Happy Tuesday everybody, and welcome to your morning Skull Session. I have convinced myself that I have acquired some sort of unearthly power, not unlike that of an X-Man or a creepy kid in a Twilight Zone episode.
For you see my friends, it has become increasingly apparent to me that my mere presence, anywhere in the world, is enough to cause snow to somehow magically appear in times and places where it has been rare or unusual before. Case in point: where I was living in Japan, it had not snowed for five years.
Then, after my triumphant arrival, it snowed the following winter. And then it snowed again.
Now large swaths of southwest Ohio (where I live) find themselves happily digging out from a semi-unseasonably semi-significant snowfall. "Who should we thank for this magnificent gift from the skies?!?" everyone has surely been shouting in unison. "Who or what deserves our eternal gratitude for this ice and cold?"
Yes, tis I! I alone deserve your acclaim! How I do it I do not know, but surely the powers of the Norse god of snow, Ullr, corse through my veins. There can be no other explanation. NO! OTHER! EXPLANATION!
...
Okay maybe climate change or a new ice age or something. Either way: you're welcome.
What The Hell Is Going On In Iowa? This has been a really weird couple of days for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Starting RB Adam Robinson is suspended. WR Derrell Johnson-Koulianos was rung up on drug related charges and kicked off the team. Halfback Brandon Wegher has put in his two weeks' notice and decided to transfer out, which was shortly followed by Jewel Hampton, another halfback, deciding to transfer. The sum total of these defections coupled with the rumors (that I talked about last week) that the coaches have lost the locker room AND the whole team possibly getting drug tested as a result AND the fact that Vegas has now pulled Iowa's bowl game off the betting board suggests some big time stuff going down. Kirk Ferentz will be holding a press conference at 11 ET today to discuss... something... and it is going to be a doozy. Stay tuned.
Your "No Duh" Moment Of The Day The Detroit News furrows their brow and squints hard, trying to comprehend the reasons behind Denard Robinson falling out of the Heisman race, and comes to the conclusion that Michigan losing 5 of their last 7 games didn't help. Also Denard got hurt a ton. Before we applaud their incredible deductive powers, it should also be pointed out that they did an interesting comparison to Denard and Cam Newton. And guess what? Their total yardage numbers are almost exactly the same. As I said back in early October, if the dude could stay upright he'd be in it, and clearly he couldn't. The point I'm making with this? Auburn, with a middling defense, is 12-0 and playing in the National Championship. Michigan has a QB with almost the exact same numbers as Newton, and is sitting at 7-5. Coaching, kids. Coaching.
You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry These two articles just make me madder than I've ever been; they're basically just The Man (Jim Delany and some jackass from Chicago) talking about why the BCS is totally sweet and you need to stop hatin' bro:
Delany shot back, "Two leads to four [teams in a playoff]. Four leads to eight. I don't think there's any way to stop it. So you get to 16, which includes every conference. I think that would be a tremendous disservice to college football."
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to... suffering. By the way, Jim, a 16 team playoff would be awesome. You're wrong.
There's also a lot of stupidity in the Tribune article, but this is maybe the worst bit of it:
The playoff crowd argues the BCS is not a fair way to determine a champion. But would it be fair to Auburn or Oregon — the nation's best teams throughout the season — to have to win four more games to claim a national title?
YES. YES IT WOULD. Not only would it be fair to them, it would be fair to EVERYONE IN THE PLAYOFF. Another argument made here is the old "but someone would be left out of the playoff," as if excluding a team from an 8 or 16 team playoff is somehow worse than excluding an undefeated team from even the possibility of a National Championship. RRRRrggggghhhhhhh! Everything is dumb! Why do we put up with this crap?!? JOHNNY SMASH!!
Thanks Bob Mr. Bob Hunter of the Dispatch has some pretty good info in his articles, and on Friday he posted some interesting things regarding Darrell Hazell and the usual rumblings that go along with our two wunderkind assistant coaches, Fickell and Hazell. More on these guys in the future, but for now it's a story worth following if only to see where some of our possible heirs apparent to Tressel end up if they choose to go somewhere.
