Mini-mailbag and five things I loved about this week

I feel like I sometimes struggle to wrap up weeks. Theoretically a week should start on Saturday morning for college sports blogs but it doesn’t ever feel like we end scene with anything on Fridays. Here’s an attempt to do that.

Mini-Mailbag

“On a scale of Josh Heupel to Kliff Kngsbury, where does your wife rank you?” – @bigwillonthemic

What a question — maybe the best one we’ve ever had on a mailbag. I think I’m a Richt or maybe a Dabo on my good days. I do some goofy stuff but I’m definitely not sliding towards the Mangino/Muschamp/Heuple end of the scale (figuratively or literally). Yet.

“Do you think Lunt would be starting by now had he stayed?” @dunkel10

Oh absolutely. The question is whether anybody doesn’t think this. The whole “Lunt ain’t the guy because he threw a bunch of picks as an 18-year-old!” was one of the more tiring storylines from last season. The problem for him is that we were coming down from our BWeed high and had unrealistic expectations.

I don’t really think Gundy was ever buying Lunt stock though (because he’s really smart when it comes to quarterbacks) and he was toast the day Monken signed in Hattiesburg. Which…miss us yet, Monk?

Does Brian Williams look more like Kevin Sumlin or Kingsbury look more like Ryan Gosling? – @prich1087

How about Dez and Kyrie Irving as Jameson (not JamesOn, sadly) Reynolds pointed out earlier this week?

What is your weekly income from blogging? I love your blogs very much also keep it up! – @jacoboverton

Let’s just say my annual salary is somewhere between Travis Ford’s weekly salary ($34,375) and Mike Gundy’s weekly salary ($65,925).

Five things I loved about this week

1. How great is the AP top 10 for basketball?

1. Kentucky
2. Michigan State
3. Louisville
4. Duke
5. Kansas
6. Arizona
7. Michigan
8. Oklahoma State
8. Syracuse
10. Florida

Which is the least tradition-rich school on that list? Probably OSU or Florida, right? That’s insane, and a great way to get the 2013-14 season started.

2. This feature on Marcus Smart was just incredible. Go read it right now if you haven’t. My favorite thing — other than him referencing 30 for 30 — was this quote: “The odds of me sitting here [if we’d won]? Probably not. Probably not.” Whoa! So we have a bum wrist and Phil Knight to thank for Marcus’ sophomore season. [gets on Nike.com, buys $200 worth of gear as a thank you to Mr. Knight.]

3. College hoops is back which means Nate is back and better than ever. Several people (some relatives of mine even) have suggested that Nate is either me or somebody I know really well. I promise I’m not smart enough to think of creating an alter ego and if I was I probably would have named him Desreeves or Rashafields or something that was a dead giveaway.

4. It’s Kingsbury week in the Pistols home. I’m happy because I love his swagger — I described his gait to Carson as “John Foots post-Bama crossed with Rory McIlroy with a 22-shot lead on a Sunday at Augusta.” My wife’s happy for obvious reasons — “Can I watch the game with you on Saturday?!” And our kid is happy because mommy watching the game means more Curious George for him.

Also, while we’re here — am I the only one who thinks that Gundy thinks that he’s just a slightly older version of Kingsbury? When he was asked if he was ever as lauded as Kliff on Monday Gundy gave his little Gundy smirk and said something like “I’d like to think I was” and everybody laughed. Except that I’m not totally sure he was joking.

5. The Dez discourse fascinated me. There was the usual ridiculous hyperbole about how he’s selfish and a diva and all of the things you’d expect. And a lot of them were probably deserved. But I’m more intrigued by what we learn and what we teach than by what we see. And this column by Jason Whitlock made me think. That’s all I ask for.

Plus we finally got a good look at his freakity freak paws.

And I still can’t get over Heupel as Batman. I’ve looked at that photo like 329 times and still laugh every time.

Enjoy your weekend. Back at it tomorrow with Mrs. Pistols’ preview of Teach, which should be so epic.