ESPN.com is reporting that Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry is dead at 26, "one day after suffering serious injuries upon falling out of the back of a pickup truck in what authorities describe as a domestic dispute with his fiancee."

To editorialize -- obviously this is a shame not only because he was so young, but because it seemed like he was finally getting his life together. Henry had a bunch of legal troubles early in his career, but it looked like maybe he had moved past them.

Sad news.

Does anyone have the means of obtaining the Mizzou-KU game and putting it on DVD for me? It's a Christmas present for a buddy of mine. I'll pay a fair amount for it.

Watch me fill the required space with awesomeness.

I'm trying very desperately to find a reason to dislike Navy for the upcoming Texas Bowl. And I think I found a way: I am going to pick a Navy player at random and make them the target of my playful scorn.

And the lucky selectee is...

Punter Kyle Delahooke, a 6-1, 207-pound junior from Sierra Madre, California.

Now, Midshipman Delahooke seems like a stand-up guy -- and hell, he's at the Naval Academy, so he's obviously one of the best humans we have in this country. All in all, Kyle Delahooke appears to have it together.

But you know who else had it together?

This guy.

And look what I did to him.

So prepare to be turned into a caricature of your normal, honorable, totally badass self, Midshipman Delahooke (ahem, sir). Because for the next three weeks, you get to be the embodiment of all of the forced dislike I have for Navy.

But yeah, that Mizzou-KU DVD would be great. Let me know. Kisses.

The other day, I walked through a Barnes & Noble and sat down in one of those big comfortable chairs. I’m not sure why they put those there; I’m a lot less likely to buy a book if I can sit down and read all The Far Side comics in it at the store, know what I’m saying?

Anyways, I happened to pick up a book on spirituality, namely shamanism. I leafed through this book and read all about animal spirits. Apparently, shamans believed that every person had a spirit animal, an animal spirit that lives inside each person adding to their power and acting as sort of a guardian angel. Basically, you get the wisdom of that animal, as well as some of its attributes.

I found all of this fascinating. I especially found it fascinating when I made this story up thirty seconds ago.

Atchison had some awesome intro. I wanted an awesome intro. So I made it up. Yep. That’s what you get for trusting me.

These are your 2009-10 Missouri Tigers Basketball Spirit Animals.

Laurence Bowers is the Sugar Glider

Sure, the sugar glider looks cute. In fact, you might even want to pet him and say, "Aww, he’s just a little guy!" But he has a secret explosiveness to him that most people don’t anticipate. He can go from a crouching position to soaring through the air quicker than you can blink. And you know what? If you don’t know he’s coming, he’s kind of scary. And awesome.

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Power rankings are all the rage right now. But most suck. Why? Because they’re boring.

No, no, here at Rock M Nation, we need to have a much better system of power rankings. Much more…stupid.

As such, this week, we need to use Edward Norton.

I don’t think there’s much debate that the Edward Norton is the single greatest actor that has ever lived. Marlon Brando? Chump change. Humphrey Bogart? This is me rolling my eyes. Cary Grant, James Stewart, Clark Gable? What is this, amateur hour?

So, I’ve compiled my Big XII power rankings, and assigned each team a character that Edward Norton portrayed. And away we go.

1) Texas
Character: The Incredible Hulk, The Incredible Hulk


Seemingly unstoppable, the Hulk is one of the biggest badasses around. Whenever he wants (and sometimes when they don’t want), they can turn it on and dominate. Problem is, he’s not invincible. There’s a way to defeat the Longhorns (not turning the ball over, establishing some semblance of the run, sitting two safeties deep) just like there’s a way to defeat the Hulk (messing with his genes, or lots of tanks, one of the two). Either way, it’s probably best just to stay out of his way.

Nos. 2-12 after the jump.

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Know what would be fun? An open thread to discuss the night games tonight.

The big one is Texas Tech traveling to Austin to face Texas, but there are some other good ones going on, including Cincinnati vs. Oregon State, LSU vs. UL-Lafayette, BYU vs. Florida State and TCU taking on my mom's alma mater, Southwest Texas State University (or Texas State, if you hate tradition).

Discuss.