A regular trip through the college football blogosphere.
1. That list is how long? A list of Penn State malfeasance since 2002 has been kicking around message boards for the past few weeks and may have even spurred ESPN to sic Outside the Lines on the Nits. It has 61(!!!) separate incidents featuring Penn State players and the long arm of the law. Or, sometimes, the long arm of nothing in particular:
53. Joe Paterno - Road Rage - No Charges
As much as we all love the possibly apocryphal JoePa road rage incident, it resulted in no charges and, uh, did not involve a Penn State player.
Many of the other incidents are arrests that resulted in acquittals or college kids getting busted for holding a half-full Natty Lite, which is punishment in an of itself. The list is overstated. But how much?
All in all, the Penn State Nittany Lions don't have a widespread, 1988 Miami Hurricanes style criminal gang disguised in plain football uniforms. They have a drinking and fighting problem. Players aren't shooting guns or selling drugs. They're getting loaded and brawling. While I take modest comfort in the fact that the football roster doesn't double as a suspect list from The Wire, there is still a rather obvious behavioral problem within the program.
This is probably because the man they should fear more than any other is kind of ancient and "works from home."
1. Flowcharts! Everyone loves flowcharts; Big Red Network brings us a glimpse into the mind of the Husker fan. As you might imagine, it's heavy on the torches and pitchforks, light on the puppies and sunshine. After this bit...
...it gets ugly.
2. I've got a chip on my shoulder about analysts who think "he's got a chip on his shoulder" is actual analysis.
1. Yeah, this is a good idea. The MZone brings us the story of one intrepid Michigan fan with a death wish:
That man and his beret-wearing friend are at the LSU-Tulane game. The general tenor of things:
I couldn't walk around for more than two minutes without someone grabbing me and wanting to talk! 99% of the people said that they love him and don't want him to leave... Many people commented on his family values and commitment to the community...only two guys said, "a retarded monkey could coach this much talent, well be just fine without him"
1. Thanks for that. Topic 1-A in college football is no longer "why does Michigan suck" after their 38-0 shellacking of a Notre Dame team that put up about as much fight as Terri Schiavo. Instead it's "why does Notre Dame suck, and who can we blame this on?" Rumors and Rants excerpts some posts from Irish partisans at the Notre Dame Rivals site, and it's not pretty:
Prister then unloaded this gem, "Sure everyone knew the '07 season would be a titanic struggle. What no one knew is that it would develop into a Titanic-like struggle. Weis has lost his football team, and beating the crap out of them on the practice field offers no guarantees and runs the risk of losing them permanently." Well said.
Sampson is perhaps even more harsh. He refers to Weis has "Hurricane Hubris." He slams him for failing to read his team and their mood all the way back to spring practice, for the erosion of simple techniques and fundamentals he credits to Weis' arrogance. And he rips him for installing two offenses for two quarterback (one for Jimmy Clausen and one for Jones) rather than perfecting a basic off-tackle play.
R&R then goes off the reliability reservation with some juicy gossip that has "unreliable internets crap" written all over it:
Through some enterprising research, I also discovered that at a tailgate last season, the members of Notre Dame's 1966 team were telling anyone who would listen about the complete lack of respect they had for Weis and they way he had treated former players. This week players from the 1973 National Championship team said the same thing. As former players are not allowed to attend practices or even meet the players. And most of the "insiders" close to the program feel Weis has thrown his players under the bus, despite the fact that they obviously haven't been anywhere close to prepared for their first three games.
1. Well, uh... Doug Gillett of Hey Jenny Slater has seen some Georgia losses in his time and decides that this one isn't a "Bitch About To Friends In A Bar" loss or "Fightin' Loss" or a "Crawl Into A Bottle Loss," but rather a...
This was a Get-Laid Loss. You don't want to fight, you don't really want to drink that much, you don't even want to try and sit around and hash it out with your fellow fans. You just want to find a beautiful woman who knows enough about your team and your fandom to be able to console you but not enough to really want to have a conversation about it; you want to treat her to an hour or so of passionate, staring-deep-into-each-other's-eyes lovemaking and fall asleep in her arms. Sorry if that's got a cheesily Bridges of Madison County ring to it, but it is what it is.
That was amazing -- much better than your run defense, at any rate.
The hallmark of the Get-Laid Loss is that it's a big game, big enough to be quite emotionally invested in it, but it's not played well enough that you get your usual orgasmic joy over once again being immersed in college football, so you have to go seeking that orgasmic joy in another, perhaps more obvious, place.
You vote for Michigan, you get Marvin, the Duck of Infinite Inexplicability.
1. Say who what when how? FanIQ pokes around the AP ballots, bringing forth those who still put Michigan on them and giving them the mocking they deserve:
Wayne Phillips hailing from Tennessee, placed the winged helmets at 16th. I'm damn near speechless. One thing we can guarantee, Wayne didn't watch the game. Myron Patton deserves the Oklahoma scrotum twist for his ranking of the Maize and Blue at 18. Mike Strain also from Oklahoma placed them at #25.
Dunno why Oklahoma voters are so kind. Such a random place to erratically decide Michigan deserves poll placement. CriticalFanatic's favorite hobbyhorse: USC alum Scott Wolfe.
