Andy

Ugh. Jacque hit it hard.

What a fantastic job by DeRosa.

<3 DeRosa

I'm not going to say DLee was wrong to swing at that pitch, but at 2-0 with the bases chucked, I'm really surprised he did.

Yes. Followed immediately by Houston winning something like 75 out of 77 to end the year and win the wild card from the Cubs.

ND is in the Big East in almost every sport besides football. To put them in the Big Ten is completely and totally undoable at this point as long as the other teams are in the Big East (yet another thing the "ND shouldn't be independent" crowd overlooks when discussing this issue).

I'm fine with WCFB, but I'd prefer college FB discussion remain here (as it seems to be doing).

Well, you certainly seemed to say it wasn't the biggest in your original post. I don't know if it's Scarlett Johansson bigger, but it's definitely bigger. Regardless of where the viewers come from, it still gets the most viewers. Edit: I'll also add that maybe it doesn't really even matter anymore, since all the BCS games payout the same. (Though it's still much easier for Michigan to get to the BCS out of the Big Ten than it is for LSU out of the SEC.) Of course, that fact alone may make Notre Dame the best job: it's easiest for them to get to the BCS, then they don't have to split the $17 million. Notre Dame doesn't get $17 million. They get $4.5. I actually didn't know that. Thanks. That amount was "renegotiated" by Notre Dame's completely and totally incompetent and idiotic athletic director Kevin White. That man is going to mess up ND football, I just know it.

How the hell are we in first? :D

Yeah, it does. No it doesn't. The comment "Yeah, it does" only makes you wrong. They were the best team in the nation. They also lost two games, one of them a completely inexcusable loss to Oregon State. They did not and should not have gotten a shot at the national title. Again this isn't true. You've guys convinced yourself of an absurd lie. You're over emphasizing Ws and Ls which makes most polls a complete joke. You don't do it to nearly the same degree in baseball. If a team goes 30-20 over the first 50 games it does not make them a better team than the team that went 25-25 over the first 50 games. You're right. I'm overemphasizing Ws and Ls. You know, I bet there's a 4-8 team somewhere that outscored their opponents for the year - let's give them a bite of the apple.

Yeah, it does. No it doesn't. The comment "Yeah, it does" only makes you wrong. They were the best team in the nation. They also lost two games, one of them a completely inexcusable loss to Oregon State and the other a loss to a team that lost 5 games. They did not and should not have gotten a shot at the national title.

The Unnatural gets the golden sombrero. It's a good day. Let's go Pirates.

I really hope we can win this one and then bury these guys this weekend. They've been in the race way too damn long.

No Henne next week. Ryan Mallett will start. When I said Clausen and Mallett would be battling against each other for years to come, I didn't expect the first one to be five months later.

This game is soap dropping sweet.

Why in the eff is Cliff batting ahead of Ramirez? Actually, why in the eff is Cliff even playing?

Link

How the hell are we only 1 game out of first?

Unthinkable as it may be, I think I am more excited for BSU than Notre Dame this weekend. The Cards plastered Eastern Mich. last weekend, have an important and maybe even winnable game against Navy to possibly start 2-1, and ND is becoming a nonentity to me. Hopefully Charlie does to Jimmy what he should've done from the beginning last week and allow him to throw downfield.

Let's say the 6 BCS conference winners go. 2 spots left. Not a chance in horse hockey would the BE get one of the 2 remaining spots. That gives the SEC, Big 10 or 12 another team. Last year a 10-2 Rutgers or WV wouldn't have been seriously considered. The last 2 would have been either Michigan, Texas or LSU. Why, they travel. Or, it could've been that Michigan only had one loss and LSU played an absolutely murderous schedule. I'll give you Texas to some extent, that was mostly poll inertia.

WMU is supposed to be (for whatever it's worth) the best team in the MAC, so I'd expect them to put up a fight. Then again they lost to IU at home yesterday.

I'm impressed by both teams so far.

