Ah, Rick Reilly. We love him here at The Scores Report. Whenever Anthony and I get together for a drink or dinner we always start off with a moment of silence in honor of Sir Rick. (That’s what we call him.) Without Rick Reilly’s genius, neither of us would have ever become writers. It was Sir Rick who inspired us.

Juuuust kidding. Can’t stand the guy. He can write, and he’s the King of the Schmaltz, but we can’t stand the guy.

Example #247, his postmortem on the BYU/Florida game, entitled, “Jimmer grows dimmer.” (Like I said, genius.)

Except for a stretch in the middle, when he was brilliant, Fredette was brutal.

Yes, he scored 32 points, but he took 29 shots to do it. He seemed to be wearing a blindfold from the 3-point arc — 3-for-15. Plus, he committed six turnovers and wandered aimlessly through the lane on defense like Moses in the desert. I’ve seen dead people play better defense. At least they occasionally trip people.

If his last college game is what he’s bringing to the NBA, then I’d say, in five years, he’s got a really good chance to be your Provo area Isuzu dealer.

As Reilly notes later, Fredette played 44 minutes against Florida and is asked to carry most of the scoring load for his team. His defense is definitely suspect, but he can’t be expected to expend a lot of energy on that end of the court if his team needs him to score 40 points to win. Cut the guy some slack.

“He’s a little Maravich,” a guy in a BYU shirt told me.

No! No, he isn’t! He’s not within a mile of Mardi Gras floats of Maravich. Maravich could get his shot off from the bottom of a swimming pool. He could get 40 in handcuffs. He averaged 44 points a game in college (to Fredette’s 28 this season) and that’s without the 3-point shot. With it, studies of his game film have shown, he would have averaged over 55.

Of course he’s not Pete Maravich, but why is Reilly devoting precious column space on ESPN.com on the rambling delusions of a BYU fan? Fredette doesn’t have Maravich’s handle, though he does have a wide range of scoop shots that would make Pistol Pete proud.

It was one of Fredette’s worst shooting nights of the season, but he still managed to score 32 points and lead his team to overtime. Reilly only wants to kick him while he’s down.

Where was he when Jimmer dropped 52 points on New Mexico, or 43 in a home win against a very good San Diego State defense? Or even five days prior to the Florida loss, when Fredette hit 7-of-12 three-pointers en route to BYU’s 18-point win against a pretty hot Gonzaga team?

Shooters shoot. And sometimes they have a night like Jimmer did against Florida.

After all the kid has accomplished this season, why does Reilly feel the need to devote 900 words about what he’s not?

What a lie this BCS era is. They say a playoff would take too much time away from school, yet Oregon’s players will have had 37 days off when they play again.

They say with this system, “every game counts.” Except of course, TCU’s epic win over Wisconsin to stay undefeated Saturday. Counts exactly as much as a rainbow to Stevie Wonder.

Here’s what was going through my mind as I read that section…

What a lie this BCS era is. Yep. They say a playoff would take too much time away from school, yet Oregon’s players will have had 37 days off when they play again. Yep. They say with this system, “every game counts.” Except of course, TCU’s epic win over Wisconsin to stay undefeated Saturday. Not epic, but yep. Counts exactly as much as a rainbow to Stevie Wonder. Wait, whaa? Leave Stevie out of it!

Seriously, dude is blind. He’s had enough to deal with in his life without a sportswriter (who has won National Sportswriter of the Year 11 times — sigh) invoking his handicap to make a lame joke so that his column will seem like it’s funny.

This is why I don’t generally read Rick Reilly. I read this piece because I’m in favor of a college football playoff and I wanted to see if he had anything new and/or interesting to add.

Nope.

Every so often, Rick Reilly comes up with something good. Here are his rules for rushing the court:

This has got to stop. Therefore, here are the Ironclad and Unbreakable Rushing-the-Court Rules. From now on, you can NOT rush the court if …

• You’ve won an NCAA title in the past 20 years.
• You’ve been in the Final Four in the past five years.
• The team you just beat is not in the top three.
• Or is ranked within 15 rungs of you. (Somebody do the math for Wake.)
• Or is really a football school. This includes Florida, Texas and Ohio State. Get over it.
• You’ve beaten this same team in the past five years.
• You won the stupid game by more than 10 points. There is no such thing as a PRTC (Premeditated Rush The Court.)
• You’re a university and you just beat a college.
• Coach K comes to your coach’s clinic.
• You have a dead-mortal-lock lottery pick on your team.
• Your team has appeared in a recent “One Shining Moment.”

