Maybe you're too enthralled with Braves baseball to care, but it's here.
We don't even need to say what "it" is. It's understood.
Hey, remember when the anti-playoff folks said the playoff would kill the regular season?
Tonight, North Carolina and South Carolina will play. Neither team is considered a remote possibility to land in the playoff. Yet everyone is jacked to see it, among other Thursday games.
That's really the rub: People are going to care, and care greatly, regardless.
It's here.
We'll lead our links with a good story from Alabama on the Dirty Bird returning to Atlanta. Former Falcons players aren't exactly high on the former Hog.
Wow:
While many in the Falcons organization, past and present, would rather forget Petrino — the franchise declined interview requests with all members of the front office and the three players from the '07 team still with the club — some will never forget the coach who left them at their lowest point.
Several felt schadenfreude after Petrino's time at Arkansas came to an unflattering end.
"I saw his face all scraped up," 15-year NFL safety Lawyer Milloy told AL.com. "His face, more than anything, looked like how we saw him whenever he confronted us because nobody respected him."
And this:
But even before Vick was indicted and later charged by federal authorities for his connection to an interstate dogfighting operation, Petrino's authoritarian ways were not sitting well with the veterans in the Falcons locker room.
Multiple players told AL.com how there was to be no conversations in the hallways of the team's Flowery Branch headquarters or during flights to road games.
"I think the whole offseason we could tell that he was a college coach that didn't really understand and know professional players," Milloy said. "People would just look around to me and be like is this how it's supposed to be? I'm like, 'No.' That's the reason why the year before, I tried to tell them when we had coach (Jim) Mora, 'You guys don't want to lose because there's going to be changes,' and the change was him and that's what we got."
Still, Milloy said the veterans tried to adjust to Petrino's "absurd" demands prior to the season. The rookies didn't know any better.
"I felt like I was back in college," Robinson said. "So that was pretty much normal to me. The older guys weren't used to that."
And this:
Arkansas' high hopes for the 2012 season were derailed when Petrino crashed his motorcycle, which he was riding along with a recently hired staffer with whom he was having an affair. The ordeal cost Petrino his job on April 10, 2012.
"I was just like karma, man," Robinson said, in a sentiment echoed by Milloy. "You did it to us, something bad is about to happen to you sooner or later."
In a scandal that would have ended many careers, Petrino's offensive prowess led to more second chances. In 2013, he was hired to coach Western Kentucky.
Milloy and Robinson are baffled at Petrino's ability to keep landing jobs following his callous retreat from Atlanta and fall from grace in Arkansas.
"Like this guy's got nine lives," Robinson said. "He can do whatever he wants and he gets right back to where he started. If a player did something like this he'd be done, no other team would sign us."
-- Bizarre story here with the wife of Washington's GM apologizing for calling out an ESPn reporter.
Jessica McCloughan directed a sexually explicit tweet toward Russini after the reporter wrote a story about the strained relationship between quarterback Robert Griffin III and the Redskins' coaching staff and front office. Initially, Washington told Pro Football Talk the account was not Mrs. McCloughan's, but the organization issued McCloughan's apology shortly after the denial.
Jessica McCloughan has since deleted her Twitter account.
ESPN expressed its support for Russini in a statement Wednesday night.
“Dianna is an excellent reporter who should never have to be subjected to such vulgar comments. We are obviously extremely disappointed by today’s developments,” the network said (per Profootballtalk.com).
-- Hey, what ever happened to Christian Lemay? He's a ... Gamecock?
Christian LeMay was once one of the top prep quarterbacks in the country. He was destined to succeed at Georgia and lead the Bulldogs to new heights.
Now, he's a senior backup for an FCS program. It's one of the top FCS programs in the country in Jacksonville State, as the No. 9 Gamecocks play at No. 8 Chattanooga on Saturday, but life has its funny ways of working out.
And life couldn't be better for LeMay.
"I was just thinking in my head how I remember walking into a room with (former UGA great) Aaron Murray," LeMay said. "I get here and I didn't know who was going to be my coach (Bill Clark had just left for UAB in Jan. 2014). It's just a blessing to have (head) coach (John) Grass.
"Coming here has been a great decision. A lot of people claim family, but don't show it. There's not a day that goes by where you feel like you can't talk to the coaches about life or anything."
-- Charlottean Larenz Bryant tells his hometown paper not to discount South Carolina's defense.
You have tickets for Thursday’s football opener between South Carolina and North Carolina you’re not using? Former Vance High star Larenz Bryant would love to hear from you.
You think the Gamecocks’ defense will be as bad this season as it was last season? Then definitely don’t contact Bryant. He doesn’t want to hear any of that.
“People are underestimating us. People are doubting us,” Bryant said following practice Sunday. “But it’s not about them. It’s about us. We’re the ones running the sprints after practice. We’re the ones in meetings every day.
“We’re ready to shock the world. I’m 100 percent that my team is ready to play. And 100 percent I’m ready to play, too.”
-- It's official in Louisville: Super-stud DE transfer LeVonte Fields is a starter.
After Wednesday's practice, defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said Fields, the former Big 12 defensive player of the year, earned his way into the lineup.
"DeVonte came in, worked hard, did everything we asked him to," Grantham said. "Our players embraced him as he developed his work habits and showcased his ability to make plays in scrimmages. You could tell he became a guy who gravitated to our guys, and they gravitated to him because of his work ethic, the way he is in the meeting room, the way he is in locker room and the way he played. It was a pretty natural fit. ... He's earned the right. We always tell guys that if you perform and make plays, we're going to find ways to get you on the field."
-- And we close with a live number from Wilco.
LW
