FanHouse Mark May

Not so fast, my friend. Wait, that's not Lou Holtz's line. That's Lee Corso's line.

Anyway, not so fast, my friend. Just a day after rumors began flying that the former coach at (insert name of every Division I school here) was considering running for Congress in Florida's 24th congressional district, Holtz has now told a South Bend TV station that he's not going to run.

Holtz spoke to WNDU-TV during a golf outing in southwestern Michigan on Wednesday. The 72-year-old coach confirmed to others, though not directly to WNDU, that he met with Republican strategists. Holtz did tell the TV station he was happy with his job at ESPN and was going to "fulfill the commitment" he made to the World Wide Leader.

Don't know if anyone's watching the ESPN halftime show, which is sort of like MTV's annual attempt to steal viewers during the Super Bowl halftime, except instead of hot gyrating babes you get Lou Holtz and Mark May. But Holy Lord if you're not, keep on watching whatever hot gyrating babes you've locked your radar onto.

I bring it up because May, being Mark May, made the dumbest argument I've heard tonight: Oklahoma shouldn't have gone for it on fourth and one from the Florida one. "Take the points." Etc etc etc. The usual inane chatter.

I mean, even if you subscribe to the floofy, mathematically wrong theory that you should accept whatever points you can get, you have to acknowledge that a 46-yard run from the two can lead to a punt while a 46-yard run from the 30 -- about where Florida would have gotten the ball back after a kickoff -- is going to lead to a field goal on your face at the very least, at which point you've just given back those precious three points you got.

In conclusion: Mark May should be a Wal-Mart greeter.

Prop Bets for the College Football Junkie is a weekly post that cares not for your silly point spreads. If you have the money and the gumption, we'll lay down a weekly gauntlet of propositions that'll take you from the penthouse to the outhouse faster than you can guess the number of times Lee Corso will say "not so fast my friend." As always, this is for entertainment purposes only.

$ Lou Holtz has put his foot in his mouth each of the last two weeks in the controlled environment of the studio. So what does ESPN do? Not suspend him for saying basically the same thing Jemele Hill said. No, they put him in front of a mic for three hours for the Thursday night game between West Virginia and Auburn. If there was ever a "give him enough rope" move by a broadcasting company, this is it. So naturally, we put the straight up bet to you loyal reader. Will Lou Holtz say something inflammatory? Yes, West Virginia jokes count!

$ Lets go with this. Let's say his does get suspended or fired. I'm not advocating it, because I enjoy him in his natural state or doing the pep talks. But let's face it, ESPN will have to do something if he has another slip up. Here's a multiple choice straight up bet that one of the following will happen if Holtz is fired:

-Mark May's perceived IQ will drop 50 points automatically.

-Trev Alberts will walk back into the Bristol studios with a "show me the money" look on his face.

-Regis Philbin will show interest, but someone will mention that the last guy was a Notre Dame guy.

$ Continuing with the same theme, Holtz won't sit idle for long. NBC would probably love to have him doing commentary on Notre Dame games. So we put the over/under on the number of times NBC will ask him to tone down the homerism in the first month at 10.

Prop Bets for the College Football Junkie is a weekly post that cares not for your silly point spreads. If you have the money and the gumption, we'll lay down a weekly gauntlet of propositions that'll take you from the penthouse to the outhouse faster than you can guess the number of times Lee Corso will say "not so fast my friend." As always, this is for entertainment purposes only.

$ With the big news of the week being the firing of Tommy Bowden at Clemson, the crew at ESPN will be sure to debate the thought process at Clemson. Lou Holtz will most certainly defend Bowden and Mark May will defend the administration. So we give you a straight up bet that Holtz will forget the camera is still rolling again this week and have some less than flattering words for Clemson. What the heck, +/-5 on the number of times he says "damn."

$ Jim Harbaugh and Rick Neuheisel are both known for taking jabs at opposing teams and coaches in the week leading up to the game. As both have been quiet this week, we're sure they are saving everything for the post game handshake when Stanford plays at UCLA. The conversation will most certainly revolve around the post-game speech Neuheisel gave after the Tennessee game. Straight up, one of two thing will be said depending on the outcome of the game. Neuheisel-"Jim, I'd love to stand here and talk, but I've got a speech to give. Better luck next year, loser." Or, Harbaugh-"Doesn't look like anyone stuck around for your speech tonight. You guys got any games left on the schedule you think you can win?"

