It's no secret that Johnny Manziel is Outkick the Coverage's favorite SEC football player of all time. 

But even we continue to be amazed by his feats of athletic excellence.

Last night he homered during San Diego Padres batting practice while wearing jeans and boat shoes. Then he executed one of the most amazing first pitches in history.

How so?

He reenacted his fumbled touchdown pass against Alabama.

Really, he did.

Watch.  

Before we commence the Starting 11, let's all say goodbye to Larry Munson, one of the last, great voices of Southern football. There was a day and there was an age when SEC announcers brought games to people all over the Southland who didn't have the opportunity to watch the games live. These men were fearless, and they weren't afraid to offend, and they were probably broadcasting with a whiskey bottle under the desk. Above all else, they were characters who brought football to the masses and did it in an entertaining fashion.

Now most radio game announcers are bland, corporate accoutrements whose primary goal is not to offend sponsors.

You think Larry Munson cared about sponsors? Nowadays talking about St. Simon condos being destroyed would lead to a demand for an official apology from a sponsor. Back then? Not hardly.

One of the things we've lost as leagues like the SEC have become corporatized is announcers like Munson, men who reveled in the moment and weren't politically correct and didn't pretend to be something that they weren't. Men who never seemed to get over the childlike glee that this was real, this was what they did for a living -- sit in the best seats in a football stadium and get to describe what they saw.

Saturday Tennessee beat Vanderbilt 27-21 in overtime. It was an emotional win for the Vols, who had previously been winless in the SEC. So emotional, evidently, that the team lifted Derek Dooley skyward while chanting his name in a post-game locker room celebration -- Dooley punching the T on the ceiling is destined for Internet immortality. The last time Tennessee was this excited after a win the Vols had just claimed the 1998 national title.

When things calmed down Dooley applauded the team for not quitting. More chanting ensued, perhaps some white men danced, the video is unclear. And then Dooley took the floor once more to drive the dagger deep in to Vanderbilt's gut. "The one thing that Tennessee always does is kick the shit out of Vandy," Dooley said.

Which is, to be fair, a completely true statement.

Generally.

I'm not sure that a six-point overtime win classifies as "kick(ing) the shit out of Vandy," but that's mere semantics.

This video, initally uploaded by YouTube user, 1dreamsports, who appears to be involved in recruiting, stayed up on YouTube for a very short amount of time before it was taken down. But it wasn't taken down before several OKTC readers emailed us the link. One of those tippees recorded the YouTube video with his own phone. 

Voila, the video below.  

According to 1dreamsports website, UT recently received a commitment from one of their kids, Rivals three star safety Keithon Redding. 

It seems likely that Redding or another recruit was in the locker room and someone at 1dreamsports was surreptitiously filming on a phone.

Is talk like this abnormal in a locker room? Certainly not. But does it usually get out without being vetted by the school? Nope.

So, enjoy.

If nothing else, Dooley punching the T on the ceiling while being born aloft by his team -- still wearing the fleece and hair still intact! -- after the Vols beat Vanderbilt at home in overtime is absolute gold.

Coming in to this season the SEC had won five consecutive national titles in football. That was an astounding accomplishment. The most astounding part of that accomplishment? It wasn't just one or two teams on a roll. Florida (twice), LSU, Alabama, and Auburn have all won titles as well. Entering the 2011 season it seemed impossible for five straight titles to be beaten. Then the nearly incomprehensible happened -- LSU, Alabama, and Arkansas -- three teams from the same division -- all took over the top three positions in the AP and Coaches Poll. (When the BCS is released this evening it will happen there too.) This has never happened before. And it may not ever happen again. (Want an additional crazy fact? If Georgia doesn't choke away a home game against South Carolina, the SEC would have the top four teams in the country.)

It's the culmination of ManifSECt Destiy, the Pax SECana era of college football. 

The South has truly taken over the nation's second most popular sport.    

To know Lee Corso is to love him. Especially when he's making his picks at the end of College Gameday. In making today's pick between SMU and Houston, Corso initially pretended to go with SMU. Then tossed aside a megaphone and said, "Ah, f---, it." Co-hosts Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit absolutely lost it. I was off Twitter and when I checked it again so many of you had Tweeted me about Corso's f-bomb that I thought someone had been assassinated.

i've always been of the opinion that the curse word restriction on television is pretty stupid. I mean, every CSI episode is about a stripper being gruesomely murdered in a sex game gone awry yet our virgin ears can't hear a curse word?

Anyway, Corso has already apologized for the f-bomb. But here it is in all its glory. 

By the way, anyone else blame Carl Lewis for this? I do.  

Yep, Bronco fans are really buying #15 jerseys and putting "Jesus" on the back.

After last night they'll sell even more.

Last night Tim Tebow Tebow'd the NFL. Every single person who watched him play four years in the SEC was not surprised at all when Tebow slipped outside the pocket on a Jets blitz and scored a rushing touchdown from twenty yards out. The play, the culmination of a 95 yard touchdown drive for the win, sent veteran NFL media into paroxysms of joy. But it also brought forth the haters once more. And for the life of me, I just don't get it. Why does Tim Tebow have so many haters?

Why?

Of all the people in sports you could hate, how can you really hate Tebow?

