Since We Last Met

Jeremiah Masoli will bring his baggage (both actual bags with his possessions and figurative bags related to criminal behavior) and talent to Ole Miss
Masoli announced on his website that makes me want to adopt him that he was offered and accepted the opportunity to become a walk-on on the Ole Miss team. Houston Nutt confirmed that Masoli will be a part of the team this fall, but not without a warning that he will not hesitate to backhand Masoli back to San Francisco:

“I’ve told him the rules are going to be different for him,” Nutt said of Masoli. “I told him I have zero tolerance. I have a hair trigger. I know he knows I will pull the trigger so fast.

“This is a kid that has already graduated, who looks at you with bright eyes when you talk to him, who is focused, who says `yes sir’ and `no sir’, but also someone who has made some dumb decisions.

“I told him, 'Darned, you’re smart, but you’re dumb.’ He said, `I want to prove to you I’m smart, I want to prove to you I’ve got good character.’ I said, `You’ve got a funny way of showing that.’ ”

Nutt said he painted a picture of what he and Masoli will be facing from critics who are already saying Nutt wants to win so bad that he’s accepting a questionable character into his program.

“I told him, `Look, I don’t have a career record of recruiting criminals,’ ” Nutt said. “I said, `Do you realize I’ve got my career on the line? I got eyes on me for taking a thug, that’s what people are saying. You’ve got to be able to handle it and be a positive kid.’ ”

No doubt Ole Miss will be the target of thousands of articles lamenting the moral decline of college football (the people that will write these articles have also been asleep for the past 20 to 30 years). And if Masoli does something stupid, those articles will exponentially increase and become of the "I told you so" variety with lots of yelling and finger wagging (SO DON'T SCREW THIS UP, JEREMIAH). But, despite the disapproval of middle-aged white men, it's a decision that I embrace for one reason: We need a quarterback.

You could probably change that to "we need experienced offensive talent" since we have very little of that heading into the 2010 season. And Masoli represents that. I don't care what he did. I care about winning. And even though Masoli may be worth only one or two extra wins, when an early preseason Heisman Trophy candidate falls out of the sky, you catch him and put him on your team. The Ole Miss football program has some strong momentum right now, both on the field and in recruiting, and having that fall apart cannot happen, especially as a school that will always be in the bottom half of the conference in terms of resources.

Yes, I understand Masoli's margin for error will be about as long as a Houston Nutt sentence (and I'm fine with that), but you take the chance he keeps his business together and can win another game or two for your team, keeping the momentum train rolling. College football stopped being about all the self-righteous bullshit that will be thrown around in the coming weeks and months a long, long time ago (assuming it ever was). It's about dollar bills and winning, and you've got to feed that machine accordingly.

One final thought, and probably the most obvious one, I am thoroughly enjoying the outcry from fans of other schools over Masoli's transfer to Ole Miss. Just so we're clear, everyone should know that every damn school in the country would have taken him if they had the need and an open spot. To pretend otherwise is idiotic. Now, if another school in the SEC were to take Masoli would I mock them unmercifully? Absolutely. But I would do so with a sense of SONOFABITCHWHYCOUDNTWEGETHIM.

Jevan Snead is fielding calls from NFL and CFL teams
Snead was released by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday to make room for first round draft pick Gerald McCoy, who signed a five-year deal. All the best to him in getting another shot. As angry as he made me at times last year (and it was MULTIPLE times), I hope he figures out how to play quarterback because that six game stretch in the last half of the 2008 season was one of the finest performances I've ever seen. That said, my summer was infinitely more relaxed knowing that I didn't have to worry about how many interceptions he was going to throw this fall.

And nothing else happened
It's true. I looked it up.