Notes of interest, also pretty pictures

Mario Manningham gets high praise from the Mahoning Valley's First Online Newspaper. Yow! Harding's coach on Racoon Suit Mario: "Mario's high school career is like one giant highlight reel." Sweet.

Braylon Edwards keeps talking, and people keep writing down what he says and putting it on the internet (Annoying Reg). No mentions of Super Tecmo Bowl in this one, though.

The 12th game remains a mystery wrapped in some bacon, according to the Ann Arbor News. Will it happen? (Duh.) Who will it be against? (Not USC.) Are we merging the MAC and Big Ten into one giant mediocreleague? mgoblog is fine with opening up the season against Eastern or Western or whoever but as much as I love paying a vast amount of money to watch a game that's never really in doubt, I'd like it to be a once-yearly thing. I don't really blame the school, though, as college football is currently constructed to reward not losing instead of beating someone worthwhile. As much as I dislike the BCS, if someone had to be left out of the championship game last year, it definitely should have been Auburn. The Tigers played Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Monroe, and The Citadel out of conference last year. But if, say, Oklahoma (OOC: Oregon, a good BGSU squad, and Houston) had played a top-25 team instead of Houston and lost, they would have been out of the NC picture entirely despite proving themselves to not be giant wusses. mgoblog's has complained about this before and will definitely do so again, so I shall spare the indignation for another day.

(HT: Cutter on TheVictors)

Go Blue Wolverine has usefully compiled a "consensus" top 25 based on all the preseason magazines' and internet pundits' preliminary ballots. Big Ten breakdown: OSU #4, Michigan #5, Iowa #6, Purdue #19, Wisconsin #27, Minnesota #30, and somebody got drunk and gave Penn State a single vote at #25.

Quick mgoblog assessment: Purdue, Minnesota underrated, Iowa and OSU overrated, Michigan, eh... I think about right. Wisconsin has no business being on the poll.

Oh, yeah: not one vote for Notre Dame. And Boise State is [sarcasm]criminally underrated[/sarcasm] at 20! Why, they have an offense that's totally cool and they beat Tulsa by three last year! How can the media be so blind?

Lloyd Carr's annual Car Wash For Kids was yesterday, and photos were taken:

OMG Jennie Ritter dyed her hair!



OMG Gabe Watson washed a car!



(Gabe is on the left, by the way. You can tell because the other one has a Chevy logo on it.)

"Mean" Eugene Germany: on campus, participating in team activities, wearing shoes that are white as hell.



And is there any chance this little incident didn't end with a sharp punch on the arm?