These clips should help do the trick. No Erin Andrews here, though. No Brett Favre. No wide receivers shooting themselves in the leg, running over pedestrians, or crying over their quarterbacks. Actually, we’re headed in the direction of that last thing right off the bat. But it’s well worth it.

…Thanks to DJ Steve Porter, the world now has “Press Hop” featuring Allen Iverson, Jim Mora, Dennis Green, Joe Namath, Mike Gundy and Terrell Owens in the finest of press conference moments (or meltdowns…)

…These monster hits and spectacular catches should help get you through the blazing heat of July…

…You’ve likely seen this one before. But it’s always a good time to sit and watch some trick plays tat actually work…

…Classic comedy right here. George Carlin breaks down the differences between football and baseball with such clarity…

Spring is here!!!!

And for those of us living in the southern regions that means warm sunny weather, blooming flowers, and pollen covering outside surfaces like frat boys on a passed out freshmen.

Living in an area highly populated by college students I get to witness both one of the most wondrous, and one of the worst visuals, of the emerging spring season – I get to see the young ladies that break out those short skirts and sun dresses.

Now for most men that would be enough, but see I’m not like most men.

Sure, I love the sight of odd fitting dresses, long legs and slightly exposed breasts. But more than that, I love watching these young ladies travel along the cracked concrete and uneven bricks that build any campus walkway while strutting in the high heel sandals which so many feel the need to wear. The ones that wear them, my god do they wear them well. But the ones that don’t, make my day, everyday.

I love the girls that stumble and pretend they didn’t. I love the girls that walk steady, but as if they just drank a bottle of apple pucker while participating in a new episode of College Fuck Fest. But most importantly, I love the fact that my wife enjoys these episodes of female futility as much as I do.

Now let’s move on to that springtime staple that happens to bleed all the way into summer and doesn’t finish up until the leaves begin to change colors, therefore causing me extreme cases of “what the fuck?” for about five months.

To paraphrase Joint Contrast contributer Craig Maizer – “Mother Fucking Plaid Shorts!” If you own them, fuck you! If you wear them on a regular basis, fuck you in multiple colors in a weaved pattern that forms visual vomit! And if you have them, wear them, and are out in public with at least one other male (and you are not on the golf course smoking cigars, drinking beer, and hitting at least a 20-over par) then I’m going to need you to hold your breath until you pass out. But make sure your face is positioned to land safely in a small tub of water.

Seriously, solid colors only unless previous golf scenario is in effect, or if you’re a member of Outkast or Goodie Mob.

Fuck You Plaid Shorts!!!!!!!! Now go to YouTube and type in “short skirt walking.”

• MICHIGAN STATE – by Dank

Big Ten stand up!

They said we were weak, overrated and didn’t deserve all the nods we got for the tournament. But they won’t be having their Final Four without us!

Congratulations is due to the Michigan State Spartans for knocking off the overall No. 1 seed Louisville Cardinals and earning the right to travel home to Detroit for a chance to play for the NCAA Championship. They are the first team since Duke in 1994 to play a Final Four in their home state and have become the tournament’s best story (sorry, Villanova).

Maybe we (myself included) should have given the Spartans more credit. This is their fifth Final Four appearance under head coach Tom Izzo and they are now 9-0 all-time as a No. 2 seed. Those are some pretty impressive stats right there. Almost as impressive as their handling of Louisville in the Midwest Region Finals, holding Rick Pitino’s Cardinals to their second lowest point total of the season.

I said the Spartans were the tournament’s best story and I meant it for more reasons than basketball. This area of the country needs this game right now. Absolute economic crisis, the failing auto industry and high school graduation rates as low as 25% in Detroit. It’s hard not to root for the Spartans even when you’re a lifetime Buckeye.

Do the Spartans have what it takes to keep the trophy right there in Michigan? They’re going to have to get by Connecticut first, and the Huskies have hardly been tested thus far. My prediction: MSU 82, UCONN 71. They make it look easy and then cut down the nets and win their third National Title.

• CONNECTICUT – by Ray-Way

I guess I guessed right.

