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Okay, this is not Big East-related. But it is college football-related and it is an interesting commentary that as disgusting as college football’s seemed at times, as much as we think we’ve finally accepted college football’s a business with no higher sense of academia-infused right, we really aren’t immune to the shock of some of its shenanigans.

I was in the Jets locker room for another assignment when I saw Erik Ainge sitting alone in his locker. I’d been watching SportsCenter only a bit before, admittedly incredulous that Lane Kiffin – after seven wins, countless recruiting violations and even more uncouth gaffes – was getting the USC gig. And bailing on Tennessee after one lousy year. Remembering that Ainge had been a star quarterback in Knoxville, I walked over to him.

Oh boy was he honest. Ainge openly said that he still hurt that Phil Fulmer was traded out for Kiffin (“Coach Fulmer was Tennessee football to me”), he said he really did not like all the jawing Kiffin did as soon as he came on board and he said as much as he should maybe be happy the guy’s gone, he thinks Kiffin leaves having disrespected his program.

It’s interesting stuff. Check out the whole story right here.

This has nothing to do with football and nothing to do with the Big East. But that’s my name up under the banner, and I want to write about this, so I’m going to. It’s that or I kick something.

On October 3, as the most loyal of you readers likely remember, I moved. I had a gorgeous, deep, snuggly couch that I absolutely loved and that my landlord assured me would fit up the stairs and into my new apartment. The landlord even drew me a picture to show it would fit. I therefore made no effort to sell the couch, moving day came and… the couch didn’t fit. It couldn’t make the turn at the top of the stairs because of a five-inch totally useless, completely-no-function block of wood hanging off the ceiling. As the landlord dithered over cutting the block of wood off, my fabulous movers (re: boyfriend, brother, friend’s husband) put the couch on the sidewalk, next to the U-Haul, and continued bringing other things up.

It started raining. And then someone drove by and stole the wet couch.

(That’s not a joke. But you can still laugh.)

Fast forward to Oct. 20. I finally found a couch I liked well enough, I started the paperwork and then… the saleswoman suddenly tells me the price is $100 more than what she originally said. I stormed out, I fumed and the next day I went back and told the manager about the bait-and-switch. He said he’d split the difference with me, he said the couch would arrive within the week, we again began the paperwork and then… turned out the couch would actually take three weeks to arrive.

Now here we are on Nov. 10. It’s couch-arriving day and I’m struggling not to dance the happy dance. The delivery men arrive about an hour ago, they bring up the couch and… it’s broken. The delivery men take it away, the customer service rep tells me she doesn’t know when they can bring me a new couch and I’m thinking the Japanese have had it right all this time. What’s wrong with sitting on the floor?

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Concussions from sports are now officially an epidemic, says the Centers for Disease Control. CBS’ 60 Minutes examined that, and the brain diseases that are linked to concussions. The bits with Hall of Famer John Mackey – who lives in a facility and suffers from dementia – were awfully convincing of how scary this can be.

Makes you think Owen Schmitt (a former Mountaineer) should rethink smacking himself with a helmet.

This is wild. But I honestly don’t get how a whole football team – no, two football teams, don’t know a basic rule. Don’t football coaches periodically remind their players of things like this?