Just The Thought Of It

"What should I write about?"

"You should write about why you've been so mean to me lately," she said.

It's true. I have been mean to my girlfriend lately. Just yesterday, I snapped at her for some unknown reason. I was sitting at the computer, searching for a song on 97.1 The Drive's website. I was scrolling through their playlist, trying to find the song that had been playing on the radio ten minutes ago during our drive home. I skipped from song to song and was having terrible luck. Suddenly, I turned around and there she was -- standing over me, looking down. My girlfriend appeared to -- No -- she wanted to hurt me. But why?

"What the hell are you doing?" I snapped.

Blank stare. Thought bubble: I happen to be standing behind you at the moment. Is there a problem? Would you like me to step six inches to the left or right. Would that make you feel more comfortable?


"Why are you looking right over me like that?"

As is the custom when I'm acting stupid, she simply turned around and left the room. I sat there wondering  why her standing behind me triggered such an emotional response. My heart was beating fast, and the edge of my forehead began to sweat a little. Some time later I apologized for being an idiot and asked her what I should write about. I ask this from time to time in order to stave off the ideas, or more aptly put, the half-formed ideas swirling around my head. Rather than try to grab one and run with it, I find it easier to have someone else narrow my search, and provide direction. Kind of the columnist's equivalent of writing a column in response to someone else's column.

"You should write about why you've been so mean to me lately," she said.

And that's how we got here.

Naturally, I've been thinking about college football a lot, more specifically, the log jam of undefeated teams atop the rankings and their National Title implications. Here they are: Kansas State and Houston (LOL), Stanford and Clemson (bless them, but they are going to need many, many things beyond their control to break in their favor), and LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Boise State, and Wisconsin. The last six teams are who I'm most concerned with.

Two weeks from Saturday, LSU and Alabama will battle for the privilege of representing the greatest thing to happen to college football since college football itself. A month later, Oklahoma will visit Oklahoma State and engage in what will be the last time the state of Oklahoma will exist until next September. Boise and Wisconsin will continue to hack away at their Grade D meat schedules. There's really only three ways this can end:

1) Winner of LSU-Alabama meets winner of Oklahoma-Oklahoma State in the National Championship. If you have no rooting interest in any of the above teams, this is what you want.
2) Three of the above teams end up losing a game, Wisconsin goes undefeated, cuts in front of undefeated Boise in the National Title line, and everyone tries to figure out what just happened. It'll be a cold day...
3) All four teams lose, Wisconsin and Boise run the table and meet in the lowest rated BCS Championship game ever. We're going streaking.

I've resigned myself to the fact the first scenario is going to happen. So the question, for me, becomes: Does Wisconsin lose a game at some point and eliminate themselves from contention, or is there one of those strange situations we've seen twice in the last ten years, where three automatic qualifiers go undefeated and the computers determine which two are most deserving? The latter would suit Boise. They've went undefeated four times this decade and passed over in favor of automatic qualifiers. The difference is the last two years, they've been ranked highly in the preseason poll, giving them more clout within the BCS formula. Still, it's going to happen again. Boise will go undefeated and finish the year 3rd or 4th in the BCS.

But what about Wisconsin? My team. I refuse to believe the BCS Gods? would be so cruel as to let them go undefeated and still finish 3rd. They don't deserve that. Wisconsin is doing what they always do: scheduling a Charmin-soft non-conference schedule and taking advantage of a down B1G. This year they just happened to fall into a really good quarterback. So my karmic-influenced logic goes: If undefeated, Wisconsin will be in the BCS Title game. The BCS Title game will not feature Wisconsin. Therefore, Wisconsin will not go undefeated. I realize this is not a valid argument, but it's been five years since I took that one Logic class, and I think you get my point.    

* * * 

I've been having a reoccurring nightmare. I'm living out of a tent in Fresno, California. My possessions consist of a scratched-up lighter with no lighter fluid, a red (possibly Fresno State) XXL sweater, and a deflated "Happy Birthday" balloon. I keep to myself mostly, afraid of the crack, the crackheads, and people in general. I try to fall asleep but never can, the people can be quite loud when they want to be, which is always. I'm lying on my stomach trying to fall asleep, when I here a knock on the tent. This is a dream, so the knock on the tent sounds like a knock on the door. 

"Go away," I yell. "There's nothing for you here."

My response elicits even more powerful knocks. I turn around to yell again and I see this man, overlooking me.

I jump back, but I'm trapped in a tent. He says nothing and sticks out his giant right arm in my direction. He seems to be suggesting I should grab his hand and follow him, so I do. We exit the tent into a colorful land of rainbows and waterfalls. This man is now stark naked, wearing only his helmet. A large emperor's chair appears and he sits down. A 32' non-HD TV appears along with a VHS player. The man stands back up, pops in a video, picks me up and places me gently on his lap. The video begins and the man explains to me that this naughty little girl has ran away from home and is seeking refuge, but mostly a warm bubble bath.  Luckily, the butcher, who lives alone and sports a handle-bar mustache has offered to help. He runs the bath water.

