I’m not a motorsport person, but I AM a videogame person.

A NASCAR driver (Ross Chastain) just did a Mariocart wall-ride to come from way behind and put himself into the championship. It’s completely bananas.

The principle here is pretty simple: speed is limited by your traction. The rest of the drivers were held to their track by their tires (and aero downforce) alone. By putting his car against the outer wall, Chastain was able to floor it because the wall itself kept him on the track — though obviously at significant cost to the right side of the car.

Here’s coverage; in a postrace interview, Chastain explicitly cites using the tactic in the GameCube NASCAR game as a kid, and figuring it was worth a hail-mary move given the circumstances.

Here’s a longer video showing the move from a variety of angles — this is probably better, because from several you can see how WILDLY faster he was moving in the crucial moments.

Mary Carillo on badminton.

“Hey, what if the bat had targeted explosives in it?”

(Answer: It’s a home-run machine. It’s awesome. I mean, if used in baseball it would make the game even MORE turgid and boring, but on its own it’s GREAT.)

45 years ago today, Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while on acid.

It’s no secret I ride a lot. I love it, but I found late last year that I wasn’t improving as fast as I used to. It’s not age, or not exclusively age; it’s just that, beyond a certain point, you have to do something more than “just ride a lot” — you have to get intentional about it, and that means a power meter and structured training and a coach and hours on an indoor trainer where you can watch output and hit power targets and all that jazz.

Luckily, I enjoy data, so at least that part’s fun.

Luckily, too, is the fact that this new approach is absolutely working. There’s no coasting in an hour-long workout, nor is there drafting; you’re just putting in the work. SOME of these workouts I can do on the road, or at least on the closed track at Memorial Park, but mostly it’s on a trainer in my office starting at a bookcase.

Obviously, then, podcasts and music are involved. Sometimes it’s TAL or Omnibus or something, and sometimes it’s tunes. I made a playlist I shuffle over that’s got lots of music I like; it’s heavier with hip-hop than I would’ve guessed, but once you add some RTJ and Kanye’s “Stronger,” it’s easy to stay with the theme.

Today, I was having some trouble hitting the targets — the tl;dr is that I got stronger, so the workouts just got harder — but upon review I found there was an anomalously high peak in the final period of effort, which coincided with the end of a podcast and the start of the aforementioned shuffled playlist.

I know what song was playing, so I think I’m justified in identifying this phenomenon as the “Xzibit Peak“:

LOL:

I am reliably informed that, last evening, the collection of millionaire athletes ostensibly based in Houston defeated a similar squad based on Los Angeles, and as such now engage in a break — I think it’s two months? — before starting the entire process all over again.

This calls into question the meaning of such an event, but you’d never know that from the city’s reaction.

I will, however, have to rejigger my maxim regarding big-time Houston sports, which heretofore I assumed were banned from championships by the Illuminati. The only exceptions up to now have been the ’94 and ’95 Rockets, and I think we can all understand how the Conspiracy was caught flat-footed by the utterly improbable development of Michael Jordan forsaking the Bulls and going to play baseball in Alabama for two years.

Still not as cool as the Cubs winning, though.

…it does seem worth noting two things about this year’s NBA Finals.

First, the Warriors are a game away from sweeping the entire playoffs; they haven’t lost a single game, and are up 3-0 over the Cavs. The 2000-01 Lakers dropped only a single game and finished at 15-1, but lost their streak at game 1 of the Finals. (Back then, the first round was best-of-5 and not best-of-7). The Warriors, if they win, will have a 16-0 streak.

Second, LeBron James is playing in his seventh consecutive finals. That’s not unprecedented, but it’s damned rare — the only folks with more played on the 1957-1966 Celtics, who dominated the league and appeared in the Finals all 10 of those years.

“King” among those folks was the legendary Bill Russell (and I say “legendary” because you’d have to be borderline divine to have been a famous basketball player in the 50s that I know about). He’s the only one who was on all 10 squads, and won 8 in a row from ’59 to ’66.

