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October 13th Jump Off

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Keg Of Nails Week

Previewing the Louisville Cardinals – Now it Gets Serious (Sort Of) // Bearcats Nation

Defenders Talk Keg of Nails Rivalry // Bearcat Lair
JK Schaffer and Jordan Stepp are looking forward to Saturday's game against Louisville.

Keg of Nails Week Notes // Bearcats Blog

JK Schaffer works on all-around game // Big East Blog // ESPN
J.K Schaffer is having a hell of a season. Of course you already knew that

Big East Notebook | Louisville football coach Strong sends strong message: Practice hard | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com

The Cards take seven Cincinnati-area natives into Paul Brown Stadium on Saturday for their game against the Bearcats. U of L tailback Dominique Brown doesn’t expect to be in a friendly home environment, either.

He's probably right about that.

Handicapping the Big East // UC Athletics Blog

2011 Homecoming schedule // UC Athletics Blog

Playing at PBS has its plusses | Cincinnati.com | cincinnati.com

"I'm not going to lie," said quarterback Zach Collaros. "I have mixed feelings about it. We love playing here (at Nippert) and we think it's a great atmosphere but the people upstairs make that decision."

yup

UC expecting 35,000-40,000 for Louisville game // UC Athletics Blog
Safe to say the noon kickoff is having a negative effect on early ticket sales. If the crowd winds up being 40,000 it will be really easy to dismiss the PBS idea out of hand.

Top 10 College Rivalry Trophies // Unsportsmanlike Conduct

McClung Wasn’t Always a Bearcat // Bearcat Lair
Anthony McClung is one of several players, on both sides, that decamped from one school to the other in recruiting

Bearcats Breakfast 10.12.11
breaking down UC's chances for a third Big East crown

Other Bearcat News

Bearcat Coaching Staff: Aaron Swinson // gobearcats

Big Louisville Second Half Too Much For Bearcats // gobearcats.com
Louisville gets the first rivalry win of the week

Renewal Of UC-UofL Rivalry Big For Hayden, Bearcats // gobearcats.com
Who doesn't love a good rivalry? When it comes to rivalries for the UC Volleyball team, the one opponent the Bearcats can put at the top of the list is their neighbors to the south, the Louisville Cardinals. That rivalry, the most played by UC against any another school, will be renewed for a record 40th time this Friday night and for one Bearcat in particular, even the hostile confines of Cardinal Arena will feel like home.

John Marinatto is the Juff Zucker of Conference Commissioners

Big East CEOs refused to increase exit fees // CBSSports.com

The Big East’s media rights outlook remains optimistic as the Conference continues to be a vital and attractive media rights property heading into our scheduled September 2012 ESPN discussions. Further, we will provide you with an updated report on our BCS automatic qualifying status, arguably our single most valuable asset – which, with the help of the addition of TCU, continues to place us in a solid position for the upcoming cycle."

sure it is John, sure it is

Big East and AQ status // Big East Blog // ESPN

If all 11 conferences are held to the the three criteria to get an automatic bid, Edwards believes the Big East would fall short no matter the teams that are added. In its current configuration, the Big East meets one of the standards -- the cumulative ranking of all the teams in the conference. It falls short in the other two -- average ranking of the highest ranked team each year; and the number of teams ranked in the Top 25.

If you haven't already become acquainted with the Bearcats fate

Report: Big East Presidents Declined to Increase Exit Fees // Big East Coast Bias
There is this which of course leads to this...

Navy Wants Big East Exit Fee Raised Before Joining the Conference // Big East Coast Bias

Navy to the Big East has once again hit a snag. The Midshipmen would like a guarantee of solidarity from the remaining six football schools in the Big East. That guarantee should come in the form of a raised exit fee. As an earlier post stated, bumping the exit fee up from $5 million to the neighborhood of $17-20 million was rejected.

Tentative Big East division split has Rutgers with UConn, USF, Central Florida and maybe Navy // NJ.com

Around The Big East

Is B.J. Daniels Having HIs Breakout Season? // Voodoo Five

Pitt Vs. Utah: Breaking Down The Two Deep // Cardiac Hill

Nationally Recognized

Snapshots of Week 6 // The Wiz of Odds
Fair warning. Gruesome elbow injury inside

Reading This Will Make You Smarter

Peter Pomerantsev · Putin’s Rasputin // LRB 20 October 2011

In his spare time Surkov writes essays on conceptual art and lyrics for rock groups. He’s an aficionado of gangsta rap: there’s a picture of Tupac on his desk, next to the picture of Putin. And he is the alleged author of a bestselling novel, Almost Zero. ‘Alleged’ because the novel was published (in 2009) under the pseudonym Natan Dubovitsky – Surkov’s wife is called Natalya Dubovitskaya. Officially Surkov is the author of the preface, where he denies being the author of the novel, then makes a point of contradicting himself: ‘The author of this novel is an unoriginal Hamlet-obsessed hack’; later, ‘this is the best book I have ever read.’ In interviews he has come close to admitting to being the author while always pulling back from a complete confession. Whether or not he actually wrote every word of it he has gone out of his way to associate himself with it.

I was intrigued by the headline and went all in with this paragraph