Andy

I'm not. They managed to be on the fringes of contention the last two years with ridiculous teams, it would stand to reason that when they got a decent hitter or two and Carpenter came back (inexplicably staying healthy all year and pitching like Bob Gibson) that they'd become an unstoppable force.

I called it bigger than beating a 3-9 Iowa State team. Which it is.

I am still laughing at "a win over Iowa State is better than a win over Notre Dame". In the year mentioned, Iowa State won 3 games (just like ND that year), all three at home, two of them by a combined four points. The Cyclones also lost a home game to Kent State, as well as UNI, and a game at Toledo. Just because Iowa State beat Iowa that year doesn't mean they weren't still a joke. All those teams that I mentioned earlier were much better in their respective years than any team UNI has ever beaten. If you want to take ND 2007 out of that list then we'll find 20 more teams Navy has beaten that were better than any team UNI has ever beaten. This is an insane argument.

wake and rutgers are @Pitt and @ND the year before, plus a 3-point loss to Utah in the bowl game. East Carolina, @Stanford, @UConn in 2006, plus a 1-point loss to BC in the bowl game. Colorado State in the bowl game in 2005. Navy has at least 1 win in any given year, and usually more, bigger than anything Northern Iowa has ever won. This is, IMO, a ridiculous argument.

Won't get to watch the Browns/Vikes because of the stupid Colts exclusivity rule in Indy. :x

Of course, Iowa drops 15 spots, and Ohio State drops 2 spots after barely beating an arguably worse team. Navy's a solid team. Yeah, Navy's got some good talent and that triple option can be a difficult offense to defend. There's no comparison to Northern Iowa. Northern Iowa would have a good to great chance at beating Navy. Just because they're an FCS team doesn't mean they suck. Navy is far better than anyone gives them credit for. I think they'd easily defeat Northern Iowa.

Hopefully they're just doing what the Cubs did last year, using up all their good fortune in the regular season only to tank in the off season. I'm not holding my breath.

Michigan sucks. You're both right. Michigan by 7 touchdowns. At least one of the 6 arms on your 3-headed QB monster will be knocked off on Saturday. Book it. :)

Michigan sucks.

Top 25 games --------------------------- Troy at (1) Florida (12 pm, SEC Network) (2) Texas at Wyoming (3:30 pm, Versus) (3) USC at (8) Ohio State (8 pm, ESPN) Florida International at (4) Alabama (7 pm) Houston at (5) Oklahoma State (3:30 pm, FSN/CSN) Syracuse at (7) Penn State (12 pm, BTN - Regional) (9) BYU at Tulane (3:30 pm, ESPN2) Eastern Washington at (10) California (5:30 pm) Vanderbilt at (11) LSU (7 pm, ESPNU) Miami (OH) at (12) Boise State (8 pm) Idaho State at (13) Oklahoma (7 pm, FSN PPV) Marshall at (14) Virginia Tech (1:30 pm, ESPN 360) Clemson at (15) Georgia Tech (7:30 pm Thursday, ESPN) (16) TCU at Virginia (3:30 pm, ESPNU) (17) Utah at San Jose State (10:30 pm, ESPNU) (18) Notre Dame at Michigan (3:30 pm, ABC) (19) North Carolina at UConn (12 pm, ESPNU) South Carolina at (21) Georgia (7 pm, ESPN2) Arkansas State at (22) Nebraska (2 pm, FSN PPV) Southeast Missouri State at (23) Cincinnati (7:30 pm, FSN Ohio) (24) Kansas at UTEP (7:30 pm, CBS College) Bowling Green at (25) Missouri (7 pm, FSN PPV) Games of interest ---------------------------- Iowa at Iowa State (12 pm, FSN/CSN) Western Michigan at Indiana (12 pm, BTN - Regional) Eastern Michigan at Northwestern (12 pm, BTN – Regional) Central Michigan at Michigan State (12 pm, ESPN2) Fresno State at Wisconsin (12 pm, ESPN) Duke at Army (12 pm, CBS College) Louisiana Tech at Navy (3:30 pm, CBS College) East Carolina at West Virginia (3:30 pm, ESPN 360) UCLA at Tennessee (4 pm, ESPN) Jacksonville State at Florida State (6 pm, ESPN 360) New Hampshire at Ball State (7 pm) Air Force at Minnesota (7 pm, BTN - Regional) Illinois State at Illinois (7 pm, BTN – Regional) Mississippi State at Auburn (7 pm, Fox Sports South) Texas Southern at UL Monroe (7 pm) Western Illinois at Northern Illinois (7:30 pm, CSN Chicago) Purdue at Oregon (10:15 pm, FSN/CSN) Other nationally available games ------------------------------------------ Colorado at Toledo (9 pm Friday, ESPN) Kent State at Boston College (2 pm, ESPN 360) James Madison at Maryland (6 pm, ESPN 360) Kansas State at UL Lafayette (7 pm, ESPN 360) Tulsa at New Mexico (8 pm, The Mountain) Oregon State at UNLV (11 pm, CBS College) Non I-A games of interest --------------------------------- Sacred Heart at Holy Cross (1 pm) South Dakota at Northern Iowa (5 pm) Montana at UC Davis (9 pm) Nationally available games outside I-A ------------------------------------------------- Florida A&M at Winston-Salem State (7:30 pm Thursday, ESPNU)

