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These questions and comments have been culled from emails sent into the site since Monday. All individuals are identified by their real names unless they requested otherwise. We'll try and do one of these a week as the season rolls along so keep the questions coming:

Kevin, great question. First allow me to refresh our readers with pictures of these two gentlemen. If you are unsure which one is Quincy Carter and which one is Eric Zeier you must be from Nantucket. Go back to cursing the Sox.

After much thought, I'm going to go with the lisp. See, baldness can be cured but the lisp endures. This beats out the worst thing about baldness which is that it continues to get worse if not treated. Plus, society considers bald people to be nerdy which is often equated with intelligence whereas (and if someone can counter this I will acknowledge their lisp-knowledge superiority) I am confident there is not a single PHD in the entire United States with a lisp. Neither trait aids in attracting members of the opposite sex. Fortunately the number one aphrodisiac in the entire world is being a starting quarterback in the SEC, so I'm not crying for either man. Point Quinthy.

UT has already played two teams ranked in the top 10 on the road (Florida and LSU) and will be playing Alabama and in a potential stretch Notre Dame. Based on my recollection of college football I can think of no other team that has played four top 10 teams on the road. This is the kind of question that sports information directors get paid to figure out. As a lawyer, I could offer my diligent research skills and charge you $175 an hour and come up with this answer ten hours later, "Perhaps." So I'll save you the cost and call in the ringer on this one. Mark Nagi of Knoxville's ABC. Mark, can you put this question to the SID at UT?

What's remarkable to me is that the answer to this question changed in the state of Louisiana the moment Gerald Riggs went in from off left tackle. Miles went from a genius whose hat could not contain all his brainpower to an absolute idiot. After a few minutes of thought here are some possibilities as to what he might be storing in his cap,

These jorts make the camo t-shirt above look like the height of fashion. I don't even think you're allowed to wear the above shorts unless you are a. on parole b. living in a trailer c. about to go swimming in Gainesville.

These are great questions. Ok, this requires some logical progressions. Bret Smith would only know who I was if he were reading this site or sleeping with my wife. Neither of these would be good. After a heart-to-heart with Lara I'm pretty confident she doesn't have any idea who Bret Smith is. So I'm eliminating option two. So we're left with the fact that he reads the site. Now, after a bit more thought, this could be good or bad. On the positive side, I refer to him as Bret Smith the touchdown maker...Bret Smith the touchdown maker...Bret Smith the touchdown maker.

On the negative side, I also intimate that the photographer of the above photo may have met an untimely end. Plus in another column I mentioned his momma. Also, Bret Smith is currently on probation for striking another man. All of these things don't weigh in my favor. Balancing the equities...I would run.

Shaw has no interest in college football, but he does love the television show Lost. So I appreciate his effort to tie these events together. Here are my thoughts on this:

a. First, the failure to play beach football is flat-out inexcusable. They've played golf which is infinitely more difficult to manage when you have just crashed a plane into a deserted island.

Why wouldn't they have played football? It's even easier to play than volleyball and Tom Hanks spent most of his time on a deserted island talking to a volleyball. So this is patently unrealistic and a major flaw in the show. I should also point out, however, that the bathroom situation has also never been discussed. Nor have the difficulties of Evangeline Lilly actually bathing without being spied upon by every male on the plane ever been really explicated. So even leaving aside the polar bears and the hatches to the 1970's there are some logical questions left open.

b. Perhaps they do not have a football. This argument is just crap. They're on a deserted island. Everything else was on the plane. There was definitely a football somewhere. Even leaving aside this fact, these aren't regulation games, a football could be fashioned out of a coconut guord or somesuch, it doesn't have to be pigskin regulation. I don't think Paul Tagliabue would mind. (P-Tag and I are friends as anyone who paid attention to the pudding strike would know). So basically there is no excuse for a football game not to have occurred.

c. Ok, on to picks. I think there are 46 survivors. I hate to be sexist, but every chick is gone to start with. That narrows it down to 23 men. Of these men, about ten have been prominently featured enough for me to feel comfortable assessing their skills. And I'm not including the "others" in these calculations because that brings in otherworldy elements into the equation. I'll eliminate the first nine before I set on my pick. My elimination will occur in no particular order:

i. Ok, you know how I said there would be no particular order. That isn't really true. First of all, you know how white guys always pick black guys first if they are told to pick teams and they don't know the players? Well, this white guy is not picking Michael. I'm just not doing it. Why not? Several reasons, a. he was in a bad car accident and may not have fully recovered b. he likes and draws comics (where's his killer instinct?) c. he's a black guy and like most black guys I know his swimming is questionable.

