Saturday, October 31, 2009

Week 8 Review/Week 9 Preview

(Damn I'm late. At least it's up before the 11am games. --ed.)

Week 8 Review: the Cardiac Kids

Location: Notre Dame Stadium. And the car. (I'll explain.)

Games watched: Notre Dame-BC; Rutgers-Army; Tennessee-Alabama (on replay); Iowa-Michigan State (on the radio-oh-oh!); Southern Cal-Oregon State; Arizona State-Stanford (sleepily).

Pick Six: A quiet week, the biggest move being BYU's emasculation by the Horned Frogs. Here's a wagering tip from you to me; never trust Mormons against a horned reptile. Our bottom quintiles officially suck: even with ND moving back in at 25, we have a grand total of one points among our bottom six teams. Four of TM's teams moved up (which is total bullshit because Georgia Tech and Texas both had awesome dominating wins, and neither moved up), and you can guess what that means: TM 51, Quigley 49, MPF 47.

And a late update: In Week 7 of one of my pick 'em games, I got the week's highest score. (My team name is Northern Iowa. The guy who runs the game requires every team be named for a I-AA or lower level school.)

Iowa: We left the stadium and got in the car. After we got out on the interstate, we finally picked up the Michigan State broadcast team out of Detroit. As we drove west, that signal got weaker. We tried WMT out of Cedar Rapids--nothing. Then I remembered WHO out of Des Moines, but couldn't think of the dial location. Now here's proof that advertising works: when you start the online player at WHO's home page, you hear an ad that said, "Hi, this is Bonnie from Van and Bonnie at WHO 1040 for [name of dentist advertising]." So we flip there and we hear Dolph coming in just fine.

For the rest of the drive, it was flipping back and forth every few minutes between the MSU and Iowa broadcasts... we'd lose one, try the other, lose it, rinse/rather/repeat. By the time we got to Lake Shore Drive, Iowa was driving in the red zone and we lost the signal. When we got it back, it was 9-6 Iowa. When we got to the house, MSU ran the hook-and-ladder play. I sprinted into the house, flipped on the TV ... and saw MSU score the touchdown.

Dejected, I went back out to the car. (I had to bring in all the crap I left there when I sprinted inside.) I couldn't watch. I figured whether it was good or bad news, I'd want to hear it from Dolph and Eddie. To my surprise, 1040 was coming in crystal clear, like I was right there in Des Moines. As I packed up the stuff, I listened to that final drive, and the final four plays.



I think I'll always remember running from the parking lot and sprinting towards the apartment, where I found TM jumping up and down out on the sidewalk. Thank you Hawkeyes for these awesome memories. As a bittersweet coda, the next morning I went out to the car ... and all I heard on the radio was static. It was like the night before was all a dream.

Notre Dame: We enjoyed the game. I mean, we enjoyed the outcome. But for Pete's sake, at some point this team is going to have to beat an inferior team by 2+ touchdowns. This going down to the wire crap is not what we were expecting back in August. And still, 57 games into his college coaching career, Charlie Weis' "signature" victory is over ... Navy in (pick a year they went to a bowl).

Anyway, Iowa won, Notre Dame won, Michigan lost. Welcome back my friend:


Week 9 Preview: Back in the High Life Again

Seeing live football games is fun, but it gets tiring. We're going out Friday night so I'm looking forward to a Saturday of sleeping in, Gameday, Iowa at 11am, you know, the flowchart. In the evening we'll head to Steve's for the ND game and a football/Halloween potluck.

On the national scene, I think USC-Quack would be fun to watch, if it were not on at the same time as ND. The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is this weekend, and I'm feeling contrarian. Something about Georgia in this game ... I don't know if I can pick the outright upset, but I think it'll be close (Ed. note: since I wrote this, I did in fact pick Geo. to win). As long as I'm out on limbs, watch for Cuse to scare Cincy, more than they should. I like Tennessee over an erratic South Carolina. Which crappy team will win the Michigan-Illinois game? Can Jim Delany just cancel it?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

well, apparently we are the less crappy team :)

Scott Mortimer said...

Wouldn't it be nice to have picture-in-picture on your radio (ray-DEE-oh, ray-DEE-oh) so you wouldn't have to flip back and forth?

MPF004 said...

83F: When I was a kid, Dad pointed out to me that radio with pictures is called television.