Well, we’ve reached the end of the regular season for our beloved Buckeyes. It feels like just yesterday USC was crushing our collective pelvises with repeated knee kicks to the groin. Tomorrow the Buckeyes welcome a free-falling Michigan Wolverines team that so badly needs this win to bring some sort of respectability back to this season. Hmmmm, about that…

According to Bodog, the Buckeyes are 21 point favorites. I never thought I’d see the day that this rivalry would have a 21 point favorite. But, with Pryor and Wells running wild the last few games and Michigan banged up at QB and RB, that’s where we stand.

Over the last week reports have been coming out that Rodriguez may be out after one season and some key players may be contemplating transferring. I personally feel that all of these reports are a little far fetched, but if the Buckeyes do lay a 21+ point ass whooping on the Wolverines, we may just see some of those stories come to fruition.

Because the Little Mime of Hate is such a die-hard Wolverines fan, I figured we’d get his take on this, a little two-for-one action.

LMoH: Is it possible that Uncle Rico is playing possum? Sure it is. Is it possible that he has a whole new playbook to unveil Saturday that will throw the Buckeyes off their game? Sure it is. Let’s all step back into reality now. Michigan is in trouble. I’ll save the majority of my editorializing for the year in review and try to stick to Saturday’s game. In order for Michigan to win they are going to have come out and play the perfect game. We’re talking eight guys in the box, shut down Wells and force Prior to throw the football. They’ll have to run the ball well early and eat some clock. Hopefully they can get out to one of their early leads and maybe maintain it this time. Again, let's step back into reality. A reality that I don’t even want to think about.

I love the defeated tone in the LMoH's writing. It's good to be an Ohio State fan right now.

Here are some quick hits from this weekend’s football weekend.

*The Steelers looked REALLY good.
*Ohio State and the Browns did not. I’ll touch one the Brown’s a little more later.
*Washington/BYU - How is flipping the football over your head a 15 yard penalty?
*Notre Dame, despite their victory, continues to be a joke. How does Weiss continue to get the benefit of the doubt?
*Michigan played just good enough to win.
*So did Ohio State.
*Is ECU really that good?
*I am still sick and tired of Brett Farve. Come on people! It was the Dolphins! By the way, how good does my prediction of this game look now? Not quite 100%. But I damn near called it. Allow me to pause while I pat myself on the back.
*Starting Schaub instead of Rivers in my Fantasy League was not as smart as I thought it would be.

The Browns *UGH*
Where to begin. For the moment I am going to overlook the dropped passes by Edwards and Winslow. I am also going to overlook how poorly the o-line played. I am also going to overlook the fact that on any given play, Romo had 45 seconds to get rid of the football. You have 4th and 3 with 10 minutes to play. You are down 21. I have 2 questions. 1. Why the hell didn’t he go for it? 2. Why the hell didn’t he go for it.

The Wolverines
As I mentioned earlier, they played just good enough beat a bottom feeder MAC team. Here is what I took out of the game. The defense is coming around and looked pretty solid save for a couple of late drives by Miami. I’ll take it. Steven Threet has potential. But wait, what do they say about potential? It means you suck now. While I wouldn’t go that far with it, he does need to work on his decision making and accuracy. Given that he is facing the fire for the first time, I can live with it. What I love about the guys is his elusiveness. Granted, it was Miami (OH), but he seemed to have a knack for making guys miss when he scrambled. While I am not promising victory just yet, I do believe he is the kind of quarterback that could cause Ohio State problems. IF, he works on his decision making and accuracy.

This is the 2nd best week of the year. My apologies, but the 1st week of the NCAA tourney is still number one. In the span of 8 days College Football and the NFL will kick-off their regular seasons. I love it. There is nothing better in life than being a fan. I would even argue it’s better than sex. Hear me out on this one. Unless you are suffering from some sort of E.D., sex is never disappointing. We always achieve our goal. Your lady however, might feel differently. Anyway, as we all know, being a fan is much different. Look at the different paths Ohio State and Michigan travelled last year. For Michigan it was a championship or bust season. And they busted. In week one. To a high school team. Then again in week 2. Let’s be fair, to a very good football team. Ohio State on the other hand, backed their way into the National Championship. Let’s all be reasonable, last year’s team was not a championship caliber team. It was a good team, not a great team. To illustrate my point look at THE GAME. If Tressell doesn’t take the ball out of the hands of his 35 year old quarterback, Boeckman might very well have cost the Buckeye’s that game. Here’s where the Buckeye fans say “Michigan fans always have an excuse”. To that I say, kiss my grits. It’s not an excuse. Tressell, once again, out coached Carr. That was the difference in that game. Not Beanie Wells or any of the other skill position athletes. I might hear the argument that Vernon Gholstein was a difference maker. My point being, Michigan and Ohio State had the same expectations and disappointment last season, but at very different times. It’s what brings us back, even more excited for this season. Could Michigan one of the 4 Michigan quarterbacks and Head Coach Uncle Rico do just enough to sneak Michigan into the National Championship game like Tressell and Krenzel did in ’02? Probably not. But we’re fans. So of course it can happen. Not only can it happen, but until the Wolverines are mathematically out of the championship game, it WILL happen. Because we’re fans. Our expectations are ridiculous and our hearts will most definitely be split in two. Because we’re fans. A season without heart-ache, is a season you didn’t put enough in to.

