It's Friday which means it's time for the Mailbag. 

Congrats, you can pretend to work while reading in advance of the Memorial Day weekend.  

Our beaver pelt trader of the week is Kevin Durant. He's included in a mailbag question as well, but his decision to donate a million dollars to the tornado victims is worthy of the award. 

And much more. 

Okay, let's dive into the mailbag.

A few weeks back our own Meredith Hornsby wrote a thought provoking piece on the hotness of the SEC quarterbacks.  It's a very funny column that's worth another read, but it also made me a little sad on the inside.  Why do QB's get all of the attention ALL of the time?  Why doesn't anyone care enough to rank the hotness of the most un-appreciated member of the football universe, the punter?  And why are my calves so muscular and defined?   Not all questions can be easily answered.   But I can do something for the punter's of the world.  I want to give them the attention they so deserve... well, maybe not deserve.  I mean, they are just punters after all.  But I can at least give them a brief moment in the sun.   And I won't be ranking the hotness of SEC punters.  I feel like even the punters in SEC country get adulation and respect.  Nope, I'll be looking out West for my punters... in a land where they don't live and breathe college football.  A place where families don't shoot each other after an Alabama/ LSU game.  I'm talking about the Pac 12.   So here is the hotness of Pac 12 punters ranked on the mathematical scale of 1 to Reggie Roby.  It's science.

Western Kentucky vs. Kentucky is the worst game featuring an SEC team in the modern era. It's also the worst game I've ever seen in person. And I watched it all. Worst of all, I got to Nashville's LP Field at 11:45 AM. That's eight hours and thirty minutes before kickoff. Or roughly as long as it took either team to gain a first down on Thursday night.

We broadcast 3HL from a tent on the south side of the stadium. We are the only people anywhere near the stadium. No one is tailgating. It feels a bit like the world has ended only we don't realize it yet.

I predict that Western will win 14-13 and Kentucky fans are furious. A listener brings us an 18 pack of Coors Light, but we can't drink them on-air. If only I'd drank them the moment the show ended and passed out.

Instead I went to Western Kentucky-Kentucky.

This is my story.

OKTC is thrilled to have the best game pickers in the nation, Prediction Machine, as our partner for the 2011 season. Last season the Prediction Machine went 11-0 against the spread in the NFL playoffs and put up a nearly 70% winning percentage in college football lock games.

How do the guys do this? With a computer model that runs games 50,000 times to figure out the probability of success or failure. The results are fascinating. If you want to see their weekly picks, click here.

I think y'all are going to love these articles. Without further ado, here are Paul Bessire's predictions for the 2011 SEC season. 

By Paul Bessire

Happy football… The Predictalator at PredictionMachine.com has already played the 2011 college football regular and bowl seasons 50,000 times before the games are actually played.

SEC Predictions:

While Alabama and South Carolina are clear division favorites – especially since they would not play each other until the SEC Championship - the SEC is still the best overall conference in college football. Ten SEC teams finish with average records above .500 and make bowls (seven of those teams are favored in their projected bowls). Five SEC teams rank in the preseason top-15 nationally, including Alabama and South Carolina who meet in the most likely SEC Championship game – a game that Alabama wins 72.7% of the time and by an average score of 24-14.

Below, we explain How This Works and break down every SEC team. In each team's preview, the "Most Important Offensive Players" and "Most Important Defensive Players" are those that are most critical to their team's success. The “Most Important Game” includes our projection for a close regular season game that is mean the most to the team’s final record and conference standing.   

In the south, college football is a way of life.

Children are raised to say "Go Dawgs!", "Roll Tide!", "War Eagle!" and "Go 'Dores!" (okay, maybe not) before they can walk, and although it usually sounds like baby jibberish, parents shriek with joy when their little one utters those battle cries. Saturdays are Football Days, complete with football shaped serving trays, official team napkins and licensed plastic Solo cups. Every living object, be it adult, child, or canine, is decked out in full-on team apparel from the moment they wake up on a Football Day until long after the official time has run out in the late West Coast game. Everyone here loves football, even the women. This is a fact that most southern men very much enjoy, as one can watch all the games he wants on Saturdays in the fall without catching flack from his girlfriend or wife, since she is likely right there watching the games with him. Personally, I enjoy getting into a verbal fist-fight over whether or not Jordan Jefferson should be allowed to play at this point. However, most women aren't like me. They nod and smile as you chatter on about coverage and points spreads, all the while wondering if the mini pizza rolls they're cramming down their throats have mini-calories as well.

I am in Marshall County, about 15 miles east of the Brewer campus.  I am walking across the stadium parking lot of the Arab High School Knights, and a buzz is rippling through the Indian summer air.  The high rise lights are already turned on.  Off to the side, sandy-haired teens recline in a pickup truck with rebel flags hanging off the sides.  Hundreds of fans wearing blue are surging through the parking lot to get to the gate.  Here and there a Brewer family stands out, conspicuous because of their red garments and tense faces.  Opening kickoff is minutes away.  

