All That And a Bag of Mail: Gus Malzahn's Onions Edition

All That and a Bag of Mail initially debuted in 2006. We did it weekly for years. Then I left CBS and got lazy putting the mailbag together each week. But now we're back and rolling in time for the football season. So send along your e-mails if you crave the undying glory of mailbag inclusion.

As part of each week's mailbag, we introduced a Beaver Pelt Trader of the Week a few years back. For those of you who haven't been readers for a while, the Beaver Pelt Trader of the Week was designed to reward the most aggressive or outlandish or ridiculous decision of the week, sports or otherwise. Y'all can nominate candidates and each week we'll announce a new winner here in the opening of the mailbag. The name comes from the antiquated "riverboat gambler" cliche that you will doubtless still hear on television broadcasts when a coach makes a risky move. We decided that we should create our own ridiculous historical cliche, hence the Beaver Pelt Trader was born.

This week's winner? Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn for his decision to run the throwback screen pass with four minutes to go in a game that Auburn led 17-14. Can you imagine the disaster that ensues if that ball is picked off, which it easily could have been, and returned for a touchdown?

Yet it worked and gained 22 yards.

That's a Beaver Pelt Trader of the Week kind of call. The call was so crazy, in fact, that it jumped over Tennessee coach Derek Dooley instructing the Vols in shower etiquette, which came in at a close second. By the way, am I the only person who thinks Gus Malzahn looks alarmingly like Stephen Colbert? Anyone else see this?

On to the mailbag. These are actual e-mails, posted verbatim from my in-box.

Steve H. writes:

Take the over??? Bet the house????

In case you missed it......Auburn 17 MSU 14.......that looks like a clear under to me.

Kent Black writes:

What is your prediction for Little Big Horn?

Clearly, I think Custer is underrated.

For those who didn't read my prediction in Thursday's column, here it was: "It's rare that I break out the ClayNation guarantee on wagers, but if you take the over in tonight's game, currently residing at 56 1/2, you will win. In fact, the winning team in this game will score 40 or more points. My prediction? 41-38 Auburn. That means I'm predicting 20 points of leeway in the score here.

"Trust me, you can double your mortgage in one game!"

I could include 50 of these e-mails that all arrived in the immediate aftermath of the Auburn-Miss. State game. The first e-mail came with three minutes remaining in the first quarter when we were actually on track to still win. It's important to note that not only did the under win, the under dominated the over. To the tune of 25.5 points being left on the table between my guarantee and your mortgage payment being doubled.

Now I've quintupled the number of homeless people in the country. Adding insult to injury, I managed to pick the correct margin of victory and the correct winning team. Only I didn't instruct any of you to bet on either of those things.

Nope, I got Sitting Bull'd.

So, to answer many of your questions, yes you can come squat on my property in downtown Nashville. Bring your tents and families. I have cable, premium cable at that with the naked Cinemax movies late at night. Although the Coed Spring Break season just ended, you can still watch Jersey Shore and Saturday games. Only now you'll be living outside for the football season.

Condolences.

John P. writes:

Hey Clay, I mean Gay, Travis,

You shold come to Arkansas if you want to run you're mouth about Bobby Petino and his coaches and dirtbags and dirt should now dirt because your dirt!!!!!

Noting that Clay and Gay have two letters in common = astute grammatical observation. It's also the only part of this e-mail without a misspelled word. Admittedly this salutation made me laugh because I couldn't stop thinking about the grown man typing out this e-mail to another grown man; I'm sure this guy cackled with glee and thought he'd just remade the comedic pyramid when he realized that my name like Jay, Ray, and countless other names that end in -ay, rhymes with gay!

Congrats, you've just written the Manhattan Project of Arkansas fan e-mails.

Sadly, this is representative of the e-mails I received from Arkansas fans after I correctly noted that Bobby Petrino, whose name I managed to spell correctly unlike an awful lot of Razorback fans, was a dirtbag.

This is the absolute truth, in six years of writing online, I've never received a collection of e-mails that made me feel so sorry for a state's education system.

