, I’d say.

One picture is worth a thousand words. I was generally supportive of Croom’s hire at the time, but—like The Orgeron—he failed to produce on the big stage. Or even, sometimes, on little ones.

So, we’re now two games into the Houston Nutt era at Ole Miss and the record stands… exactly the same (1–1) as it did after two games of the Ed Orgeron era.

The similarities, though, seem to end there: instead of barely edging Memphis and losing by eight to Vandy the Rebels thumped the Tigers (admittedly, at home, and admittedly a Tiger team that this weekend just got beat by Rice, of all teams) and came within an arguably bogus pass interference call of a road victory against what appears to be the best team in the ACC this year (admittedly, not saying much considering the sorry state of the contemporary ACC), with the team missing two of the team’s key defensive starters for most of both contests (Peria Jerry played limited time against Wake, while Greg Hardy remains out).

I don’t know that Jevan Snead is going to make anyone in Oxford forget Eli Manning (call me back when Snead goes 28–28 in his first 28 pass attempts in a game), but he’s already helped me wash away the memory of the likes of Micheal Spurlock and Ethan Flatt. And, for better or worse Nutt has brought back the high drama of Rebel offensive playcalling in a way not seen since the traitorous Riverboat Gambler was roaming the sidelines at Vaught-Hemingway.

Is this the year the Rebels get back to a bowl for the first time since the Second Coming of Manning? The schedule looks favorable, although I only see one likely road win for the Rebels at this point (at sputtering Arkansas). But with Jerry back and Hardy on the mend, the Rebels will be tough to beat at home and might even be able to steal a second win on the road to move up beyond the Poulan Weed-Eater bowl-of-last-resort level.

* Yes, I know the Poulan Weed-Eater Bowl no longer exists, but it’s fun to type and represents the sort of crappy bowl game, usually held in Shreveport, the Rebels regularly attend.

Who in their right mind in Texas would rather see Oregon State vs. Penn State instead of Ole Miss vs. Wake Forest? Then again, maybe they’re just trying to help the Longhorns cover up losing their team’s best quarterback to Ole Miss.

I had a few beers this evening at Buffalo Wild Wings with Frequent Commenter Alfie and Frequent Facebook Correspondent Annie while watching the Ole Miss-Vanderbilt baseball game and various other sporting events, including part of a UFC contest. The onion rings were very good, as was the company, and even the beer wasn’t that badly priced.

An email subject header this afternoon from my inbox:

REMINDER: 2008 Ole Miss Football Renewal Deadline

Alas, I’m not one of those rich alumni who can afford to jet in from Laredo to Oxford seven or eight times a year. Or even once for that matter.

The Hornets are stuck in their lease another year, suckers!

The Hornets on Tuesday night reached a goal that seemed impossible just three short months ago: pushing the team’s average attendance past the magic 14,735 opt-out number in the franchise’s lease agreement.

It came after the Hornets registered their sixth consecutive sellout and their 12th in the past 17 games as 17,388 fans saw the Hornets beat the Los Angeles Clippers 114–92 to win the franchise’s first division title, secure at least the No.2 seed in the upcoming playoffs and push their average attendance to 14,738 since Dec. 1.

But don’t worry, George, a year’s absence from the NBA will just make Seattle’s hearts grow fonder (and consequently your wallet fatter when you ditch town like we all know you will).

Win the Grey Cup (the equivalent to the Super Bowl north of the border) and weeks later you’re willingly taking a job as second-banana on what is unquestionably the worst football team in the Southeastern Conference. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that Kent Austin is coming to Oxford (and, on paper, the Rebels should be better than they were last year), and you couldn’t pay me enough to live anywhere in Saskatchewan, but damn.

In case New Orleans didn’t have enough damn LSU fans in town, they’ll be out in full force for the BCS title game against Ohio State on January 7th, when thankfully I will be far, far away from the Crescent City.

Who could hate this outcome more than a Michigan fan? Not only does their archrival tOSU play for a national title, but now there’s no way Les Miles backs out of his commitment to stay at LSU instead of going to coach the Wolverines. At least my loyalties will be less conflicted than a Michigander’s: go Buckeyes!

