Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall, while controversial and an all-around enigma to most NFL fans, will always be one of my favorite football players, because I was fortunate enough to cover his college career at the University of Central Florida. He was a goofball then and hardly the headache that he’d later become, so I’ve always been able to laugh off the majority of his antics. You know, as long as they didn’t involve domestic violence charges and whatnot.

Unlike some former UCF players – *cough, Atari Bigby, cough* – B-Marsh still shows plenty of love for his alma mater, where his four-year career culminated in an incredible 2005 Hawaii Bowl performance that earned him MVP honors, despite Matt Prater shanking an extra point to cost UCF the game. That leads us to this morning’s Tweets from Marshall, which included the above picture of a package he received from the UCF athletics department.

After he opened the package, Marshall Tweeted another picture of the new UCF gear that he received. Oh, and there’s totally a naked dude’s ass in the picture, too. NSFW after the jump, if you dare.

Read the rest of this entry »

Not Miss July Shanna McLaughlin. She's wonderful.

Ah the joys of being a Conference USA football fan. Not only do I get to watch NFL action tonight, but also my favorite NCAA football team, thanks to the fact that nobody really gives a crap about non-BCS conference on Saturdays. And if this isn’t fun enough, my team also used to be in the MAC, which meant that we had Tuesday, Wednesday and even Friday night games. What a hoot that was.

So while I’ll be saddled up at my favorite watering hole, er, I mean in my season ticket seat at Bright House Stadium in Orlando, here are some games that you can watch tonight from the comfort of your favorite watering hole, er, I mean home.

Read the rest of this entry »

After news broke that Syracuse and Pitt were leaving the Big East for the greener pastures of the ACC, it seemed like the Big East might need to make some big moves to remain relevant and especially maintain its BCS status. After all, the addition of TCU made it seem like there was nothing to worry about. Then TCU announced that it was not even going to bother with the Big East and join the Big 12 instead and Big East commissioner John Marinatto was seen feverishly Googling “seppuku.”

The departure of Pitt and Syracuse leaves the league with just 6 teams, so the Big East is now finally recognizing an urgency to add 6 schools and become a 12-team conference. Hold on to your zany foam hats, because they are doozies – UCF, ECU, Temple, Navy, Air Force, and maybe Boise State. And that’s assuming that none of the Big East’s other schools leave.

The issue lingering over the league’s future involves Missouri. If Missouri leaves the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, that would put Big East football in peril. The Big 12 would probably grab West Virginia or Louisville, or both, to replace Missouri. The Big 12 could also take one or both if Missouri stays. Big East officials say they will not wait for Missouri to decide, but no definitive timetable is in place.

(Via The New York Times)

With all of the other big news and rumors that have been circling the Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big 10 and PAC-However-Many-Schools-They-Have-Now, the Big East has been easy to ignore. But here’s a quick recap – nobody wants to join the Big East except for schools the other schools don’t want. For instance, USF has been trying hard to keep UCF out. Does anyone care about that? No. Hell, UCF is my alma mater and I don’t even care about it.

Ultimately, the Big East is going to lose West Virginia and probably Rutgers. If Louisville can get its act together and start winning again, it will probably leave as well. Best case scenario – and probably only case scenario – the Big East ransacks Conference USA and locates photos of NCAA President Mark Emmert in bed with a transgender donkey. That’s about the only thing that will save it.

UPDATE: My buddy Brandon Helwig at UCFSports.com Tweeted earlier that a rumored scenario is an East Division with UCF, USF, UConn, Rutgers, Temple and Navy, while a West Division would be WVU, Cincinnati, SMU, Louisville, Houston and Air Force.

