Yesterday afternoon news officially broke that ESPN had signed Paul Finebaum to a five year contract. The deal calls for 100 TV appearances a year and a simulcast of Finebaum's radio show on the upcoming SEC Network, set to debut in August of 2014.

It's a smart decision that fills up several hours of programming year-around on the upcoming SEC Network. Putting radio shows on television works pretty well already and is a cost-effective duality. ESPN pioneered the strategy in sports with multiple shows now airing daily and NBC and CBS have followed up on the decision, placing Dan Patrick and Tim Brando front and center on the NBC Sports Network and the CBS Sports Network. It would be a pretty big shocker if Fox didn't also have a radio show on television when FoxSports1 and FoxSports2 debut this August.   

But the biggest aspect of this deal is the message that the SEC is sending to the college sports universe. 

South Carolina's star running back Marcus Lattimore saw his season come to an end on Saturday. While blocking downfield at Mississippi State Lattimore's knee was rolled into by a lineman. Lattimore, a sophomore, would have been a first round NFL draft pick if he'd been allowed to declare for the draft after his first season at South Carolina. Instead NFL rules force him to return to South Carolina and play for two more seasons before he's eligible to leave. This year South Carolina was riding Lattimore like a rented mule -- he was averaging nearly 25 carries a game entering the State game. With his knee injury Lattimore will not only miss the rest of this season, but will probably spend much of next season returning to the same form that he'd already reached.

There's something incredibly immoral about requiring someone to risk their health and future earnings ability for free.

Many college sports fans are fond of treating NCAA violations as moral failings. Treating NCAA violations as moral issues is complete crap -- you can read my column on that here -- but the largest moral failing in college sports gets hardly any attention -- why should college football players have to put their bodies at risk when they already have the talent to become millionaires? Why aren't more fans, media, and administrators offended by the greatest moral failing of all -- indentured servitude that can lead to career-ending injuries? 

Here is James Franklin in his post-game press conference addressing his dust-up with Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham in the wake of Georgia's narrow 33-28 win that ended with Vandy throwing an incomplete pass into the end zone. (I've also posted video from the post-game and of Grantham giving the choke season during last year's Cocktail Party).

James Franklin: "Some things were said that I didn't think were appropriate and I tried to find Coach Richt to address it and I couldn't find Coach Richt and I happened to have a discussion with one of their assistant coaches and it didn't go well."

If you're a Vanderbilt football fan you need to watch this. It's like the Gettysburg Address of Commodore football.

Franklin continued: "We're also going to fight and I want to make sure everybody understands that. We are not going to sit back and take stuff from anybody. Anybody. No one. Those days are long gone and they are never coming back. Ever." 

Watch his comments below, but, man, I love this guy.  

No doubt at all, this is not the Vandy football program of old.

Knoxville, TN

As LSU head coach Les Miles led his team off the field Saturday at Neyland Stadium, LSU fans leaned over the wall chanting: "We want Bama."

Miles merely nodded in their direction. After the game Miles was asked about the LSU at Alabama game on November 5th. A game that has already achieved mythic status before it has even kicked off. Miles dodged the question as deftly as Jordan Jefferson brushed off the Volunteer pass rush: "They'll be time for any other games at the back end of the season."

This time Les Miles and LSU didn't need an untimed down to beat the Vols. They only needed one spectacular interception from defensive back Morris Claiborne to erase UT's momentum and snag the lead for good.  

By the second half today's game had devolved into a glorified scrimmage. LSU physically dominated the Tennessee Volunteers in the second half. The crowning moment of that domination came when LSU took possession at the one yard line late in the third quarter. Leading 24-7, LSU began the drive with a three yard rush.

Then LSU ran the ball for an astounding 11, 3, 13, 9, 0, 2, 18, 9, 3, 14, 3, 12, -1, and 3 for the Touchdown.

All told the Tigers traveled 114 yards without a pass completion. (There was one 15 yard penalty on UT and one 15 yard penalty on LSU).

114 yards!

Now that the NCAA has officially announced it could find no wrongdoing in the Cam Newton investigation, I'd like to make a humble suggestion: how about the NCAA has to turn over its notes, tape recorded conversations, and whatever other data it has amassed to Yahoo Sports investigative team? After all, Yahoo is the one uncovering actual wrongdoing, not the NCAA. In fact, what if the NCAA just got out of the investigative business all together when it came to major programs and uncovered all tips it received to Yahoo and allowed them to track down the legitimacy or illegitimacy of these stories?

Put simply, I trust the guys at Yahoo a lot more than I trust the NCAA.  

Our beaver pelt trader of the week is surfer Doug Niblack who managed to convince the world that he surfed a great white shark on Wednesday. You have to read this story.

He's the H.G. Wells of the shark surfing community.

Here's the opening to his surf story:

"Doug Niblack was trying to catch another wave before going to work when his longboard hit something hard as rock off the Oregon coast and he found himself standing on a thrashing great white shark.

Looking down, he could see a dorsal fin in front of his feet as he stood on what he described as 10 feet of back as wide as his surfboard and as black as his wetsuit. A tail thrashed back and forth and the water churned around him.

"It was pretty terrifying just seeing the shape emerge out of nothing and just being under me," he told the Associated Press on Wednesday. "And the fin coming out of the water. It was just like the movies."