Now, some readers right now might be questioning why Michael's swimming might be important. Clearly, your knowledge of beach football is questionable. Take it from the guy who lives on an island, sometimes the water is in play. Did you read that sentence correctly? Sometimes the water is in play. How can you spend your top pick on a guy who can't even play on the entire field. Now, mind you, the water might not be in play, but if it is, your top pick might drown and die. That's not happening to this captain. Michael's gone.

Here's why: he's way too concerned with everybody else's health. Imagine you're lined up at the goal line about to go in for a score and some wild-eyed person you've never seen before comes charging onto the field and starts wailing about how the Aussie chick's baby just spit up? Jack's gone and your team is left in the lurch. Maybe the game even has to stop and wait for him to save someone's life. That isn't allowable. Period. Your first pick has to be your team leader. If someone's going to die, that can't be his problem. Jack's gone.

iii. John Locke. This one is tougher and I'm just going to be blunt. He's old and too philosophical to be good at playing football. If I were drafting a coach, he'd be the pick. Does anyone doubt that he could use palm fronds to create his own field of X's and O's. Plus I'm sure he's read Sun Tzu on the Art of War. At some point, though, if he were on the field, he'd stand completely still and stare into the sky and say something like, "This island allows us to reach eternal fulfillment. It's like a giant snowcone that you can't stop licking." To say the least, coverage would be blown. Plus after he gets scored on, he's likely to say, "What is a touchdown, really?" Locke's gone.

This guy is out because he's asian and doesn't speak english. The entire game would be an absolute mess. He might be a late round steal but at any moment he might start running the wrong way with the ball. That's a rick you can't take. The asian guy is gone.

The question here is, are you drafting on potential or on current ability. We don't know a couple of things, how long will they be on the island and do the teams carry over from game to game like some fantasy football leagues for example. If the stay on the island is going to be long, then Walt's probably a decent pick. And you can probably count on a kid sympathy score every now and then those first few games. But, even still, way too risky for the first pick. He may have pedigree and talent, but you don't want a Tracy McGrady situation arising. You groom him, gently fellate him (wait...), and then he leaves your team for sandier pastures. That's not happening to this coach. Walt's gone.

Some people who know nothing about football would make this pick because they assume all fat people are good at football. These people are idiots. In fact, most fat people are no good at football. Plus, Hurley really annoys me because I feel like he should be the fat jovial guy on the island but instead he's just the fat guy on the island. Hurley's gone.

Charlie would be dismissed quickly by many people and this is unfortunate since he's already got the "writing messages to yourself on tape" gambit down. He isn't too many steps removed from a Charles Barkley shoe message of "Kick ass." Plus, he's a drug addict. Imagine his fury if you told him the football actually contained a stash inside? But alas, he was also a musician. If this isn't a rule, it should be a rule, when picking your beach football team, if a potential player made or makes his living as a musician, do not pick him first. Prince's athletic acumen in the Chappelle show, notwithstanding, you have to stick by this rule. Charlie's gone.

This is the toughest to eliminate. He was a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard which means he is fearless and not afraid to take orders from madmen. Plus he has killed people before. This means he isn't likely to be too concerned about delivering a knockout blow when somebody runs a crossing route. He's also shown decent speed in prior sprints across the sand. Ultimately though, he faces the same problem as the asian guy, namely, how well versed is he in American football? Not that this is a complicated sport, but how well will he enunciate Mississippi if he's left on the quarterback. Will he fully comprehend the one blitz per set of downs rule? How about laterals? Is he going to spring a surprise forward lateral on you just as he's about to score. You just can't risk him. Sayid's gone.

X marks the spot. Ok, I apologize for that horrible cliche. You want anger, check. You want lack of remorse, check. You want a guy who doesn't care about anything but making sure he's satisfied, check. You want solid speed and the ability to play through pain? Double checks. Finally, do you want a legitimate killer? Check again. Anybody who doesn't pick Sawyer first is just kidding themselves. He's got the rare Ray Lewis combination of speed and murder. Plus, he's surly and would kill someone else to win the game. Finally, he's southern so he undoubtedly is aware that football is more important than the trivial things in life, such as life itself. Sawyer's the pick, plain and simple. I'm not even accepting arguments otherwise.

9. I hope you don't think this is too forward, but occasionally you feature names like Junaid, Weatherholt, and the 27 in your game diaries. I'm not gay, but do you have pictures? John

That's it for this week as I have now written a novella. We'll have more for you next week. Keep the questions coming and I'll be back with more penetrating analysis. Also, on Monday or Tuesday the Georgia game diary will be up.


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