Unverified Voracity: Z Agrees Edition

Anyone not wishing to wade through the Wisconsin preview but in desperate need of Badger news -- and what a strange, finicky person you are -- should know they've lost two players, incoming freshman WR Daven Jones and third-string LB Jammar Crane. Badger Sports characterizes the losses as "one pinprick, one stab wound," with Jones being the stab wound.

Warning: above link contains an awful pun. You have been warned.

More season preview than you can shake a stick at, unless you're like a professional stick-shaker or something. I'm pretty sure I saw the PSSL on ESPN2 some night they could have been broadcasting hockey. Er... digression... what?

Oh. Maize 'n' Brew's Michigan season preview consists of twelve opponent previews of copious length. Vanderbilt is up first.

Dr. Z is indeed a god who strides amongst us. He's crotchety and has no time for any of the things I have no time for; he also was so incensed by the World Cup Final that he wrote a cranky column defending Zidane. At its end:

I'll tell you another thing. I just about had a bellyful of this Balboa guy. First he complains about all the flopping. Then, when France gets away with one to set up Zidane's penalty kick in the first half, he tells us that the guy "did a great job of selling it." Yeah, a great acting job. Accent on great.It's like hearing Balboa congratulate a pickpocket for the deft way he lifted a guy's wallet.

Sweet, sweet validation.

FYQ. An interesting article from the Star-Tribune on the extensive TCF-Minnesota deal that will result in an on-campus, open-air "TCF Stadium" for the university contains what is possibly the understatement of the year:

With few new college football stadiums being built, TCF's pact with the university is likely to remain rare.

"I don't think you'll see a big rush to it," said Jay Lenhardt, manager of sports practices at CSL International, a sports facilities consulting firm with an office in the Twin Cities. Because of traditions at older college football stadiums, Lenhardt added, "it's going to be difficult ... to change the name, for example, from Michigan Stadium to a corporate name."

This is what I think he meant:

"It's going to require wading through a sea of axe-wielding maniacs to change the name of Michigan Stadium."

There's also this weird proviso:

If the school erects a lighted sign on the stadium exterior that says "Home of the Golden Gophers," any nearby sign with the words TCF Bank Stadium must be illuminated "with the same or greater lighting quality and intensity."

Ugh. Anything's better than the Metrodome, but if I was a Minnesota fan the omnipresence of TCF would irritate me to no end. The corporate naming of stadium has always been a mystery to me, as whenever I hear something like "Comerica Park" I make a little note to myself to never, ever bank with Comerica. I can't be alone in this, can I?

Etc.: A Michigan grad wins the Deadspin World Cup pool; mentions EDSBS in victory post; does not mention MGoBlog; sobbing lasts hours.