Being the only person who picked the winner of their region, that might give the impression that I know more than others, which could be true, but I’d rather not rub it in.

So here it is, Connecticut vs. Michigan State. This should be a hard-hitting game. It’s not the usual reference used for a basketball game but with this you have two of the top teams defensively in basketball, who win games by beating the other thanks to the dirty deeds of out-rebounding, blocking shots, creating turnovers, and getting to the loose balls.

This game will be won by the team that can impose their will onto the other, and the fact that Connecticut reigns supreme in almost every defensive category it’ll be the Huskies that get it done.

They are first in the nation in blocked shots at eight per game. They are third in the nation in rebounding margin, having out-rebounded their opponents by nine boards a game, and they have held their opposition to less than 38-percent shooting per contest, which is fourth-best in the country.

As that old saying goes, offense wins games but defense wins championships. And that is why Connecticut is going to win it all. My deepest apologies to President Obama and North Carolina Nation… Sorry this just isn’t the year for you.

• VILLANOVA – by TimS

• NORTH CAROLINA – by J.C.

The Tar Heels couldn’t stop the nations best player from doing his thing in the Elite Eight, but UNC did take care of those other scrubs from Oklahoma he played alongside. Which makes me wonder, is it the coolness of the baby-Carolina blue or are these kids just that good?

Sure, skeptics will look at how North Carolina got this for in the Great American Tournament and say “my YMCA team could have gotten past those clowns.” UNC started with a bye in round one as a No. 1 seed, and merely needed to get past LSU and Gonzaga before playing that game of 5-on-1 against the Sooners.

But now that they’re one of four remaining, Tar Heel-faithful can already hear the sickening sounds of “One Shining Moment” ringing in the distance as only Villanova from the Big Beast Conference stands in their way in the semis.

Does anybody even remember the last time ‘Nova was any good? You don’t think Michael Jordan will let his alma mater get bounced by a program with no relevance while his cash is on the line in Vegas, do you?

On a side note, I plan to watch this matchup with a pair of James Worthy goggles, just for old time’s sake.

So bring on Michigan State of the Big preTenD as they bask in their home court advantage, or ‘Nova’s cousins from UConn who get one last shot at a National Title before being buried in NCAA violations.

You see, UNC has one thing going for them that the other’s do not. And that’s a Presidential Pardon, a vote of confidence in President Obama’s NCAA pool.

And if our own government could get away with assassinating JFK back in the day, then you know they’ll have now problem working this thing out.

• ‘MIDWEST’ SWINGIN – by Dank Lucas

So here it is folks, the most uninformed analysis of college basketball since Don Imus. Now the extent of my knowledge on the subject this year is the offspring of whatever clips SportsCenter decided to include while I was trying to catch Cavs or Lakers highlights. It doesn’t help when 75% of those clips were of Davidson’s Stephen Curry, the best player in college basketball who’s playing in the NIT. It also doesn’t help that I believe the best team in college basketball is probably the UConn girls. Their margins of victory have been insane!

That being said, I’m determined to out-pick the other three Kung Fools in this little experiment of ours. So after playing back everything ESPN had to say about the tournament since Sunday, then doing a little “Googling,” I have my picks with five reasons I chose them.

1. ŸBoston College and Wake Forest both have wins over UNC and Duke this year. Anytime you do that you’re a threat.

2. ŸLouisville is the regular season and tournament champs of the Big East, a conference boasting three No. 1 seeds, and that’s no small feat for Rick Pitino’s Cardinals. That’s who I have advancing to the championship game.

3. West Virginia, another Big East team, has wins over Pitt and Villanova, plus Coach Bobby Huggins likes to party like the rest of us. They advance to the Elite 8.

4. Michigan State dominated the Big Ten this year, a conference whose teams fared well against quality competition. Texas, Louisville, UCLA, and Duke all fell to Big Ten teams so don’t count out the Spartans.

