Andy

The correct term is Bowls. Bowels.

There's a Big East/SEC Invitational, but it's only four games and Notre Dame wasn't picked to play in it for the second year in a row for some reason. So my interest is pretty minimal. At least we've got Ohio State at Lucas Oil this weekend. That should be an interesting test, especially if Luke isn't back from pneumonia by then.

On Bill Simmons's podcast this week, Mike Lombardi of the NFL Network said that the teams with a chance to win the Super Bowl are Tennessee, the Giants, maybe the Cowboys, Pittsburgh, and...Tampa Bay. The more I think about this game, the more I'm convinced we're going to get reamed and have to, at best, go play at Minnesota - where we already lost this year - or Arizona - who should've beaten us in Carolina - in the first round

It's a decent article, and his overall point is correct. But I read that a week or so ago and was flummoxed that the impetus for it was that Nate Davis isn't getting Heisman consideration. I mean...I love Nate. He's the best player we've ever had and has a really good chance to go down as the best QB the MAC has ever seen (in college anyway, we'll see how the NFL goes). But though I think the argument against our schedule has been exaggerated at times, Nate simply hasn't played a good enough defense to even begin to get considered for that award. Ball State was trying to get the game in Detroit...if Boise were located in, say, Iowa, I think Ball State would've done it. I think the decision came down to money more so than anything. The university would've lost money on our ticket allotment alone for that bowl game because no one was going to be able to go to Boise on a few weeks' notice. (Schools have to buy any tickets they're allotted that don't get bought - BSU lost money going to the International Bowl last year due to this.) ESPN personalities, for the most part, can go screw themselves when it comes to Ball State. I love that the network has broadcasted six of our games (two more to come), but crap like Chris Fowler leaving us 25th-ranked for forever, coming out and saying he wouldn't vote us any higher due to the schedule, etc. is ridiculous. We still seem for the most part to be being considered a cutesy little story as opposed to a good football team. Of course, after Whitlock eviscerated him in his column, Fowler moved us from 25th to 19th after we beat Western Mich. But guess who dropped us from 16th to 19th for no apparent reason after we crushed a nine-win team in our regular season finale? ESPN colleague Kirk Herbstreit. It's like they had some sort of deal or something.

Well then...I didn't know that. Looks like the Motor City matchup would be Minnesota - Gophers are tied with Wisconsin for 6th but I assume the Badgers would get more attention for the 6th tie-in.

That's absolutely ridiculous. not really. I watched BSU a few times this year and they did fine against the inferior talent of the MAC. Mediocre Big Ten teams are just more talented than MAC teams. It's hard to argue that. I have no problem saying it's not a guaranteed win (my previous comment about beating those teams was just referring to the fact that a win wouldn't help us, not dismissing those opponents as pushovers). But to say we'd 'likely lose' to a team that should've lost to Cal Poly (Wisconsin) or a team that got beat by a team we crushed (Illinois) or a team that should've lost to NIU - who we crushed - and got crushed by Michigan (Minnesota) is a little unrealistic to me. I know this is all transitive and that's not overly predictive, but that's all I have to go on.

That's absolutely ridiculous.

I am incredibly nervous about the Carolina/Tampa game. If we lose our schedule is such that we could easily miss the playoffs after that.

Ball State has turned down Boise State's request to play in the Humanitarian Bowl against the Broncos, and the BSU Bowl will not happen because Boise would rather play TCU in San Diego than go to a neutral site to play BSU. I don't like this move for either BSU, but I like it for us less. Pounding a Minnesota/Illinois/Wisconsin in Detroit is not going to do anything for us.

Meh, Weis coming back isn't good but it shouldn't be a disaster. If Brian Kelly ends up getting hired by someone else this off-season I will feel worse about it. Charlie being who he is, he'll probably make more efforts to shake things up this off-season, efforts that should include dumping John Latina as OL coach and Brian Polian as special teams coach. Hopefully it will also include addressing the fact that we basically have two defensive coordinators (Tenuta and Brown). Once again by schedule alone ND will probably win 6 or 7 games in 2009. Nevada replaces San Diego State and Washington State (neutral-site in San Antonio) replaces @UNC, and besides that it's the same relatively weak schedule as 2008.