And these were the Arkansas fans with computers.

Just think about that for a minute.

My trip to Fayetteville in two weeks should be awesome.

Daire H. writes:

I love the blog and the books. You really make me feel like I'm in the South and I live in Dublin, Ireland. Anyway Clay, I just wanted to ask you for advice, you see I'm an avid college football fan, but I'll be honest I've never really supported a team because, well, I live in Ireland. I've decided that I'm going to support an SEC team but not Florida or Bama (because I'd be a frontrunner), so I was wondering could you help me pick between Auburn, UGA, LSU or UT? I've no doubt you'll pick UT for obvious reasons but could you just maybe give me a fair evaluation because if I'm coming from Ireland once or twice a season i want a great weekend. Anyway, just keep up the good work and I hope you reply soon.

Every time I get an e-mail like this from across the Atlantic it reminds me that I'm more popular in England, Ireland and Scotland than I am in America. It began when "Man: The Book" became a national bestseller in England and from there, I have no idea, it just spread like wildfire.

I need to move.

Anyway, you've asked a good question. You've also correctly excluded both Alabama and Florida from the running for your loyalty since as any SEC fan would tell you those teams are the spawns of Satan. You've also, strategically, selected the four remaining traditional SEC powers to chose among lest you find yourself a Mississippi State fan scanning the vast reaches of the Internet for original film from the 1941 SEC champion Bulldogs so you could see your team win a championship in your lifetime. Even if it's on grainy film that predates the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Here's my quick take on your four options:

Georgia: Assuming that boobs are popular in Ireland, which they must be since the Irish potato famine exodus was really about a decrease in the collective bust of the women of the Emerald Isle due to malnutrition, you have to take into account the cleavage capital of the south in your destination analysis. Especially for trips from overseas to see your team play, Athens is near Atlanta, which I'm assuming is easier to get to than Baton Rouge, for instance.

Add in the fact that at least 88 percent of all single men's travel decisions are boob-related in some form or fashion -- this is how Las Vegas was built in a desert yet still thrived -- and I think Georgia is a valid option.

Auburn: Does the Alabama shadow extend across the Atlantic? For instance, if you're sitting in a pub in Dublin, do you look up and see someone wearing a houndstooth cap and immediately feel like they've chosen your pub to disrespect your fandom?

Do you feel like the Irish media are discriminating against Auburn when Alabama's national championship gets two sentences in the local newspaper and no one in Ireland even knows who or what Auburn is, color excepted?

And doesn't the Auburn-Alabama relationship perfectly personify generations of English-Irish discord? You already know exactly what an Auburn fan feels like from birth. This seems pretty compelling.

LSU: I'm disqualifying LSU from contention because I can't permit Les Miles to gain a fan across the Atlantic. Even LSU fans would encourage you to wait until it hires a new coach.

Plus, and this is key, LSU, given the Cajun influence and Napoleonic heritage, is basically the France of the SEC. Given that your country is still recovering for Thierry Henry's hand goal that kept you out of the World Cup, how could you, in good faith, adopt the most French-like team in the SEC?

I don't think you can do this.

Tennessee: It's really not fair for me to persuade you in this regard given my own fandom. If I haven't swayed you with two books, then there's nothing I can say in this paragraph that will make you a Vols fan. Just know that Knoxville on a Saturday is an environment that's pretty much impossible to beat.

And that we're near the Great Smoky Mountains, which, for some reason, is an amazingly popular tourist destination for Irish people. (I just made that up, but it seems plausible), Plus, you can bring a nice young woman overseas, go to a game and go back to Pigeon Forge and stay in a hotel room with a Jacuzzi hot tub.

Romance? Check.

Steamy passion in a tub that a generation of unwashed Tennessseans have previously procreated in? How much better does life get?

My verdict: Auburn.

Follow Clay Travis on Twitter here. With All That and a Bag of Mail returning for the football season, you can e-mail him questions at Clay.Travis@gmail.com