The 8-in-a-row, obviously, still stands; nobody’s managed to string more than 3 titles together since (Bulls twice, Lakers once).

This is kind of adorable and fun.

Peter Sagan may not be in yellow anymore, but he remains a rock star of cycling.

JoePa knew 40 years ago.

Throughout most of the Sandusky scandal, Joe Paterno claimed that he was unaware that his assistant coach was sexually abusing children; 2012’s Freeh Report showed that Paterno was aware of a 1998 incident and told Sandusky he could keep coaching. Today’s opinion from Judge Glazer—relying on sworn deposition from numerous witnesses—holds that Paterno knew about Sandusky’s behavior much earlier.

From the decision:

Sandusky was employed by PSU as an Assistant Football Coach and Assistant Professor of Physical Education from 1969 until his retirement in 1999.1 PMA claims Sandusky committed several acts of molestation early in his career at PSU: in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Football Coach Joseph Paterno, that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky; in 1987, a PSU Assistant Coach is alleged to have witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and a child at a PSU facility; in 1988, another PSU Assistant Coach reportedly witnessed sexual contact between Sandusky and a child; and also in 1988, a child’s report of his molestation by Sandusky was allegedly referred to PSU’s Athletic Director.

BigFootball is a cancer.

Jerry Jones: Link between CTE and football ‘absurd’.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones called the connections between CTE and football “absurd” on Tuesday.

Jones told reporters there was not enough data to establish a relationship between the degenerative brain disease, linked to repeated hits to the head, and the game of football.

Last week, NFL senior vice president for health and safety Jeff Miller said that there was “certainly” a link between football and CTE, which has been found in the brains of numerous former professional football players postmortem.

Look, if you’re behind the fucking NFL on an issue like this, that ought to be a warning, you know?

Tooooooochdown ALLLABAAAAMAAAAAA.

Francis Barry at the New York Times wrote up that recent base-ball contest in language approximating that contemporaneous with the Cubbies’ last win, and it is glorious:

CHICAGO, Oct. 21 — The New York Metropolitans claimed decisive possession of the National League base-ball pennant on enemy turf here at Wrigley Field on Wednesday night, sweeping the Sisyphean Chicago Cubs in four games to earn their ducats to next week’s World Series championship.

The Metropolitans — also known as the “Mets” — sent six safely across the plate before the third inning, mostly as a result of the derring-do of their Bunyanesque first-sacker, Lucas Duda. The mighty Californian smote a home run and a double to tally five of those six runs before the Cubs seemed to comprehend that a game concerning their possible erasure from the 2015 field was well underway.

He continues with play by play:

By game time, ivy-festooned Wrigley was loaded to the gunnels, more than 42,000 strong, their spasms of joy and anticipation such that a detonated stick of dynamite would not have been heard. Fans laughed and cheered like college undergraduates.

But Chicago’s starting twirler, the right-hander Jason Hammel, soon tempered the enthusiasm of the home-towners with his lackluster showing. Curtis Granderson, the pesky right fielder who bats first for the Metropolitans, poked a one-bagger into left field, and so it began.

David Wright, New York’s valiant third baseman who has come back from chronic woes of his broad back, perished on a third twirl, and the multitudes celebrated. Following him was the second baseman Daniel Murphy, whose sudden habit of walloping home runs has earned national attention. He foul-popped, to the loud relief of locals.

Go read the whole thing. It’s fantastic.

Not sure why this is just coming to light, but it appears there was a serious, measurable spike in traffic to one popular porn site after Alabama lost the Sugar Bowl.

Me, I just had a bourbon.

The Racing Presidents visit the National Archives.

Key and Peele take their recurring “funny player names” sketch to its logical conclusion. As with the original, stay with it through the end.

In a new settlement with Penn State, the NCAA announced that they have restored the bulk of Joe Paterno’s wins formerly vacated as part of punishment for covering up Sandusky’s child rape hobby. He regains his position, officially, as the winningest coach ever in college football, and I think we can all agree that’s justice exactly what we should expect from an organization as venal and corrupt as the NCAA.