Here are some random thoughts about this years coaches preseason joke.

And a joke it is. How can it be taken seriously when the coaches have put West Virginia at number 8 and Michigan at number 24. Let’s go ahead and get this out in the open, THE BIG EAST IS A JOKE. It might as well be called the MAC East. Let’s all be real serious for a minute, if you put Wisconsin, Illinois, Penn State or Michigan in the MAC East, is there any reason to think that either of those teams doesn’t pick up the easiest BCS Bowl bid available. Maybe WVU is that good. My problem is, we’ll never know. Same scenario with South Florida. Both schools have one tough game per schedule. USF hosts Kansas and WVU hosts Auburn. Let’s talk again after those games.

What I truly love about the preseason poll is that despite the fact that I’ll have to listen to Buckeye’s apologists bitch about it all year, the Buckeye’s are not number one. I believe the coaches got this one right. Until the Buckeye’s can beat a quality non-conference team on the road, the coaches are correct. I already know what you are going to say, “ But we went on the road and beat Texas last year. Congrats. But as we would later see, Texas wasn’t Texas last year. Let’s face it, OSU has gotten on the shitty schedule band wagon. The reason the SEC can get away with it is because during conference play, they are playing quality teams. For example, the crappiest team in the SEC last year was Mississippi. I still think Ole Miss could beat Minnesota, Northwestern and Purdue. The Big Ten is down ladies and gentlemen. Which means the Big Ten has to schedule some better non-conference foes. I am well aware that the Buckeye’s are headed to the Rose Bowl this year to play USC. But they are also mixing in perennial powers Youngstown St., Ohio U. and Troy. Michigan has it’s normal bout with a struggling Notre Dame. They will also mix in Toledo, Miami (OH) and Utah (who some are expecting good things out of this year). Let’s face it, not exactly Big Ten caliber opponents. Penn States schedule might actually be worse than both of them. They don’t have a real game on their schedule this year. They will square off against Coastal Carolina, Oregon State, Syracuse and Temple. Jesus! My point being, the power in college football still lies in the south. Yes it pisses me off. Football is meant to be played the Big Ten way. But until the Big Ten steps up and does something about it, they will continue to get blasted in big BCS games.

So let’s talk Wolverines. Rounding out the top 25 was Michigan at 24 and Fresno St. at 25. This must be a really down year for college football if Michigan found a way in to the top 25. I still think Michigan goes at least 6-6. I still think they beat OSU to close out the season (I promise you the Mummer and myself will do a nice spread for that game). But let’s face it, with a little luck and some elbow grease, next season they might be a top 25 team.

Michigan Sucks
This past week Kevin Grady, Michigan Wolverines running back, was arrested for drunk driving while home in Wyoming. I have nothing funny to say about this. I'm just making it a point to post all of these situations that Michigan fan used to throw in our (Ohio State fan) faces.

I Just Found Out He Retired
Brett Favre has reportedly contacted the Green Bay Packers about a return to the team this year. He's just f---ing with Rodgers at this point right?

The Battle for I-71
The Cleveland Gladiators defeated the Columbus Destroyers in last week's AFL wild card game to continue their waste of Quicken Loans Arena electricity.

Lebron Sweepstakes 2010
If you've been reading the papers lately, I'm sure you saw the comment Lebron James made about going to the Nets in 2010. Because you actually read the comment, you know it was a non-issue. He shed about as much light on that topic as Bill Belichick does on injury status'.
I found a great article this past week that breaks down some very solid points as to why Lebron may stay in Cleveland.
Unfortunately, I don't have the link. But the Little Mime of Hate does, and when he gets his life together and sends it back to me, I'll post the link.

