STRIKE ONE

Oh, it's on now. There's no looking back. Football season is here and the next few months are going to be a gluttonous, glorious blur, bubba. Heads are going to crack. Teams are going to fold. ACLs are going to pop. Champions are going to be made. Fantasies realized. It'll be everything you hoped for and more. Like Christmas ... only better. And on HGH.

Purist and those with a keen enough eye to notice the stylistic inaccuracy of the "Strikes" format of the column will surely point out that, yes, here I go again. Talking about football. At this point it's fair to wonder if every week Cup Check is simply the continuation of an elaborate ruse designed to let me pound out 800 words on pigskin.

Honestly, I wish that much thought went into it. And the layout department wishes I kept it to 800 words.

There's no secret plan. I just love me some football. And I'm apt to yammer about it. Especially in an issue of the Volcano that hits the street on the literal day the 2011 NFL season kicks off (tonight when Green Bay faces New Orleans). Especially in an issue of the Volcano that drops the Thursday before the first Sunday in over six months that's mattered.

Sorry, God. Football is pretty damn important.

So, yeah, in honor of the start of football season it's another all-football Cup Check this week. Deal with it. Or go read the box score of the Mariners latest defeat somewhere else. You probably deserve better anyway.

STRIKE TWO

Quick! What's more likely to make you throw up in your mouth: the thought of New York Jets' coach Rex Ryan indulging his alleged foot fetish, or the thought of his brother, Rob, the defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys, doing something even more freaky?

For the unfamiliar, Rob is fat and slovenly like Rex, just with long Hell's Angeles hair and no stupid-ass tattoo (that I know of). According to Rob, they're both "freaky," ... as are you.

Between the two brothers that's easily 600 pounds of fucking-disgusting.

You see, Rob came to his much-maligned brother's defense this week (kind of), in an interview first posted on the Fort Worth Star Telegram's "Cowboys corner" blog. As you'll recall, last year an alleged foot-fetish video featuring Rex's wife surfaced on the Internet. Rex has mainly sidestepped the controversy, calling the situation a personal matter and refusing to discuss it further.

This week Rob took a more liberal approach.

"Aw hell who cares," Rob Ryan is quoted as saying by the Telegram's Clarence Hill. "Believe me, everybody has whatever screwed up thing going on. I don't care. I'm sure you do, and everybody else that points fingers.

"Naw, I mean hell, he is a little freaky I guess," Ryan continues. "Hell, I don't know. I like everything about my wife. She got great feet, too. She got everything nice. What the hell."

What the hell indeed.

STRIKE THREE

As was reported Tuesday by ESPN, that San Francisco 49ers' wide receiver Braylon Edwards was fined $50,000 for violating the NFL policy on substances of abuse this week. The fine stems from Edwards' arrest for drunk driving last September, while the receiver was a member of the New York Jets.

In equally earth-shattering news, Pete Carroll likes khakis and field goals still count for three points.

As ESPN.com documents in its small account of Edwards' recent fine, the wide receiver's irresponsible ways have made headlines before. Like, in January when Edwards pleaded no contest in Cleveland to aggravated disorderly conduct after allegedly decking a friend of LeBron James.

Edwards' most recent transgression, for which the $50,000 fine was levied, happened while the receiver served a 18-month probation for the aforementioned embarrassing incident involving LeBron's buddy. Edwards was charged with driving while intoxicated in his Land Rover in Manhattan ... only eight months later. At the time police said Edwards' blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit.

And also, we suspect, that his beard looked dumb. But that's pure speculation.

DUMB JOCK OF THE WEEK

They say it's because the kids like it. They say kids being recruited to play football at major universities just freakin' LOVE IT when teams deck themselves out in new, bizarre, ridiculous uniforms. This, we're told, is why every college seems to be doing it. For the kids. The stupid kids.

As you're no doubt well aware, Oregon (and Phil Knight's checkbook) started the trend; the Ducks have been doling out a new, diamond-plated uniform every week for what seems like ages now. That was fine ... because I expect stupid shit from the Ducks.

But last weekend, as the college football season kicked off, new, alternate, shockingly fugly uniforms were the name of the game. Boise State, Georgia, Oregon (of course) and Maryland all utilized some new look ... and none of it looked very good.

The worst, though, was the University of Maryland. The Terrapins' uniforms and the spectacle that surrounded them - worn during last week's victory over the beleaguered University of Miami - reached an all-time high on the bad-football-fashion-o-meter.

From a take by ESPN's Pat Forde:

"Maryland (21) went and did it Monday night. Went and shattered the previously well-stretched bounds of taste and class in football uniforms. The Terrapins wore the ugliest helmets in the game's history. Then they went in before kickoff and changed into ... something even worse."

Yes, designed by the athletic gear company Under Armour (they must protect this house ... of cash earned from selling 14-year-olds cleats and muscle shirts), Maryland unveiled a new uniform look that quickly earned universal boos.

The worst news of all: the Terrapin's flagrant football fashion foul is just one of 32 new uniform "looks" designed by Under Armour the school will use this year.

If this is all for the kids, than this week's award goes to them.