That’s it. Fuck football. it’s a goddamn cancer.

I’m paying a lot less attention to football this year, but I couldn’t help but notice Ole Miss getting upset by LSU yesterday. That’s a weird sentence to type, because for a long time Ole Miss has been pretty miserable, and LSU has been a threat in the conference since Saban coached there, but here it is: Ole Miss was undefeated going into yesterday’s game against a two-loss LSU, and couldn’t get the job done.

In the wake of the loss, though, this stat got my attention, as presented by ESPN on Twitter:

LSU is 24-23 under Les Miles when trailing in the 4th quarter, the only FBS team with a record over .500 in that scenario since 2005.

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) October 26, 2014

Holy. Fucking. Shit. That’s some serious voodoo right there.

They’re trying to prevent Lance Armstrong from riding in a charity noncompetitive Gran Fondo organized by George Hincapie.

Way to go, guys. Clearly, this is all about cycling and not about you guys being vindictive fuckwits.

I mean, seriously.

Do not give them your money.

43-year-old Jens Voigt was successful in his Hour attempt, and blew the prior record of 49.700 kilometers out of the water with 51.115. That’s 31.761 miles.

Just by way of comparison, I’ll add a stat of my own. I am an enthusiastic amateur, nowhere nearly the fastest person I ride with, but I’ll put this out there: GarminConnect tracks a few metrics, and one of them is your best time over 40km, which is 24.85 miles.

My PR over that distance, set during the Katy Flatland ride in July, is 1:14:46, at an average speed of 19.9MPH. Voigt covered 40 kilometers today in a hair under 47 minutes.

He’s going for the Hour.

The Hour record in cycling is simple: how far can you ride in a single hour on a track bike? It’s done inside, alone, on a velodrome, and is more than a little bananas. Eddy Merckx set a record in 1972 that stood for twelve years; the current record is 30.9 miles, set in 2005 by Ondrej Sosenka, is only about a fifth of a mile farther than Eddy.

The WSJ has a backgrounder, but the real fun is that there will be a livestream on the Trek site.

Velo News has more, including his playlist.

Tune in.

Sometimes, outcry produces the right outcome, but it only really happens BECAUSE of outcry.

When this happens, it’s not an example of moral leadership or even moral fiber. It’s the logical equivalent of expressing regret that you got caught, not that you did something wrong in the first place. And that’s exactly where the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens are today.

Sure, Ray Rice has been fired after TMZ (no link) released video that there is no way the NFL hadn’t already seen. Sure, the NFL has finally suspended Rice “indefinitely,” which probably means for at LEAST a year, or however long it takes for people to forget.

But they knew all the facts well before TMZ forced their hand with the video. Their actions now are because they couldn’t get away with the wrist slap anymore, not because they’re strong moral people.

Nobody gets pissed off like Olbermann, and so for this I’ll just direct you to his incendiary rant. (Doesn’t it sort of seem like “incendiary rant” is a term Keith just fucking OWNS now?)

That’s the inevitable takeaway from the NCAA’s announcement yesterday that Penn State is off probation.

USC got popped with a 2 year bowl ban and lost 30 scholarships after Reggie Bush took money as a student. Penn State’s ended up with the same bowl ban, but a loss of only 20 scholarships.

Fuck. That.

What IS it about football that makes people lose their goddamn minds?

The Times has a cool, short bit up about Ji Cheng, currently in last place (“the Lanterne Rouge”) in the 2014 Tour de France, and the first Chinese rider to ever compete therein.

I must note that his position in the race’s General Classification is also irrelevant; races like the Tour are complicated team events with multiple “classifications” beyond the notion of a simple “first guy to Paris” prize, and these other competitions are sometimes a team’s primary focus.

