Apologies to Adam and jbrater

OK Guys. We're really sorry. It's almost summer, so Abram is crazy busy, and Jeff is caught in the euphoria of almost being done with school forever. But here is a fun, bullet-pointed post to address and start a conversation about all the stuff that Adam has pointed out we should have been talking about lately:

• Cedric Benson: DWI offender or victim of a DWB imposed by Lake Travis police? ESPN is reporting that Ced's friends on the boat with him at the time of his arrest believe that the cops were overly forceful with him and that he was not, in fact, drunk. The most interesting part of the article from our perspective is Elizabeth Cartwright's claim that she has been out on the lake 6 times with Ced, and all 6 times they have been stopped by the police. Outright racism? Or is Cedric a really bad driver? We want very badly to side with Benson here, and since we are unlikely to ever definitively know who's telling the truth, we're going to!
• Ryan Perrilloux: Les Miles finally had enough of RP's shenanigans, and to be honest we're at the point where we'd rather the Tigers lose without him than win with him. So the question now becomes: who plays QB for LSU next season? In the spring it was looking like redshirt freshman Jarrett Lee would likely beat out Harvard transfer Andrew Hatch. Both of those guys are traditional pocket passers and Lee was very highly recruited out of high school. But also keep an eye on true freshman Jordan Jefferson, who apparently has some serious talent both with his arm and with the wheels. Fall practice should certainly be interesting.
• The Cardinals are awesome, despite blowing a late 3-0 lead to lose to the Rockies 4-3 last night. What's worse, they got Todd Helton to pop out to third for the second out while still leading 3-1 in the 8th, but couldn't close the deal as Colorado put up 3 more in the inning. Regardless, the Redbirds continue to follow Tony LaRussa's philosophy of a successful season consistently: just win every series you possibly can, and mathematically it's always going to be good enough to make the playoffs. The Cards have done what they are supposed to do against weaker opponents, and even won Round One against the hot-hitting Cubbies. There are few things as a sports fan more satisfying than a team producing way beyond its expectations (see: 2007-2008 Texas basketball).
• Our old friend Ben Dorfman has been in the news lately. First with his award winning caption in the first offseason caption contest: "No, Mr. President, I don't think she would mind if you put your dollar bill there." Then Ben went and outdid himself with the post of the year on his blog about Austin eateries. We HIGHLY advise you to go over there and comment.
  
• Finally, someone forgot to tell the Hornets that they weren't supposed to beat the Spurs. After two games in which Chris Paul and His Raging Band of Basketball Badasses beat the defending champs like rented mules, the series returns tonight in San Antonio--where, by the way, the Hornets have already won 102-78 earlier this year. Splitting the two games in Texas will give New Orleans a chance to win it in 5 in front of a home crowd. Which would mean the Hornets will have gotten as far in the playoffs (conference championship) after 6 years in New Orleans as it took the Saints 38 years to get. Just saying.

On Ryan Perrilloux...

As Ray Patterson said after Homer's failed efforts as Springfield's trash commisioner -- "Oh...oh, gosh...you know, I'm not much on speeches, but it's so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you've made. You're screwed, thank you, bye."

Well, we really aren't much for speeches, but seeing Perrilloux fail makes us happy. We argued during this season amongst ourselves whether Lyin' Ryan had turned a corner to become a contributing member of society. That argument appears settled, for now, in favor of the negative.

We wrote about the Perrilloux situation the last time he was suspended. With him, and there is certainly a chance that he'll be back on the team, LSU is one of the most dangerous teams in the nation. Without him LSU seems an awful lot like Texas in 2006 with redshirt freshman Jarrett Lee holding the reigns.

There are three lessons we take from this story.

1) LSU can certainly bounce back, winning the SEC is certainly still a possibility

2) LSU faces Appy St on August 30, things could get interesting

3) Once again, we think Texas may have dodged a bullet here