Games were played, tempers flared, some people got hurt, while others hurt only themselves. Recapping a very intense week in the country's most gossipy football conference:
RELATIONSHIPS
SPOTTED. South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier and quarterback Conor Shaw, sharing a meal at Columbia's four-star Rosso Trattoria Italia, on Monday. The rendezvous would seem to signal an end to Spurrier's on-again, off-again dalliance with former starter Stephen Garcia, and Spurrier's publicist said the coach is happy to make a "clean break" and is looking forward to the future. "The Ol' Ballcoach has moved on from Stephen Garcia, and is not giving Stephen Garcia a second thought as he moves on to this new phase in his life," said the publicist's statement. "There is absolutely no chance that he will get back together with Stephen Garcia, ever. He's perfectly happy with his new quarterback -- you know, that guy, whose name will come to me in a minute." Garcia issued a response in the form of a text message reading "Whatevs, bro" sent to reporters.
TRANSITIONS
HOSPITALIZED. Florida head coach Will Muschamp, for a blown gasket, in Gainesville on Saturday night. A red-faced Muschamp was brought to the University's Shands Hospital following his team's blowout loss to Alabama, at which point doctors made the startling discovery that Muschamp actually had been born with a gasket and had damaged it while screaming at players and officials during the game. "We talk about people blowing gaskets all the time, but I never dreamed I'd actually see one in a live human being," said Philip Marston, M.D., Shands' chief of surgery. "It's located between his third and fourth cervical vertebrae, and it was completely ruptured, along with his vocal chords and a number of blood vessels in his neck and face." Doctors say the gasket has been repaired and Muschamp should be fully recovered in time for this weekend's trip to Baton Rouge to face LSU, although a team doctor will monitor Muschamp on the sideline at all times.
REJECTED. Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen, for Georgia's currently filled head coaching position, after MSU's 24-10 loss to Georgia on Saturday. In a strangely worded statement, the University of Georgia administration took the unusual step of rejecting Mullen for a job that is not available and for which Mullen never applied, saying, "If we were to hypothetically fire Mark Richt after this season, we would not hire Dan Mullen for the position that would then be open. However, we thank him for what we presume would be his interest in the job, and congratulate Mark Richt, whom we have no intention of firing even if we have talked about it from time to time, on his 99th career win." A confused Mullen thanked Georgia for its "theoretical consideration" and said he was completely focused on MSU's game at UAB this weekend.
REVEALED. Alabama head coach Nick Saban, as legendary Eastern European crime boss Keyser Söze. In a stunning exposé, the University of Florida's student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, revealed that Söze left his native Croatia in 1972 to escape authorities intent on bringing down his massive criminal empire, and has continued his pattern of murder, racketeering and intimidation ever since arriving in the United States. Saban/Söze retaliated by massacring Florida's entire football game in a bloodbath Saturday night, leaving one survivor, backup quarterback Jeff Driskel, to warn the rest of the conference about what might happen if they cross him. Despite the fact that Saban/Söze confessed openly to his litany of crimes, Gainesville authorities say they have no leads in the murders. "Nope, nothing, trail's cold, we're closing this case," said police chief Craig Harrison. "Absolutely nothing to see here, and no reason to maim or kill any of us, that's for sure."
LEGAL
FILED. An injunction against Texas A&M joining the SEC, by the Arkansas Razorbacks, in Dallas on Saturday. The conference made headlines by announcing its nuptials with the Aggies last week, and initially it seemed that A&M would be warmly accepted by the rest of the league's partners. Arkansas, however, successfully filed a motion at the very last minute blocking "any and all attempts by the Texas A&M football program to be competitive with, or appropriate the bowl invitation of, any SEC team." A drawn-out appeals process means the matter is unlikely to be decided before fall 2012.
MISCELLANEOUS
AWARDED. The Jim Thorpe Award, the Heisman Trophy, three ESPYs, Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Editing, the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Bronze Star and the J.D. Power Award for Initial Quality, to LSU cornerback Tyran Mathieu. "We just decided it would be better to go ahead and give him all the awards. All of the awards," said Sven Olafsson, chair of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, representing a wide spectrum of awards committees from around the world. "He has proven himself superior in nearly every facet of human achievement, and we also figured that the more awards we give him, the less likely he is to hurt one of us." Mathieu thanked Olafsson for his kind consideration and proceeded to eat a king cobra.
DISCOVERED. A new type of particle, previously thought to be no more than theoretical, by University of Kentucky scientists on Saturday. The new particle, dubbed a "morgannewtron," has been classified as "anti-offense" and is said to actually take points and yards off the board under the right circumstances. Kentucky researchers plan to test this hypothesis in a joint study with scientists at Vanderbilt next month, but these plans have drawn protests from Nashville residents claiming that putting the morgannewtron in close proximity to Vanderbilt's equally unstable offense could cause "untold damage" that might end college football as we know it.
STARRING. Auburn quarterback Barrett Trotter, in a revival of "Baby I'm Burnin'," the 2008 comedy hit about two hapless football programs from Auburn and Mississippi State who meet on the gridiron. The remake has met with some controversy, as fans feel that choreographer Gus Malzahn's vision -- which moves the action from South Carolina to Mississippi and includes actual touchdowns being scored -- is a perversion of Tommy Tuberville's original. Trotter, however, earned rave reviews on opening night with a 12-of-23, 112-yard, two-interception performance that was deemed "faithful to the role" as originally interpreted by Chris Todd.