Five for Friday

In an ongoing personal crusade to force myself to update this place as much as possible (hopefully every day), I have to create certain gimmicks that pair nicely with the corresponding day of the week. This way, I don't necessarily have to think of a new post idea, but just have to cram some content into the void. While this may not ensure quality (hey, assembly lines aren't perfect), it will ensure that five to ten minutes of your day are spent not doing whatever it is you should be doing. And who doesn't enjoy procrastination?

So every Friday, I plan on mentioning my five favorite stories of the week. And although the title sounds a little like that crappy band (and I'm sure this is being done by someone else, I conducted no research to find out), there are five days in the work week, I enjoy the alliteration of the title and a list of more than five will cause most to stop reading (if they haven't already done so). Behold, in no particular order, my five favorite stories from this week:

1. Lane Kiffin changes jobs and two regions of the country suffer meltdowns.
First, the entire Southeast was either crying tears of joy or tears of rage on Tuesday night when the news broke. If you are not a Tennessee fan, you rejoiced at the misfortune of a program that no one likes. And I mean NO ONE (In my opinion, Alabama and Tennessee are the two teams in the SEC that are hated by fans of every other school). If you are a Tennessee fan, you reeled in horror as you suddenly have no coach and no recruiting class just three weeks until signing day.

And second, Southern California watched as the head coach in charge of USC's rise to power left for the Seahawks only to be replaced by a coach who apparently has pictures of various school administrators (and even one NFL owner) abusing the elderly and taking part in the ethnic cleansing of various breeds puppies (there's really no other explanation). Also, that coach has not been a good head coach. If it's possible to cry tears of disbelief, USC fans did so on Tuesday night.

2. Ed Orgeron is no longer employed in the SEC.
This was a black day for college football in the South. Life without the Shrimp Boat Captain is going to be like life in Shawshank when Andy escaped to Mexico: drab. I suppose, while outrageously enjoyable for the rest of us, it was sort of a crime against Orgeron to lock him up under the microscope of SEC football. Someone with such little self-awareness should never be subjected to that. But I know we'll all sit around and laugh at some of the stuff he used to pull. Wild Boys, shirtless meetings, the Hummer commercial and an 0-8 season in the SEC. And, of course, the Red Bull. I know of no picture that symbolizes his leaving us better than this one:



3. David Cutcliffe nearly makes a return to the SEC to spread his gospel of mediocrity that eventually turns into suckiness.
After being turned down by every coach west of the Mississippi, Tennessee eventually zeroed in on the coach who truly believed Ethan Flatt was the next Eli Manning (Ethan Who you might ask, well, point proven). All indications were that he would become Tennessee's next coach as long as he agreed to some staff changes. UT wanted some old Kiffin assistants still trying to hold things together in Knoxville to be a part of Cutcliffe's staff. Cutcliffe did not agree with that and refused to make those changes, which resulted in the "withdrawing his name from consideration" story that broke this morning. So, if you're scoring at home, that's twice in about five years he's lost an SEC job because he refused to make changes to his staff. The media is calling it loyalty, but if you watched his sinking ship up close for six years like I did, it's called stubbornness.

4. Joe Cullen nearly makes a return to the SEC to spread his gospel of passing out in public places and nakedness while in fast-food drive-thru lines.
Mississippi State is in the market for a new defensive coordinator and defensive line coach after defensive coordinator Carl Torbush left for Kansas and some other defensive coach that I refuse to look up also left. Apparently, one of the candidates for the DL job was former Ole Miss assistant and lover of public drunkenness, Joe Cullen. Now, it appears Cullen will not be coming to Starkville, which is a relief to all of those working in dining establishments there.

If you recall, Cullen was fired from Ole Miss after passing out face first in a meatball sub at Subway (I may have made up the part about the meatball sub). Then, after somehow getting another job with the Detroit Lions, he ruins that by driving drunk and naked through a Wendy's drive-thru line and, incredibly, another drunk driving arrest about a week after that. It's a little disappointing he won't be coming back to the SEC where the pressures of being a coach could have taken his next display to a level that involved more nudity, streaking and KFC.

5. Mark McGwire blames the era of baseball for injecting himself with all sorts of ball-shrinkers.
I'm actually pretty impressed he could continuously say that the era demanded he cheat and the steroids he used to break the single-season home run record didn't help him hit those home runs. It's a different strategy than outright lying and, while unbelievably stupid, somewhat innovative. I think I'll use it when I gain an extra 100 pounds from eating at Chick-fil-A eight times day. The food didn't help me get fat, it was my lack of exercise. Idiot.