Notre Dame set a team record by making 19 threes tonight, Ryan Ayers making nine of them to tie Kyle McAlarney's 2nd-in-school-history mark and KMac himself making seven. 102-76 over... ...South Dakota, who's barely a DI program and plays nobody else of note besides us. I really hate our OOC schedule sometimes. All the good done by Texas and UNC and OSU will probably be undone by all the 300 RPI-type teams we play.

I'm starting to lean towards rooting for Florida to win and get somehow hosed out of the #2 spot in the BCS, because that's about as likely a positive scenario as any.

Brian Kelly was asked on the Jim Rome show if he refused the Tennessee job to wait on Notre Dame, and he said he "couldn't answer that". Please please please

ND actually moved up a spot? Well, alright. We might not lose again before January provided a win over Ohio State at Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday.

And Marquette lost to Dayton last night. Not a great weekend for the Big East.

What a bunch of freaking idiots. Someone needs to get Hesburgh and Rosenthal back as president and AD because everything's gone to crap since they left.

Derrick Rose is absolutely spectacular. How much MVP consideration does he get if we manage to make the playoffs considering the train wreck that largely comprises the other 11 guys?

Heard anything more lately about the possibility of BSU vs. BSU? Is there still a chance, or does it seem to be dead?The sideline reporter of the Boise/Fresno game said that if Ball State doesn't agree to come to Boise, they'll probably go play TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl. The Independence Bowl is out there as a possibility, though, if Boise is willing to do this on a neutral field. Could the Humanitatian Bowl even invite Ball State, though? There are 10 ACC teams that are bowl-eligible, so I'm under the impression one of them would have to be invited (since the Humanitarian Bowl is supposed to be WAC vs. ACC).The ACC contract with the Humanitarian is supposed to expire next year and the scuttlebutt is that they'd be willing to break the contract a year early if they could get the BSU Bowl done. The ACC team that would've gone there would go to a different bowl.

Heard anything more lately about the possibility of BSU vs. BSU? Is there still a chance, or does it seem to be dead?The sideline reporter of the Boise/Fresno game said that if Ball State doesn't agree to come to Boise, they'll probably go play TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl. The Independence Bowl is out there as a possibility, though, if Boise is willing to do this on a neutral field.

DERRICK ROSE

I'm going to the MAC title game. Should be a nice coronation.

He was a FA signing, I believe.

ND crushed Furman without Luke today, thanks to McAlarney making nine more threes to tie his own second-place total for treys in a game. 32 points overall. Wonder where we will be in the polls tomorrow - we beat a Top 10 team but got handled by UNC. My guess is we won't move much, maybe drop a spot or two.

MAC Championship Game – in Detroit (8 pm Friday, ESPN2) ---------------------------------- Buffalo vs (12) Ball State Conference USA Championship Game (12 pm, ESPN) ------------------------------------ East Carolina at Tulsa ACC Championship Game – in Jacksonville (1 pm, ABC) ---------------------------------- (18) Boston College vs Virginia Tech SEC Championship Game – in Atlanta (4 pm, CBS) ----------------------------------- (1) Alabama vs (2) Florida Big 12 Championship Game – in Kansas City (8 pm, ABC) ----------------------------------- (19) Missouri vs (4) Oklahoma Top 25 games ----------------- (5) USC at UCLA (4:30 pm, ABC) (13) Cincinnati at Hawaii (11:30 pm, ESPN2) (23) Pittsburgh at Connecticut (12 pm, ESPN) Other nationally televised games ----------------- Louisville at Rutgers (7:30 pm Thursday, ESPN) Army vs Navy – in Philadelphia (12 pm, CBS) Washington at California (3 pm, FSN/CSN) South Florida at West Virginia (8 pm, ESPN2) Arizona State at Arizona (9 pm, ESPN) California (PA) vs Minnesota-Duluth – D-II playoffs (12 pm, ESPN Classic) Northern Alabama at NW Missouri State – D-II playoffs (4 pm, ESPN2) I-AA playoff game of interest --------------------- New Hampshire at Northern Iowa (7 pm)