About that title. With our normal Sprints man cocknfire visiting the fam this week, I'll be filling in the best I can. They won't be as long or comprehensive, and they probably won't come everyday, but don't say I never did nuthin' for ya.
The long nightmare is finally over. After playing coy for much of the off season, Steve Spurrier has announced that he will be running the offensive show again : "I'll be responsible for the playcalling, how's that?" His son Steve Jr. had a major hand in it last year, but after playing the Staff Shuffle this off season, the Ol' Ball Coach will be calling the ball plays. Though he swears it'll be a group effort, I can't imagine Spurrier won't be taking the wheel more often than not.
Speaking of Steve... He is in favor of his old nemesis Bobby Bowden getting to keep his wins that are currently vacated due to NCAA penalties. This is bigger news than it would seem because Spurrier used to hate Bowden back in the day. Bobby, for his part, wants another national title before he hangs it up. Given that he'll need to retire in two years so that FSU won't have to pay Jimbo Fisher $5 million though, I can sum up his chances in one word: Bwahahahahaha.
So you want to be a football player, eh? Over at Burnt Orange Nation, 54b has the harrowing tale of Two-a-Days, the practices that everyone does that are designed to break players down to build them back up. I personally would probably wilt in the first 10 minutes, if I even made it up at 6:00 in the morning.
Statistics made fun. Saurian Sagacity posted one of my favorite features of the preseason, um, season last Friday with its annual look at the statistical characteristics of BCS champions. Despite the name, it's light on math (they did it so you don't have to) but heavy on really interesting stuff. Did you know there's a statistical category that no BCS champ has ever finished outside the top nine of? Now you do, or at least you will once you read it.
Sharing the wealth. Around the country, the Big Six programs tend to subsidize the non-Big Six schools in their states with guarantee games, whether it's Ohio State taking on Youngstown State or, as with this year, Florida taking on Florida International. That's par for the course, except apparently in the Yellowhammer State. The most generous in both money and beatdowns to in-state bretheren? LSU.
I've heard this somewhere before. SB Nation's LSU blog And the Valley Shook ran some numbers and found that LSU has the best home field advantage in the conference. I'm not 100% sold on the methodology (which would make for a full post later), but it's an interesting take on the topic. One thing I do agree on though: home field advantage is not as pronounced as you might think.
A laugh a day is healthy. Too funny to pass up. A columnist in Hartford, CT suggests that the eight football playing Big East schools should join up with the ACC to form a 20-team super conference. Not only are super conferences not the future (as he suggests), the WAC showed years back that they're too big to last for very long. Besides, those 20 schools collectively would still be less desirable than the 12 of the SEC when it comes to football contracts.