Unverified Voracity: Blog Bowl Edition

Hail to the Victors of beer pong:

A pair of recent University of Michigan graduates are each $5,000 richer for being the best at a national tournament involving a campus drinking game popular among many college students.

Jason Coben and Nick Velissaris are the champions of the "World Series of Beer Pong," which took place earlier this month near Las Vegas. The two beat out more than 160 other competitors to split the $10,000 grand prize.

Yes, yes, it is getting misty up in here.

That's damn right and we'll do it again. Via Paul Westerdawg comes this little piece of history from the 1922 Michigan-Vanderbilt game:

In the locker room prior to the kickoff, Coach McGugin gave his hopeful pregame inspirational talk. Referring to the Michigan players, McGugin said, "You are going against Yankees, some of whose grandfathers killed your grandfathers in the Civil War." Unknown to the Commodore players was the fact that McGugin's father had been an officer in the Union army.

McGugin continued, "presumably not before said dead grandfathers had the opportunity to sire your fathers, obviously, since this is not a weird Back to the Future-esque incident wherein people screw up their own existence." At that point, one of his players asked "what's Back to the Future?" which cased McGugin to disappear in a puff of logic.*

*TM Douglas Adams.

Kyle... metaphorically.

And we'll conquer you, too. Mayor Kyle King wants Georgia to play Michigan in a titantic battle of... uh... titans. Intriuging. I know that Michigan is looking to play Notre Dame less frequently after the current contract expires in 2010 or whatever and is looking to line up at least one marquee non-conference opponent for years when the Irish are off the schedule, but neither school has shown a tendency to go play roadies anywhere near their prospective opponents: the last time Georgia ventured out of the south to play a game, Dick Clark was busy slaying the tyrannosaurs that threatened his humble fishing village; Michigan hasn't played a non-conference game in the sweltering ex-confederacy since... um? anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Reconstruction? The French and Indian War?

Suffice it to say that such an event is unlikely to occur without a serious kick in the pants from external forces... like a groundswell of public support? Sure! Kyle Wants You(!) to Email Your AD:

write to your athletic director and respectfully request that the two schools schedule one another as soon as possible. It is my hope that the two schools' fan bases will, through the weblogging community, begin a grassroots campaign to get this series on the schedule.

Hell, sounds better than an Eastern/Central/Western trifecta. Count me in. Visit Kyle's place, read his impassioned letter to the AD, and fire one off your ownself. Bill Martin (or at least someone who reads his angry fan mail by proxy) can be reached at wcmartin@umich.edu or mailed for real here:

William C. Martin
Donald R. Shepherd Director of Intercollegiate Athletics
Athletic Department
University of Michigan
1000 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2201

...and they called it the Blog Bowl.

(Also, Kyle's Gameday Drinking Game is not to be missed:

Rule No. 6: Lou Holtz. Anytime Lou Holtz mentions Notre Dame while discussing a game in which Notre Dame is not playing, everyone takes one drink. If he does it twice in the same segment, everyone takes two drinks, and so on until the end of the segment. If you try to speak and you find that you sound like Lou Holtz, stop drinking and have someone call you a cab.

Outstanding.)

Skiier likes beer! Also, puppies cute! Bode Miller said something along the lines of "I drink excessively and once was still smashed from the previous night while attempting to ski; that's why I am bad at the slalom." This caused outrage for some reason... probably because of the children. It's always because of the children. Bill Gifford says "duh, and shut up about it" at Slate.

Miller was forced to apologize for his statements. Meanwhile, Joe Theisman remains unshot and free to roam the streets. What is this country coming to?

Mustache equilibrium? I don't actually suggest reading Tom Kubat's latest masterpiece for the West Lafayette Journal-Courier (single-sentence paragraph count: an astounding 26 of 33... and the seven that have more than one period have two), but in it he asserts that Purdue defensive coordinator Brock Spack has "received an offer to take over in the same capacity at a higher profile Big Ten Conference program."

Now, there are three higher profile Big Ten programs than Purdue: Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. (Okay, perhaps Iowa and Wisconsin are also higher profile of late, but Norm Parker isn't going anywhere and Brett Bielema just hired someone else.) Both Ohio State and Penn State are coming off years wherein their bone-crushing defenses led them to BCS bowl victories. Michigan... isn't. If this article is accurate, the inescapable conclusion is that Michigan is the source of the offer.

Spack then announced that he's staying at Purdue. Despite that, it's interesting in three ways:

• it hammers another nail in Herrmann's coffin,
• it's an indication that Michigan is looking outside the "Michigan Man" etc, etc, for a job as high profile as defensive coordinator, and
• it indicates that English-to-DC may not be the slam dunk everyone says it is.

Caveat: this may be bunk.

What he said. Big Ten Wonk on Michigan's performance against Illinois and what it means as regards that ever-elusive "back" thing:

The test for Michigan, as for any team, is this: they will have arrived when we know in advance how they expect to win. Look at Wisconsin. We say things like: "Wisconsin, as expected, played tough D and took care of the ball." The Wolverines will be "back" when we can finish this sentence in a non-pejorative fashion: "Michigan, as expected, (blank)."

...turned the ball over 25 times: pejorative; next question.

Etc: Dhani Jones reviews "Glory Road" on Page 2; Dave Sez that Jerry Bruckheimer basically made a bunch of stuff up; The OZone has some year end awards featuring our very own Tyler Ecker and his inability to think straight at the end of games.