Houston Nutt will be the next coach at Ole Miss. I figured there’d be a much longer process to fill the job; maybe I was projecting from my experiences onto others’. Now hopefully Nutt can get things back on the right track, we don’t lose many recruits and the kids who can go to the NFL stay, and we can go from there.

Orson Swindle on the aftermath of O-for-8’s firing:

This leaves the pesky question of who will take the Ole Miss job. Exquisitely timed as always, Ole Miss has fired a coach just in time to compete against Texas A&M, Michigan, Nebraska, and god knows what other larger, more monied programs will fire their coaches in the next ten minutes–not to mention the vacancies gaping after the guys who fill those positions leave their current positions.

Now I have to find a new tagline for the blog. Here’s a bittersweet final tell ‘em ‘bout it, Joe-Joe! for the road.

Rick Cleveland 1, Ed Orgeron 0. I guess Boone and Khayat think they can turn things around faster with someone else running the show; I’m not that convinced, but maybe they’ve got an ace up their sleeves.

To me, the quasi-obvious candidate is Mike DuBose, who’s quietly turned around the Millsaps football program in what many people have perceived as a stepping-stone job back to I-A. If Mike Price had seen more consistent success at UTEP, he might be on the board as well.

Since when do college football players issue press releases? More eye-popping:

Even after missing two games, Hardy still leads the Southeastern Conference in tackles for a loss per game and sacks.

That may say more about the general suckitude of SEC defenses this year than Greg Hardy’s talent, but following in the footsteps of a legend like Patrick Willis as a freshman is hardly a small feat either.

The SEC is pretty wacky this year to begin with, considering the consensus best team in the league, LSU, keeps squeaking by teams it has no apparent business beating based on the team’s on-field performance. (At least the paper tigers in other conferences which have flirted with the top of the rankings have been exposed, from Boston College to South Florida.) And I don’t even pretend to comprehend what’s going on in Lexington and (gasp) Starkville.

This is the second time I’ve seen Trinity beat Millsaps at home in the waning minutes of the game… although the first time back in 2004 was a tad more conventional than Saturday’s example:

Yow.

Update: Timothy Sandefur asks, “is this how [football]’s really supposed to be played?” Well, no, but when you’ve only got two seconds left on the game clock, reverting to rugby is about the only option available other than the hail mary.

Ugh. On the upside, I did meet a couple at the bar I saw the game at that gave me some suggestions for tourist stuff to do when Mom is here next week, so all-in-all I guess it was worthwhile.

If I can’t get this ticket for the Ole Miss/Northwestern State game to sell for at least 42¢, I don’t know what I’ll do… I guess I’ll probably just mail it to Frequent Commenter Alfie or something.

Perhaps I’m just too practically-minded, but I’m not at all sure what good would come from firing Ed Orgeron as the Ole Miss coach after three seasons, two of them with David Cutcliffe’s players and hastily-grabbed JuCo guys. After getting oh-so-close to beating Florida and Alabama, and hanging in for three quarters against Georgia, I’m hardly surprised that the Rebels’ collection of first-year starters and walk-ons couldn’t hold it together against a Heisman candidate on a good team that was desperate for a win to save their coach’s job—a team that regularly beat the Rebels under Tubby and Cutcliffe too, mind you.

Now, if Dickie Scruggs has a suitcase full of cash that he’s willing to hand over to Bobby Petrino, and Petrino’s willing to take it to come in and spend the next 2–3 years at the bottom of the SEC, that’s one thing, but realistically I don’t see who’s out there who’s going to do a better job than Orgeron. If the issue is play-calling on Saturday, toss Werner and/or get a full-time defensive coordinator to make the calls. But replacing Orgeron with some other coach plucked from obscurity, or one of the “hot” coaches from a lower-tier conference like C-USA or the Big Least, who likely won’t even have Orgeron’s recruiting chops, is just a recipe for more of the same.

Rick Cleveland points out that the SEC apparently uses a different definition for “indisputable” than the rest of humanity—not that we should have expected the competence of SEC replay officials to exceed the legendary incompetence of its on-field officials in the first place.