Newspapers used to call these "briefs," but since underwear is perilously close to "pants," and we don't care for pants around here, you'll have to settle for Talking Points...

• Eric Gordon, frosh CB: "When you're on the field, there's no homeboys." Precious says cornerback play has improved "light years" since he got there. Gerald Jones' "you-know-what" can attest: "(Florida’s) Joe Haden was probably the most physical corner I’d faced before I faced Eric ... Eric is his own kind of guy. He plays every day like he’s (ticked) off at the world. ... Nobody I’ve ever played against is like Eric Gordon. He’s the most physical guy I’ve ever faced." And from QB Matt Simms, since I never get tired of reading these: "He’s a very intense and physical corner. It’s tough to go to him on some plays, because you know he’s just going to grab that receiver and kind of manhandle him and boss him around."
• Tennessee is 1 of 14 major schools with a profitable athletic department. Meanwhile, UTC is making do with an $8,835,198 budget, which would more or less cover linebacker bribes at Bama.
• I'm excited about all of the new stadium improvments, but I'm afraid a 50-foot tall Doug Atkins might induce a coma after a few too many Tennessee Teas. Good thing the concrete I'll hit my head on is shiny and new.
• Tom Mattingly: "Could anyone know or understand less about the history of the program?" I love when the Vol Historian feeds the trolls. He called out something I wrote at some point a while ago but I'm too lazy to look it up, thus proving that the Internet is full of no-good slackers.
• Times Free Press beat writer Wes Rucker thinks he's going to get a weekend off since the Vols get the weekend off. That's adorable.
• I wholeheartedly endorse Hooper's decision to leave USC off the BlogPoll Ballot. Not that I know what a BlogPoll is since it doesn't come out quickly enough to be useful to degenerate gamblers.
• Not UT news, but bravo Tyler Thomas. You show 'em.

Hello hated rivals. I am Tennessee alum, and apparently a masochist because I'm contemplating making the trip down to Gainesville Sept. 19 to watch the Gators (probably, but hopefully not) smack my Vols around.

I've never visited your city, and am looking for hotel suggestions. Ideally this would be a somewhere I could walk to bars from after the game, and walk/catch a shuttle to the game from.

Any suggestions (along with suggestions for bars to drink away my misery/bask in the glow of moral victory) would be greatly appreciated.

Because there's no such thing as too much Tennessee Orange, I decided to paint my office with it. Here's a photo of what my office looked like before painting:

Here's the finished product:

Not bad, huh?

The University of Tennessee says the official color for Tennessee Orange is Pantone 151. If you ask a paint store to match that, they won't have the slightest clue what you're talking about because that's a system used by printers, not by the paint sales industry.

If you really hate Home Depot and/or Glidden paint, you can probably track down a Pantone color chip book, order it, bring it to your paint store of choice, and have them color match the chip. Or you could just go to Home Depot and ask for Tennessee Orange Glidden paint. They have a whole line that matches various college colors.

If you go with the Glidden paint from Home Depot like I did, you will probably be terrified when the first coat doesn't go on smoothly, with streaks of yellow in it. Don't worry, it'll look fine when you're done. I recommend a coat of gray primer and three top coats. My office looked okay after two coats, but the third one made a big difference.

I have been mulling over UT's decision to give Daniel Hood a football scholarship.

As you've likely read by now, Hood was convicted when he was 13 years old in assisting with the rape of his cousin. He is 17 now, and by all accounts, he has been a model citizen since who says he is remorseful and is not running away from his crime in public statements.

John Adams wrote an asinine column today about the situation, which was the first I'd read about it. The reasoning Adams offered for why offering him a scholarship was a bad decision was cynical and sad. My first reaction was to take the opposite position, since Adams' opinions add about as much value to the public dialogue as the Boston Globe's stock would add to your investment portfolio.

But then I read the court document that Clay Travis linked to and it made my stomach turn. Not just the description of the act itself, which was heinous, but Hood's victim-blaming and lack of remorse in the immediate aftermath.

I also am extremely uncomfortable in particular with how the vicitm's forgiveness is being used as evidence that he has reformed. That doesn't prove anything. Victims of rape frequently don't even report what happened because they are too scared. More importantly, victims of rape and abuse will often rationalize the perpetrator's actions.

Nor do the glowing recommendations from his school really mean all that much. People have this image of rapists as sketchy men in trench coats who lurk in alleys, but most of them are people who by all appearances are upstanding members of society.

Our court system has determined that juveniles are supposed to get second chances as adults, with the record wiped clean, for almost any crime. Since the incident happened when Hood was 13, we aren't even supposed to have even known about it. That the information is public knowledge at all was due to someone's mistake.  

Believe me, did I ever make some poor decisions when I was a teenager that would not reflect well on me now if they were public knowledge. I will only elaborate enough to say I am very fortunate to be the beneficiary of some second (and third) chances in life myself.

So, it's fair to say we wouldn't be having this discussion at all had it not been for a mistake made by the courts; that for every Daniel Hood with a crime like this that we know about, there are thousands more like him that we will never hear about because our justice system has determined we shouldn't. Some of them will reform and go on to lead productive lives. Others will squander their second chance.

Ultimately, it is a judgment call, and there is no formula to determine the right decision. Lane Kiffin has determined that Hood means what he says, that his actions have demonstrated he has reformed, and that he isn't a sociopath who is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes. Everyone involved understands this is an extremely risky decision, and they appear to  have been as transparent about making it as they possibly could have been.

It would have been hard for me to make the same decision that Lane Kiffin made. But it was probably hard for someone else to offer me a second chance, many years ago.