I think RTC has become something that fans want to do at least once in their college career, so they make up an excuse to do it. That’s understandable, I guess. And I’d rather fans be too exuberant at times (NCAA) than asleep in the stands (NBA).

Here are a few random thoughts:

- I don’t like the 20-Year Rule. Really — Arkansas (1994) and UNLV (1990) aren’t allowed to rush the court if they beat a #1 team on their home court? Let’s make it the 10-Year Rule.

- I buy the Final Four, Top Three and 15 Rung rules, though I’d make it a 10 Rung Rule. If you’re ranked 12th in the country and just beat the #1 team at home, I get it.

- I don’t like the “really a football school” rule. A top three team is a top three team. Period.

- I buy the Repeat Rule, but not the 10-point rule, especially if the home team is a big underdog. PRTC is fine with me.

- The last four? Meh. Lots of teams appear in “One Shining Moment” — it doesn’t mean that they didn’t just get a huge win at home.

So what do you think of Reilly’s rules? (He does offer up a few exceptions.)

Photo from fOTOGLIF

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- PRO FOOTBALL TALK says that Julius Peppers’ lack of passion makes him a big free agent risk.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS says that Bill Simmons took a shot at Rick Reilly over the Tiger Woods’ statement.

Rick Reilly writes in his latest column (which has become one inspirational chain e-mail after the other) that Kurt Warner may be leaning towards retirement.

Still, if Warner does quit in the next couple of weeks — talk to him, you’ll be convinced he will — it won’t be because of his seven kids landing 720 McTwists on him, or 300-pound linemen crushing him from the blind side. It’ll be because it’s become nine parts job and one part fun.

“Not the Sundays,” he says. “The three hours on Sundays are still fun. But it’s the whole week, the whole commitment, the ability to sustain it to your fullest, day in and day out.

Brenda Warner — the most quotable wife in the NFL — has said the decision is between “Kurt and God.” What does that mean, exactly?
“It means I pray that God takes away the desire in me to play this game,” he says. “I’ve loved it for so long. I need Him to take that away from me, so that I can be comfortable with this decision.”

So a lung-collapsing, cleat-raising hit like the one in New Orleans is a little message from above?
“Exactly.”

I say leave, Kurt Warner. Go walk your daughters down the aisle without a limp. Go play your beloved hoops until you’re 60. Go write the books you want to write and host the radio show you want to host and maybe even run for politics the way people are asking you now. Go exhale.

Reilly can share his opinion if he likes (he always does), but who’s to say that any of us know what’s best for Warner? This isn’t a case of an athlete that is past his prime and can’t contribute on the field anymore – Warner is still playing at a high level.

Professional football can be a cruel mistress. It’ll build you up, reward you handsomely and then before you know it, you’ll walk away and it’ll be gone forever. That’s why I say if Warner has even a shred of desire to come back, then he should. Reilly’s right when he says that Warner has nothing left to prove. But athletes don’t have to prove anything to anyone put themselves and their teammates. And if Warner still enjoys the game and everything that comes with it, then he should play until that desire is no longer there.

Until Woods answers some questions, he is only teaching his students that the best thing to do in a crisis is to run and hide.

These are those questions:

1) What made him lose control of his car?
2) Why did it happen at 2:25 a.m.?
3) If his wife, Elin, was indeed coming to his aid as he lay unconscious in the front seat of his Cadillac Escalade, why did she smash out the rear windows?
4) Why won’t he speak to the Florida Highway Patrol about the accident?
5) Did the report from the National Enquirer just days before that he was seeing another woman play a role in the early-morning wreck?

That pretty much sums up what everyone wants to know. Woods has always been a private person, and the events of the last few days have rocked his world. If this had happened to a regular Joe, he wouldn’t owe an explanation to anyone (save the police). But since Woods is a huge celebrity, his life is under a microscope. The questions aren’t going to go away, so he might as well answer them.

- RED’S ARMY has the details of how Glen “Big Baby” Davis broke his hand. The site also reports that Celtics ownership might suspend him.

- PHILLYBURBS has the story of a Phillies fan so desperate to get tickets to the World Series that she was willing to trade sexual favors. It’s a shocker that this didn’t end well.

- DEADSPIN describes how Antoine Walker burned through more than $55 million in his career. Sigh.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS discusses how a movie adapted from one of Rick Reilly’s books might save the world. Not really.