The man continues to pet my head and fast-forwards to last year's Wisconsin-Michigan State game. There's Keshawn Martin returning a punt 74 yards for a touchdown. There's John Clay, stoned at the line of scrimmage, and Scott Tolzien throwing another incompletion. There's Kirk Cousins completing the 4th and 1 TD pass to BJ Cunningham to ice the game. I look down dejected as this man continues to pet my head. Things become a bit hazy after this. Then I wake up.

"You should write about why you've been so mean to me lately," she said.

Well, there's the answer. The unsuspected sight of my towering girlfriend transported me back to my nightmare encounter with Sparty. The Michigan State game is this weekend and the circumstances are similar to last year's. Wisconsin taking advantage of a mediocre schedule, Michigan State at home coming off an emotional win. If Wisconsin is destined to lose a game this year, this will be the game. Just the thought of it makes me uncomfortable, and apologetic for my mood swings.   

College Football Week 1 - Wisconsin vs. UNLV

Over the last few days, I've had some computer "issues," to say the least. I was planning on writing about a bunch of my thoughts on the first week of college football action, as well as a separate post about my alma mater, the Wisconsin Badgers. The Badgers post will be a weekly thing, just like I've been doing with Tottenham.
Since I'm kind of late, I'm going to condense this post to a few quick thoughts about about the first week of college football, with an emphasis on the Wisconsin game.

- Denard Robinson looks like a budding star in Rich Rodriguez's offense. However, if he doesn't learn to slide or lower his should and absorb hits, he'll be injured by the sixth week of the season.
- Florida will solve their issues under center, but expect three to four losses from them this year. And what was up with the lack of emotion from Urban Meyer on the sidelines? Is he just trying to keep his blood pressure low early in the season? Or possibly experiencing post-Tebow break up depression?
- I didn't watch that Oregon game, but any time a team wins 72-0, they're trying to send a message that they deserve to be discussed with the nation's elite.
- Look for TCU to deliver their second straight undefeated regular season after defeating Oregon State's high powered offense. TCU's biggest obstacle to perfection will be on November 6th, when they visit Utah.
- Jacksonville State true freshman quarterback Coty Blanchard's perfect 30 yard strike to Kevyn Cooper on 4th and 15 in double overtime and the two point conversion that followed will go down as a top 10 moment of the 2010-11 college football season.

Initially, I didn't know how to feel about a Badger game broadcasted on Versus. To my knowledge, Versus only broadcasts hockey and auto racing. Before the game, they were showing former college football sideline reporter Jack Arute cheesing it up with a member of a pit crew, and at that point, it was safe to say that I was worried about the quality of this broadcast.
My fears were confirmed when the announcers opened the broadcast yelling. They continued yelling well into the first quarter. I understand, they're unknown announcers and are trying to make a name for themselves. Everything they've been taught about announcing is that they have to sound passionate and exciting, and they took it over the top a little. Fortunately, as the game wore on, I either suffered a slight hearing loss and became accustomed to them, or they toned it down.
Wisconsin's first possession of the game displayed the type of football they'll be looking to play all season. Run the ball, control time of possession, and wear the defense down. They did all of that en route to the first touchdown of the game.
While it's still early to speculate, it's not a stretch to say that the Badgers run game could be second in the nation next to Alabama's. They have John Clay (who is looking more and more like Ron Dayne) to pound the ball on first to third down, Montee Ball can also run between the tackles and is a better receiver out of the backfield than Clay. Add in the speed of freshman James White, and you have 266 rushing yards, and one of the most versatile backfields in college football. Not to mention, an NFL-sized offensive line blocking for them.
When you have a dominant running game going up against an overmatched defense, the passing game tends to be underused. Such was the case in Las Vegas.
I've always thought quarterback Scott Tolzien is underrated. Despite his size, he has a surprisingly strong and accurate arm. He also has a few speedy receivers to work with that will allow them to run a barrage of reverses, slants, and go routes to keep defenses on their toes.
Wisconsin has a legitimate shot at the Rose Bowl this year. There's only two things I think that could possibly hold them back.
1) Turnovers. We saw this in the UNLV game. Two turnovers led to 14 points. Wisconsin was up by only 3 at halftime despite dominating the game. The first turnover was a pick 6 from Tolzien, and the second was a fumble in the red zone from Nick Toon that UNLV returned 82 yards to set up a touchdown pass. In Big Ten play, these type of turnovers will cost them games.
2) The Secondary. I'm really worried about this secondary. Thankfully, the front 7 is excellent and should get plenty of pressure over the course of the season. They're going to need to because Wisconsin's defensive backs won't be successful out on an island for long. Our safeties aren't exactly stellar either. Jay Valai is a big hitter that can stop the run, but his coverage skills leave something to be desired. Aaron Henry is playing safety because he failed as a defensive back.
Overall, it was a good first game. I look for Wisconsin to limit their turnovers and get tight end Lance Kendricks more involved in the offense next week.