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Morning Linkage

Gary Pinkel talks MSU, sort of - Missouri coach Gary Pinkel spoke to the press yesterday about Thursday's game, but the conversation was dominated by the news that Pinkel decided to suspend quarterback Maty Mauk for the rest of the season. For more details on the Mauk situation, here's a fairly in-depth article from a paper in St. Louis. Rumors on the interwebs are that he's had some issues with substance abuse and with being just plain dumb.

Aeris Williams on becoming a RB in the SEC -  Williams, one of the young backs that fans would like to see more of, discussed his development as a running back since coming to State. The way he and his coaches tell it, being a four-star RB in high school involves a lot of running straight and fast with your eyes closed.

Jamoral Graham the DB gabs about being a DB - Over the summer, Jamoral Graham made the switch from receiver to DB. He's taking the move pretty well, and seems to be adjusting nicely.

Bye weeks matter, right? - Well, it might depend on what you mean by "matters." According to that article, between 2002 and 2010, SEC teams won exactly half of the conference games they played after bye weeks. By my count, Mullen's 5–3 after byes, with four of the five wins coming against Kentucky and the three losses all coming against Alabama or LSU. Gary Pinkel has a much longer track record, and here it is. (Also of note in that post about Pinkel is his record in November. He's only lost seven games in November in the past eight years.)

Frank Beamer's retiring - I've been watching college football for the better part of the past twenty years or so, and I've never seen a Va. Tech. game that Frank Beamer didn't coach. That's really kind of crazy, isn't it? Here's a nice (though not too long) retrospective on him from Sports Illustrated.

Monday Morning Coming Down

Exile on Main St. is one of those albums that I'm supposed to love but just never have. I've tried a number of times over the years, but it's just never stuck. There are some amazing moments on the album, but for me, the Stones peaked a couple years before with Beggars Banquet and Let it Bleed. Still, one thing Exile does as well as any other Stones album is stand up to smokey bar room. Can't remember how many times back in the day that I stopped nearly hopeless searches for the appropriate song on a jukebox after midnight when I landed on that album sandwiched somewhere between a Bob Seger anthology and Bad Company's greatest hits. This is about as good as it gets at one in the morning with a little whisky in you as things start getting mellow:

Ingesting the Opposition

Are you braving the wilds of central Missouri this week to watch our beloved Bulldogs in action? If so, remember to engage in the battle within by consuming our opponent. The options abound for this newest batch of SEC tigers. You've got auspiciously named DogMaster Distillery, which appears to make whisky and vodka, among other things. And then there are a number of promising breweries and brew-pubs to check out, including Logboat, Bur Oak, Rock Bridge, and Broadway. I'm guessing few if any of those businesses' products are widely available outside of Missouri, so those of you in Columbia for the game are going to have to do all the drinking for the rest of us if we're going to get right with the football gods. Cheers!

Man, I want a doughnut

Cops in Twin Peaks were to doughnuts as ad execs in Mad Men were to whisky. Here's to the show's return next year, and here's to starting your day off with a sugar coated, deep fried carb bomb.