Starting Five

1. Indiana University, which blew out North Carolina by 24 points last night in hoops, is located in Bloomington, Ind. The Hoosiers are also the nation’s top ranked basketball squad. Three-and-a-half to four hours due north (depending on how you catch the lights in Kokomo) in South Bend, Ind., the University of Notre Dame is 12-0 and No. 1 in the nation in football. The last time the nation’s No. 1 basketball and football teams were located in the same state simultaneously? Mid-January of 2007, when the University of Florida had just defeated Ohio State to win the BCS National Championship while the Gators hoops squad was 13-1 and No. 1 in the nation.

Cody Zeller led the Hoosiers to a win over big bro Tyler’s former school

2. Who is Grover Norquist and why should you care? Norquist, 56, is not an elected official but rather a conservative lobbyist who has become the face of the anti-tax crusade. Norquist founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 and… you’re already moving on to No. 3, aren’t you? Let’s skip directly to his famous quote: “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” You’ll be seeing a lot of Norquist on cable news shows as we flail into the fiscal abyss.

3. Ross Parmley, athletic director at Tulsa, goes on administrative leave as the university investigates allegations that he has had “dealings” with an alleged bookie. In other news, tonight’s Powerball jackpot has soared past $500 million and somehow, magically we guess, the spread on the Alabama-Georgia SEC Championship game has dropped from 7.5 to 7 points.

4. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, 68, appears on the cover of the Rolling Stone. Page joins fellow 2012 Rolling Stone cover subjects David Bowie (65), Neil Young (67) Sir Paul McCartney (70), Bruce Springsteen (63) and Bob Dylan (71) and Jimi Hendrix (deceased, but would be 70). It’s a funny thing when the President of the United States appears on more RS covers than any one musician in a calendar year and is YOUNGER than at least seven of them. Rock is not dead, but it is in dire need of a hip (or hip-hop) replacement.

Ramble On: Page spent eight hours talking to RS for his cover interview, but revealed very little

5. Louisville may join the ACC. Tulane has joined the Big East. As has a directional Carolina that is not North or South. Jon Gruden may or may not join Tennessee. To quote a charming Southerner we once saw on television, “I’m very drunk and I intend on getting still drunker before this evening’s over...”(sorry, right character, wrong quote) “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Like Rhett, we’d rather go fight Yanks than listen to any more realignment rumors

Reserves

RIP, belly putter. We will admit to playing very little golf, but the belly putter always seemed like cheating to us. We’d never use it on a putt-putt course.

Johnny Football speaks to the media for the first time this season and reminds us of every loveable yokel you’ve ever come across in a combat film. He’s the kid who’s so sweet that you just know he’s going to take one to the belly and suffer an agonizing death. We’re thinking Giovanni Ribisi in “Saving Private Ryan.” (“Give him the morphine”).

“Just tell my mother that I beat Alabama.”

Realizing now that three of the past four Sports Illustrated covers have featured teams from the Hoosier State: Cody Zeller of Indiana, Manti Te’o of Notre Dame and now Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts. Is it too much to hope for a Fort Wayne Mad Ants cover story?

This is Sean Sonderleiter. Funny, he doesn’t look mad.

New Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, a Wisconsin native who is only 37 (the youngest Fortune 500 CEO out there) and, let’s face it, kind of hot, gives a rare interview and reveals that she models herself after Vince Lombardi. We do NOT see Dan Lauria playing the role of Mayer in the Broadway play.

When Bride Still Mattered (See what we did there?)