Ji’s team, Giant-Shimano, isn’t really contending for the big win, but are absolutely in the running in the points classification. Ji’s role is to set things up for his sprinter, Marcel Kittel, who is currently 4th in points. Kittel has also won 3 stages, including the first one, which put Kittel in yellow for a day — something that doesn’t happen often for sprinters. That doesn’t happen without a solid team behind him, including the so-called Lanterne Rouge.

I really, really love this guy.

The World Cup begins shortly, but I’ve got no plans to give it any time whatsoever. I watched a bit last time around, and it was enough to give me the idea — since reinforced — that big-time soccer is an enormously corrupt institution (example: when an in-stadium replay showed a ref had badly erred, the official response was to discontinue in-stadium replay). But that’s really just the tip of the shit iceberg where FIFA is concerned.

John Oliver has more, and you should watch it. Oliver, tragically, is British, and therefore unable to see soccer for what it is (a sport apparently invented to make baseball look exciting), so he’s planning to watch anyway. Not so us.

You may recall the delight that was fictional video-game NFL player Clarence BEEFTANK, the creation of sportswriter John Bois, who we discussed back in January.

As it happens, Mr BEEFTANK has been playing basketball as well, and you should read every goddamn word.

MeFi.

Also, you’re banned for life from associating with the NBA, you’re fined the maximum amount of $2.5 million, and the other owners are sure to force a sale.

The NLRB has said that athletes at Northwestern can form a union, which is likely the beginning of the end for big-time college sports.

Even if this decision doesn’t stand, this is the beginning of the end. The whole system of college sports is going to have to change or collapse. The problem is that, in their shortsightedness and their greed, the NCAA and the college presidents it represents almost have guaranteed that the process will be sudden and bloody. If they had worked with their athletes toward some sort of soft landing over the past 20 years, all of that might have been avoided. I always has reminded me of how Bill Veeck once warned his fellow baseball owners that the reserve clause was blatantly illegal and that it would one day fall and, if they were smart, they’d abandon it so that they could better control the fallout. If they didn’t, Veeck cautioned, then some judge would strike it down all at once and baseball would be thrown into chaos. The other owners ignored Veeck, and his scenario came to pass, and we were treated to 30 years of labor strife because of it.

The current system of college athletics is doomed. It is untenable, and now it’s under assault from too many directions. There’s the O’Bannon case in Los Angeles, and Jeff Kessler’s anti-trust suit against the NCAA, and now this. Somebody better seriously start thinking of negotiating the terms of the inevitable surrender.

Good.

Look. I don’t watch TV news. It’s been a dead letter for a long time. I sure don’t watch TV sports coverage — I’ve got little use for the nattering foolishness that usually qualifies as sports broadcasting, and find reading stories on ESPN completely fills what needs I have for information from that world.

So I skipped Dale Hansen’s commentary on Michael Sam until just now. That, gentle Heathen, was a mistake.

Dale Hansen is the sports anchor for Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA. It should without saying, then, that Hansen is an older, straight, white man (I checked; he’s 65). So what Hansen says about Michael Sam caught me a little flatfooted even though I knew, as you must by now as well, what his position was.

Go watch.

Remember that, for reasons passing understanding, the NFL is an untaxed nonprofit. Yes, this is bullshit.

If that’s not enough, consider that they stuck New Jersey with effectively all the costs associated with hosting the Superb Owl, and then also more or less prevented NJ from picking up any additional revenue for having done so.

Fuck. The. NFL.

(h/t: Reid.)

Check it out.

Last night we got a (delicious) smackdown of a SuperBowl. Heathen Central didn’t have a normal dog in the fight, but ended up rooting for Seattle for two reasons:

• The weird shameful racist reaction to Richard Sherman; and
• The fact that Seattle has more Alabama players than Denver.

Add in a little bit of underdog-ism — Seattle’s never won the Super Bowl, but playing in one and winning is old hat to Peyton and the Broncos — and it’s good enough for us. (And enough to overcome a distaste for Pete Carroll.)

