TITACFAMFTTTAOST ... uh, "deux"

Hey there, kiddies. Well, for the second straight week, some wacky shit went down in the college football world, and I'm here to give you my undoubtedly pointless and stupid observations about the weekend that was. So saddle up, I guess, and grab a beverage of your choice.

Oh, by the way, we're leading off this week with a different, one-time-only topic:

1. The Fantasy Auction
Okay, I definitely lost the auction, as did Todd. Our teams are heaps of shit, what with his thoroughly mediocre WRs and felon RB, and my reliance on Marc Bulger and Julius Jones. Oh yeah, and my kicker got hurt on Sunday, too, and is out indefinitely (by the way, did anyone else notice that The Nuge missed a 28-yd field goal? I don't care - I'm still ashamed of Scooter for not going after Rich Creamy Nugent). As of right now, I'd have to install Nipples as league favorite, even with his tandem of honkey receivers, since they're both probably gonna put up better-than-average numbers. I mean, Doo-ante Culpepper can't keep playing that badly without Moss, can he? IRRegardless, a little dose of LT will certainly cure what ails ya, especially with a side of Portis/CuMar. But I guess League Favorite 1A would have to be Ryan, and actually, he might actually have a better shot than Jeffy. He got Manning, T.O., and Tony Gonzalez, fer Christ's sake. But yeah, Todd and I are definitely league anti-favorites right now.

Except for Scott. Examining his roster right now, I'm beginning to wonder whether or not I hallucinated him being there. Did he actually draft that team on purpose? For serious?

2. Big Ten Talk
As per usual, my thoughts on Big Ten games in which I watched at least a quarter of play on Saturday:

Ohio State
I'm still having trouble thinking about it. Knowing that we were better than the #2 team in the country for about 48 out of 60 minutes is of little consolation. I could get into more, but ... ugh, like I said, I don't know if I'm up to thinking about it too much yet, except to say:

• Gotta be happy with the defense, for the most part. The line performed admirably in the face of what is probably the best OL in college football. And, after the first two drives, the LBs hemmed in Young, so that he gained precisely squat on the ground after the first seven minutes of the game. The DBs got beat a little bit too much by an amalgam of Texas receivers who were all either mediocre or inexperienced, but on the whole they looked good.
• Theodore Reginald Inge, Jr. was a complete and total non-factor. He seemed inexplicably jittery, with a few early drops. He finished with 2 catches and 1 rushing attempt, netting a total of 7 yards. Seven. That. Is. UNACCEPTABLE.
• I don't envy Tressel the decision of what QB to go with. The 2-QB system, entirely predictably, just isn't working. You know why the platoon didn't work? BECAUSE IT NEVER DOES. However, neither guy really stepped up and took the job. Smith had a great TD pass to San Antonio, but made precious few plays other than that. Zwick looked competent and fairly confident, and he made a great read on that should-have-been TD pass that Hamby dropped. But otherwise, he was adequate at best. Like I said, neither guy distinguished himself. Tressel has, however, made the decision as to who will start on Saturday. We'll see how this works out.
• I'm choosing to stop thinking about it. Dids, anything to add?

Iowa
What the hell was that?

No, seriously, what the hell was that? The Hock-eyes got their beaks handed to them by an Iowa State team who's ... yeah, I mean, they're rivals, but if this Iowa team is as good as advertised, there's no way they should be losing, let alone getting their ASSES BLOWN OUT, by a Cyclone team who's probably gonna be in a dogfight to win the shitty-ass Big Twelve North. Shame on you, Hawk-animals.

And don't give me any of that "Drew Tate got injured" bullshit. Yeah, the backup whoshisface looked thoroughly unprepared, but the Hawkeyes weren't showing any signs of being able to move the ball on ISU when Tate was in there, anyway, so that excuse is bullplop. Way to get cornholed, Iowa. I hope they took the husks off first.

Minnesota
Hey, whatever. They pounded another inferior team, this time a Colorado State squad that looked disinterested and, well, just bad. As usual, we won't know anything concrete about the Goofers until their first Big Ten game.

Northwestern
I hope people got a chance to watch this one on ESPNClassic Saturday afternoon. Simply put, it was a wild shootout where neither team had a prayer of stopping the other. I normally sing the virtues of defense and smashmouth-edness (it's a word now, deal with it), but this was a lot of fun to watch. It helped that I was eating grilled brats, drinking beer, and in a general mood of giddiness leading up to the OSU/Texas game. But it was a lot of fun to watch.

And if you don't know what happened, Northern Illinois was down 7 and marched 80 yards in about 50 seconds, a textbook 1-minute "2-minute drill," scoring a TD with seconds left. Coach Joe Novak decided to go for two and the win rather than head to overtime. Given that it was a road game and ALL the momentum was on the Huskies side, I love the call. They had the NW D on their heels, and if you watch the play, if the NIU receiver hadn't fallen down, the Huskies probably head back to DeKalb Saturday night with a "W" in the ledger. Instead, as it stands, they're probably the best 0-2 team in the country. Well, they're in a dogfight with the team in the paragraph numbered "5," anyways.

