+1 for the joke, -1 for forgetting to pause and put your sunglasses on after the word 'also'.

I heard that too! As soon as the guy said the line about "red flags", I was like "You've gotta be kidding me" - sure enough, they have someone say "They're for holding. Her. In my arms. Because she's real."

Just clicked the ESPN link, and the excerpt above misses the first two questions from that part of the interview, which are even better:

The Shaq quote is the most amazing one to me. "I sacrificed a lot playing with him."?!? After Shaq carried him to his first three rings? And Kobe repaid him by forcing him out of town and ratting him out for cheating on his wife?

Yeah, I don't buy the whole "red flags" thing either - I heard Wojo on ESPN this morning as well as Thamel saying the things in this post on Dan Patrick's show this morning, both claiming they ran her name and found nothing. And yet they bought Te'o's explanation? I think the media just loved this story and didn't…

"stop car" had me in tears. +1

The middle ground is pretty obvious: It started with him being the victim - it seems apparent from the Cardinals' player's story that Tuiasosopo tried to pull this ruse off at least once before, and it's very possible that Te'o simply fell for it harder than anyone else. But at some point, Te'o decided to perpetuate…

According to Maui'a, yes it was well before Te'o. My theory is that Tuiasosopo had a girl playing Lennay Kekua who actually met Maui'a, but by the time he got around to targeting Te'o, she was gone and all he had were some online pictures of the girl who went to his high school. I think Te'o was duped initially, but…

More fake: Lennay Kekua or half of Alabama's "national championships"? WHO YA GOT?

There are no winners in this story. Well, except for the Downtown Athletic Club.

I keep hearing "who was really smokin' tonight". 61-44 doesn't exactly sound like a game that was smokin' (to be fair, I didn't watch it).

It's brilliant when you think about it - it allows the fanbases of the doormats a ready-made excuse for their suckage and allows them to treat a 6-6 season as if they won a national championship because they only lost to Alabama or Georgia or LSU by 4 points.

Ha!

Very well said on all counts. The correct play call on the 3rd and 7 would most likely be a short pass with a high probability of completion, where if the receiver can make one defender miss he can convert the first down and clinch the game (much likelier than Hillman converting the first down on a running play), but…

That might have been the one college team that would have a legit shot against a bad NFL team. Carolina lost their last 15 games in 2001, I think the 'Canes could have taken them.

Yeah, but their respective bowl opponents were the undefeated #1 team (who beat the team that beat Oregon) and a team that had already been blown out by Baylor. If you want to argue that Oregon would have given Alabama a much better game than ND did, I'm on board. But Oregon didn't even win their division of their…

Doesn't matter how rare it was, it was illegal by the rules. Shevin Wiggins admitted he intentionally kicked the ball trying to keep it alive.

The voters who put Clemens on their ballot and not Bonds were the group of voters who wouldn't have voted for Bonds even if he was completely clean just because he was a prick to the media (see: Rice, Jim). Reason #132,589 why the writers shouldn't be in charge of the Hall of Fame voting.

+1

Wouldn't it be great if one year 3/4 of the writers independently decided to give their "thank you" vote to the same guy and Aaron Sele or someone like him got into the Hall of Fame?