Major Upset at The Herbies!

Kirk Herbstreit's eighth annual "Herbie Awards" are out, and they feature a stunning omission. College football's resident heartthrob has bagged the "prettiest coeds" category in this year's version.

Imagine how upset I was as I read through the list of winners on my lunch break and found no mention of where to find the tastiest morsels nationwide, other than a list of played-out college town restaurants like Hyde Park Steakhouse in Columbus. It reminded me of the year the purity patrol decided to nix "Most Desirable Female" from the MTV Movie Awards. (Who can forget Linda Hamilton's triumphant acceptance speech in 1992 for her performance in Terminator 2?)

No matter how Herbstreit arrived at his coed rankings, I can't imagine that The Worldwide Leader's powers that be would have found the category so objectionable or suggestive as to intervene. After all, I don't see anyone breaking out the mute button when Beano Cook starts salivating over the Song Girls.

No, my guess is that after seven years of her husband spending every fall weekend in Baton Rouge and Gainesville and Austin (and Tallahassee and Tuscaloosa and Knoxville...), Mrs. Herbie finally laid down the law. And we're all the worse for it.