Back from Chicago

So, yeah: I went to visit my sister in Chicago this past weekend and lucked into a ticket to the Northwestern game. It was a fun game, but bitterly, bitterly cold. Northwestern's stadium is essentially horseshoe-shaped, with the open end really truly open, with no seating. Being in Evanston, right on the lake, it was exceedingly windy, and that wind was cruising through the stadium right through the open end and into the faces of everyone sitting in the opposite end zone. Which is where we were. By the time the game was ending and the sun was down, it might as well have been 20 degrees. The kind of cold that hurt.

Other random thoughts:

Despite the turnovers, I was terrified by the way the defense was shredded in the first half. Not getting to the QB, falling for screens constantly, and generally poor tackling were all-too-prevalent in the first 30 minutes. Keith over at BC gained a little optimism by the defense holding NW to about 60 yards after intermission, but I'm still nonplussed to say the least: all season long, when competent opposing offenses have presented the threat of both the run and the pass, this defense has been brutal. What has saved them has been the proclivity of the Buckeye offense to jump out to sizable leads early in almost every game, as teams have had to abandon the run and commit to the pass. And as mediocre as the D has looked early in games against the run (and occasionally against the pass), they've throttled teams once they got to the point where they knew passes were coming and could pin their ears back and go apeshit rushing the QB, without having to worry about rushing plays. Will we jump out to a 2+ score lead early against Michigan? Doubtful. The Wolverines will play the entire game with all offensive options a plausible possibility on every single play, and I'm worried about our defense's ability to stop them.

The offense, on the other hand, was brutally efficient for most of the game. Troy's thumb problem still bothers me, but it's more of a lingering doubt than a full-fledged panic button.

Ash once again reminded me of how much she hates Journey, which is just inconceivable. Although it did remind me that last week on VH1Classic I saw one of those "videos" that's just a clip of a band performing some song live at a concert. Well, it was Journey, obviously, and I'm pretty sure it was from that concert of theirs we saw that one night while playing poker at Cuervo 2005. Anyway, I was struck (figuratively, not literally) by something that was not so obvious when watching while playing cards: Steve Perry's cock. I mean, it was RIGHT THERE. And not in the "amorphous bulge" kind of way either -- you could probably have paused the tv and made a perfect outline of it through his pants. It was like his entire lower body - legs, cock, and balls - had been vacuum-sealed in some kind of Foodsaver brand of 80s jeans. Legitimately disturbing. And now all those high notes on "Don't Stop Believin'" are making a lot more sense.

Also: Wonk has his OSU preview up. Huzzah!

The week is here, amigos. Here.