As I most often point out as to avoid being called a hack – my feelings get hurt easy, y’all – I do not profess to be a sports expert, like ol’ Dick Vitale up there. I’m simply a guy who has a big TV and 12 web browser windows open at all times to follow multiple games until smoke starts to spray out of my ears. And watching all of those games, I develop opinions that I like to share with all of you. I believe that Mufasa or Pumba called it the “Circle of Life.”

So my point is that there are people out there who might be flipping through channels tonight, and they’ll be all like, “Hey, these guys are playing basketball, but I don’t know a thing about them.” Even worse, you could be a dude on a date with a hot girl and she’ll be like, “Why don’t we go back to your place and watch NCAA Tournament basketball and maybe I’ll take my shirt off if you know a lot about the games.” But you’re all like, “Snap, I haven’t watched anything.”

That’s why I created this handy-dandy guide to enjoying the Sweet 16, and to keep with the time-honored tradition of UPROXX live-blogging, I’ll be hanging out tonight to chat and make jokes about things that I notice. I invite you to join me, mainly because it’s fun, but also because I’ll be giving out free shirts at random to people who tell me why I’m wrong.

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This gallery may not appeal to the more Hot-Cheerleaders-In-Slow-Motion-inclined members of the With Leather readership, but don’t be afraid to enjoy it, because at some point during the 1970s the Walt Disney Corporation teamed up with Wonder Bread to give away pennant stickers with loaves of bread that are literally nothing but Disney characters destroying college names with puns. Yes, that’s a sentence I’ve written.

As I see it, there are two fine ways to enjoy this:

1. Flipping through and trying to figure out which school each pennant represents, because some of them are a stretch.
2. Losing control of your neck and bashing your head against the desk in a full-body groan when you realize “Mickey Can Skate” is Michigan State, or whatever.

A third way to enjoy it is through the absurdity of the illustrations, like Cinderella doing 2,000 pounds of laundry in her ball gown or Goofy with a broken leg because you can only make so many puns about Tulane. And yes, ACC fans, here is where you learn about how Disney preappropriated your “dook” joke for Duke and made it about fowl royalty a decade or so before you were born. I kept expecting to see a Virginia Tech pennant where Shan Yu from Mulan is holding up a castrated turkey.

Note: Full credit for these goes to Disney, I guess, but credit for putting them on the Internet goes to Jason Liebig.

[h/t Disney Food Blog]

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Remember when we cared so much about the Ohio State White Elephant Gift Exchange Scandal that tattoo parlor operators were being sent to jail and players were getting suspended by the NFL for things they might’ve done in college? Well, Penn State happened and caused 90% of non-sports America to forget OSU is even a school, so the Buckeyes are free to go about the business of organizing a football team and making news … and today’s news is big, suggesting that former Florida head football coach Urban Meyer is set to take over the program with a a seven-year, $40 million deal.

Of course, I’m using “news” loosely for two major reasons. Reason #1:

“The concerns are still there,” Meyer told The Sun. “No. 1 — my health. No. 2 — my family. No. 3 — the state of college football. I’ve done some research into the second one. I’ve found that it is possible to have balance between your job and your family, that there are coaches out there who are doing it.

“I’m in a good place right now mentally and physically. So if something happens with Ohio State, I’ll have a decision to make. But there has been no interview. There has been no offer to make a decision about.”

That’s normal though, right? People are always denying deals and relationships and showing up the next night arm-in-arm with some 40-million-dollar thing. And technically what he’s saying could still be true. Why would you need to interview a guy like Urban Meyer? You know his history, you know what he can do. And he said “there has been no offer to make a decision about”, not “there has been no offer”, so maybe the choice was obvious. Urban Meyer is coming to Ohio!

Except, no. Reason #2: David Pingalore is the sports director of the Orlando television station that broke the story on Tuesday night, and under “football” and “television” on his Facebook info page he lists “reporting bullsh*t with no verification” as a like. Last year, our own Burnsy had fun with him in response to hilarious community douchebaggery by “leaking” a story to someone Ping knows about how the University of Central Florida was going to be invited to join the Big East. Like clockwork, Ping heard about it reported it on TV as breaking news from his “inside sources”. It went as far as ESPN. The next day it was gloriously shot down.

So that’s Urban Meyer saying “no, I’m not going to Ohio State” and a disreputable source breaking the story. Do we need a day and a half’s worth of speculation on ESPN? Let’s source this when it actually gets sourced, and at least attempt to do our impossibly unprofessional job professionally.

In a related story, here is a slideshow of girls in bikinis.

… but then she cried and they found out her fantasy league was full of made-up players without faces, so they’re probably just going to let her play.

Jim Tressel, however, is not so lucky. In a good and fair move (in response to a move that seemed pretty shifty), the Indianapolis Colts have decided to suspend the employment of their new gameday consultant and former Ohio State head coach for the first six games of the season, giving him more or less the same treatment ex-OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor got when the league suspended him for five. The move was reportedly Tressel’s own, decided upon after meeting with the team.

