Saturday Links (1/30)

I have a firm belief that the two phrases most guaranteed to result in a story that bores the life out of you are these:

1.) "You wouldn't believe what happened in my fantasy football game this week..."

and 2.) "Let me tell you about this dream I had last night..."

Stories that start that way always end poorly and require me to immediately begin drinking heavily.

And the addendum to this theory is that everyone who agrees with it will also at some point use the phrase, "I know stories about people's dreams are always awful, but here's one that really is crazy..."

Then they proceed to tell you about the time they were playing poker with Salmon Rushdie, a unicorn, the 1976 Flyers and Tony Danza and the game ended in a rash of gunfire due to a dispute over someone's fantasy football game.

(Actually, that's not a bad story.)

Anyway, I'm not promising entertainment here but... I had a dream last night that I was just about to take a few days off from work when I got a call that Scott Lakatos had decided he really didn't like living in the South and was quitting his job at Georgia to return to UConn, and I would need to immediately start covering yet another coaching search.

I'm now seriously concerned that I may never be able to go back to the normal life I had before Willie Martinez was fired without blowing up a nuclear device on a mysterious island to reconfigure the space-time continuum.

So... if some day I end up in a mental hospital muttering to myself about defensive coordinators and 3-4 defenses, please promise that at least a few of you will come and visit.

One other note: I was asked by a few people yesterday about signing day festivities at Butts-Mehre. The third-floor museum area is still open to fans, so if you have plans to go, you should be fine.

OK, some links...

-- I have a story in today's Telegraph on what the Senior Bowl could mean for Jeff Owens' draft stock. In talking with Jeff, I asked him if he'd had a chance to hit Tim Tebow at all during practice. Sadly, that wasn't the case. But you still have to enjoy his response:

“We can’t hit the quarterbacks here, but I knocked down one of his passes. It was a low ball and I came in and knocked it down. But I haven’t had a chance to hit him yet since no one’s allowed to hit the quarterback in practice. But we’ve been getting after him. We’ve been getting pressure to him and making him step up in the pocket and make some bad throws.”

-- The Senator uses numbers -- which, as we know, ALWAYS lie -- to illustrate that there's a reasonable chance that some of the anomalies of 2009 can regress to the mean and provide UGA with a pretty solid chance to win the East in 2010.

-- I wrote yesterday about the correlation among SEC teams' big recruits and the likelihood that those players would eventually be drafted by an NFL team. Well, Dr. Saturday did some research a while back that goes even further and finds that there is definitely some merit to the star system as a predictive device. (h/t mp)

-- Marc Weiszer looks back at a few of Georgia's marquee signing day gets from 2005 and 2006 to see how they panned out.

-- Willie Martinez finally has another job -- and he'll now be working on Jim Harbaugh's staff at Stanford.

-- Dawg Sports has some insider info on Georgia's new DBs coach, Scott Lakatos. I must point out one glaring error early in on Kyle King's story though: He says UConn basketball is really important this time of year, but he's mistaken. UConn doesn't have a basketball team so much as it rounds up some bums at the bus station and puts them on a basketball court occasionally. Suck it, Calhoun! Go Cuse!

-- Mr. SEC defends himself against some criticism from the AJC. It's funny how "unnecessary" quotation marks can cause such a stir when "employed" as a means of conveying "sarcasm."

-- Don't forget that Herschel Walker steps into the, um, what do they have in MMA? A ring? Octogon? One of those rolly balls like on "American Gladiators"? I gotta start watching this stuff. Anyway, Herschel is fighting tonight.

-- ESPN.com has a story on Georgia freshman gymnast Shayla Worley and her role as the face of a very talented group of young Gym Dogs. (And seriously, a college gymnastics story on ESPN.com? Nice going, Gym Dogs!)

-- T Kyle King breaks down how a good UGA fan should root in this year's Super Bowl.

-- Our pal C Trent Rosecrans has a great list of all the absurd prop bets you can make on this year's Super Bowl.

-- Mark Fox's crew faces yet another tough test on the road, where they're now 0-6 this season.

-- Hoop Dawgs looks on the bright side of things for Georgia, despite its 1-4 conference record.

-- Connor Nolte adds his latest trick shot video to his blog, this one featuring Georgia's secret weapon for next season.

-- Dawgs for Haiti has already raised $45,000 for relief efforts.

-- If you're a baseball nut like I am, you'll enjoy this: It's a history of the stolen base, as charted by Baseball Analysts.

-- See, this is why newspapers are still important... what else are you going to go buy as instant memorabilia after something big happens in your town? Printing out a Web page just doesn't have the same mystique. (I know someone forwarded me this link, but now I can't find out who... so h/t to whoever you are!)

-- As for that other dying journalistic medium, here's a little do-it-yourself guide to being a television news journalist. (NSFW)

-- Jim Boeheim ladies and gentlemen... he'll be here all week! Tip your waitresses! (Seriously, Syracuse must have a good team this year because Boeheim is NEVER that amusing.)

-- Jimmy Kimmel reminds us who the real victim in the late-night wars is... poor, poor Jay Leno.

-- My favorite "Top Chef" contestant has dropped out of a prestigious cooking competition.

-- Sci Fi Wire has a list of 15 strange roles the cast of "Lost" had before landing on the show. (They foolishly left off Daniel Dae Kim's guest spot on the "Seinfeld" episode when Kramer is doing acting work at the hospital, playing a guy with gonorrhea. Kim plays one of the med students.)

-- And finally, Access Atlanta has an interview with "Lost" star Josh Holloway in which he talks about his time at UGA and his love for the Bulldogs.