5. The returning champion Kansas Jayhawks have as good a chance as anyone with late-season wins over high-ranked teams such as Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri

Florida vs. Oklahoma – Football. This country loves itself some football. So do I. We also love ourselves a folk hero, one we can paint any old way we like. That figure is quarterback Tim Tebow. He showed us so last night on national television, proving once and for all how God, if one does exist, prefers him over the rest of us oxygen-sucking leaches. Unlike the Super Bowl of our beloved NFL, the BCS National Championship Game doesn’t seem to resonate much in the same way as its professional counterpart. If your favorite team wasn’t able to earn enough electoral votes to play in the finale then chances are you’re minimized to a casual fan of the game. Maybe checking in on it whenever the wife has a commercial break in her late night program. Which is pathetic. But just like the Super Bowl, we tune in no matter who is playing if for only the brutal human drama that unfolds before us. If the Super Bowl has morphed into an unofficial national holiday, than the BCS title game has done nothing more then bloat into an overhyped payday in my eyes.

But last night in Miami the storylines were too good to pass up. In each corner were two storied universities with nine titles among them who were meeting on the football field for the first time ever. Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks led each team. Two head coaches flaunted proud roots to northeast Ohio. And as an aside, our 14-person panel at Joint Contrast went with Florida by a 9-5 margin. The overall winner was among the nine that selected the Gators and in fact picked 22 of the bowl games correctly. But screw that guy. I think I finished in a tie for last place, or somewhere close to that. That’s what I get for sticking to my roots and leaning towards the Big Ten and Mid-American Conference. Bums. I’ll get ‘em next year though.

So yeah, I picked Florida to win, even though I’ve grown to loathe all things Florida Gators after wading through 10 years in this great state. I hardly feel the hatred, of say, my Ohio State-supporting brethren. But I guess it’s true what they say about how misery loves company. The college team I root for is not worth the mention at this point. Though they did win the Hawaii Bowl this year! But about those Gators, you see, I’ve seen this all before. I’ve been to Gainesville on game days. Been a part of the excessive consumption that takes place. Met the promiscuous girls that study there. And experienced the general running amuck throughout a small-town, which happens to be inhabited by tens of thousands of reckless Gator-chomping fans. I can only imagine, and marvel at, the deliberate inebriation that took place last night.

The Game – If you were one of the spectators that hardly cared about the outcome of this game then you likely remember it as a pretty good one. If you’re a Florida fan you were probably too hammered by the time it ended to remember much. And if you’re an Oklahoma fan, then drinking too much hardly helped you forget the whole ordeal in the first place. Had to be tough trying to stomach the sight of your team methodically march the field, armed with swift passes and long runs one moment while darting through the Gator defense, then failing to finish those drives the very next time you reach for your brew.

I couldn’t understand it myself. I would bounce between admiring the Sooners for their aggressiveness, then feel the same about the Gators after a monster hit got delivered by the likes of Major Wright in the Florida defense. What should have been a game that mirrored the glitz and glamorous image of Miami instead turned into a Big Ten-style of smash mouth football, where defenses knocked opposing players around until the offenses decided to get defensive as well. All that was missing amid the 66-degree weather was a snowstorm to come blowing through. But then you knew it was only a matter of time before God intervened anyway, right?

God’s Son – I will tell you now that I knew it was Florida’s game to lose when late in the first quarter, on 2nd-and-10 with 1:58 to go, Tebow picked up a first down on a run by putting his shoulder through the backside of a diving defender. The sheer brut strength he showed was something to behold, which eventually inspired one of the talking heads of the telecast to utter “if you’re fortunate enough to spend five minutes, or 20 minutes, around Tim Tebow, your life is better for it” as he attempted to add some color.

That’s because God loves him some Tebow, and in turn loves the people that are teamed up with him. God loves Tebow so much that The Almighty orchestrated a plan to have Oklahoma intercept two of his passes, just to allow the young disciple to appreciate the sweet taste of victory that much more upon delivering the final dagger, known to us as a touchdown with 3:07 remaining that put Florida up by 10, in effect putting the game on ice for good in the Orange Bowl. But if the claims of “Superman” by the Fox announcers were intended to describe his supernatural abilities while playing in such a game, or over his career, then the more human-like moments would soon unfold before us as the game neared its conclusion.

