Andy

Ball State plays, incredibly, six games out of conference more difficult than, in my estimation, the best non-league game other than Kansas State that Notre Dame has. Butler Georgetown @Valparaiso @Purdue @Indiana State Illinois State Stupid Kevin White.

Notre Dame - Big East - finished 4th in the conference, fell just one point short of beating Georgetown and getting a berth in the Big East title game. As it turned out it gave the selection committee the chance to screw us into traveling to Spokane as the 6 seed against the best double-digit seed (coming into the tournament). Then Winthrop beat the Irish in a terribly officiated game. Ok, I digress. Needless to say the Irish have a chip on their shoulder this season, one that won't be lightened any by being picked to finish an absurd 9th in the Big East this season. The team lost their two star seniors, Russell Carter and Colin Falls, but have a strong core coming back, including forward Rob Kurz, sophomore sensation PG Tory Jackson, and the long-awaited return of Kyle McAlarney from his absurd one-semester suspension from Notre Dame. The incompetent athletic director, Kevin White, is not happy with just trying to water down the Irish football schedule, but now has set his sights on making the basketball schedule as ridiculously unchallenging as possible. Kansas State is ND's only remotely challenging out of conference game, in NYC at the Jimmy V Classic. ND does not have a road non-conference game. There is frankly no excuse not to be 13-0 going into Big East play. Ball State - MAC - The Cardinals are at about as low a point as you can reach as a basketball program barring some Baylor fiasco. The Cards had their fewest wins and most losses in program history last year, then coach Ronny Thompson - a noted bigot who fired every white person in the basketball department upon arrival - decided to plant racist notes in his own offices to give himself an excuse to resign from the university, and not only that, but to resign in fricking July when it was already too late for a new coach to recruit. Billy Taylor is the new man, fresh from four years at Lehigh, one of which ended in an NCAA berth. Taylor is a Notre Dame man, having played and coached under John MacLeod, and has been the anti-Ronny since arriving, being open and welcoming to everyone, and best of all, is not telling anyone on the team not to trust white people, unlike Thompson. The Cardinals will not win many games this year. Their tallest player, as it stands right now, is 6'5" Anthony Newell. Four players have been kicked off or left the team since Taylor's arrival, at least three of which for drug or rule violation-related reasons. The team faces a fairly taxing out of conference schedule, including an opening game against Butler, who only went to the Sweet 16 last year, and most notably a home game against Georgetown, which might result in the most ridiculously over-the-top atmosphere in Ball State athletic history.

Who's your team? What'd they do last year? Where are they headed? Who are the key players?

theriot is good enough at ss if we improve a lot at rf and cf. In theory, Murton in RF instead of Cliff and Pie 2008 instead of Pie/Pagan/Jones 2007 SHOULD be a big improvement, but I have little confidence that a) the Cubs will be smart enough to do it and b) that Murton and Pie will be what they should be just because we're the Cubs.

Aaron Gray absolutely and totally sucks. Him being taken is probably the most pissed off I'll ever be about a completely random and pointless draft pick. And if he ever plays I will smack Skiles with a 2x4.

They can have anyone but Deng, but like Derwood said I don't think that would be enough. Hopefully his value keeps dropping.

Even more than the current Reds do?

http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071021/SPORTS13/710210332/1023/SPORTS13 I will genius, I will. Go Navy! I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to talk about this season either. If I was him I'd answer every remaining question with a 2008 or 2009-themed answer. I just hope this season teaches him that the NFL style of coaching only works with the guys mentally strong enough to handle it. Last year's senior class, given all the turmoil they faced at ND, was mentally strong enough, and this year's group of players most certainly aren't. Trying to install a one-week-only spread option attack against GT was nightmarishly stupid and set off a row of dominoes that resulted in what we have now.

I've mentioned this before but I'm sure this would be even higher if Ball State wasn't a much better road team than home team. BSU has covered the spread 13 of their last 17 road games, are 8-2 in road MAC games since 2004 and, of course, had the Nebraska and Michigan games. I don't know why that is, but I wish that Road Ball State had shown up to one of their two home losses this year, we might have a better record.

PSU +4 on madduxsports.com - seems low but OSU is non-dominant enough that things could turn in PSU's favor. Also of note, Ball State +13.5 against Illinois, which is right around what I expect the margin to be. how's your run defense? Pretty bad from what I've seen. I don't know how you've seen, but you are very correct. Our pass defense and run defense sort of take turns being the worse of the two defenses. This last week it was the run defense's turn. Mendenhall will probably romp all over us, the game will likely be decided by if we can keep up. Usually (Nebraska, Navy, Michigan) we do. But we'll see. Illinois's got a good enough defense that they could contain us. I predicted 37-30 Illinois on my radio show tonight, but realistically it'll be more like 10-20 points difference unless we really play well.