Two Conference Games to Watch   LSU at Tennessee (3:30 ET/CBS) –

LSU continues its march to a possible national title berth this weekend as it travels to Knoxville to face a Tennessee team decimated by injuries to its top two offensive weapons - Tyler Bray and Justin Hunter. Tennessee hasn't been able to muster a serious offensive attack in some time, and the best remedy for that can't be going up against the nation's top two defenses over the next two weeks. That's exactly what's on deck, though. LSU, meanwhile, seems to be on cruise control until Nov. 5. Remember, though, that the only thing that prevented Tennessee from marching into Baton Rouge last season and pulling the upset to end all upsets was Dooley going more "Les Miles" than even Les Miles could conceive in the game's final 10 seconds. If this game is as close in the final minute as it was last year, it would be the best coaching job by anyone in the SEC all season, and it wouldn't be close. Perhaps the only thing that could break LSU's focus right now is if UT boards up the Tiger locker room at halftime and forces them to watch the Pride of the Southland's historically awful Wizard of Oz halftime show, unveiled last week against Georgia.

We could forgive any slip-ups for anyone subjected to such a musical atrocity.

Vinnie Verno is back with his weekly dose of picks and his advice is simple: Alabama will cover in the first half against Ole Miss. Also, he's a big fan of Mike Gundy. And how couldn't you be a big fan of Mike Gundy when he's got dance moves like that guy does?

When he's not out looking for bagmen like Dannie Sheridan, Vinnie Verno is your typical Vegas handicapper. You know who isn't your typical handicapper?

My guys at Prediction Machine.

They're 70% against the spread right now and they also offer fantasy tips, survivor league suggestions, and more. How do they do it? They play every game 50,000 times before they predict outcomes against the spread. Plus they give free picks.

Go check out my guys at Prediction Machine.

If Nancy Grace had a show on ESPN, she would begin it: "The devil is dancing in Alabama tonight."

A few moments later ESPN's Joe Schad would Tweet this: "Sources: The devil is dancing in Alabama tonight."

That's because Cecil Newton proved the NCAA is the most worthless organization in America. Step a hair across the bylaw line and the NCAA will chase you to kingdom come. God forbid somebody buy you groceries or give you a ride in their car. Shred the entire rule book, light it on fire, and dance on the ashes --- which is exactly what Cecil did -- and you can skate free and clear.

Somewhere even Ohio State's biggest fan Casey Anthony had to think, "Damn, he got off?"

OKTC has already written about why a 13 team SEC schedule is complicated as hell. What OKTC reported a month ago was there was no way to play an eight game schedule while each team played every member of its division. Last week the SEC athletic directors met to consider the complexities of a 13 team schedule now that Texas A&M's admission is a foregone conclusion and OKTC has learned that a major point of that discussion was an NCAA rule that requires every football team in a division to play another football team in that same division.

That rule states as follows:

17.9.1.2 (c) Twelve-Member Conference Championship Game.  [FBS/FCS]   A conference championship game between division champions of a member conference of 12 or more institutions that is divided into two divisions (of six or more institutions each), each of which conducts round-robin, regular-season competition among the members of that division;

This provision is important because it is the exemption that allows a conference title game to exist in the first place.

As the Big East attempts to stave off one raid after another, struggles to hold together a fractious lot of current members who are looking elsewhere, and battles to preserve its status as the sixth major football conference in America, much discussion has centered on the likelihood that a Big East devoid of Pitt and Syracuse may lose its automatic bid to the BCS. Presently the Big East has an automatic bid through the end of the 2013 season and right now the Big East along with the SEC, the ACC, the Pac 12, the Big 12, and the Big Ten all receive automatic bids to the big bowl bonanza for their conference champions. The rules have been this way since the formation of the BCS.

If the BCS acted to strip the Big East's automatic bid this would be the first retraction of an automatic bid in BCS history.

I hinted at this in Friday's column, but the BCS stripping the Big East's automatic bid is highly unlikely. Why? There are for two primary reasons that I'll unpack in the coming column: 1. the Big East would have a whopping insider lawsuit against the BCS that could spell antitrust doom for the cartel and 2. Boston College's athletic director told the Boston Globe that ESPN encouraged it to take Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East.

The end result is that the Big East, even in its weakened state, isn't likely to lose its BCS bid. If the league isn't likely to lose its BCS bid then that's a powerful incentive it can dangle to other schools, in non-BCS leagues, to bring them on board as new members. Effectively, then, the BCS bid is a Big East safety net, the net that keeps the conference from plunging into national irrelevance.  

Behold, the greatest tailgate cookie in the history of tailgate cookies.

I defy you to beat the orange pants cookie. It even has the T belt buckle. That's quality.

Sadly, this was the best play anyone in orange pants made on Saturday. UT fans desperately want Dooley to succeed because right now the Fulmer Curse owns the program. Any modicum of good news is savored. Only there really isn't any good news. First Justin Hunter went down on the first pass play of the SEC season, Now Tyler Bray is now out for the season in the second SEC game, the latest victim of the most debilitating curse in all of sports.

You can read about the Fulmer Curse here.

In the meantime, on to the Starting 11.