It seems even someone who comes from such a stable family as his, that does mission work to help better the lives of families in need in places such as Croatia, Thailand, and the Philippians, can act up in the uholiest of ways sometimes. With that late lead, Tebow drew an unsportsmanlike like penalty with 2:09 to go when he gave Oklahoma’s Nick Harris an up close tutorial on how to do the “Gator chomp” following a first down run. An announcer quipped “that might be the first thing he’s ever done wrong in his life.” The humor of some of those guys.

Things seemed to wrap up rather quickly after that, as images on the television morphed into a Hollywood-like montage over the final 49 seconds. On another run up the middle, geared to kill the clock, Tebow lowered his shoulder into the umpire in what looked like a violent collision in the middle of the field as he was being tackled. Cameras were then cued to the Gatorade dumping of coach Urban Meyer, then to Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops who gazed across the field in dismay. All this happening in split seconds of each other. Then it was over, 24-10. Just like that.

Tebow is now a legendary name placed among a list of the best of the best in regards to the greatest college football players to have ever played the game. Afterwards, the lingering question from sports writers who huddled around him in search of a memorable quote was whether he’d decide to return for a senior season at UF or ride his charm and God-given talents into the National Football League, where a sizable contract is sure to be awaiting his signature.

Meanwhile, as he contemplates such a cushy existence, God returns to his day job, where finding ways to put food in the mouths of the less fortunate is just the tip of so many larger issues, which sporting events help us forget if only for a few hours at a time.

Saturday began the fest of college football bowl games to be played over the next three weeks, leading up to the National Championship showdown between No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Florida.

Included is a breakdown of how 14 unofficial Joint Contrast contributors view the outcome of all 34 bowl games for the 2008-09 season. We’ll return after it’s all said and done to review the outcome of our panel.

-- Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Tim Tebow of Florida gets twisted by two Michigan defenders in last year's Capital One Bowl in Orlando. This year the Wolverines are stuck watching the College Football Bowl season from their dorm rooms while the Gators play for their second title in three years. (Photo by Scott McCall) --

The Details: Though the committee is deadlooked on matchups involving Boise State/TCU, Hawaii/Notre Dame and Kentucky/East Carolina, they are in total aggreance that Texas Tech will defeat Ole Miss and Missouri will handle Northwestern.

Just as lopsided are predictions of South Florida over Memphis (13-1), Georgia over Michigan State (13-1), USC over Penn State (13-1), Maryland over Nevada (12-2), Kansas over Minnesota (12-2), Texas over Ohio State (12-2), BYU over Arizona (11-3) and Alabama over Utah (11-3). By a 10-4 margin Wake Forest was selected to get the win over Navy, Fresno State over Colorado State, Central Michigan over Florida Atlantic, Florida State over Wisconsin, Oklahoma State over Oregon, Houston over Air Force, Boston College over Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech over LSU.

Closer though are 13 games that may help decide bragging rights, at least until the March Madness Tournament gets underway in a few months. Among those predictions are Southern Miss over Troy (8-6), California over Miami (8-6), NC State over Rutgers (8-6), Rice over Western Michigan (8-6), Oregon State over Pittsburgh (8-6), South Carolina over Iowa (8-6), Clemson over Nebraska (8-6), Buffalo over Connecticut (8-6) and Ball State over Tulsa (8-6).

North Carolina is favored over West Virginia (9-5), Louisiana Tech over Northern Illinois (9-5), Virginia Tech over Cincinnati (9-5) and Florida over Oklahoma in the title game with an average overall combined score of 60 points.

What This All Means: Actually, nothing really. Especially when you consider the rooting interest that each of the 14 panelists have in such a contest. There are fans of the Fighting Irish, Seminoles, Buckeyes, and of course Gators, that made these picks. And you best believe that of this collective are selectees who have quite the dislike for many of the qualifying teams. So if your stuck on who you might pick in some of these matchups I encourage you to proceed with caution. Or just pick the team that suites up in your favorite colors if you can’t decide.