Turns out, a more smashmouth, old-school style of football — dare we call it “SEC”? — still works in the NFL, and that was nice to see. As they say, defense wins championships.

However, it made me wonder about the SuperBowl and margins of victory. I thought I remembered a time when the big game was almost always a blowout, but over time there’s no real clear trend. Most of the Super Bowls have been fairly close — 56% of them were won by two touchdowns or less. Increase the margin to three touchdowns, and you’re over 77%.

Actual blowouts — which we’ll define as four touchdowns or more — have actually been pretty rare: only 6, or about 13%. Yesterday’s was the first such victory in 20 years. They were (SB record in bold):

• 29 points in Super Bowl XVIII, in 1984 (LA Raiders 38, Redskins 9)
• 36 points in Super Bowl XX, in 1986 (Bears 46, Pats 10)
• 32 points in Super Bowl XXII, in 1988 (Redskins 42, Broncos 3)
• 45 points in Super Bowl XXIV, in 1990 (49ers 55, Broncos 10)
• 35 points in Super Bowl XXVII, in 1993 (Cowboys 52, Bills 17)
• 35 points in Super Bowl XLVIII, yesterday (Seahawks 43, Broncos 8)

It’s clear where my sense of “blowouts are the norm” comes from, considering that 5 of the 6 blowouts happened when I was in high school and college and was paying attention as a quasi-adult for the first time. Overall, the game is usually close(ish), as the data shows.

Anyway, because I’m a dork, here’s a graph:

Note: There are two 27-point victories since 1993: XXXV (Ravens 34, Giants 7) and XXXVII (Bucs 48, Raiders 21), which almost count — but even the most recent of those is 11 years ago. Since 2003, the margin of victory has only been as high as 14 once, and is only over 10 three times.

Bois tried to simulate a Super Bowl, but with a total beatdown. The stated goal was a 1,000 to nothing, and he set about creating teams that would allow it.

It’s fair to say that Madden didn’t adapt well to this chicanery, but it’s still funny as hell.

They’re released new footage of Felix Baumgartner’s record-setting freefall. Go and watch, but (as IO9 points out) be aware it gets pretty intense early on, during his spin.

It’s also interesting to watch the stats; he goes very, very fast initially, but loses speed almost as quickly as the air thickens up around him.

SBNation’s Jon Bois has been Breaking Madden this season, but the best experiment came early. I give you BEEFTANK:

Personal

Born in 1937. Parents were a rhinoceros, a Sherman oak, a wheelbarrow full of graphite, a ray of light that shone through the clouds, a fulfilled prophecy, a buried time capsule full of set-and-baited mouse traps, and a real big ol’ dude.

Was encouraged to play football at age 10, when he chanced upon a mannequin at the clothing store wearing a shirt with the words “FOOTBALL GAME” and a drawing of a football on the front. He talked to it for hours, and it never told him he was too round for this world or that he shouldn’t eat the plastic bologna rings.

Played college football at DeVry, where he studied poetry. He finished with a GPA of reddish-gray.

Dislikes taking the subway, not because of any particular phobia, but because whenever the car stops and nobody gets off, he feels terrible for the train operator.

Refers to liquids in plural, i.e., a glass of milk is “a glass of some milks.”

Mutter-sings.

(via MeFi.)

Just go read this long-form story about Manny Pacquiano. Boxing is a completely fucked up enterprise.

The White House has announced that the President, First Lady, and the Vice President will not be attending opening ceremonies for the Sochi Olympics, citing “travel schedules.”

Right.

Instead, President Obama is sending a delegation that includes, as its highest ranking member, a former (not current) Cabinet official. For context, this is the first opening ceremonies since 2000 that did not include at least someone of Cabinet rank.

Also included are two very prominent retired atheletes.

Representing the “diversity that is the US” will be tennis great and (Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Famer) Billie Jean King and figure skating medalist Brian Boitano.

It should escape no one that this comes the same week Bill O’Reilly pronounced Putin “one of us” in re: his stance on homosexuality.

