betterREDthandead

If MSU was 2-2 and had beaten CMU, then we would just apply this argument: As for "who exactly have they beaten," well, you said it yourself: Notre Dame. Which you lost to. MSU's defense is as bad as Michigan's - maybe worse since you don't have a Brandon Graham onboard - but we have quarterbacks. It sure would suck to lose to a "fraud" at home.

Fun fact: In Dantonio's first 30 games, he has exactly the same record (17-13) as John L. Smith's first 30.

Yeah, Super Bowl CXV.

Big win tonight....not only for the division chase obviously but also clinched a winning record for the year. We'd better kill the Twinkies in the series after next because they have six games against the Royals coming up.

Not much difference between scheduling Syracuse and scheduling Bowling Green, frankly....

Hey, it ain't luck - it's all about how you schedule. Next year it'll be five, as we alternate with Notre Dame.

Damn damn damn - JPM came so damn close to winning yesterday. That was a fun race though. You could tell JPM was back in take-no-prisoners mode. Fun to watch him drive like that. It's why I'm a fan. Anyone see his postrace interview? You could tell just how conflicted he was about bumping Martin. I think any other driver, he'd have nudged out of the way, but he's got too much respect for Mark Martin to do that. Gonna be a great Chase if the races keep coming down to the wire among the contenders like that.

Just a couple weeks to go for Daytona. Looking forward to seeing some of the new lineups. All these mergers won't really affect the top of the heap, but the middle of the pack should be more competitive. (Fewer Dodges out there, too. Running a Dodge is like having one less cylinder.) There's really only about 36 regular running cars from last year, so a lot of room for new field fillers. I'm still pissed about Robby going to Toyota though. Til he switches manufacturers again (I think this is his fourth in as many years) I'll still be following him, but my new favorite is Juan Pablo Montoya. Also pulling for Tony Stewart and his new race team. timothy made the right champion call at the start of the season last year. Hard to go against JJ this time around too. He's like the Nick Lidstrom of drivers. Boring as hell and always out front.

There's two games left where if we lose, then the sky will legitimately be falling: Indiana and Delaware State. But I really feel like a 10-2 season is in no way out of reach - then again, 6-6 isn't too crazy either the way the defense has been going. They really adjusted well at halftime against EMU though, you gotta give 'em that. I mean, we'd be a lot less concerned if the halves were flip-flopped and the halftime score was 21-0 instead of 24-17, but I'm not sure that's necessarily better. Also, woooooo U-Dub. Washington's definitely my favorite Pac-10 team, has been for a while. Beautiful campus and the best uniforms in college football west of Ann Arbor. Nice to see them relevant again.

Tiger killers? We're 9-8 against them. Too much credit.

I don't know about the rest of you but I didn't exactly have dry eyes watching Ernie's little speech tonight. The golden pipes still sounded as golden as ever, and he's still walking around looking pretty healthy. He's kept himself in great shape - he doesn't dodder around like most people his age. And as always with Ernie, he made it about everyone else instead of himself. The man's a complete saint. As for the Tigers, nice little win tonight. The bullpen looked good, especially Lyon and Rodney. Magic number down to 13. One more game and then the truly murderous stretch begins.

Florida wasn't exactly running out to play USC or anyone pre-BCS either. It's not the BCS, it's just the way things have been.

Well, 14 really. Magic numbers don't do decimals. But damn is it nice to see Huff getting in there and contributing.

My dad is actively hoping for another 0-16 season. He figures it's unlikely he'll ever get to see the Lions in the Super Bowl any time in his lifetime so he wants to see them make history any way they can. I told him they'll need to indoctrinate Schwarz if they want to achieve that goal 'cause he doesn't seem to know any better.

Ought to point out that anyone who likes to follow GVSU football would be happy this week. Grand Valley got a 38-7 win over archrival "Saggy Valley" as my brother calls them. SVSU was #13 in the country....it's going to take a hell of an effort to knock Grand Valley from their perch at #1.

Hey, it's 2009! And the Lions still suck giant donkey dick. Matt Stafford: three picks, no touchdowns. Hope he's not the type to get discouraged easily, because he's going to lose more games in one season than he's probably lost in the last seven years.

Juan Pablo!!! It'll be interesting to see how he does now that he's in. Last two months all you ever heard when they patched in to his radio was "think Chase, think Chase, think Chase." He started to unleash a little bit of the old aggressiveness at Atlanta but once he got back into the top 8 or so, "think Chase, think Chase." Time to turn him loose so he can drive the way I liked watching him drive in the first place. In reverse order, here's who I'm pulling for: T-12: Hamlin and Vickers. Toyotas. T-10: Gordon and Johnson. Pulling for them is like rooting for the Yankees and Red Sox. 8: Biffle. Meh. Couldn't really get much more meh without being Matt Kenseth (who I was sorry to see miss the Chase though as it opened up the door for another Toyota.) 7: Newman. Good to see an underdog in the Chase. 6. Kahne. Even bigger underdog. Kind of hard not to pull for him given the craziness surrounding his team and the fact that (I think) he's in inferior equipment to everyone else. 5. Martin. Easy guy to root for. Good to see the old man get a shot at this. I always have a soft spot for guys with the label "the best to never win it all." 4. Stewart. I used to be really bugged by Stewart, and he still gets really petulant sometimes. But he's definitely a personality in the garage, races his ass off every race, and I like driver-owners. It also certainly helps that he wanted to get out of a Toyota and back into a Chevy. 3. Edwards. Always liked Cousin Carl. The dude manages to have personality without being a dick. See, it's not so hard, Kyle. Carl speaks his mind without coming across like a whiner. Plus he races like drivers should race. Never gives up an inch. 2. Kurt Busch. Gotta love the Blue Deuce. Busch is OK on his own merits but really it's Penske that I'm pulling for here. 1. Juan Pablo!!

You said it. With quarterbacks you can sometimes just tell when they have "it". Tate has it. This team doesn't really look like like a Big Ten champion yet, but barring a complete disaster they'll be 4-0 going into MSU and could conceivably be 7-0 leading up to the Penn State game. Y'know, I didn't think the Spartans played very well or very badly. They just played. Next week's game will be absolutely huge. Whichever team loses is going to be staring an extremely disappointing season right in the face. I do think the Spartans need to basically stick with Cousins. Nichol can run pretty well but what a thoroughly terrible job he did throwing the ball. Missed a wide-open receiver for a touchdown and threw the next two balls in the grass three feet in front of the target.

It's really wild how the whole season comes down to eight points. Some credit to Shrub for being in an interviewing mood tonight. Still not at all disappointed to see him miss the Chase.

I think it's the other way round. Honestly, I think MSU is overrated this year. Called it!

Only in the sense that people are going, "hey who do you think would be a name on the list?" once Groh is fired.

Definitely was a good game. Should have been held on Thursday so we didn't have to deal with the major crap they opened the season with. NC State and Sakerlina should be forbidden from opening the season for at least ten years. They've given us two s***ty games in a row. Especially NC State.

I really don't get the attitude that college football "needs" FSU and Miami to be good. The sport did fine in the 70s before those programs were on the map.

Rink-and-stick logo really sucks. Just sayin'. I think the flying skate was actually the best thing the Canucks ever had going for them.

This is just horrible. Ernie's an absolute gem.