An imaginary conversation that may yet well have happened

"My Venetian Snares CD is scratched."

"How can you tell?"

Michigan to BCS Checklist -- Results

So, how'd the Wolverines fare at watching TV today?

• Houston vs. Southern Mississippi — SUCCESS! Houston battled back with an amazing last-minute drive to lose by only 21 points. Coach Sumlin's cottage has a leaky roof and the lawn smells like skunk pee.
• TCU vs. UNLV — FAILURE! Gary Patterson is a smart man, too smart to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a little house that he'll only get to use a month or two out of the year. UNLV is not very good.
• Kansas State vs. Iowa State — FAILURE! Iowa State came pretty close to pulling another upset. Oh, well.
• Georgia vs. LSU — SUCCESS! Georgia keep their position because they only got blown out in one half. But honestly... no.
• Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State — Success? Oklahoma lost by 34 points today to a team other than LSU. They might hold enough of a lead over Michigan in the computer rankings to stay in front, but I could see them potentially crashing hard enough in the polls that the computers wouldn't be able to save them. We won't know until tomorrow.
• Baylor vs. Texas — I'm gonna go ahead and call this one success even though Baylor is undoubtedly moving ahead of Michigan because I didn't want Texas to win it.
• BONUS ROUND: Clemson vs. Virginia Tech — Bonus potential failure! Clemson beat Virginia Tech even harder than Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma. I don't think Virginia Tech is going to fall past Michigan, but it is remotely possible for Clemson to jump into the Real BCS Teams Club.
• Wisconsin vs. Michigan State — I think they postponed this game.

Tallying things up, it looks like three teams (I assume that either Wisconsin or Michigan State will fall after the game is rescheduled) are likely to fall past Michigan and one will jump ahead of them. It is possible for one more team to slip ahead of them, but there is also an outside chance of another team sliding behind. My expectation, therefore, is that they will move to at least 14th, enough for Brady Hoke to get his next crate of pizzas delivered to Pasadena. This is a good thing because Michigan State is too good this year to deserve playing in the Insight Bowl should they lose to Wisconsin in the eventual Big Ten Championship Game, which I am sure they will be playing as soon as possible.

I am going to go be sad now.

Michigan to BCS Checklist

I think most everyone has agreed that if the University of Michigan is able to break into the top 14 of the BCS rankings, they will unquestionably be selected as an at-large competitor in a BCS bowl. However, up until today, it has not been certain whether they will be able to ascend two places in the rankings in order to do that.

Based on what I have seen from watching the Southern Miss.-Houston game so far, I'm starting to think Michigan find themselves in the top 12 tomorrow afternoon simply by not having a football game today in which to kill themselves. Therefore, I've prepared a checklist of things that can/will propel them upward today.

Before I begin, I would like to note that I am still a Michigan State fan; however, I am one of those weird fans who believes that it is good for Michigan to succeed as long as they don't take championships away from us and we crush them in our annual matchup. It boosts our computer rankings, you see (and brings millions of dollars in shared revenue into the Big Ten). I still experience some cognitive dissonance in saying positive things about that school off to the southeast, though, so my language in this post may be a little... more direct than usual.

• Houston is currently failing to execute to an even greater extent than Southern Miss., 42-21. This game has been fiercely compelling in the same way as a coal train running off the rails and crashing into a burning distillery. It was among the most certain games coming into the weekend, and it instead seems the rumors* that Kevin Sumlin had been tricked into buying a timeshare on Herpaderp Island may have been true after all. Anyway, if Houston continues to lose, this game will be a huge boon to the Home of the Hash Bash. Not only is it likely to rocket Houston's BCS rankings into the ground faster than Duck Dodgers with the silly thing in reverse, it has the potential to block any non-automatically-qualifying teams from getting a BCS bid if TCU fails to impress today. I know I said earlier in this post that Michigan will be the first at-large pick if they are available, and I still believe that, but this would buy them insurance.
• TCU is only up 7-3 on UNLV — which is an anagram for "LUVN" — which proves that I am still twelve years old emotionally. TCU has the MWC championship locked down, so they're the last team in position to grab the LOL Big East non-AQ bid. If it turns out that Gary Patterson is embroiled in the Herpaderp scandal, another spot may open up for Oklahoma/K-State/Boise.
• Speaking of K-State, they're only up by 4 on Iowa State at the half. Yes, that Iowa State.
• If Georgia wins puts up a good fight against LSU, they may not fall far enough in the polls for Michigan to jump them. If they come out of the game looking for a change of pants, they could be out of the way.
• I don't think Oklahoma will fall behind Michigan even if they lose today, but if they come out of Bedlam wishing they were wearing Georgia's pants instead...
• One of the Scramblin' Weasels' worries coming into today was that Baylor would very likely leapfrog them by defeating the University of Occasional Capitalization. If Baylor doesn't win... actually, I want Baylor to win this game, so let's hope the other stuff in those post also happens and it doesn't matter.
• Michigan is currently 16th in the BCS. Wisconsin is 15th. They only lead by .0226 points. GO STATE.

*I may have started these rumors just now.

Win or lose (MSU-UW 2011-12-03)

Win

Plane tickets to Pasadena.

Lose

No plane tickets to Pasadena.

Either Way

Go Green.

Last Week

I did not get a post up because I had family visiting and I physically went to the Northwestern game. It rained a lot.

If we had lost, I would have had to listen to this.