We find this impossibly optimistic pee wee football team.

Coach Kevin Kelley of Little Rock’s Pulaski Academy can tell you. His team also almost always uses an onside kick, too.

Turns out, there’s a good reason to reconsider the automatic 4th down punt. And maybe the mechanics of kicksoffs, too. Kelley’s done very, very well with his unorthodox approach, and has some data backing him up.

(This reminds me of the New Yorker story about the girls’ basketball team that always did a full court press, which was (of course) written by Malcolm Gladwell. The girls’ success was ended not by spectacular tactics, but by a ref who decided he didn’t like the clearly legal approach, and started penalizing them; obviously, this isn’t happening to Kelley.)

Roll Bama Roll has their Tuesday meltdown post up, which includes delicious, delicious LSU tears, though this time around there’s a shocking amount of realism vs. magical thinking, e.g.

BAMA owns us….it is what it is….
as long as Saban is there they will continue to own us…

and

LSU makes mistakes in big games.
Bama doesn’t.They are better. Better players. Better coach. Better recruiters. Better program. it was fun while it lasted.

and

Well…being elite was nice while it lasted. Back to mediocrity.

and the delightful

We could not win a street fight against a mini-van full of nuns.

but my favorite also says volumes

[Alabama QB AJ] McCarron speaks so coherently. Wish we had that somewhere.

RTR.

At no point, really, in Heathen Central’s life as an Alabama fan have we had the sort of lightning-in-a-bottle quarterback that people immediately call a star. There’s been no Johnny Football in crimson. Other SEC schools grabbed showy players like Tim Tebow and Cam Newton, but not us. We probably even envied Tennessee (sssssh!) for Peyton back in the day. But only a little; success at Alabama, when it comes, has always been much more of a team effort than is usually on offer at programs that build their teams around a star QB. No Alabama quarterback has really made a splash in the NFL since, arguably, Kenny Stabler, and even the Snake didn’t get drafted until the second round. (The lion’s share of them aren’t even notable enough for a Wikipedia article.)

It’s not really different now, except it sort of is: AJ McCarron, now in his final year, may well play for his third national title as Alabama’s quarterback this January (he was red shirted for the 2009 season, so he was “on” another title game, too). Nobody else has done that. Few are ever as reliable and error-free as AJ. A stat I’m sure opponents find alarming is that, when you review his career as a starter at Alabama, he’s got just as many championship rings as he has losses. Alabama is 30-2 since AJ took over at the beginning of the 2011 season, and they could very well run the table again this year.

But for some reason, folks keep dismissing his NFL prospects. Grantland takes a look, and finds the arguments wanting.

LET THE HATE BUILD:

(Incidentally, last year they found this guy. His name is Irvin Carney, and he moved to Cincinnati after graduation. Mr Carney, we should note, continues to hate Tennessee.)

MeFi points us to this excellent piece at the Atlantic that points out all the completely indefensible sweetheart deals the NFL gets for, well, no good reason. Taxpayers fund the stadiums. They get an antitrust exemption. They get treated as a nonprofit. The list goes on, and it’s all a load of horseshit.

Let the owners run these teams as a business, subject to the normal rules of businesses, and have them sink or swim on that metric alone. Fuck new stadiums, fuck goofball broadcast deals, and fuck government handouts to millionaire owners. Forever.

So, during Alabama’s predicted beatdown of Kentucky on Saturday, ESPN went to draft analyst Todd McShay to talk about why Alabama’s AJ McCarron wasn’t likely to be a top draft prospect despite his BCS titles and other records.

During McShay’s bit, McCarron was, basically, doing pretty much all the things McShay said he couldn’t do in a 4 play, 80-yard drive down field that took only 1:50 off the clock. The drive:

• Handoff to Yeldon for 12;
• 21 yard pass to Yeldon;
• 27 yard pass to Kent;
• 20 yard pass to White for the TD.

So, yeah, whatever, McShay.

