thebowl.challenge: the echoes, they slumber

In case you missed it, Notre Dame lost another bowl game, their ninth straight. In what has become a yearly tradition of joy and celebration for the proprietors of theblog.net, the Irish got their asses handed to them, once again proving how they don't deserve to be playing in the big money games each January. Frauds, frauds, frauds, the lot of them. These bullshit rules that give Notre Dame special treatment -- essentially mandating, as Fiu said at CFN, that as long as the Domers don't completely suck, they're going to "qualify" for a BCS game pretty much every year, and once they've qualified, the bowls themselves scoop the Irish up because of their travelling asshole fan base of asshole travellers -- have to be abolished. No frickin' special treatment. Make them prove that they're actually, you know, good for once, before throwing them into these hilariously uneven matchups in BCS games. (BTW: the average score in Notre Dame's 9 consecutive bowl losses? 40-17. Thought you should know.)

But that's other thing: which would I prefer? A.) The Irish rightfully get placed in bowls that are more fitting with their talent level, and as such they occasionally win, or B.) The BCS system keeps favoring ND, so they keep ending up in bowls that they have no business in, playing teams much better than them, and thus insuring that this streak of bowl futility continues for the foreseeable future? It's a quandary.

As far as the pick 'em goes, I am proud to say that precisely 2 out of 24 people picked Notre Dame to beat LSU. It is not coincidental that one of the people who did is in last place, and none of the people who picked ND are in the top 14. Of the 22 sane people in the group, the vast majority of the confidence levels were in the 25-30 range, so: loyal blogtributors and readers, I salute you!

Also, as you can see in the comment to the post below this one, Adam keeps wanting special mention of how bad he's doing. The problem is, he just got passed last night because Katey picked Notre Dame (see what that'll do for you, kids?), while Adam picked LSU and had 32 points on it. As such, he's rocketed up to the ... NINTH percentile overall at ESPN.com. Quite the achievement, that. So, as a present to him, I'll include him in the standings today. And let's all remember that even though he's no longer in last, he's still the only one in the group with a sub-.500 record so far this bowl season. Can he get to 16-16?!?!

Rank	Team	Owner	Record	PPR	TOTAL
1	Easy Bake Dutch Oven	Nipsey	21-8	46	367
2	Joel Agrees w/ Mel Gibson	Rob Durham	20-9	43	365
3	I Have a Raging Clue	Jack Fu	19-10	51	356
4	Break of Dawn	J. Morgan	21-8	66	348
5	Wells=Spaghetti	T. Lyon	20-9	63	339
6	Schilly-Mac with Cheese	Schill	20-9	40	332
7	THE WESTENDER RETURNS	The Caveman	20-9	63	328
8	Tobias Funke, Analrapist	Reader Wise	21-8	65	323
9	I'll Beanie U!	Scooter	20-9	93	321
10	Neary Entry	Mike	19-10	63	317
11	Chupicabras	Steve	18-11	47	313
12	Doodle Von Taintstain	The Diddy	18-11	64	312
13	Nyholm Entry	M. Nyholm	18-11	84	303
14	Milford Man	Fred	18-11	63	291
15	Moyer Entry	Di	21-8	93	289
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23	Super Snaves	Donnie Smavels	13-16	79	227
24	Munger Entry	Steve's wife, Katey	15-14	62	212