Arkansas Sports 360 reports that you can own an autographed copy of the above print by going here. My Christmas shopping is hereby done.

In our next portrait, Spurrier commands the fowl just as Aquaman commands the creatures of the sea. You haven't lived until you've seen Southeastern Conference coaches gather for the annual rooster hunt. Fly, my pretties!

And now we change gears a bit with a Star Wars: Return of the Jedi hologram thing going on, as Nick Saban channels the spirits of 'Bama coaches past. But where are the Ewoks?

The Fan Art Of South Carolina's Steve Spurrier [ArkansasSports360.com]

In 2000, when he left Florida for the Washington Redskins, Spurrier could reflect on six SEC championships in a decade and a national title. The subsequent Washington implosion has been well-chronicled. After signing a $5 million a year deal Spurrier went 12-20 in two seasons and quit. He sat out a year and with much fanfare returned to the SEC as the coach of the Gamecocks. Now after three complete seasons and one extra SEC game Spurrier has more SEC losses at USC (13) than he had in his entire SEC coaching career with Florida (12). From 82-12 in the SEC to 11-13 with the Cocks. The best season Spurrier has had was his second—an 8-5 mark with wins over Florida and Tennessee.

But now, in the wake of yet another loss to Vanderbilt, the question has to be asked, is Steve Spurrier done? He's 63, his team is not going to do better than 8-4 with their schedule (and probably worse) and, what's more, Spurrier simply doesn't appear to have much passion for the game anymore. In year's past watching a football game featuring Spurrier was an exercise in showmanship. Spurrier tossed visors, broke clipboards, yanked quarterbacks from one play to the next with reckless abandon, and celebrated with sophomoric glee. Last night? Last night I couldn't even pick Spurrier out on the sideline at South Carolina.

How bad has it gotten for Spurrier? If he left he couldn't even anoint his son as successor right now. Also, in an alarming economic indicator of Spurrier support, visor sales have plummeted 95% in the greater Columbia area in the past three seasons. In the end Steve Spurrier is in danger of what once seemed impossible, slipping away into SEC irrelevance. No one fears the Ol' Ball Coach anymore. Not even Vandy.

Spurrier takes pregame Music City Tour [Tennessean]

The first time I saw him, I was really nervous because this is Steve Spurrier, and I remember I was the only female there at the time. I asked him a question, and he didn’t even answer the question. He said, ‘What’s your name?’ And I said Erin. And he said, ‘Erin? We’ve got a lot of Aarons on our team.’ And he just kept talking and not answering my question, and that’s kind of how coach Spurrier is with me.

Just a few bicep rubs later and their relationship has never been better. The photo above is also courtesy of GoGamecocks. It's a good one, but it gives Andrews a ghostly, angelic look. Like, this is what Erin Andrews would look like if you'd suddenly fallen into a coma. There she is , floating right above you, imploring you to run to the light so she could be the first person to interview you before you cross over.

Five Questions With Erin Andrews [GoGamecocks.com] (via Extra Mustard)

At long last, we've reached the start of college football season and the end of our sojourn through the top 25. Thanks a ton to all our 25 writers for helping us get ready for the new season. Our final preview is brought to you by Doug Gillett of Hey Jenny Slater. Do enjoy. By the way, the above picture comes courtesy of a reader email letting us know that Matthew Stafford is a fixture on the freshman sorority introduction party-scene. If I were a Georgia fan this would make me feel better about his maturity in the pocket. Guy's making solid decisions off the field. Also, how many years of income would you give up to be Matthew Stafford in Athens for a month? Post the analysis in the comments. I'm going with two years. Minimum.

BIGGEST STRENGTH

The vast majority of the attention given to Georgia in the offseason has focused on our offense — specifically a public-intoxication offense, a drunk-driving offense, an assault offense, and several others. (Thank you, I'll be here all week.) But defense is what's driven the Dawgs all throughout Mark Richt's tenure, and it's what's going to drive us this year. Our defense returns all but two players; we bring back our entire starting linebacking corps and three of four D-linemen, and the one guy we lose in the secondary, free safety Kelin Johnson, is replaced by a sophomore (Reshad Jones) who actually finished the '07 season with more tackles than Johnson had despite having only two actual starts. In fact, Jones and WLB Rennie Curran were responsible for the team's practices being moved to sparsely inhabited Ware County in the spring, as the speed with which they hurled themselves at ball carriers caused regular sonic booms that were deemed intolerable by Athens residents living near campus. Last year we only returned three defensive starters, yet still managed a top-20 finish in total D, holding opponents to an average of 323 yards per game; this year I don't think the fans or coaches are going to be satisfied unless we hold at least one team to negative net yardage. I'm hoping it's Georgia Tech, but that's just me. There are some issues there.