The only reason I can think of is his religious faith. Some people think Tebow's faith is a fraud. It isn't. Is Tebow perfect? I'm sure he isn't. But is he a welcome antidote in a sporting universe that grows more sordid each week? Yeah, I think so. And if you aren't religious, why do you care that other people are? Why can't you just shrug off his religion and enjoy him on the field? As I Tweeted last night, replace every Tebow God reference with the McRib. "I'd like to give all the glory to the McRib."

"The McRib gives me my strength."

Would the haters still be furious?    

The Game to Watch

Vanderbilt at Tennessee (7 ET/ESPNU) – Tennessee and Vanderbilt typically have little more than state pride on the line when they meet every November. Typically, Tennessee is a heavy favorite and  the Vols usually win when they face the 'Dores. This year has been anything but typical, though. Vandy rides in sky high, and for perhaps the first time in history, will walk into Neyland Stadium as a slight favorite. Tennessee is winless in the SEC, but the Vols will look to break this year's run of bad luck by claiming their sixth win in a row versus their I-40 rivals.

Pre-snap reads: Which team's bowl hopes will still survive after Saturday night? The post-season fate of both teams will likely be determined in Knoxville this weekend. A win for Vanderbilt not only gives them a year of bragging rights against their in-state rival, but it would also make them bowl eligible for the first time since 2008. The Commodores don't have to win against Tennessee to still make a bowl appearance in the 2011 season, but with a road trip to Wake Forest looming next week, there's no time like the present. They need to win one of two, and a case could be made that the Tennessee game might be a better opportunity. Tennessee must win out against Vanderbilt and Kentucky to avoid finishing with a losing season for the fourth time in the past seven years (2005, 2008, 2010.)

It's a sad day in the Vinnie Verno household. Not only is he forced to pick Vanderbilt -1 over Tennessee, but he's so confident of the result that he's wagering one of his prize possessions -- the Phil Fulmer autographed mini-helmet.

Say it ain't so, Vinnie, say it ain't so.

Wipe away your tears from the eyes and dive in below for his picks.

In the meantime, really want to make some money? Go check out my guys at Prediction Machine. They're nearly 80% against the spread this year and they'll also break down fantasy, survivor league odds, and more on the site. Check it out here.  

With last night's New York Times revelations of a growing Penn State cover-up, it's now beyond a shadow of a doubt that this story is the largest American sports scandal of all-time. The Chicago White Sox throwing the World Series, the SMU paying players scandal, steroids in baseball, all of them pale in comparison to the seaminess that is emerging in Penn State. The only real comparison is the Baylor murder scandal and cover-up, but the scope of Penn State's transgressions -- all the way to the college president and, potentially, the Governor's office -- and the sheer amount of time involved -- a decade or more -- in conjunction with the iconic nature of Joe Paterno and the hits to his legacy involved, takes this to a completely different and unprecedented level.

When else has a story rooted in sports been the lead story on the nightly news or the local morning shows for over a week? (O.J. Simpson doesn't count since he was just a sports figure who committed a murder. What's more, O.J.'s career was long over by the time this happened. Tiger Woods doesn't count since his story was more akin to a politician caught cheating. That is, his scandal had nothing to do with sports.) Penn State's inaction in the face of a child's locker room rape goes to the very essence of intercollegiate athetics -- a former coach, who very likely was fired from his job for molesting children after a 1998 investigation, was terrorizing children on campus and a college's leaders conspired to keep those acts secret.  

While Derek Dooley has been focused on growing nonexistent bamboo in Knoxville, James Franklin has been winning football games at Vanderbilt. In just his first season at Vandy, Franklin has notched the two biggest margins of SEC victory for the Commodores since 1971, come within a single play of beating both Arkansas and Georgia, and seen his team win more football games in his first season than it won in the previous two seasons combined. Along the way Franklin has refashioned the Commodore football program, grabbed the city of Nashville's sports attention with his insistent sales job, and beaten out Tennessee for at least two prime recruits in the state. Indeed, Franklin's most recent commit, Andrew Jelks, grew up a Tennessee fan and his parents are Vol season ticket holders. Franklin's recruiting class currently sits at #21 in the country. That's poised to become the best recruiting haul in the school's history.  

Coming in to Saturday's game in Knoxville, Franklin has accomplished the unbelievable -- his Commodores are a favorite over the Vols in Knoxville for the first time in modern history.  

Put simply, James Franklin is Vanderbilt football's own Bruce Pearl.

According to WZTV, the Fox affiliate here in Nashville, Vanderbilt safety Andre Simmons was involved in the armed robbery of a fellow Vanderbilt student yesterday. According to the WZTV article: "A Vanderbilt student was held up in his dorm room yesterday and robbed of about $5,000. The Davidson County affidavit states that two men armed with a handgun came to the room at Lupton Hall and knocked on the door. When the door was opened, the two men said they wanted the money from the safe. A fight ensued and the victim was struck in the head with the gun. The suspect with the money ran, while the other suspect, Andre Leigh Simmons, 19, stayed behind to keep the victim in the room."

Andre Leigh Simmons is a sophomore safety for Vanderbilt. While he is not identified as a member of the football team in the linked article, OKTC reached Vice-Chancellor David Williams for comment early this morning after a tip that Simmons was a member of the football team.