All I know is it's a bad day to be a Husky. The Get Dumped Then Train is sitting at 13-0, and it's not about to stop today — not with The Senator back in the Horseshoe; no sir.
Your slate, in which it's possible to watch 12 hours of solid amateur football:
| TIME (PM ET) | GAME | FAVORITE | TELEVISION |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 | UNLV at MICHIGAN | UM (-33½) | BTN |
| 12:00 | AIR FORCE at No. 4 MICHIGAN STATE | MSU (-25½) | ABC |
| 3:30 | VIRGINIA TECH at PURDUE | VT (-6½) | ESPNU |
| 3:30 | No. 14 GEORGIA TECH at No. 8 NOTRE DAME | GT (-3) | NBC |
| 3:30 | NEBRASKA at MIAMI (FL) | UM (-3) | ABC |
| 6:00 | SOUTH CAROLINA at No. 7 GEORGIA | UGA (-16) | ESPN |
| 7:00 | TEXAS TECH at ARKANSAS | ARK (-12) | ESPN2 |
| 7:30 | CALIFORNIA at TEXAS | CAL (-7) | FOX |
| 8:00 | PITTSBURGH at IOWA | IA (-6) | BTN |
| 8:00 | STANFORD at No. 6 SOUTHERN CAL | USC (-9½) | ABC |
| 9:30 | No. 15 OLE MISS at No. 2 ALBAMA | BAMA (-7) | ESPN |
| 10:30 | No. 19 BYU at No. 10 UCLA | UCLA (-16) | FOXSP1 |
My upset pick actually isn't listed on the above schedule, but it's Illinois over North Carolina (-9). Consider it the Varsity Blues effect.
THE HUSKY DOSSIER. Here's what we know on Northern Illinois, folks:
- Preview.
- Roundtable featuring Birm, Vico, and Mike.
- Mailbag.
- Trailer.
- Coach's Show recap.
- Stopping NIU's top threat, WR Kenny Golladay.
- Game poster.
- Guess NIU's passing yardage and win one of our legendary shirts.
THAT TIME OHIO STATE LOST TO A TEAM CALLED THE ZIPPERS. Imagine the chaos that would reign in Columbus if Ohio State lost to a MAC team. Now multiply that by 10 if it happened to an Ohioan MAC team.
Thankfully Ohio State football wasn't the #brand it is today when it lost to the Buchtel College (Akron) Zippers in 1894.
From BCSN.tv:
A three-games-in-three-days college tournament on the grounds of the 1894 Ohio State Fair and Industrial Exposition in Columbus was designed to introduce the natives to the strange and violent new game.
The opening act featured a thriller between Ohio State and John Heisman’s Buchtel College Zippers, an unheard-of show of sportsmanship, and hundreds of curious but confounded fairgoers.
“The crowd ... was made up almost entirely of people who never saw a football contest before, and the great majority did not know which team was which,” the Columbus Dispatch reported the next day.
“Plainer uniforms and a pennant distinguishing the part of the field belonging to each side would greatly help persons follow the game.”
My first thought was, "That Ohio tournament sounds cool, but I'm thankful to live in an era when Ohio State isn't on par with Denison, Miami, and Akron in football."
But then I read this passage:
Not surprisingly, with the game tied at 6 at halftime, Akron’s star halfback and captain, Frank Fisher, endured what Heisman called a “bad attack of sun-staggers.”
Fisher retreated to the shade beneath a nearby tree, where Ohio State’s captain spotted him.
"He asked, ’Anything the matter with that chap? Can I get you a doctor?“ Heisman said, according to the biography co-authored by John M. Heisman, a Toledo native. “I thanked him, told him the trouble, and said I would keep Frank out of the lineup for the second half.”
Hello, doctor? I'll take one case of the sun-staggers, pronto!
"Did you hear about Jim? He got saucy and knocked over the kid's table at the company picnic!"
"Saucy? No, our poor friend Jim just caught a case of the sun-staggers."
Maybe the late 1800s weren't so bad after all, y'all.
IT'S NOT ABOUT FOOTBALL. The secret that Urban Meyer realized between his time at Florida and his time at Ohio State is that it's not always about football. Work by teams off the field means as much as it does on the field.
From QZ.com (via NorCal Buckeye):
The key component of the Plan to Win is what he has named his Blue-Red-Gold (BRG) incentive system. Three color-coded stages—Blue, Red, and Gold—represent a ladder of privileges climbed by players as they display mature behavior both on the field and off.
[...]
The BRG system is a comprehensive player motivation method that contains a variety of inputs and outcomes. Meyer and his coaches closely monitor player adherence to academic demands and behavioral expectations across all status levels, with meaningful rewards bestowed for appropriate behavior—alongside swift consequences for infractions.
Transitions in status (up or down) are handled by the entire coaching staff, who meet as a group every week to discuss player progress and deliberate possible transitions. When the coaches decide to promote a player, an announcement is made to the entire team in the form of a “graduation ceremony” that recognizes the player’s newfound “status.”
I'm loathe to wish away some of the season, but is there anyway we can just skip to the Michigan State game today?
#PERTINENTWIRE. The Wire is one of the greatest shows in American television history, but apparently all the people who uploaded clips of it to YouTube agreed to make them non-embeddable.
This week's #nonembeddable #pertinent #Wire clip features the newly legitimized crime boss Marlo Stanfield walking away from the life rival Stringer Bell died trying achieve to take back what he always wanted: His corners.
Ohio State is Marlo Stanfield, and Northern Illinois is the chumps standing on the corner.
THOSE WMDs. A GIF of Eagles mascot Swoop attacking Wawa mascot Wally Goose with a box of hoagies... 95 years ago: NFL born in Ohio among cars, beers, and cigars... Japanese women can hire hot men to make them cry... She's 10 years-old and HIV-positive, and doctors are about to tell her the truth... In defense of Hufflepuff... The forefather of cat pics.
