Category: Weekly Insight

It’s 2.5 hours until game time. I’m sitting in a hotel room after being woken up by a fire alarm after a flight that landed at 1:00 a.m. an hour drive away from said hotel room. I’m out of town for a football season wedding*. Yesterday my suit almost didn’t show up, my lawn mower broke, and the dead tree that I thought “yeah, I can probably cut that one down myself and save a couple grand”? Well the tree next to it is now the sober friend hug-supporting his drunk buddy at the bar hoping he doesn’t take both of them out and get them kicked out of the bar (or crush my house)… The optimistic view is that I’ve used up all of my bad luck for the weekend and Michigan will come out strong against Wisconsin and indicate the first satisfying season since I graduated from college** The more likely case is that the past few days are an omen for what’s about to unfold once the ball is kicked from a tee by a guy with a foot to another guy with a W shaped object on his helmet. Let’s all hope it’s the former because I’ve got news for all of my loyal reader out there…

Cllick for an in depth comparison between the two power 5 schools in my home state

Michigan faces it’s toughest test yet this week at home against Rutgers… WAIT DON’T GO!

Read more if you haven’t lost all faith in my limited football knowledge

It’s contagious. Everybody back in quarantine. You guys wanted more James Franklin*! I’ll give you more James Franklin! If you’ve followed this blog over the past few years then you may be aware that James Franklin is dumb. Or at least during games he does dumb things… like icing his own kicker… or calling 2 timeouts and running his QB into a pile of guys on 4th and 4… or punting on 3rd down… Well last week we’ve confirmed that Janklin Disease is contagious. And since we do not have the proper measures of contact tracing in place to determine if James Franklin has had previous contact with that particular SEC officiating crew, we have to assume it’s very VERY contagious… like spreads within minutes with an incubation period of a commercial break… Ladies and gentlemen, we may have found the true cause and patient zero for the future documentary Idiocracy – written by apparent time traveler Mike Judge.

Click for a description of the dumb

OSU:

MGoBlog likes to make the joke that we live in the Matrix and the Matrix is an Alabama fan’s NCAA 14 Dynasty. Well, this is true, but I’d like to expand on this theory if I may. We live in the Online Dynasty that was started by a group of 14 year old’s 10 years ago.

Click here to take the blue pill… or the red one… I forget which is which… don’t take mystery pills

Maryland:

Maryland, like Rutgers, is not a Big Ten team so I don’t HAVE* to preview them…. But since so many Big Ten teams seem to play them for some reason, I’ll do it anyway. Pro – They have a QB Taulia Tagavailoa (Tua’s brother) who is exciting and good enough to blow out bad teams. Con – He’s probably not good enough to beat good teams without… you know… help. Pro – Taulia Tagavailoa is a pretty cool name Con – It’s not as cool as Tyrell “Piggy” Pigrome. Pro – (151) Girl smashes beer on her face and chugs it – YouTube Con – Maryland’s QBs historically are not as durable as that girl’s face. They usually all get murdered by week 4. They’ll bet bad teams, lose to good ones and probably get some free chicken wings at at a bowl game in January.

Click here for the same purdue recap from 3 years ago

Recap of last week:

Minnesota looked competent vs OSU until they shot themselves in the foot with turnovers and stupid penalties. Penn State vs Wisconsin looked like two identical teams playing each other so YES! I got one! It remains to be seen if they’re both bad or both not bad… Rutgers put up 61 point?!. That can’t be right… I don’t care if it WAS Temple, and they DID turn the ball over 5 times… Rutgers isn’t supposed to score 61 points in a season! Nebraska scored <checks stats sheet again> FiFTY TWo PoiNtS!!! <throws imaginary stack of papers in the air and walks away>

Click for actual footage of indiana vs iowa

Well that went better than expected for PJ Fleck last night… I mean, not well, but it almost could have… Minnesota put up 31 points against OSU’s apparently human defense. That was good. They were up 21-17 and the ball near mid-field halfway through the 3rd quarter. That was good. They then shot themselves in the foot with a stupid personal foul and holding call that ultimately resulted in a punt on 4th and 28 from their own 17. The next play was an OSU TD pass and Minnesota would not recover. It looked like things could have gone differently… The Gophers could have NOT self destructed on that drive or given up a scoop and score on their next possession. They could have also gotten the benefit of a targeting call that would have turned an OSU fumble recovery into a first down for the Gophers. Things did not go differently.

Click for more Preview

Normally this is the same every year… Rutgers sucks, Wisconsin is going to win the west… Ohio State cheats…* But last year was crazy. Some teams only played 4 games. Some teams lost to Rutgers. Some teams only played 5 games but still made the playoffs… Everybody gets a free year of eligibility so some teams have players who should have graduated 4 years ago… Maybe this year’s preview will be different! Let’s find out

Click for… Spoiler alert, it’s not that different

In 2011 I brought a TV to my friend’s cottage so I could watch the first ever “Under the Lights” game through the window from outside. After Denard Robinson scored the 3rd “should be game winning” TD in the last 80 seconds I did a fully clothed front flip off of the edge of the dock in celebration. It was cold… I’m not that athletic… I used to be a sports fan. Since then the fire that was my passion for sports has been slowly fading. Maybe you’ve noticed the decline in the quality and quantity of content on this website.* Maybe you’ve gone through my trash and noticed a lack of TV subscription during sports seasons. (Please don’t do that.. it’s gross). Maybe you’re just generally aware of the overall state of every sports program in the state of Michigan… A breeze will come by and the embers will glow for an instant or two. Beach Volleyball wins gold. Robert Finke passes like 16 guys in the last 30 feet of a thousand mile swim** Yzerman is hired as GM. But all this really does is keep the wood unnoticeably decaying. No flame to admire. No heat to cause anyone to care…

Click for: It gets less sad… Not zero sad, but … less

1. “Week 0” and “Week 1” will be combined (Week 0 only has one game). Send me either one pick for “Week 0” or one pick for “Week 1”.
2. Weeks 2-13 will act as normal. Send me one team name each week the day before the first game of that week.
3. If your pick wins that week you move on to the next week. If they lose you are eliminated
4. If your pick’s game is postponed/cancelled after you send me the pick, you can contact me to choose a different team whose game has not yet started if available.
5. If your pick’s game is postponed and you did not contact me to choose an alternate then you may continue to play the season as if the team you selected won BUT if that team loses the rescheduled game (or the game is never actually played) then it will count as you having been eliminated as of the date of the originally scheduled game.
6. If your pick’s game is cancelled and you did not contact me to choose an alternate then you are eliminated.
7. You can only pick each team once. (if you chose an alternate (4) then the original selection is “un-picked” and the replacement is “picked”)
8. If at any time there is only one player remaining that person shall be declared the winner (if they have postponed games to make up (5) then this “declaration” is delayed pending the outcome of the rescheduled game.
9. If at any time there are no players remaining, all players that were eliminated in the most recent week shall share the title of “first place”. (again, pending the outcome of rescheduled games).
10. With the combined “Week 0″/”Week 1” + 12 “regular” weeks there will be 13 picks in total. Therefore there will be 1 team that you don’t have to pick.
11. If multiple people make it all the way through the regular season then the Tie Breaker will be determined by the Big Ten Championship game.  Each remaining participant will select the winner and the total score.  The person who chose the correct Big Ten Champion AND has score closest to the actual score without going over (Price is Right Rules!) will be the winner.
12. If no participant selects the correct winner then all “tie breaker” participants share the title for “first place”
13. If all participants who selected the correct winner chose a score higher than the total then all who chose the correct winner shall share the title for “first place”