ND's juniors currently contributing: David Bruton - starting FS Paul Duncan - starting LT (you might recognize him as the guy who was committing holds and false starts all over the place last night) David Grimes - starting WR DJ Hord - backup WR Pat Kuntz - backup DT Kyle McCarthy - backup FS Asaph Schwapp - FB Michael Turkovich - G End of list. Charlie won with Ty's recruits - what was Ty's record with them again? His last two years, partly assembled with his classes, was 11-13 if you don't count the ass kicking in the Insight Bowl that he didn't coach. Darius Walker was not the featured back in 2004 because Ryan Grant was just so good. Jeff Samardzija caught like seven passes in two years under Willingham. Most of the decent players on the team now that Ty recruited never saw the field with him even though they were no worse than the idiots who were playing.

Games between ranked teams ----------------------------------- (1) USC at (14) Nebraska (8 pm, ABC) (22) Tennessee at (5) Florida (3:30 pm, CBS) (21) Boston College at (15) Georgia Tech (8 pm, ESPN2) Good Top 25 games ----------------------- (4) West Virginia at Maryland (7:30 pm Thursday, ESPN) (10) Ohio State at Washington (3:30 pm, ESPN) (16) Arkansas at Alabama (6:45 pm, ESPN) Fresno State at (19) Oregon (7 pm) (24) Hawaii at UNLV (9:30 pm) Top 25 mismatches ---------------------- Mid Tenn State at (2) LSU (8 pm) Utah State at (3) Oklahoma (3:30 pm) (6) Texas at C. Florida (3:30 pm, ESPN2) The Citadel at (7) Wisconsin (12 pm, Big 10) Louisiana Tech at (8) California (6:30 pm) (9) Louisville at Kentucky (6:30 pm, ESPN Classic) (11) UCLA at Utah (5 pm) Buffalo at (12) Penn State (12 pm, Big 10) Norfolk State at (13) Rutgers (3:30 pm) S.C. State at (17) South Carolina (7 pm) Ohio at (18) Virginia Tech (1:30 pm, ESPN360) Furman at (20) Clemson (1 pm) W. Carolina at (23) Georgia (1 pm) UL Monroe at (25) Texas A&M (7 pm) Other games of interest --------------------------- Pittsburgh at Michigan State (12 pm, ESPN) C. Michigan at Purdue (12 pm, ESPN2) Illinois at Syracuse (12 pm, ESPNU) Akron at Indiana (12 pm, Big 10) E. Michigan at N. Illinois (12 pm) Iowa at Iowa State (1:30 pm) W. Michigan at Missouri (2 pm) Notre Dame at Michigan (3:30 pm, ABC) Ball State at Navy (5 pm, CSTV) Ole Miss at Vanderbilt (7 pm) Toledo at Kansas (7 pm) Jacksonville State at Memphis (8 pm) Duke at Northwestern (8 pm, Big 10) Florida State at Colorado (10 pm, ESPN) N. Iowa at South Dakota State (8 pm) S. Illinois at S. Utah (8 pm) UC Davis at E. Washington (9 pm)

I suspect the genius's record will be close to the same as his predecessor's after three seasons. The difference is he will do it with flair and a couple of top 5 recuriting classes. Anyone even MENTION Ty Willingham and I'll punch them in the face. Do you know the extent of Notre Dame's senior class helping the team right now? Junior Jabbie - backup RB who's playing like 5 plays a game right now Joe Brockington - starting LB Maurice Crum - starting LB Ambrose Wooden - nickelback (who blows chunks BTW) Geoff Price - punter That's IT. Weis is working with a bunch of 20 year olds out there. The junior class is hardly any better. And that's because Willingham was too damn busy golfing to bother recruiting his last two offseasons as the coach. And his 2002 team was the luckiest in the history of sports as well as having a very good upperclassman group because Bob Davie actually didn't suck at recruiting. I swear, this is what I freaking hate about this crap. We start 0-2, get soundly beaten by two teams that should probably finish top 15 in the country, and everyone starts calling for the idiot coach who came before. This mess is still Ty's fault, and it will be until at least 2008. Derwood, Clausen's cockiness is a little thing called leadership. I don't know what you saw, but I don't remember seeing any mouth-running other than talking to his own team in the huddle. And yes, Charlie's playcalling was abysmal. We would have had a chance in the game if he'd taken the diapers off Jimmy sooner, because once he did was the only time we moved the ball all night. And Austin Scott was little but the beneficiary of a tired defense. What did ND's offense have, like, 6 three and outs in a row? They were beat by that time, and that's why Scott busted loose.