bukie

That final score of the Missouri game is a bit misleading and you know it. UI scored a meaningless TD with no time left to bring them back to within 10. And I believe Maclin missed a big portion of the game, too. Was the game a blowout? No. But Mizzou won it fairly handily. C'mon. Don't put me in the lame position of having to defend those clowns. In summary: Donglashings aplenty from the Big 12's top 3 if they played in the Big 10. It was a 10 point game for a good portion of the second half too. Mizzou scored a TD with 5 minutes left to make it 17. It wasn't a one-score game, but it wasn't won handily either, and the outcome was very much in doubt until the last 5 minutes.

Don't worry, only half of that will be true next week. MSU is going to clobber Northwestern (sorry Jon). I really doubt that. In fact, I think NW is going to win that game. It'll probably be a close game, as I think MSU is a slightly better team, but with NW at home it will offset the difference.

Missouri beat Illinois by 10 on a "neutral" field (yes, I know the distance is equal, but nobody on the Missouri side of the state line roots for Illinois, so let's stop calling it a neutral field), and PSU beat Illinois by 14 at home. Neither game was a "donglashing", and Illinois isn't even the second best team in the Big Ten right now, so to say that Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma would crush anyone in the Big Ten is hyperbole at best, and an outright fable at worst. I think you overrate the difference between the top of the Big 12 and the top half of the Big Ten quite a bit.

Man I disagree with a lot of this post. Michigan is bad. That's why they're the ninth best team in the conference. It has little to do with the overall strength of the Big Ten. The Big 12 is way better. Way. They have 3, maybe 4 teams that would win the Big 10 easily. (MU, UT, OU, maybe TT.) KU and Okie State would be in the top echelon of the Big 10, too. CU would be a middling team. The rest of the Big 12 is average to awful, but it's certainly not worse than the middle to bottom part of the Big 10. Penn State has been just as good as anyone in the Big 12, so any of them winning easily is laughable. Those 4 are better than anyone else in the conference, though. OK State is probably better than anyone else other than Ohio State also, but after that, I'd probably list Michigan State, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin. KU and Minnesota have eerily similar resumes this year, actually, and nobody thinks anything of Minnesota. Kansas is probably ranked more on their merit from last year than anything they've done so far this year. They beat nobody and lost to a South Florida team that is only ranked because people feel the need to keep someone in the Big East ranked (Scary enough, Pitt may be the best team in that conference). Iowa and Nebraska are also similar. After that, in the Big Ten we have Michigan, Purdue and Indiana, and the Big 12 has Colorado, Kansas State, Iowa State, Texas A&M and Baylor. Colorado is probably the best team of that lot, Kansas State, Michigan and Purdue are similar, and the other 4 are really really bad. So, in summary, the Big 12 has more highs and more lows, while the Big 10 has a lot of decent teams, with one great and one awful team.

The Big Ten is a lot deeper than it looked at first glance. After Penn State and Ohio State, there's a cluster of 4-5 teams in the 21-30 range (Northwestern, Michigan State, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota?). In a year where Michigan might be the 9th place team in the conference, it says more about how good the rest of the teams in the conference have been than how bad Michigan is (although, they are bad, don't get me wrong). The SEC is still the best conference top to bottom, but the Big Ten could actually be in the discussions for #2 (Big 12 has 5 great teams, but they are incredibly top-heavy), which almost seemed silly at the beginning of the year.

Well, the easy part of the Lions schedule is over now. No, seriously. Their most winnable game from here on out is probably a home game against the Saints.

Having a running back on your team about to turn 29 is usually a bad idea. Jacksonville went from looking good to being embarrassed by Pittsburgh in florida. that was some one-sided reffing in that game, and I was rooting for (betting on) Jax. How is losing 26-21 to a consensus Super Bowl contender an embarassment? The Jags haven't been particularly good this year, but I don't think last night was an example of that. I wasn't particularly impressed with either team, but with the Pats & Colts down this year they each probably have a legit shot. I think this is the year when the NFC is finally fielding teams that are better than the AFC. Right now I'd take the Skins & Giants over anything from the AFC in the Super Bowl. Heck, I might be inclined to take any team from the NFC East over any other team in any game at this point. The entire division has a combined 10-1 record against teams in other divisions.

See avatar.

Yeah, just look at that obsession. There's like 3 posts in that thread that mention the Sox in a derogatory way.

I'm going to go with "not a whole lot", since they look about as real as the seat she's sitting in.

Next person to use lime green for sarcasm gets smacked. There's no need to burn retinas.

Can I still wear my 1998 NL Wild Card Champs shirt? I'm going to wait to break out the 2003 NL Champ shirt until later in the playoffs.

Oh well, so much for the slim hope that the Cubs would score the first runs of the playoffs this year. :)

Prepare for a Phillies-White Sox world series: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2008/news/story?id=3619261

I think the Phillies will win this series easily, but for that to be true, they have to win Game 1. This game is much more important to the Phillies than it is to the Brewers.

What do you mean? Gordon's probably the only guard in the NBA that can beat himself off the dribble.

Actually, I wear the jersey shirt underneath my work shirt. Today it's a sweater, though, so it's not quite so visible.

Because it makes too much sense not to happen.

I'll probably break out the Santo home jersey T-shirt tonight with the new home cap and jeans. The boy will be decked in his avatar gear.

You have 11 fridges?

I think the Cub players were spraying champagne on the fans when they clinched too.

I'm going to guess they go with Buehrle on 3 days rest again.

Yes, a 1-0 result on the road shows they didn't belong on the same field.

Yay, things at home will be interesting this week.

Source