Poor Indians fans.

Boo-hoo. We're 7-0. You're not. Advantage Jayhawks. And you've played crap teams, that's why you're 7-0. Come on, you know that kU isn't near as good as their ranking indicates they are. hard to say, but road wins against K-State and Colorado are pretty solid wins. I do think that Mizzou is one of the top 10 teams in the country. It's more impressive that kU beat them on the road than if they would have done it at home, sure. But I'm not overly impressed with a team who's two biggest wins on the year have been against teams that are 4-4 and 4-3. We've already dominated two Top 25 teams this year; the only game that kU has against a Top 25 team is the last week of the season -- against us. I hope you're not counting Nebraska, who's been exposed as an average football team, as a top 25 team.

I will love this one week of being in 1st place by ourselves before the Colts hand us our lunch next week.

PSU +4 on madduxsports.com - seems low but OSU is non-dominant enough that things could turn in PSU's favor. Also of note, Ball State +13.5 against Illinois, which is right around what I expect the margin to be.

Ok, grossly incorrect and exaggerating information presented in that video aside, that was pretty damn funny. :lol:

Oh, you would think so. :wink: I think Illinois will win this game as well, though Ball State has a tendency to decide to actually play to their significant level of talent when they play these games. It should be a pretty close one unless we play as bad as we did last week. I still can't believe they got out of Kalamazoo with a win as sloppy as they played. And yeah, this week will be nuts. I'd be curious to know when the last time was that every top 10 team in action was playing another ranked team. Might never have happened.

Games between ranked teams ----------------------------------- (1) Ohio State at (24) Penn State (8 pm, ABC) (2) Boston College at (8) Virginia Tech (7:30 pm Thursday, ESPN) (9) USC at (5) Oregon (3 pm) (6) West Virginia at (25) Rutgers (12 pm, ABC) (18) California at (7) Arizona State (10 pm) (9) Florida vs (20) Georgia (in Jacksonville) (3:30 pm, CBS) Good Top 25 games ----------------------- (11) South Florida at Connecticut (3:30 pm, ABC) (12) Kansas at Texas A&M (7 pm, ESPN2) (15) South Carolina at Tennessee (7:45 pm, ESPN) Nebraska at (17) Texas (3:30 pm, ABC) Top 25 mismatches ---------------------- Iowa State at (13) Missouri (2 pm) Mississippi State at (14) Kentucky (12:30 pm) New Mexico State at (16) Hawaii (12 am) Minnesota at (19) Michigan (3:30 pm, ESPN Classic) (21) Virginia at NC State (4:30 pm, ESPNU) Ole Miss at (23) Auburn (6 pm) Other games of interest --------------------------- Michigan State at Iowa (12 pm, ESPN2) Ball State at Illinois (12 pm, Big 10) Northwestern at Purdue (12 pm, Big 10) Indiana at Wisconsin (12 pm, Big 10) Colorado at Texas Tech (2 pm) FL International at Arkansas (2 pm) Baylor at Kansas State (3:30 pm) UL Monroe at FL Atlantic (4 pm) N. Illinois at Toledo (7 pm) Holy Cross at Bucknell (1 pm) S. Dakota State at UC Davis (5 pm) Youngstown State at N. Iowa (5 pm)

Well, there's only one thing for it, Illinois fans: Bring it on. :)

Sigh, Auburn/LSU is my last hope for entertaining football tonight.

I don't think that Mich guy was out of bounds when he was "roughed".

Ball State pulled off a 27-23 win over WMU in which they led for about 2 of 60 minutes of the game. They took a 20-16 lead at one point that lasted for 2 plays of the next drive and then took the lead for good with about a minute to go. Exciting, though not well-played, game. And to be perfectly fair, the refs set up our game-winning drive by screwing WMU out of a full yard that cost them a 1st down with about 4 1/2 minutes to play, forcing a punt. BSU is now responsible for half of Bill Cubit's 4 home defeats in what is now his 3rd year as Western Michigan coach.

At least in that scenario Aramis would be hustling.

Which reminds me, it came out back in February, but I'm not sure how much it's known nationally - Notre Dame will be wearing throwback green jerseys tomorrow to honor the 30th anniversary of the original green jersey game/1977 national title team. I think it's a stupid idea (and an obvious marketing ploy for Adidas), but the jerseys should look fairly cool I guess. http://www.irishlegends.com/Media/Novphot5.jpg

A rough couple of weeks for that team. I can see the headline now, "USC endures more trouble on plane flight than against Irish"

Which of those three is Joe Buck? Knowledgeable. I figured that was clear enough. (I give him the benefit of the doubt working with that moron they paired him with.)