Michigan
Well, with everyone doubting their defense, the Wolverines stepped up after a frighteningly easy first drive by the Notre Dame and shut down the Irish's offense for the better part of the last 3 1/2 quarters. The problem? Against a good (but not great) defense, Chad Henne looked like a Linus without his security blanket. He's lost the luxury of lofting the ball up along the sideline and having Braylon Edwards run under it and make spectacular catches. We at the MWB have been saying this since last season ended: you don't just replace a guy like Edwards. And it doesn't help that the media has pulled the same thing with Steve Breaston as they did for Teddy Inge ... some preseason publications had Breaston as one of the nation's top-10 receivers and, for Christ's sake, he just isn't. And neither is Inge. They're both electrifying return men, but neither is even particularly close to being the best receiver on his own team.

The big thing to be worried about? Notre Dame didn't play very well the last three quarters of that game. In fact, there were times in the fourth quarter when it seemed like they were begging Michigan to come take the game away from them, and the Wolverines just couldn't capitalize on the numerous 2nd-half opportunities they had. The plus side is, of course, the defense, which showed a little backbone after getting pushed around early. Still, Michigan's gotta want that one back.

As for the games I didn't watch at all...

Penn State
It was Cincinnati. Cincinnati almost lost to Eastern Michigan. Still, I guess the offense did hit 42 points. In Big Ten play, they'll be lucky to see half that many points per game.

Michigan State
Blah. Nothing happened to change anything that I said last week. We'll know a helluva lot more about them after this weekend's trip to South Bend.

Purdue
Whoopee, you beat Akron. The shocking thing was, the Purdue D, with all 11 starters returning, looked ridiculously sluggish against the Zips, allowing over 360 yards passing. I know they miss OSU and Michigan, schedule-wise, but I want to see if this team can actually pull out a close game before I go throwing them on the top of the Big Ten heap with OSU, Iowa, and Michigan (and I'm hesitant to put Iowa there anyway).

Wisky
Whatever.

Illinoize
I didn't even realize they had played. Oh, they beat San Jose State 40-19. That's, uh ... that's great.

Indiana
After taking out the Mighty Chippewas, it looked like Indiana was getting a break going up against tiny Nicholls State. And then the Loosiers nearly got upset, winning 35-31.

35-31. Nicholls State. What the Christ?

3. And he turns water into wine, and pre-teen girls into sex objects
Did you guys see that Marcus Vick held the mighty Duke Blue Devils to 35 yards of total offense? No wonder this guy gets so much hype. I guess it runs in the family: I heard his brother and Drew Henson saved an entire school bus full of small children and puppies from crashing into a hospice center. And then they smote all the non-believers.

4. Oklahoma Stinks






Yep, that's it.





Okay, you want more? Fine. That team has no leadership, no toughness, and certainly no quarterback. They're a team full of china dolls, and we all knew this; for the past few years, they've been great at blowing the doors off of second-rate squads, but the second a legit team (not named Texas) would step up and smack them in the mouth, they'd back off like the pussies they are. Adrian Peterson is the lone exception, and anyone who watched that game knows that he single-handedly won it. By the way, yes, they were playing a Tulsa team that had gotten demolished the week before by Minne-freaking-sota. If Texas loses to Oklahoma this year, it'll be the worst loss of Mack Brown's career, and he should probably be fired. Yeah, I said it. This Oklahoma team is THAT bad.

5. Fight for maroon and gold, down the field for CMU
In a game where the losing team put up a whopping 524 yards of total offense, Central Michigan outgunned Miami (OH) 38-37 on Saturday. Anything notable about the game? No, not really. CMU took the lead on a 60-yard TD run with 1:44 left, and had to block a game-winning field goal attempt in the final seconds to preserve victory. Just another tight, awesome game. A lot like...

6. Isn't it just GREAT of them?
So everyone was saying about Arizona State, who agreed to host their game against LSU, in light of the tragedy that's befell the gulf coast. As Evan pointed out, um, what's so great about it? They would have been major-league assholes if they hadn't agreed to host the game. Yes, it was a classy move on their part, but let's not start nominating ASU's athletic director for the Nobel fucking Prize here.

Oh yeah, and this was another fantastic game, one with a spectacular, emotional finish. So there were assloads of great matchups, well-played games, and fantastic finishes on Saturday. But, if you've been reading the paper, watching the teevee, or listening to sports radio ever since Saturday, you've undoubtedly noticed that no one cares about any of that. What do they all care about...?

7. NOTRE DAME IS GOOD AGAIN!!!!!! WOOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!!!
God dammit, Michigan. Now I have to listen to every frickin' media outlet talk about how awesome it is that Notre Dame is relevant again. And I have to listen to bullshit about how Charlie Weis is a genius, and Brady Quinn is awesome, and "isn't college football more interesting when Notre Dame is good?", and blah blah fucking blah. This collective fellating of the Irish is tiresome after like 3 days. Imagine the hoopla there'll be if they're undefeated when an undoubtedly-undefeated USC team comes into South Bend in a few weeks. I think every one of the Sports Reporters would die on the spot, with big dumb grins on their faces. And the vast majority of the national media will be too busy jacking off all over the two teams to notice that Notre Dame really isn't that good, or that we're not quite sure how good USC is, after losing so many defensive players from last year. BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THAT???!?!!!? NOTRE DAME IS GOOD AGAIN, KEEEEEEE-YIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!


I have to go throw up now.