Missed January

The month of January, in summary format: football, work, work, vacation, work. For those of you wondering why the blog has been quiet, now you know.

So two things for you tonight. First, some totally out of the blue MAC trivia. TM either heard this or pointed it out recently: In the past 10 years, seven head coaches from the MAC have been hired as head coaches at BCS conferences ... and none has* been fired (although two are no longer at that school). Can you name them?

* -- Occasional proper grammar use is at the sole discretion of the blog proprietor.

While you think about that, the other thing: I had some rare free time this weekend, so naturally I spent it idly wasting time on my computer. I ended up cleaning up and organizing the many photos scattered throughout multiple folders on my desktop. Some were too damn good to keep to myself:

Perfect juxtaposition of Catholicism and rock and roll that is The Hold Steady. Minneapolis, Minn., July 11, 2009.

My first vanity license plate, from the '59 Chevy I bought in 1961.

A few of you will get this. It was part of an April Fool's joke by ABC.

The most awesome Halloween costume of 2010: a guy in a costume ... wearing a costume. Ricky Stanzi must have cried.

And some were just too damn random:

Efficiency ... or laziness?

This photo is titled "Quigley's friend." I did not take it nor know any context.

Proof that I once did, in fact, vote for Quigley.

Okay, done thinking? Here are the answers:

(year listed is first season at new school)

• Brian Kelly, Central Michigan to Cincinnati in 2007 (then to another BCS school in 2010)
• Butch Jones, Central Michigan to Cincinnati in 2010
• Turner Gill, Buffalo to Kansas in 2010
• Jim Grobe, Ohio to Wake Forest in 2001
• Gary Pinkel, Toledo to Missouri in 2001
• Jerry Kill, Northern Illinois to Minnesota in 2011
• Terry Hoeppner, Fake Miami to Indiana in 2005 (Hoeppner died of brain cancer in 2007.)

An aside: when TM and I were going through this question, we had Mark Dantonio listed. He of course went from Central Mitten to Mitten State...except for the fact that he came from Cincinnati, which despite its lackluster football reputation, is in fact a BCS-level school. Whoops.

Other close but wrong answers: Randy Walker went from Fake Miami to Northwestern in 1999. (He died of a heart attack in 2006.) Urban Meyer went from a MAC school (Bowling Green) to a BCS school (Florida) but there was a non-BCS school in between (Utah). Nick Saban went from Toledo to the Cleveland Browns as defensive coordinator, then to Michigan State. Of course, he has never stayed in one place long enough to get fired.

Ohhh you KNEW this was comin'!