In honor of our first "Blog Comment" I thought I would take a minute to thank Scott for taking the time to post a comment, Thanks Scott, and maybe crack back just a little bit. Not too much cracking back though, fortunately Scott has taught me my first lesson in blogging. Read the articles you link too. I sure hope he has more for me.

In response to my post on 17Jun titled "There's always next season (ugh, the season hasn't even started yet)" my boy Scott had this to say:

Scott said...
"This is why blogs have a bad rep. You haven't read an article you linked to? Also, why are you assuming UofM goes 6-6? Because Herbstreit predicted it I guess. He's never been wrong has he."

I am going to address this in the two parts you have it broken into. The article and the record. By the way, love the Herbie reference.

You are absolutely correct and I will now eat my words. Apparently the Women's Football Academy is a fundraiser for the Lloyd Carr Cancer Fund. Aren't I the A-hole. It's a good a cause and I applaud Uncle Rico for being a part of it. The truth of the matter is, I thought it was a funny headline and decided to roll with it. Lesson learned. Let's move on.

Despite my hatred of all things Buckeye, there two Ohio State football alumnus's I admire, Robert Smith and Kirk Herbstreit. Even Herbie will tell you he's been wrong. We all know he has. He made the initial report about Les Miles coming to UM. It's a part of being a professional, sometimes you get one wrong. Having said that, I take umbrage with the fact that you would think I am just recycling Herbie's thoughts. If I was quoting him, I would have made note of it. You apparently took the time to read the post, and I hope you read some of the others. My counterpart has put some really good stuff up considering we are just getting going. My point is, if you read more than one post you should have picked up on the fact that there is no shortage of opinions here. I said that Michigan would go 6-6 because I think they will go 6-6. Here's my game by game prediction.

8/30 Utah (Win)
9/06 Miami (OH) (Win)
9/13 @ Notre Dame (Loss) - Though I struggle with this one. If Clausen is the same QB he was last year, Michigan might be able to steal this one.
9/27 Wisconsin (Loss)
10/04 Illinois (Loss)
10/11 Toledo (Win)
10/18 @ Penn State (Loss)
10/25 Michigan State (Loss) – I like Dantonio better.
11/01 @ Purdue (Win)
11/08 @ Minnesota (Loss) – The Badgers always give Michigan Fits.
11/15 Northwestern (Win)
11/22 @ Ohio State (Win) – For two reasons. 1. First year coaches have a crazy way of winning big rivalry games. I think Uncle Rico finds a way to get it done despite inferior talent. 2. Even if deep down I thought the Buckeye's were going to win, I wouldn't dare say it out loud.

Man that was exhausting. I hope this kind of response to our reader comments doesn't dissuade our readers from posting comments in the future. If anything, I hope it encourages it. I also hope Scott makes his way back to the March and continues to let us know exactly how he feels. That's why The Mummer and I got this going. We love witty sports banter and encourage all three of our readers to contribute to our bad habit.

As I read the College Football headlines two things jump out at me. One, there are a lot of criminals playing football. Seriously, what the hell is going on? But that’s a column for a different day. The second thing that jumps out at me is my beloved Wolverines. Michigan has been in the press this off-season almost as often as the Ocho. Michigan football doesn’t get press in the off-season unless they just inked another big-time recruit (which apparently won’t be happening for a while). Cue the almighty Rich Rodriguez. Is it just me or should Rico be nominated and run unopposed for president of the American D-bag Association? Need proof? Check out one of the two following articles:

Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez helped lead the 10th-annual Women's Football Academy on Saturday.

Lineman who left Michigan to play for Ohio State in 2009

Where do we begin? I guess we’ll go in order. Now I didn’t read the women’s football article, but what the hell is going on in Ann Arbor? This Rico’s first season at UM, perhaps she be teaching his new playbook. I guess what really chaps my ass is the fact the we are going to see that headline 6 more times this season. After weeks 3,4,5,7,8 and either 10 or 11. You’ll notice I didn’t include the finale. It’s going to be an abysmal year for the school up north. They may not even make a bowl game. Though I think they get to 6-6 and let their name carry them to the poinsettia bowl.

What kind of first class a-hole do you to be to drive a highly rated O lineman to your rival. And it’s not like he left Akron to go to Kent. This is THE rivalry. I am not sure which idiot I hate more, Boren or Rico.

I hope everyone that reads this understands how difficult it is to write this without swearing.