Unverified Voracity 8/22

Hell full of frozen flying pigs: Lloyd Carr opened up practice to the media on Friday, sending local media into a tizzy. The stated reason:

"I want to be popular with all of you," Carr joked Friday.

Good luck with that, Lloyd. Information coming out of the Fort indicates that Brandent Engelmon does appear to be the guy who will start the year at SS. Smart and in the right place at the right time is the rep on Engelmon, music so beautiful to my ears that I wonder if I've died and gone to heaven (quick check: Tressel around? Yep. Okay. Not heaven). Adrian Arrington is the surprising name being thrown out as the #3 wide receiver, though in retrospect he was the guy chosen to not redshirt. Fullback sounds like a bit of a mess. Hopefully Malone will look at the copious non-fullback talent on the roster and decide that lead-blocking is for sissies.

Fifth-year senior Leo Henige appears to have the upper hand at LG. If healthy.

IBFC unverified some voracity of its own in a roundup post that covers a lot of ground that I won't duplicate here. More warranted Matt Hayes bashing can be found. Also a defense of CFN, which I would like to respond to:

But I just love that they believe there is no team, no player and no position that is so irrelevant it isn't worth writing a full-page article about it. Looking for info on the Memphis offensive line? Here you go. How is the North Texas linebacking corps shaping up? Keep an eye on Maurice Holman.

Because this is exactly the kind of thing I hate about CFN. They cover all 100-whatever teams, sure, but the depth of said coverage is strictly kiddie-pool. I try to be a Marinas Trench of Michigan information, an authority in a specialized field. Given what I read at CFN I have my doubts that they know anything not directly listed in a press release. They write one blurb on every starter in the country and then recycle it a hundred different times in various incredibly retarded lists of top this and top that. In the previews I saw not one unit was ranked anything less than a 6 of 10. Literally every unit in the nation is above average. They rank and discuss everything and thus condemn themselves to never really talking about anything.

We're number #4 (again) in the AP Top 25, which has a total of five Boi From Troy-infuriating non-USC first place votes, four for Texas and one for... Louisville? Sweet mother of mercy. And get the rationale behind that first place vote:

Joe Giglio of The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., voted Louisville No. 1 after examining the schedules for all BCS conference teams. The Cardinals moved to the Big East this season.

"“Louisville was the only one that I came up with as going undefeated,"” he said.

I was going to thoroughly smite this person's logic, but Section Six beat me to it... and, quite frankly (HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU), we've got a couple guys in the blogpoll voting Auburn #2 because they "deserve it," so we should attend to our own house before throwing rocks into those of others, no matter how brittle their glass walls. Though I will hurl a couple of well placed ones at ESPN for posting a poll minus two teams but in full possession of not one but two "TEXAS AM"s, as Struggling Joe pointed out.

Speaking of dumb Louisville-related stuff, the Courier-Journal of said city has, uh, let's say jumped the gun:

Bigger than Michigan now?

[Former UM lineman Doug] James wanted no part of Louisville. He signed with Michigan. You could play in Rose Bowls and play for national titles at Michigan. Today you don't have to make many calls to find experts predicting U of L will have a better season than Michigan.

Cute. Call us in, like, 120 years. (And did this guy not check the recruiting out of his own state last year? Top three guys will all don winged helmets this fall.)

What is with Penn State and really, really weird ways to get suspended? First you had the whole EZ Smith shooting hundreds of arrows into a wall thing. Now comes word that three Lions, most prominently sophomore linebacker Dan Connor, are suspended for making prank phone calls to a retired PSU assistant coach. Fanblogs has all the details. Connor's suspension is "indefinite" which is usually code for "until we play someone we can lose to." Since it's Penn State we're talking about here, look for Connor to go against South Florida. (Sorry, 50YL, cheap shot.)

Fanblogs also has a hard hitting expose on Purdue's recent practice popsicle break.

Les Miles, UM Coach Noncandidate. At least if the story excerpted by Paul Westerdawg means what it thinks it means:

Several players said the day [new OK State Coach] Gundy replaced Les Miles as head coach he established guidelines that players attend class, be on time for team meetings, adhere to workout routines, represent the program well and play hard."

Duuuuude.

Example #3,890 of "Blogs Will Change The World" can be found over at Blog Maverick, which is Mavs owner Mark Cuban's pale mgoblog imitation (just kidding, Mark, please don't put a hit out on me). He's wrapped up in some boring business thing and was interviewed over email about it. The resulting New York Times headline:

Mark Cuban Is Mad (Again). But Why?

The article portrays Cuban as really, really mad. Cuban responds by reprinting the entire email exchange he had with this NYT guy on Blog Maverick. The verdict? Busted. Totally. Here's a representative sample of Cuban's responses:

1) Clearly the sale price of register.com was lower than you and many other investors - some who may have followed your lead into the stock - believed the company would be sold for. Why did you expect it to be sold for so much more?

Its worth much more. A simple analysis to compare it to comparable companies show the expenses clearly out of whack.

2) Are you surprised the Yahoos and Googles of the world never bid?

Not at all. Its not their business. Register.com has a legacy business to build on and cash flow to return to investors if it gets its expenses in line. Thats not the type of business they go after.

3) If you think it's such an undervalued business, why didn't you make
a bid yourself?

Im not in a position to run the company. My goal was to work with the new board that would have been voted in during the next shareholder meeting in a couple weeks to help the company

4) Do you think the auction was somehow rigged?

Rigged ? I dont know if it was rigged, but i think the board definitely incented themselves to sell the company. There is so little board and management ownership( the only board member with substantial ownership filed a proxy leaning against the deal ) that their greatest reward came from change of control bonuses they gave themselves. Plus I think much of the board just wants out.

Thats not conducive for doing whats best for the company.

And here's the intro to the article:

MARK CUBAN, the entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, has a reputation for screaming like a deranged fan from the sidelines during games. He has been fined more than $1 million by the National Basketball Association for his antics since he bought the team five years ago.

Now, Mr. Cuban, who became a billionaire by selling Broadcasting.com to Yahoo in 1999, has focused his infamous bark on a corporate boardroom. The target of his anger is the board of a small Internet company called Register.com, which sells domain names (for example, yourcompany.com) to people and small businesses. He may deserve the Wall Street equivalent of a technical foul for his latest outburst.

SWEET FANCY MOSES! I was literally LOL at that. OMG. O. M. G.

The moral: keep your magic spinny device at home when you're dealing with a public figure with his own media platform.

And, finally... There's a new Soonerfark Internet hero. Check him out with the Ambiguously Gay Ohio State Linebacking Corps:

I regret to inform you that disco is dead.