A statement from Colts president Bill Polian included the following, so decide how phony you think everyone is as you go:

“After the announcement of Coach Jim Tressel’s agreement to join the Colts as a game day consultant, questions were raised with respect to the equity of his appointment as opposed to suspensions being served this season by present and former Ohio State players.

“Over the weekend Coach Tressel, Mr. Irsay, Coach Caldwell and I had a discussion of the issue. In addition, we had a conversation with league officials to apprise them of the details of Coach Tressel’s employment and the issues we were reviewing.

“At Coach Tressel’s suggestion, and with Mr. Irsay’s concurrence and support, we have decided to begin Coach Tressel’s employment effective with our seventh regular season game. We have informed the league office of our decision and expect that they will be supportive of it.

“We are very happy Coach Tressel will be joining us.”

I’m still not 100-percent on the whole “getting suspended by the NFL for NCAA violations” thing, and as Yahoo commenter soxfannh astutely put it before deciding to use the word “retarded”, it’s like “being sent home from a job at Burger King because you dropped a few hamburger buns on the floor while you worked at McDonald’s”. Tressel making the noble choice to sit as punishment for crimes they wouldn’t have hired him in the NFL over if anyone actually cared about them seems like a really empty gesture, and only works as appropriate when you consider the logic gaps it fills in and the class difference it helps balance. You either have to care about the violations or not care about them. Don’t hire him if he did a bunch of bad stuff, or hire him in spite of the bad stuff because it doesn’t matter. One or the other.

Besides, does anyone really think Tressel is going to wake up on the morning after game six and feel like he’s finally paid back his debt to society? Is he going to go straight, only to be drawn back in for one big score when an Indy car dealership decides to cut him a deal because they like the Colts?

[h/t everyone around to write about sports on Labor Day]

It looks like Terrelle Pryor is going to be making that face for while. He’s finally been allowed into the NFL … but not really.

From a breaking report currently destroying Twitter, by way of the Associated Press:

Former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor was declared eligible for Monday’s NFL supplemental draft but must sit out the first five games after he signs a contract.

The NFL announced Thursday he was eligible, along with five other players. Pryor gave up his final season with the Buckeyes following an NCAA investigation into the football team’s memorabilia-for-cash scandal. He would’ve had to sit out five games at Ohio State if he had chosen to return to school.

The league informed clubs that Pryor “made decisions that undermine the integrity of the eligibility rules for the NFL draft.” Among those, the league said, was his failure to cooperate with the NCAA and hiring of an agent in violation of NCAA rules.

Is it weird to anybody else that the NFL can suspend somebody who doesn’t play in the NFL?

“God bless and thanks for support!” Pryor wrote on his Twitter page. “Time to have a little fun!!” At no point does Pryor point out that Brandon Marshall was only suspended for one game on a domestic violence charge, but he’s got to sit five because he sold and traded things. He doesn’t mention how deep the various college football scandals are starting to run, and that if everyone who got a perk or a wad of cash or a free gift when they were supposed to be a pro bono athlete had to sit five games we’d see more action in a lockout.

He doesn’t mention how great of an idea it would be for the Cleveland Cavaliers to draft him and forever sign him away from a sports organization that would punish him for not being punished enough in college.

The new American Dream is all about getting famous for something awful or accidental, then milking it for the rest of your life. This is why Tay Zonday is doing Dr. Pepper commercials and the Octopus Mother is octo-boxing. Casey Anthony took a similar path — she (allegedly) tossed her three-year old out with the afternoon garbage and got away with it, so now everything she does and everything she wears is news and of great import. The Warren, Ohio, native is often photographed wearing Ohio State Buckeyes gear (most famously in a pre-baby murder photo shoot and most recently courtesy of TMZ), so much so that even Ohio State had to issue a statement about it:

“We are never surprised to see Buckeye pride displayed across the world. Buckeye hoodies and hats have traditionally been spotted across the world, and we understand that as a result, our logo will be seen in a wide range of news situations, whether positive or negative.”

Well, Ohio State might not care, but the state of Ohio has had enough. Its more reputable citizens (Columbus area radio disc jockeys) are taking a stand, offering to bribe Anthony to take off their school colors and making sure their stupid college football rivalries are the most important part. Via WNCI:

The Dave and Jimmy Show offered up to $10,000 to Anthony to take off the Ohio State University hat and wear Michigan attire.

Jimmy Jam believed the TMZ video showed her at the Old Navy store at the Lennox Town Center on Olentangy River Road. Store officials refused to comment, 10TV News reported.

And if you see Nancy Grace, tell her we said “Duh Huh,” she’ll know what you mean.

Good old Morning Zoo guys, you can always count on them to put things in the proper perspective. I guess with the Texas Longhorns V. Oklahoma Sooners rivalry evolving into knifefights, Ohio State/Michigan had to try and murder somebody. You can watch a video of the offer below or work from your own plans, which should be “don’t give Casey Anthony prizes for doing things”. I wonder why they disabled comments?

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