FanHouse SundayMorningQuarterback

The Justin Boren transfer saga continues to get weird. Did we say weird? We mean weirder.

Boren, as you'll probably recall, announced his decision to transfer from the Michigan football program on Tuesday. He tendered his letter of resignation or whatever to the media the next day, and it contained all sorts of ominous, nonspecific statements against the program's best interests, including the following excerpts:

I regret leaving behind my friends and teammates, but I need to stand up for what I know is right.

Michigan football was a family, built on mutual respect and support for each other from Coach Carr on down. We knew it took the entire family, a team effort, and we all worked together. I have great trouble accepting that those family values have eroded in just a few months.

I saw Rich Rodriguez throw Jimmy Hoffa into an active volcano in 1975.

If you want to get technical, the last excerpt may not actually exist in Boren's statement, but his decision to cite "family values" certainly leaves plenty of suspicion in a reader's mind. Sunday Morning Quarterback speculates further, and it reads like the "Woodland Critter Christmas" episode of South Park. SMQ also notes that this situation may be more closely related to the extreme duress of the no-huddle spread offense Rodriguez is implementing and the two offensive linemen who have already left, but let's not get bogged down on facts here folks.

Of course, the "fun" doesn't stop there.

Holy hoodwink, Batman! Remember me?

From the venerable Sunday Morning Quarterback:

Make no mistake: fifteen extra seconds on the play clock is a dramatic, terrible change, and will fail miserably at its attempt to maintain plays and scoring at 2007 levels. Lengthening the play clock produces less plays, and therefore less scoring ...

...a conservative estimate - the number drops to 120 plays, 60 per team, a loss of something like three full possessions every game. If it allows enough of a slow down to average 35 seconds per play, the average drops to about 51 plays per team, almost a full 30 percent decline.

That's a staggering decline in actual football in favor of standing around (and commercials, which of course will not be cut), and also in favor of taking knees: 15 more seconds of standing around between every play means 45 extra seconds per three-down series if the clock is running, extending the amount of time that can reasonably be run off by kneel-downs from a little over a minute to a full two minutes. The committee should be devising rules that encourage last-second drama, not choke it out of existence

This is bad for college football. I stand with EDSBS, The Wizard of Odds, Get the Picture and others in opposing this specific piece of legislation that takes away from the college football experience instead of adding to it.

For the more active citizens among you, please take the following message from EDSBS to heart:

Previously at FanHouse
Rule Changes Proposed for College Football

The meters are spinning at Technorati as blogs are reacting to Michigan's stunning defeat at the hands of Appalachian State.

EDSBS: Hot! Hot! Hot! Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32

Screw Ohio State and Michigan. The Mountaineers should have gotten the title shot against Florida last season

Watch that YouTube video to get the joke. The school with the worst promotional video ever just beat the school that ran with "Space, Bitches. Space".

SMQB: This shakes the foundations.

"The upset of the year!" suggests one of my friends on the phone. "This reminds me of Miami Ohio's upset over LSU in 1986," texts another. No. No. They lack understanding. A I-AA team beat Michigan. This shakes the foundation of my comprehension of the world to such a vastly greater extent than any upset, sighting, conspiracy theory, apparition, miracle or act of nature I could possibly cite. This is frogs raining from heaven. This is physically impossible.

The great MGoBlog: we'll get back to you later.