There are roughly 52 Mondays in any given year. The vast majority of these start with an unwelcome alarm clock ear boxing you out of your warm, comfortable bed and into the shower with another mundane week of work or school ahead.
In other words, they're the reason Sunday nights suck so much.
Twelve or 13 times a year, you get lucky and Monday brings an Ohio State football game at the end of the week. At least these Mondays are tolerable.
One particular Monday in late November, however, is peerless, for it is Hate Monday. That Monday is today.
But it's not just any kind of hate. It's a hate forged with respect.
It's a hate that still shudders from the multiple self-inflected wounds of the Cooper years and has heard horror stories from the Fielding Yost era. It's a hate that's all too aware of a Wolverine program that routinely poaches top players from the Buckeye state.
It's a hate that struggles with the fact that one of Woody's own made his way to Ann Arbor and proceeded to hand the old man his most painful defeat before igniting a 10-year war that saved Michigan football from the malaise of the 1960s.
It's a hate that deep down, knows Michigan is a program that does things the right way, but it doesn't care because we hate them for that, too.
Welcome to the best Monday of your year.
AH, COLLEGE. This is a great week to be an Ohio State student if you happen to be one. A Beat Michigan Pep Rally will be held tonight at 7:30pm in the Archie M. Griffin Ballroom at the Ohio Union. Athletes, cheerleaders and TBDBITL will be on hand to set the mood for the week with special guest and friend of the blog Mekka Don.
Known as Emeka Onyejekwe during his school days, Mekka was a preferred walk-on at Ohio State in 1999, playing for a year, before leaving the team to focus on his studies. After picking up a law degree, he decided to give music a try and that seems to be working out pretty well for him. You may have heard "Let's Go (O-H-I-O)" at a home games in the Shoe and if you haven't, you'll have a chance to hear it at hoops games this season.
Tuesday night, of course, brings the incomparable Mirror Lake Jump, one of the best things you can do during your time in Columbus.
Last, but not least, Earle Bruce's Beat Michigan Tailgate will be held Friday at 10:30am at the French Fieldhouse. If you need a photo of the former coach's veins popping out of his neck and forehead, this is your opp.
THIS HAS MADE A LOT OF PEOPLE VERY ANGRY AND HAS BEEN WIDELY REGARDED AS A BAD MOVE. So, yeah, this Maryland and Rutgers to the B1G thing seems real. Maryland's regents will vote on whether to accept an invitation to the Big Ten, perhaps even as you're reading this.
The reviews, so far, have not been great.
We've seen no shortage of awkward marriages in realignment these past two years, but this may be the first move where the few individuals spearheading it may be among the only ones that actually want it to happen.
There isn't a single Big Ten fan base that is excited by the prospect of these schools on their home schedule, especially at the expense of a bigger-name team. If you're playing Maryland that means you're not playing Michigan (or some other name program). At least Nebraska created some excitement.
So you will expand the Big Ten into major Northeast television markets. And you will subject people in Columbus and Minneapolis and East Lansing to shows such as "Greg Schiano: Big Ten Icon" and a debate over whether Juan Dixon or Magic Johnson was a better Big Ten guard.
Ask your neighbor or co-worker. They probably have a similar opinion.
While the prospect of two middling football programs joining a conference already down on its luck is not exactly exciting, I do know one thing and that it's the sports punditry is often wrong. On Friday night, they turned out en masse to tell Twitter that the rumor of Maryland leaving the ACC had absolutely no merit, and it was just a few short months ago that many of them were telling us that West Virginia would win the Big 12 and Texas A&M would struggle in the SEC.
On the surface, this move appears to be about TVs, or rather, more specifically, about the money behind the televisions.
The fact that Delany is moving is enough to cause ripples. Even if the talk does nothing more than create instability in the ACC, putting the rest of the schools into play for the Big Ten and other conferences (you know the SEC's Mike Slive just has to have the last word here), it could lead to a more desirable school reaching out while simultaneously putting the screws to Notre Dame for dissing the conference again.
Predicting the future is inherently difficult. Men have been trying and failing forever. Let's see how this plays out, if in fact it is a thing, and then go from there – especially if talk of smoke surrounding Georgia Tech turns out to be something and there's a mystery 16th team still waiting to be named.
Besides, if the Big Ten adds teams, it gives the league a mulligan on those dreadful division names. That alone may be worth it.
THEY FOUND SEXY IN MADISON AND THEY BROUGHT IT BACK:
No, Andrew Norwell does not want to chop up your entire family. It only appears that way.
[Via @Fragel77]
GRADING URBAN. USA Today asked Urban Meyer's daughter, Nicki, a senior on the Georgia Tech volleyball team, to grade her father's performance with regards to the family contract he signed before returning to coach at Ohio State. The verdict? Dean's list!
He has proved the impossible to be very possible this season. You can win, and you can live a family life when you step out of the office. There is such thing as balance, and it has been working very well.
According to Nicki, he's upholding his end of the agreement and better yet, staying healthy:
Not only do I talk to him before starting my day, but also it is the last thing I do before I go to sleep at night. And there is nothing more comforting than to hear the sheer joy in my dad's voice every time we talk. He loves what he is doing. He loves the people he is around. And most importantly, he is healthy.
There's something about a man going home.
OUR FAVORITE CELTIC. Lost in all the hoopla surrounding Ohio State's overtime win in Madison and news of the Big Ten possibly expanding was the fact that Jared Sullinger recorded his first career NBA double-double Saturday night in a 107-89 Boston win over Toronto. Sully finished with 12 points (on 5-8 shooting) and 11 rebounds in 26 minutes of action.
He followed the dub-dub with a career-high 16 points last night in Detroit.
His play has his teammates excited:
"Sully does small things like rebound the ball, the way he gets guys open," said Kevin Garnett. "Small things that you're probably looking for stat-wise, when you're playing with him and you're his teammate, his dives, his rolls, getting JT (Jason Terry) open looks, little small things that aren't going to show up on your yellow pad, the small things which he does makes us better.
Go, Sully, go.
ETC. Ohio State opened at -4.5 against Michigan, but the line quickly jumped to -5... Dorian Johnson to Pitt (for now)... If you missed it yesterday, we caught up with Matta's latest commitment... Westboro Baptist goes to the Baylor-Kansas State game. Fan proceeds to own them... Oregon's latest unis may be taking things a step too far... Poynter ends its run as ESPN's ombud.