New AP poll. BYU jumps all the way to 9th. 1 Florida (56) 1-0 1493 2 Texas (2) 1-0 1424 3 USC 1-0 1355 4 Alabama (2) 1-0 1331 5 Oklahoma State1-0 1201 6 Mississippi 1-0 1095 7 Penn State 1-0 1082 8 Ohio State 1-0 985 9 Brigham Young 1-0 984 10 California 1-0 971 11 LSU 1-0 890 12 Boise State 1-0 882 13 Oklahoma 0-1 782 14 Virginia Tech 0-1 652 15 Georgia Tech 1-0 630 16 TCU 0-0 523 17 Utah 1-0 404 18 Notre Dame 1-0 383 19 North Carolina 1-0 338 20 Miami (FL) 1-0 315 21 Georgia 0-1 294 22 Nebraska 1-0 266 23 Cincinnati 1-0 248 24 Kansas 1-0 196 25 Missouri 1-0 126

At least Vick won't beat us. We will still lose. I don't know if we're just a bunch of negative nancies or what, but I don't know if any fan base has ever been so down on a team that went 12-4 the year before. I just don't think Carolina has it. Major 2008/2009 Cubs parallels being drawn for me with last year's and this year's Panthers teams.

To somewhat echo UMFan's earlier post, it was really, REALLY nice to see Notre Dame flat-out clobber a team for once. That hasn't happened since 2006. I don't know how good Nevada is (my guess would be far better than they showed today - after all they do have three 1,000 yard rushers on their team), but really satisfying nonetheless. Michael Floyd is an absolute monster and Jimmy Clausen played just as well as he did in the Hawaii Bowl. Next week's game at the Big House should be extremely interesting.

ND's playing probably 6 bowl teams this year, including the Pac-10 and Big East favorites. It amazes me that, as an ND fan, you're perpetuating this "our schedule is so weak" crap. I expect it from ESPN and talking heads, but seriously, do you really want to play 8 conference champs every year? It's weak by Notre Dame standards. I don't think it's as ridiculously weak as the talking heads are making it seem (other than the two Washington schools, there isn't a total joke team to be found), but there aren't too many games on the slate that jump out at you either. I guess I long for the schedules of Lou's days when there were at least a few big-ticket games a year. Anyway. Go Irish! Beat Wolf Pack!

Considering the already-weak Notre Dame schedule, I shouldn't be preparing to laugh if/when Purdue and Michigan lose to their respective MAC opponents Toledo and WMU tomorrow. But I still am. (Praying karma doesn't kick me in the ass regarding ND/Nevada for saying this.)

Miles's season OPS is now .451 after today's failure to get on base.

I guess that's amusing, but I don't really get what news item it's coming from. They don't just take a news item and tweak it. They make stuff up, and it comes from the notion that ND sucks. Works for me. I won't deny it made me chuckle.

Yeah, the Pack can score big-time. If ND does 'smash' them, it will be something like 52-28 (Nevada's pass defense was last in I-A last year).

I'm worried about Nevada. They're a pretty darn good team. ND should win, but it won't come easy.

I guess that's amusing, but I don't really get what news item it's coming from.

Is that your suggestion or did you see/hear that? Sun-Times Twitter. DLee is out for the birth of his 2nd child.

He would've if he'd left, he won't now. Once again, stupid decisions by STL that probably won't bite them in the ass one bit.

At least it's Andres and not Miles at SS. Why Baker and Blanco are not flip flopped in the order is a mystery to me though.

Hard to believe the first I-A games kick off in only two days. I'm ready. Ball State, even replacing almost everybody on their offense and a good portion of their defense too, should still handle North Texas. The Mean Green were awful last year and probably won't be much better, while Ball State breaks in their new quarterback, Kelly Page, who was even more highly touted as a commit than Nate Davis was.

But you're not a major league pitcher, clearly injuries follow these guys just waiting to attack. Geez.