$ When Mississippi State travels to Tennessee, we'll be seeing the 103rd and 104th worst offenses in the country. So we'll put the over and under on the closeups of each team's offensive coordinator at +/-10. Because if someone is going to go, these guys are going to get the boot first.

Prop Bets for the College Football Junkie is a weekly post that cares not for your silly point spreads. If you have the money and the gumption, we'll lay down a weekly gauntlet of propositions that'll take you from the penthouse to the outhouse faster than you can guess the number of times Lee Corso will say "not so fast my friend." As always, this is for entertainment purposes only.

- We kid because we care, and if Notre Dame is able to win this weekend against San Diego State you can expect Lou Holtz to remind the world that he predicted the Irish to win 11 games this year. We put the over/under for this at five, provided Notre Dame wins. Also, we put the over/under at three for the number of times Mark May will remind Holtz that it was San Diego State. We would say five, but we're sure at least a couple of those times there will be a producer on the set with a look on his face that says "just let him enjoy this moment."

- The punt block that sealed East Carolina's victory over Virginia Tech was poetic justice for all the times the Hokies have won games like that. We're sure it will be replayed multiple times during the game with West Virginia this weekend. But that's now what we're looking at. No, the over/under for this one will be the number of Tech fans actually cheering for West Virginia, and we put that number at five. If you don't know, the catch is that Tech and West Virginia were hated rivals in the Big East days. Being a West Virginia fan, I find it comforting that any Hokie would stoop so low as to cheer for the Mountaineers. Even funnier is that I know of at least one already. Unfortunately, I had to delete his comments on this because he had some derogatory phrases about the Pirates in his comments. I guess it must be my picture.

The Petulant Graduate looks at worst aspects of college football from a post-educational, snarky attitude. Really, it's just an excuse to use "petulant".

The arrival of college football on campus is a significant moment on the calendar year -- it marks the beginning of fall, and most importantly, 12 hour days spent either on the couch or at the tailgate. There are upsets, there is heartbreak. There is sweet, glorious football again.

But not everything smells like roses. In fact, there are many moments, to paraphrase my boy Andre 3000, that "really smell like poo-poo-poo." Some of these are particular instances and some of them are general themes that echo across an entire weekend, or even an entire season. We will examine these, and appreciate your future nominations or corrections in the comments.

1. ACC Football
Like any good dead horse, the ACC's utter failure in the first weekend of 2008 will be beaten mercifully into the ground via countless Sportscenter replies and verbal thaththayings between Lou Holtz and Mark May, so let's go ahead and get it out of the way -- the Atlantic Coast Conference = FAIL. Virginia Tech lost to East Carolina, Clemson was flat out embarrassed, NC State didn't score on national television, North Carolina and Maryland beat McNeese St. and Delaware by a combined 14 points and Virginia got rooster-slapped by USC at home.

So what's worse? Losing to a Division-II (yeah, yeah, I know it's FCS now but I'm stubborn and stuck in my ways) school like North Dakota State? Or losing to North Dakota State and not surprising anybody by doing so?

Last Friday when doing my daily reading, I found a couple of Big Ten "experts" who were picking North Dakota State over Minnesota. I also heard Mark May say on ESPN Saturday morning that he wouldn't be surprised if Minnesota lost as well.

So now that Minnesota has lost to North Dakota State, a team with 33 players from the state of Minnesota that weren't recruited by the Gophers, and is 1-7 on the season it's only natural to start wondering if Tim Brewster is going to get fired soon.

He's not, as the school's president, Robert Bruininks, says Brewster isn't going anywhere.

"There is going to be some pain in the rebuilding of the Gophers football program, but I'm sure we did the right thing," said the chief executive of Gopherville, who is committed to giving Brewster time to rebuild the program.

It's only fair that Brewster shouldn't feel any heat from the Gophers performance this season. He's only in his first year at Minnesota, and he's going to need some time to clean up Glen Mason's mess. There just hasn't been enough time to evaluate what kind of recruiter Brewster is, or how good of a coach he is.