What to do with Nick Saban? The man is as gifted a coach as he is a recruiter, stocking rosters with elite athletes and instilling in them a defensive discipline that can only come from an innate fear of their life and livelihood if they don’t listen to him. And hey: it works.

(”This is where you all stop talking. I have armed guards to enforce this.”)

This probably isn’t mere coincidence, but he’s also one of the angriest men around - not just in college football, but on the face of the planet. It’s only too fitting that he coaches a team whose nickname is evocative of menstruation. He probably doesn’t have an office, but an underground lair. He kills, not for fun, but because he has to. And his next target? Why, the ruling body above him, the NCAA, of course.

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Over the weekend, Auburn held a bit of a crazy bash for several recruits. It was called “Big Cat Weekend,” even though there were no actual tigers, lions, panthers, pumas, ocelots, mountain lions, jaguars, or this guy in attendance. Nonetheless, the recruits had a blast being celebrated, as you can see here.

(The NCAA might make Auburn a much less smiley destination for recruits.)

As a matter of fact, as one recruit (Ladarius Owens) was announced, another recruit, Lache Seastrunk (above) actually called out Nick Saban (that’ll end well, we’re sure), saying Saban was “S.O.L.” on recruiting Owens. Fans whooped and cheered at Seastrunk’s proclamation, and a great time was had by all.

Well, all but Auburn’s compliance department, anyway, since the whole thing was blatantly illegal.

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• Singer Rihanna appears to be rebounding from a rocky relationship by bouncing over to Lakers star Andrew Bynum.

• The Mets don’t appreciate Dwight Gooden writing on their walls.

• Thunder players are blown away at how windy Oklahoma City is.

• A high school volleyball coach is caught servicing a supermarket manager in a city park parking lot.

• What it was like covering University of Georgia gymnastics.

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• The Chicago Bears are concerned about Jay Cutler’s late-night carousing.

(”Aw, man - I need a drink!”)

• You would think home plate umpires deal with enough abuse without having to take a broken bat to the face.

• A couple of Texas Tech football players find relief along the stadium wall.

• Time to get Mist-y eyed, Seattle - here comes your lingerie football team!

• One-time one-legged sports sensation Carl Joseph finally gets some recognition, as he’s elected to the Florida High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

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Ever since Lane Kiffin arrived at Rocky Top, the Tennessee head honcho has been making his case as the kookiest coach in the SEC. (Ripping off recruits’ shirts, warning other recruits they’ll end up pumping gas for a living, that sort of thing.) And it seems Lane is well on his way to leap past the previous king of SEC lunacy, Nick Saban. (Comparing a loss to Louisiana-Monroe to 9/11 & Pearl Harbor, threatening recruits that he’ll turn them in to the NCAA, that sort of thing.)

But we should all know well enough that you can’t keep the Crimson Tide coach down for long. Sooner or later, Saban will do or say something silly once again to reclaim his crown as the SEC’s top screwball. And he doesn’t disappoint, as Nick knows who to blame for Alabama’s poor performance in last season’s Sugar Bowl:

The fans.

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• As Dan Patrick would say, you cannot stop Tiger Woods, you can only hope to contain him (or hope he hurts his knee again).

Thanks, Gatorade Lady! (Unfortunately, it’s not Maria Sharapova.)

• Oklahoma b-ball star Blake Griffin shows the world that he’s number 1.

• The Buffalo Bills use Twitter to tell everyone that Ralph Wilson isn’t dead. And it better really be the Bills on Twitter - otherwise someone’s gonna have a lawsuit on their hands.

• Former Hornets GM tries to explain why he traded away Kobe Bryant.

• St. Louis Cardinal Rick Ankiel finds it stimulating to Google himself.

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There are a few things that you can be absolutely certain of without requiring constant reassurances: The Sun will rise in the East and set in the West; Gravity is keeping people in Australia from falling off the bottom of the Earth; And Alabama coach Nick Saban is a huge jerk. Whether it’s comparing a football loss to the Pearl Harbor attacks & 9-11, using a webcam to skirt NCAA rules, or just being a bald-faced lair, we hardly need more proof to know that Saban is pretty much morally reprehensible.

But if you do need more proof, here you go: DEEP SOUTH SPORTS reports that one of Ole Miss’ top recruits, offensive lineman Bobby Massie, was asked at a Rebels practice to give a good Nick Saban recruiting story. (Massie almost went to Tuscaloosa before choosing Oxford.) And boy, did he tell a whopper of a tale:

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Even though he has yet to coach a single game for the Tennessee Volunteers, Lane Kiffin is probably already my favorite coach in the SEC. Sure, he hasn’t won any national championships like Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Les Miles, or Steve Spurrier, but in his first few months in Knoxville he’s already done more to entertain me than any of those guys and has won the national championship of my heart. Having a hot wife doesn’t hurt his case, either.

Whether it was the time Kiffin accused Urban Meyer of cheating when he wasn’t, or when he thought going topless would help recruit,  or when he insulted the high school of a player he’d just landed at Tennessee, Lane is always finding a new way to make college football’s offseason fun. So when a story comes out from prized wide receiver recruit Alshon Jeffrey that Kiffin tried to convince him to come to Tennessee instead of South Carolina by telling him that he’d end up pumping gas if he became a Gamecock, well, you know it’s true.

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Is there a website that athletic directors hate more than Facebook? For all their efforts shielding athletes from the press and public, administrators are essentially powerless to control the message when it goes from the kid’s mind to online in as long as it takes to type. 99% of the time, that’s okay, but it’s that 1% that makes the news.

(”Oh come on, the fifth exclamation point means I’m kidding!”)

Today’s news is brought to you by Terrence Cody, Alabama’s behemoth defensive tackle. Cody is easily big (6′5″, 368) and talented (All-American) enough to be a first-round pick, but he wasn’t among the handful of Alabama underclassmen who filed paperwork with the NFL inquiring about draft status. That doesn’t mean he can’t go pro, mind you, it’s just a voluntary thing so the NFL can keep someone like, let’s say, Jimmy Clausen from making a very serious error by declaring for the draft and ruining his eligibility.

So it was a bit of a shock when Cody apparently announced his intention to go pro… at 1:28 a.m., on his Facebook page. Unconventional to say the least, but hey, at least we know it’s true, right? Err… right?

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Las Vegas made them big favorites. The press made them big favorites. And in the end, Florida deserved to be favorites over Alabama. After an impressive 31-20 victory over the Crimson Tide keyed by two fourth quarter drives, the Gators are almost certainly headed to their second national championship game in three years. Go ahead. Start bracing for all the “look back” video cut-aways and “is two-in-three years a dynasty?” story lines.

(Sigh. Everything’s coming up Tim Tebow again.)

Tim Tebow may not have put up the prettiest game, and coach Urban Meyer may have cost his team a gimmee touchdown within the final four minutes with an atrociously stupid penalty, but Tebow responded with a pinpoint pass for a game-clinching touchdown anyway. Sorry Nick Saban, guess it wasn’t your year (again) after all. Now Saban’s left to tell John-Parker Wilson to go watch some Two-A-Days. Maybe he’ll pull something from it.

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