Friday Roundup

Nothing gets you going on a Friday like seeing Chad Johnson and his grill

A lot of stuff I want to cover today, football and not. Let's start with everyone's favorite and mine football of the college variety. RBUAS is back after disappearing for a while and shows us why my brother kept asking me everyday if Johnny had come back and posted anything new. Michigan Sports Center has posted the two clips of Mike Hart and Chad Henne talking to Cold Pizza as part of their series on Heisman Hopefuls. Also, MGoBlog has its Defensive Recruiting Board Update.

The M Zone has a post up regarding our scheduling of Notre Dame, which I completely agree about. Poster Yost discusses the recent statements by Coach Schembechler who said "We don't need Notre Dame...I would rather have an intersectional game than a midwest game. Play Southern Cal. I don't care. Play Texas... somebody like that. But not Notre Dame."

I had this discussion with one of my friends earlier this week regarding this exact topic and I definitely agree that there needs to be changes to scheduling. But I am not on the same page with Coach Schembechler about dropping Notre Dame completely. I want to find a good balance between Notre Dame and other schools. It's not often that I think we should follow what Ohio State is doing but their future schedules each contain a big time game against a major BCS conference opponenent. After the Buckeyes finish with Texas, they will play home and homes against USC, Miami, Cal, Oklahoma and Virginia Tech.

If I was able to play schedule maker for the future I would like to see these intersectional matchups mixed in with the Notre Dame series. I do not want to see the ND series completely wiped out since it is a historical rivalry but I do want to see some variety in the schedule. Since the Notre Dame game is contracted through 2011 I'll start with 2012 and my schedule would look something like this:

2012 - Texas
2013 - @ Notre Dame
2014 - Georgia
2015 - @ Texas
2016 - Notre Dame
2017 - @ Georgia
2018 - Alabama
2019 - @ Notre Dame
2020 - Nebraska
2021 - @ Alabama
2022 - Notre Dame
2023 - @ Nebraska

Not sure if something like that could actually work but definitely count me among those that want to see some variety. Granted with the addition of the 12th game Michigan could play another big game every season but it just isn't realistic considering winning and money is the name of the game so the 12th game will probably always feature a weak opponent at home.

The Dodgers got back to their winning ways as they got right back on it and won last night 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th by an RBI from Kenny Lofton. That makes 12 out of 13 and the Dodgers now lead the NL West by half a game as the hate San Francisco Giants come to town for a weekend series. The Doyers, as they are known to some locals, are so hot they are even on the front page of ESPN.com right now. Let's keep it up Doyers!

The Main Event of the World Series of Poker ended last night with Jamie Gold, Johnny Chan's former agent taking home the $12 million first prize. Of course ESPN, like the geniuses they are titled the article Gold Rush: Bluff nets Gold $12 million win. Anybody that knows the rules of poker know that you cannot win a hand on a bluff if the other player has called. Once the chips are in the pot there's no way that a bluff can win the hand. Gold did not even bluff on the last hand as he held Q9 and flopped top pair of Queens to his opponent's pocket 10's.

Posting will probably be sporadic from here until the last week of August as I'm preparing to take the GMAT on August 26th. Sure I say that now but something will pop up that I'll have to comment on.