BIGGEST WEAKNESS

Widespread doom and gloom was predicted for last year's offensive line, which consisted of two returning starters and three freshmen — yet under the direction of new OL coach (and future Exalted Hero of the Bulldog Nation) Stacy Searels, they allowed only 15 sacks and paved the way for a thousand-yard rushing season from true freshman Knowshon Moreno. So when this year's line had to replace two starters, including 2nd-team All-SEC center Fernando Velasco, I was like, “Pffft, whatever, we're gonna be fine.” But then left tackle Trinton Sturdivant tore every freaking ligament in his knee in fall practice, including several that were previously unknown to medical science, and I officially started to worry. Knowshon's still going to get his yards — as will fellow tailback Caleb King, most likely — but without Sturdivant to protect Matt Stafford's blind side, it's going to be incredibly difficult to keep Staff's jersey as clean as it was last year. Stafford is actually a better scrambler than he's ever gotten credit for, but the pundits seem to have pegged 2008 as the season he breaks out as a passer and starts adding zeroes onto the end of the NFL paycheck he'll start receiving sometime in the next few years, and it's going to be hard for him to meet those expectations if he's busy being chased all over the southeastern United States by the Kirston Pittmans and Eric Norwoods of the world. (Ordinarily this would be a great spot for me to segue into a passive-aggressive whine about how diabolical Georgia's schedule is this year, but y'all are all intelligent, attentive people who have surely read up on that already, so I'll move on.)

(Knowshon loves the same parties. And slightly askew pink hats.)

DISEMBOWELING

My immediate instinct — as is that of most Georgia fans at this point, I'm sure — is to lay into Urban Meyer, he of the third-person references and the ongoing pouting over Georgia's end-zone celebration in Jacksonville last year. But I've probably done that to death, so howsabout I piss in Steve Spurrier's Cheerios for a little while. After years of being the Great Satan to Bulldog fans everywhere, the Ol' Ballcoach fell off our hate-dar a little bit by moving to Columbia, South Carolina, after the end of the 2004 season, but whatever humility he gained through a self-imposed exile to college-football Siberia was gone by Week Two of last season. After beating Georgia in Athens — his first such victory in three tries at South Carolina, and the Gamecocks' first win over the Dawgs since 2001 — Spurrier decided the time was right to pop off about how overrated Georgia was, given that the Dawgs had at that point lost five straight SEC East games. What Steve, in his hubris, evidently forgot was that South Carolina's talent level leaves him considerably more vulnerable to karmic bitch-slaps than he ever was at Florida, and not only did his own then-sixth-ranked Gamecocks proceed to lose to Vanderbilt at home, that loss kicked off a five-game season-ending face plant that left the 'Cocks 6-6 and dateless for bowl season. Those Homecoming losses to Vandy sure are a bitch, ain't they, Steve?

Toward the end of that spirit-crushing streak you could start to see in Spurrier's face that little twinge of regret over paths not taken, wondering if he might have been better off spurning the Gamecocks entirely four years ago and simply taking up golf full-time; few things would please me more than for a relentless Georgia ass-whupping this year to be the loss that sends him over the edge. The thing is, South Carolina could actually be pretty good this year, assuming that any of their QBs manage to excavate their heads from their respective rectums, but if there's any justice that won't happen until long after the Dawgs meet the 'Cocks in Columbia on September 13. When I was working at The Red & Black during my junior and senior years at UGA, we'd have an unofficial contest in the newsroom after each year's Georgia-South Carolina game to see who could come up with the most offensive headline for the game recap — trust me, “Dawgs Spank Cocks” was nowhere near the worst of what we came up with — and for the sake of the fresh-faced, idealistic young reporters now following in our footsteps at the R&B and carrying on our proud tradition of giving Georgia's journalism school a bad name, I want the Dawgs to pound the 'Cocks unmercifully this year. (See what I did right there?)

Yep, some dope has named his horse Steve Spurrier, and it's our bad luck that it's actually a pretty fast horse.

Trainer Todd Pletcher, who won the 2007 Belmont with Rags to Riches, has been working his magic. "Every time we put him against another horse in training, he is right there," Pletcher said. Spurrier's big test is expected to come April 5 in either the Wood Memorial or the Illinois Derby.

"He has grown mentally as well as physically," Fort says. "If he improves as much in the next two months as he has in the past two, he will be right there [in the Kentucky Derby]."