A screened-in barbecue pit sits just off the field.  Inside, a group of fathers toils over the coals, slinging ribs and chicken onto the hot grills.  The wind is blowing the smoke out across the end zone. The smell of cooking meat wafts all the way to the bleachers, a most effective advertisement.   

The Arab Knights are not traditionally thought of as a football power, but they have recently been a good team.  Last year’s squad went 8-4, including a 25-7 victory on Brewer’s home field.  My best objective guess would be that Arab is about a two touchdown favorite tonight. 

The man, the myth, the legend Vinnie Verno will be giving y'all five locks of the week every week during college football season. Already Danny Sheridan is jealous as hell. In fact, let's not kid ourselves, there's an 80% chance that Vinnie Verno is Sheridan's source when it comes to Cam's bag man.

College football is officially here.

Go ahead and start drinking from that flask hidden in the back of your lower desk drawer. Don't lie to me, I know it's there. You won't need to work anyway after the millions you're set to make courtesy of Vinnie Verno.

Here's his first week picks. With HD Video!

Now that we know Texas A&M is officially divorced from the Big 12, the complications for the SEC actually become more substantial. The next step is fairly simple: The SEC presidents will vote to extend an offer to Texas A&M once the Aggies officially submit an application. (The application is really fun to think about. In particular, is there an essay portion? I'm picturing R. Bowen Loftin sitting up late at night staring at his computer screen screaming: "Why am I so damn boring?" If this essay doesn't focus on the trials and tribulations of male cheerleaders, I'm going to be really disappointed.) 

At least nine SEC presidents will vote yes and A&M will join the best conference in America. 

Then things get difficult.  

OKTC has been told the 2012 scheduling process will move into the hands of the SEC office which will present three or four different potential schedules and allow the ADs to vote on the best option. Simple majority will carry the day. That is, assuming the SEC schedulers aren't all throwing themselves off bridges before all is said and done

I spent an hour tonight trying to draft a potential 2012 SEC football schedule for A&M. Then I gave up. How did I give up? I called my friend Chris Shaw, a Math PhD living in Chicago, gave him the divisional parameters -- every team plays every other team in its division and all teams play eight total SEC games.

I didn't even worry about the issue of making the dates work, which layers a degree of complexity on top of an already intractable problem. 

I asked my math PhD buddy to confirm what I believed was true -- that an eight game schedule for 13 teams predicated on playing every team in your division was impossible. 

Ten minutes later he texted me back -- "That is impossible." 

For those who don't know or haven't really paid much attention to it right now the SEC football schedule is fairly simple -- each SEC team plays the other five teams in its division, a consistent rivalry game from the other division, and two rotating opponents from the opposing division.

SEC message boards are zany, wild, and crazy places. No message board is crazier than TigerDroppings.com, the LSU destination of choice for conspiracy theories, ridicule, and often great humor. OKTC gets email tips from TigerDroppings posters about ten times a week. Most of the time I read the threads, laugh a few times, and then move on to something else. But late last night we got a series of tips claiming that there was video that proves Jordan Jefferson is not the kicker in the bar fight.

The theory relies upon a couple of pieces of evidence that you can see posted here.

I've linked three videos below to allow you to make your own determination. It certainly appears clear that Jefferson and the kicker were dressed differently.

Well ladies, kiss your boyfriends and husbands goodbye.   Or, for those of us with no actual men but several faithful cats, brace yourselves for a drastic decline in activity on your Match.com profile.   (I’ll let you all decide which category I fall into.)   (WHY ARE YOU ALL JUST AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMING I FALL INTO THE LATTER CATEGORY?)   Because in about 24 hours, the entire male race will check out of Hotel Sanity and won’t be back for a long, long time; the lights will be on, but no one will be home.   It’s hard enough getting a date as a single girl in this city, and it’s only about to get harder starting tomorrow, a day which I’ve aptly renamed, “Black Thursday.”

This year thanks to a new rule in college football touchdowns can be called back for celebrations that occur on the field. In a Louisville,Ohio high school game this past weekend wide receiver Alex Schooley caught a touchdown pass with 1:15 left to give his team a 26-24 lead. Overcome with emotion, Schooley and a teammate pointed to the heavens. Only the players weren't doing it to draw attention to themselves. When he scored Schooley was honoring a 16 year old former classmate who died in a Monday traffic accident.

Schooley was a pallbearer in the funeral on Friday, the day of the game. His point to the heavens was a tribute to his friend.   

Officials didn't see it that way, penalizing the Louisville Leopards for excessive celebration. Quoth the officiating supervisor:

"Assistant Ohio High School Athletic Association Commissioner Henry Zaborniak tells Fox 8 News that the penalty was appropriate by the rules. Zaborniak says while the rule may be open to some interpretation, 'any prolonged gesture that draws attention to himself is a foul.'"

And in this case pointing to the Heavens was an excessive celebration. As a result, the opposing team received favorable field position, drove down the field, and kicked a field goal as time expired. The Louisville Leopards lost by a single point, 27-26.

Even casting aside the question of whether the official knew the motivation behind the gesture -- reportedly, he didn't -- was this really a celebration penalty? A team scores with 1:15 left to take the lead and this is excessive?

Decide for yourself by watching the video of the score.