Wednesday ... It's Football Talk Again

For those of you paying very close attention, it's Wednesday, and on Wednesdays in this blog, we talk about football ... at least during the fall. I know. I know. Most of you think I'm just random, but there is a pattern here. If you hate football, you can know to just skip the Wednesday entry for a few months.

Of course, putting in football exactly on Wednesdays is sometimes trickier than writing the blogs. See, to be sure that you don't miss a single day of humor, I have written ahead on some of these blogs. But, writing ahead in football is really hard (impossible), and posting football posts too late makes them nonsensical and boring even to the most die hard fans of the sport.

SO, to make this Wednesday miracle happen, I actually type the entry, then go into my blog calendar and move ALL the existing entries ahead a day so I can slide this one in. Tricky, huh? I knew you'd be impressed at all this effort.

Well, I picked Wednesdays because it is the day before the "football" week begins, and usually there is not much football happening on TV. It seemed like the perfect time. Except, apparently, ESPN is screwing up my schedule again. Last week, for some reason, the "Thursday Night Game" was broadcast on Wednesday (Hawaii, LA Tech), and on Thursday there was no football. (Gasp!) My whole system is in tatters now. The football world is in disarray. As late as last year we could count on a few things. First, NFL and college ball would never be broadcast simultaneously (GONE, opening Thursday of College Football this year), Wednesday is a football hiatus (GONE, as of last week), and Tuesday is a football hiatus (still intact for the moment).

If this chaos continues, pretty soon we'll see ACC and Big East schools playing football on Saturday, and then again the following Monday, just to catch the tv schedule. Yeesh!

BUT ... enough about all this. Let's talk about this week's crazy football stories.

Lee Corso was overheard to say, on College Game Day, that "USC's offense is struggling offensively." So, what were the other choices? Could the offense been struggling defensively? Or did Corso mean they should have been struggling "politely"? Good question.

This story is crazy only in that when my team can't win, they find something else to be winners about, and that's cool, but the "Good Sport Award" for this past weekend is shared by Penn State and Iowa. Check out this article from the Daily Iowan.

Now I want to talk about Michigan. I know some of you are groaning -- there she goes again, picking on us. Well, hey, it's your turn. I haven't picked on Michigan hardly at all this year, despite my promise to do so. I could start out by asking Michigan fans if they are sorry yet about all the bad things they said aout Lloyd Carr in his last few years, but I will do my best to refrain. Instead, let's talk about those helmets you are so proud of -- those "winged helmets". What part of those funny stripes running from the front to the back of the helmet is supposed to represent a "wing"? I will (grudgingly) admit that the curved stripes are visually appealing. They are distinctive. But a wing? I just don't see it.

And then there is Saturday's game. Wow. Michigan versus Michgan State is always entertaining. Heck, watching Michigan State is entertaining enough, considering that the poor school holds the NCAA record for the biggest come-from-ahead loss. We have a saying in our Big Ten Circle called "Pulling a Sparty," which means managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after putting up a really convincing lead.

But, as Lee Corso is famous for saying, "Not so fast, my friend." This year, Michigan State manages to lose its big lead in the fourth quarter, like usual, and it became a war of which team has the worst mojo and karma this year ... in overtime. As it turns out, this year is apparently not Michigan's year either, because Michigan State managed to pull out the win despite their own crippling efforts of self-defeat. Michigan State has beaten Michigan for two years straight ... for the first time since Lyndon Johnson was President of the United States.

Have I twisted the knife enough yet? Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.