2. Adventures in things you probably shouldn't say. Tomahawk Nationhighlights a video from Warchant.com in which delightfully-named receiver DeCody Fagg admits that he didn't play very hard in Florida State's loss against Clemson. Really? Isn't this something you might say after an uncomfortably close game against a cupcake instead of another loss to a conference rival? I guess not. The nation of Tomahawks is, as you might guess, unimpressed:
To that I say, "Freak That" .... Get this guy off the damn ball club. This is exactly what's wrong with our Team. It was evident ALL LAST SEASON and it was evident in the 1st half of Monday Nights loss to the Tigers. Some of these players just don't get it. In football its imperative that every player on the field pull his own weight. If not, the entire team suffers. I know Fagg probably feels "Oh its not like Drew's gonna get me the ball any way" .... Guess what #81, there's two-to-three other Wide-Receivers on the field with you.
I love the Randomly Capitalized Nouns. It's all very Sports Talk Radio.
FanHouse presents the best of the college football blogosphere four links at a time in Four Things Worth Reading. FTWR is posted whenever four cool items that do not warrant separate posts collect in my Firefox tabs. If you've got something for FTWR, email mgoblog@gmail.com. If you would be so kind as to put "FTWR" in the subject it would be appreciated.
Their campus has long been home to gentlemen of questionable ethical standards, and current football coach Ron Zook is no exception. He has spent the last off-season luring highly rated prospects to a team that is 1-15 in the Big 10 since 2005, which is clear and blatant evidence of lying, bribery, and possible instances of recruits' grandmothers being held hostage by men wearing fake Indian headdresses. Nonetheless, the NCAA has decided to let Zook continue his felonious ways for at least one more season without reproach; the thinking must be that his current rate of success is worse than any sanctions the NCAA can impose. That seems fair.
Good news for emo kids who run Deadspin: THC predicts 6-6, so it's Christmas in Detroit. 2. Even amongst the loons there is a king.Rumors And Rants points out something anyone who's taken in ESPN college football programming in recent years has been irritated by: the endless homerism of Lou Holth. He just predicted Notre Dame would win ten games. No. Seriously. By now everyone knows that ESPN talking heads are specifically directed by the suits to say effing retarded things for attention, -- this explains how Mark May can dress himself in the morning and, for that matter, get out words without swallowing his own tongue -- but Holth takes it to another level:
During a College Football Live broadcast, Holtz and Mark May were making their picks for each week's game. Holtz ... stated that they would definitely start 7-0 despite road games against Penn State, Michigan and UCLA. Already I was shaking my head. Then he stated that the Irish would surely defeat U-eth-C when they visit South Bend on October 20th. Excuse me?
The real reason I linked the piece: it incredulously suggests that Holtz makes R&R miss Trev Alberts which is a horrifying thought I had myself a summer ago. Someone hire this man to coach a Sun Belt team into the ground and get them in NCAA trouble before he splatters the camera with saliva again!
FanHouse presents the best of the college football blogosphere four links at a time in Four Things Worth Reading. FTWR is posted whenever four cool items that do not warrant separate posts collect in my Firefox tabs. If you've got something for FTWR, email mgoblog@gmail.com. If you would be so kind as to put "FTWR" in the subject it would be appreciated.
1. Hey, those things are like other things. The college football blogosphere has a rich history of comparing football teams to other things, like rappers, South Park, the Simpsons, and probably various knots they teach you in Boy Scouts. By now they're a little played... unless they're really awesome, like The Joe Cribbs Car Wash's SEC teams as Arrested Development characters. A small sample:
8. KENTUCKY = TOBIAS
The whole blue thing would be enough, really. That and that the program has been a Tobias-quality laughingstock for the overwhelming majority of its days, expecting the likes of Tim Couch and Hal Mumme to keep them aloft as they leap off the stairwell, then murmuring "We shan't be telling your mother the NCAA about this, shan't we?"
But past that, consider that both Kentucky football and Tobias live in a constant state of denial. Kentucky states over and over again it's not just a basketball school, oh no, very interested in football. Definitely not only interested in basketball. Just as Tobias is totally devoted to making his marriage work and is a 100 percent heterosexual analrapist. Forgive me, but as Dave Attell so memorably put it, "If that school's man's into football straight, then I'm sober."
FanHouse presents the best of the college football blogosphere four links at a time in Four Things Worth Reading Posted irregularly, whenever four cool items that do not warrant separate posts collect in my Firefox tabs. If you've got something for FTWR, email mgoblog@gmail.com. If you would be so kind as to put "FTWR" in the subject it would be appreciated. 1. Third and sixteen, let's send the fullback into the flat. 'Bama blog Roll Bama Roll has assimilated what was a promising statistics-and-wonkery blog called "Outside The Sidelines." OTS makes a strong debut with a breakdown of a peculiar call in the 'Bama-LSU game that should make all Tide fans eternally grateful Shula is no more. Look:
A regular trip through the college football blogosphere. 
That man and his beret-wearing friend are at the LSU-Tulane game. The general tenor of things:
FanHouse presents the best of the college football blogosphere four links at a time in 
