Studio Hive

[SBN] A teary, greasy farewell to the PapaJohns.com Bowl

Pour out a tiny tub of garlic butter sauce at your next meal, and mourn 'til you join the PapaJohns.com Bowl. College football's premier postseason contest named after a pizza chain website is abruptly no more, with the company declining to pick up its contract option for 2010 and beyond in the wake of the Papa's new deal with the NFL.

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Somebody get Earlham College some spotlight

Earlham College, for those of you not up on your lesser elements of college football, is not worthy of too much scrutiny by the average workaday fan of the game. It's an itty-bitty program in Indiana, with athletes competing in D-III, and its athletic department website touts such accomplishments as a former quarterback catching on with the Indoor Football League.

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Will West Virginia's sartorial shenanigans draw NCAA ire?

With West Virginia's failure-to-monitor chickens coming home to roost, the Mountaineers can ill afford any more compliance-related missteps, but after two days of camp, here we are: illegal fashion statements on the practice field! Do the Mountain State's propensities for bootlegging know no bounds? Can you stand to breathe with all this intrigue?!

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Fear the internet-based, vaguely intimated wrath of LeBron

So, LeBron is crankypants, because in addition to being an internationally recognized superstar athlete, unfathomably rich and seeing no end in sight to either fame or fortune, he also insists upon being liked.

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Meet the new Marshall, same as the old Marshall

When one hires a coach named Doc Holliday, one has the right to expect no little law-dispensing to take place. Lucky for Doc, he's currently employed as a football coach at Marshall, giving him ample opportunity to practice his natural craft, most lately kicking three incoming freshmen out of the Herd, apparently for their involvement in a felony robbery ... of pizza boys?

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Starting OK State DE Jamie Blatnick cited for felony assault

Say this for Oklahoma State: Despite the motormouthed presences of both T. Boone Pickens and Mike Gundy, it's a program that manages not to make too many ill-thought, public missteps (this year). Jamie Blatnick, junior 'Pokes DE, projected starter for 2010, and well-accounted smart kid, is putting paid to that notion.

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Paul the Psychic Octopus invades the hearts of Russia

The CSKA Moscow/Spartak Moscow rivalry has everything a hot-blooded sports fan could possibly wish for: Matches played in front of 75,000 fans and 2,400 guards (guards spaced three feet apart and protected by a moat, a fence, and a legion of attack dogs), reliably frequent violent outbursts, fans ripping seats out of the stadium to brain each other with, and full-speed play in two feet of snow surrounded by howling crowds of shirtless drunks.

Over the weekend, these sporting Russian hooligans further endeared themselves to the international community with a display of devotion to soccer's most venerated cephalopod, Paul the Psychic Octopus.

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Boise State-Idaho rivalry exists, is very mean

You big-city elite media types might not notice up in your ivory towers, but way up in the top left corner of the country, Boise State and Idaho have a little bit of a nasty rivalry going. The included football contest may be endangered, however, now that Boise State's getting all genteel over their impending move to the MWC and Bronco brass are going on the record in favor of discontinuing the series:

[BSU president Bob] Kustra said it's a "cultural issue,'' [...] "It's a culture that is nasty, inebriated and civilly doesn't give our fans the respect that any fan should expect when visiting an away team.

"I've seen rivalries all over America, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, Texas-Texas A&M, Kansas-Kansas State [...] why would I want to encourage a game where people don't know how to act like grownups?''

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)

[SBN] Ole Miss and Jeremiah Masoli: It's Complicated

Jeremiah Masoli is a quarterback in search of a redeeming final season of eligibility. Ole Miss is a school down one starting signal-caller that just lost another quarterback in the offseason, leaving them with only two on the roster. So why can't these crazy kids make it work, again?

"That's a very complex issue," said Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones, who then declined to answer any other questions regarding the football program's interest in Masoli.

Well ... no, it's really not. Do you want Jeremiah Masoli and his freakishly blessed arm and legs, or do you want to take the ostensible moral high ground? This is, you'll recall the school that hired Ed Orgeron as a head coach, in a conference that lovingly smirks at criminality, and character concerns under center are laughably passé this season. Just look at what Auburn's doing with their laptop-stealing QB transfer! It's the thing to do now, dahlings.

(From SB Nation.)

Jeremiah Masoli is a quarterback in search of a redeeming final season of eligibility. Ole Miss is a school down one starting signal-caller that just lost another quarterback in the offseason, leaving them with only two on the roster. So why can't these crazy kids make it work, again?

"That's a very complex issue," said Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones, who then declined to answer any other questions regarding the football program's interest in Masoli.

Well ... no, it's really not. Do you want Jeremiah Masoli and his freakishly blessed arm and legs, or do you want to take the ostensible moral high ground? This is, you'll recall the school that hired Ed Orgeron as a head coach, in a conference that lovingly smirks at criminality, and character concerns under center are laughably passé this season. Just look at what Auburn's doing with their laptop-stealing QB transfer! It's the thing to do now, dahlings.

(From SB Nation.)

[SBN] Bryce Brown is actually leaving Tennessee this time, according to his cell phone

You know, it's almost like recruiting kids who graduate high school already equipped with their own managers is an irredeemably terrible idea!  Bryce Brown, the '09 prequel to the exasperatingly drawn-out recruitment of Seantrel Henderson, he of outsized hype and 460 ill-gotten yards in 13 games, will not be returning to the Vols for his sophomore season, and you'll just never guess how his coaches found out.

(Read the rest at SB Nation.)