Learn something new every day. Dan Mullen just sat down and played “Stairway to Heaven” on the baby grand piano here at event.

— Joe Galbraith (@joestate) May 21, 2012

[UPDATE: Now with photo evidence!] Our enthusiasm for sitting through the polo-shirted cattle call of SEC Media Days just spiked mightily. We have already secured a borrowed keyboard for the occasion, and will be installing it in the lobby and shrieking requests at Mullen every time he passes. Top five, in descending order: 1. “Free Bird,” 2. Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 3,” 3. “Shine On Harvest Moon,” 4. the entire songbook of Show Boat, 5. “Hot Cross Buns.”

Here’s the bear I got the other day.Hunt will be broadcast on the Outdoor Channel (not sure when).Measured 7’4″. twitter.com/Coach_Leach/st…

— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) May 20, 2012

Good morning! Here is Mike Leach with a seven-foot bear. We could probably convert this into a Mike Leach Doing Mike Leach Things blog without too much trouble. It’s May, so we’re halfway there already.

A word to all our bros out there hitting the salon on the regular (and there are lots of you; stop lying, because who doesn’t like a good foot rub): Tip your pedicurists well, particularly if you put your feet through anything like D-I football.

Pedicure with my mom on her birthday. #swaginstagr.am/p/KvMLa8Nr-4/

— Tyler Bray (@tbrayvol8) May 17, 2012

When we visited Tennessee’s spring camp in April, Tyler Bray spoke about needing to fine-tune his footwork over the summer. He’s clearly drilling down into the tiniest details to make that happen.

The Insight Bowl is the Insight Bowl no longer, you might recall, and the game is apparently intent on taking neither our helpful suggestion of bringing back another Pizza Bowl nor Jason Kirk’s idea to name the game after one of Arizona’s chief exports. No, the bowl has gone and added a bunch of underscores to its Twitter handle instead, and opened the next step up to crowdsourcing in a viral marketing effort that will in no way end in heartbreak:

Insight Bowl is getting a new name. Tweet your guesses using #NameTheGame.

— Insight Bowl (@______Bowl) May 14, 2012

Please note that the bowl in no way indicates fan voting will dictate the outcome here, which, after seeing some of the responses, you’ll agree was a sage choice:

Read More…

We do not have any particular affection or contempt for Arkansas football, but do we like having this guy within a day’s drive.

Yes. Yes, we do. Arkansas football interviews have been colorless affairs since the departure of the Reverend Houston Dale. We cannot wait to ask you many questions, John L. Smith. Welcome.

John L. Smith has run with the bulls in Spain, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, skydived, trained with Marines. … SEC Media Days, rejoice.

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) April 23, 2012

More on the hire from Mandel and from around the bloggy sphere after the jump:

Read More…

Some light reading and our favorite stories of the week to speed you through Friday.

Everything I’ve ever known is a lie. RT @ASUDevilscom: Brock Osweiler measured 6-foot-6 7/8 at NFL Combine without shoes.

— Gina Mizell (@ginamizell) February 24, 2012

• Can’t trust a blessed thing in this world. If we can’t depend on Brock Osweiler being 6-8, what can we depend on? Next thing you’ll tell us Ron Zook is, at best, a mediocre and unenthusiastic jetskiier.

• More like “leaders of the pack beating a fast trail out of Denton,” amirite, Hoosiers? The problem, in the end, with naming conference divisions “Leaders” and “Legends” is that every league, no matter how stacked, is going to have its Indiana. Smart and sassy Michigan internet fixture MGoBlog follows up our shoddy “research” with some “research” of its own — and speaking of shoddy, Brand Explorers still can’t spell “analysis.” Fun extrapolation from the ensuing comment thread: “This, combined with the the poll posted on the board yesterday, suggests that Michigan fans disapprove of the division names more strongly than they approve of Brady Hoke.” Who just won Michigan a Sugar Bowl, you might have heard.

• The state bird of Ohio. Is not football, but don’t mention that to the northern cardinal.

• Ricky Williams, graven idol. We can only hope that future civilizations, surveying the wreckage of post-zombie-apocalyptic America, will find these bronzed tributes to our beautiful game and build a religion around them.

Read More…

Innumerable thanks to intrepid Twitterer @James_Bravo for alerting us to the existence of this 2013 linebacker prospect:

Read More…

Obie gets to take off the suit (probably), but staging December and January games can be a full-time gig. (AP)

We joked Monday about how we would’ve loved to work for the Fiesta Bowl during the John Junker heyday, because who doesn’t enjoy attending $30,000 birthday parties? But you, gentle readers, may be as surprised to learn that bowl employees work more than four days a year as our own mother was to learn that we work more than four months. While recuperating from the crush of bowl season, Campus Union spoke with bowl worker bees and executive types busy putting bows on their 2011 games while laying the groundwork for the 2012 postseason. Here’s what we learned.

Months of moving parts

Every postseason college football contests maintains a year-round calendar of sorts, though we were surprised on both ends of the spectrum by just how many and how few year-round employees are retained by certain games. (For comparison’s sake: The Outback Bowl employs five year-round staffers; the Music City Bowl has nine, most of whom double up with duties to the Nashville Sports Council; and the Orange Bowl has 30, with plans to bring on an additional nine full-time positions this year to accommodate preparations for hosting the BCS title game.) The timeline varies wildly based on available personnel, resources, the organization’s presence in the community and how the game approaches its own team selection process. The first scout I personally laid eyes on last season was a very nice lady representing the Champs Sports Bowl in Morgantown in Week 3 during LSU-West Virginia. Both squads, of course, would go on to win their conferences and play in BCS bowls, but that early in the season, bowl scouts share the same disadvantage as the rest of us: All they have to go on is preseason rankings and their own prognostications.

Still, for a game like the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which draws from two of the more voluminous conferences, scouting all potentially eligible teams in person in a single season is a daunting task. Volunteer CFA scouts go out in Week 1 to begin assessing various SEC and ACC squads, though the bowl’s selection committee does not convene until November.

Read More…

We feel like this didn’t get enough play last week, probably because it was posted at quittin’ time on a Friday, but hide your parents’ sisters, doting nephews of Westwood!

UCLA’s offensive coordinator and currently Tim Tebow’s QB coach, Noel Mazzone, stood my auntie up for her prom in 1974. #notsofunfact

— Arian Foster (@ArianFoster) February 17, 2012