We just want to point out that, after firing a perfectly good coach and then having a hot couple seasons with Fedora, Southern Miss has had a pretty rough time of it.

Heathen Faithful: “How rough is it?”

Glad you asked! The Golden Buzzards haven’t won a game this year. Sure, they scheduled a ranked Nebraska as well as Arkansas, but their most recent loss came at the hands of otherwise winless C-USA powerhouse Florida International.

No, I’m not making this up.

To find a Southern Miss win, in fact, you have to go back to their last bowl game.

Which was in December.

Of 2011. That’s right: the Eagles lost every contest in 2012.

That’s a long time in college football. I’m sure there ARE some players on the USM squad who played in that game, but given that accomplished Div-I teams are usually comprised of upperclassmen, it’s entirely reasonable to say that almost nobody on the team now knows what winning looks like, and an even smaller number were actually active contributors to a team with more wins than losses.

Bower, for his part, led the team to an unprecedented streak of winning seasons and bowl appearances before being shown the door at the end of the 2007 season because, apparently, that wasn’t good enough. I hate to pick on my hometown school, but I do indeed feel like this is a bed the trustees made for themselves, and I feel no sympathy whatsoever.

Up next for the Eagles: East Carolina (4-1, 2-0 C-USA), North Texas (2-3, 0-1), Marshall (3-2, 1-0), Louisiana Tech (2-4, 1-1), FAU (2-4, 1-3), Middle Tennessee (3-3, 1-1), and UAB (1-4, 0-1). You’d think they could pick up a W from one of these teams, but I sure wouldn’t bet on it.

The 2013 East West Bowl bit may not be quite as funny as the original (“Hingle McKringleberry”!), but it’s got some great moments nevertheless. As with last year, stay with it through the end.

Deadspin’s 2013 Hater’s Guide to the Top 25 is, as always, a thing of beauty. Some great moments are below, but go read the whole thing.

Ohio State (#2)

“Any time someone tells me he’s from Ohio and involved in football in some way, I double lock my car and put a cork in my asshole.”

Georgia (#5)

“This state has winning pro teams like the Falcons and Braves, and yet the people there choose to spend all their fan capital on a college team that can’t even win its own conference. Are you people fucking stupid? […] Alabama fans are justifiably batshit crazy for the Tide because they win stuff. You win nothing. It makes no sense.”

Texas A&M (#7)

“Football Bieber. It’s not even close. Before Johnny Football arrived, A&M was just a boot camp for ugly people and aspiring arsonists. Now it’s home to a sniveling, whiny, alcoholic redneck brat who deserves to have his name dragged through the mud. Five years from now, Johnny Football will be run out of the NFL and will be pissing in buckets and spitting on roadies backstage at Keith Urban concerts.”

Louisville (#9)

“If the school were renamed The University of Phoenix II presented by ESPN as told to Papa John, it would be more accurate. Rooting for Louisville is like rooting for a marketing brief.”

Notre Dame (#14) (About which: Seriously? — Ed.)

“Everything. The single most hateable thing about Notre Dame is its inherent Notre Dame-ness: the arrogance, the false piousness, the halo the program has placed over itself. It’s all disgusting, which is why you deserved not only to get steamrolled by Eddie Lacy on national television, but to then have your empty-headed sweetheart linebacker publicly embarrassed for being stupid enough to fall in love with an imaginary pen pal. I wanna watch David Blaine street-magic videos with Manti Te’o, just to see him accuse Blaine of witchcraft.”

Michigan (#17)

“The reason 100,000 Michiganders go to those games is because they have nowhere else to go.”

USC (#24)

“And yet, in Lane Kiffin, they have found the perfect amalgam of arrogant lowlife: deluded, snooty, overprivileged, completely unqualified, transparently insincere, and destined for a bombastic personal downfall. If it came out that Lane Kiffin had an ex-girlfriend bound and thrown into the sea, would you doubt it for a second? Of course not. He goes the extra mile to be a miserable bag of shit.”