Links

Burnsy Makes People Laugh In Real Life - Here’s a nice teaser of Burnsy performing at a college football roast held by the Kiwanis Club. My Kiwanis act would be “so I hear you guys like eucalyptus … anybody remember Noozles” and then coughing for 12 minutes. Burnsy’s better at this than me. [WPTV]

More Star Wars Blu-Ray Edits No Less Ridiculous Than The Real Ones - No less ridiculous, but way funnier. All we need now is for Obi-Wan to tell the story of the two frogs that fell in a pot of boiling milk. [Gamma Squad]

1988 George Lucas Was Against 2011 George Lucas Before He Was For Him - In 20 years, Return of the Jedi is just going to be When In Rome with some blinking Muppets. It will still be better than anything involving a spaceship made since like 1985. [UPROXX]

Game On: HIV Test That Shut Down Porn Industry Was False Positive - The next scandal should be a porn star telling her director that she’s pregnant and showing him a home test she intentionally peed on too much to make positive, and then a month or so of follow-up where the director sobs in a Planned Parenthood until she admits she did it on purpose. [Film Drunk]

Kick@ss Movie GIF Photosets: Part Two - I need to learn how to make GIFs more efficiently, I want to contribute a Josie and the Pussycats set, and possibly one for Stay Tuned. The Golden “Ghouls” still makes me laugh, because I’m 10. [UPROXX]

Soulja Boy: “F**k Army Troops” - Whenever we are upset at something Soulja Boy has said, we must remember that he’s the guy who filmed himself jumping off a cliff in “Braid”, rewinding it, and jumping off again while laughing. I’m sure he hates army troops AND hospital doctors. [Smoking Section|

Oprah Winfrey and Usher Versus Yelling Goat - I'm siding with the goat in every imaginable scenario. [UPROXX]

First Video: Patricia Clarkson as Tammy 1 on ‘Parks and Recreation’ - Pretty excited to have this and “Community” back and airing regularly. Also excited for season two of Outsourced!! [Warming Glow]

A Compendium of Cool Comics Cosplay: Walking Dead Edition - “Zombie” always strikes me as a lazy costume, even when you put tons of work into it. Like, it’s the asexual equivalent of the “sexy” costume. I’m a zombie nurse! I’m a zombie firefighter! etc. [Gamma Squad]

25 Stunning Raquel Welch Magazine Covers - I’m not complaining, but why did somebody decide this should be a Buzzfeed post? Can I put up galleries of Ginger Rogers? [Buzzfeed]

21 Dropped TV Subplots - I think Buffy had about 40 of these, unless “Willow didn’t go to jail or lose any friends or face any kind of personal punishment for killing a bunch of people, she just had to go to wizard therapy in England” isn’t a subplot. [FARK]

Why (Some) French Movie Posters Are Better Than Ours - Polish posters are even better, but Japanese posters are the best. The Field of Dreams poster where the title is MAN BUILDS CORNFIELD AND HAS MAGICAL CATCH WITH DEAD FATHER or whatever is the funniest thing in history. [Moviefone]

Some Indiana University students recently produced an anything-but-modest rap song to promote school spirit for the current NCAA basketball season, and I’ll give it an A for effort, but other than that… hooray, more white kids rapping. Call me a hater or whathaveyou, but I think we’ve about exhausted the college rap song genre. It’s just getting old, but college sports reggaeton… that’s the future!

Look, I’m not trying to come off as the crotchety old white man here, but if I hear one more college team remix of Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow”, I’m going to throw out my autographed Snow poster and start listening to country music. Seriously, did you hear Tom Hanks’ son’s version for Northwestern? It’s not fun anymore, if it ever was at all. And I’m not trying to pick on Indiana here – congrats, you have an awesome history – but my school has a rap song, too, so I’ve suffered enough.

Video after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

The college football bowl season has become so long and drawn out that some teams can’t even wait for the results of their own games before they proclaim themselves winners. For instance, the Georgia Bulldogs honored their seniors with plaques featuring inscriptions of the team’s 2010 record of 7-6. Only one little problem with that, though… Georgia finished the season 6-7 after the Dawgs lost to Conference USA powerhouse* UCF in the Autozone Liberty Bowl on Friday. Hopefully the seniors hang their plaques in front of mirrors.

Take it away, “cutting edge” Florida Today columnist, Pete Kerasotis…

Read the rest of this entry »