If this horse wins the Kentucky Derby, and then breaks his leg heroically at the Preakness ... well, at least we'll finally have someone to answer all the emails. And we know which horse will have no problem mercilessly increasing a substantial lead.

Is Spurrier Headed To The Kentucky Derby? [The Wizard Of Odds]

Yep, the former Bulldog star is ready to rumble with the Ole Ball Coach.

"Well, you know, is that not insulting? That's totally insulting for a coach of his stature to say something so stupid," said Walker, getting angrier by the syllable. "So my question I say to him is, if he's got that much guts, why don't he step in a ring against me? You don't say something that silly, because you're going to get somebody hurt. Georgia was punished, because that's a penalty. They didn't go out to hurt anyone. [Spurrier] talks about hurting somebody. How much guts do you have? Step in a ring with me, and then we'll see."

Whatever your thoughts about Spurrier — or Walker, or Georgia, or just violent mayhem — it's pretty impossible not to enjoy the mental picture of a Herschel Walker-Steve Spurrier battle royale. Maybe Daniel Snyder could officiate.

Herschel Takes Spurrier's Bait [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

The 3 1/2-minute video featuring Spurrier was rolled out with some fanfare and shown on the scoreboard to fans prior to the season opener in an effort to inspire the Gamecock Nation to see better times ahead. The theme of this new era in Gamecock football is, "The Game Is On."

USC athletic director Eric Hyman explained this is an effort to "brand" the term and get Gamecock fans excited about the future. The presentation referred USC fans to a website "www.letsshowcorso.com."

"Fans will have a chance to throw footballs at Lee Corso's head," Hyman said of the interactive site where an animated Blake Mitchell (USC quarterback suspended for the opening game) throws balls at the sports network star. "You're going to see other things come out of this. This is the starting point. You'll see."

One day we'll all be able to throw footballs at Lee Corso's real head. We can only hope he's not wearing some mascot's outfit at the time.

Spurrier: Game on, against Corso

You can't quite tell from this far a way, but a reader who recently caddied for him at Augusta National lets us know that the gentleman urinating into the woods in this picture is none other than South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier. Here's the before photo:

When you are Steve Spurrier, you piss where you damned well please.

(Photo courtesy "Kaptain Kareem.")

Our personal favorite awful jersey purchase is actually a near-miss. In the Montreal Expos' last year of existence, Jose Canseco was trying to make the team out of spring training. This seemed somehow perfect to us, the lost franchise of sports potentially starting Jose freaking Canseco in right field for its final tour of duty. Alas, Canseco was cut in spring training, and the Expos' Web site — which, amusingly, was available in English and Spanish but not French — canceled our order. We would wear that proudly, today.

Terrible Jersey Hall Of Fame [Just Call Me Juice]
Expos Release Canseco [CBC]

(By the way, we know we're having comment issues right now. The Gawker People are currently water-boarding Nibbles.)

The two had bet $20 on the annual game, with [Jimmy] taking South Carolina, which won 31-28, and [Ricky] taking Clemson, Lexington County Sheriff James Metts said. They drank beer all afternoon and watched the game Saturday at Johnson's home, and began arguing about the bet after the game.

Metts said [Jimmy]went to his car, got the rifle he normally uses for hunting and fired one shot, hitting Johnson in the chest.

By the way, we're not up on hunting, but a shotgun cartridge can't cost that much less than 20 bucks, can it?

We were watching the end of this game as well and, seeing Spurrier dance around after sneaking out a win, we're kind of pleased we didn't have a gun at the time ourselves. Please let this guy coach Miami: PLEASE.

Man Killed Over $20 Clemson Bet [AOL Sports]

(UPDATE: Actually, there are all kinds of rumors he might head to Alabama to take over for Mr. Shula.)

Yes, Duke got 1 vote in the poll, despite going 1-10 last year, and, well, being Duke. The culprit? Steve Spurrier. Spurrier doesn't just slant the poll in favor of his own team, he does for teams he used to work for. Here's what he had to say about it.

"Yeah, I claim that. I've been voting for the boys from Duke since, oh, about 1990, whenever I started voting on that poll. I just want 'em to know that I haven't forgotten about 'em and I appreciate everything they did for me. That's why I did it."

You can't just send them flowers? Hey, I have long ago accepted that these polls are extremely flawed; I think we all have. And I know it's just a preseason ranking, and I know this probably doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things, but the Coaches Poll does in fact count for about a third of the BCS rankings. It would be nice if they could at least pretend to take it seriously.

College Football Rankings - Week 1 [ESPN.com]
Spurrier gives Duke loyalty vote [AJC.com]

South Carolina Thefts [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]