Offseason Roundtable #2

Programming note: TONIGHT ONLY, a liveblog of Pistons-Heat game five. DO NOT MISS a chance to see someone melt-down in semi-public (again)! MUST CLOSE TONIGHT.

An unsolicited but not unwelcome second offseason roundtable that I am waaaay late to can be found over at Burnt Orange Nation; answers to the questions posed can be found herein.

Which offseason story are you most tired of, and, on the flip side, interested in? (e.g. Reggie Bush's house, Jimmy Clausen, etc.)

I second everyone's Notre Dame fatigue. Buoyed by their almost-win against an almost-great team that fades considerably in the harsh light of things like that game against Fresno State and the Rose Bowl, Notre Dame has the right mix of hot oldness and hot newness to be thrust down the throats of ... er... nevermind. That sentence wasn't going anywhere my mother would approve. The point is: ND accomplished very little a year ago and does not deserve 10% of the tongue-bathing it's getting. Color me confused by the love for Brady Quinn -- what I saw when I watched ND was a spray passer who excelled against terrible defenses (and there were many of those) but confounded by anything with a pulse. The only thing keeping Michigan in the game last year was the fact that the only player on the field who looked worse than Henne was Quinn.

Let me not swing too far in the opposite direction: with Quinn's experience and a host of returning starters, Notre Dame should be in the lead pack of presumed NC contenders going into the most uncertain season in a decade or more. But can we stop pretending ND did much of anything last year?

The flipside: I love me some good scandal and relish the prospect of an apocalyptic swipe at the USC program that would suddenly give Michigan a victory in the '04 Rose Bowl. An implausible dream, but dreams are all we have left after that season.

Your head coach comes down with a mystery illness and has to step aside. You get to hand pick the replacement for the 2006 season. Who gets your vote?

Spurrier. Not only would Spurrier bring his frenetic offensive game, hilarious comments directed at opposing coaches, and visor, but he would probably cause noted anti-luxury-box crusader John Pollack's head to explode, Total Recall-style. I have nearly as much of a mancrush on Spurrier as the lads at EDSBS, and seeing phosphorus and water get together could be... wait for it... explosive. H!IKM*

*(Ha! I kill me!)

Lastly, we'll mix the football and the blogging together here. If you could have anyone switch allegiances and start covering your team, who you gonna pick?

This is actually a difficult question on pure quality grounds, as there are four or five bloggers out there who I count amongst my favorite writers period (If you have a blog and are reading this, yes, you are one of them. Hugz!). Perhaps we can narrow it down based on the specific needs of the Wolverine blogosphere.

• Ian from Sexy Results is out, since he has a near-doppleganger in Johnny from RBUAS, and that's a compliment to both.
• Stranko and Orson of EDSBS and House Rock Built are out, as Michigan bloggers already possess a blog full of hilarity in The MZone.
• Kyle King of Dawg Sports is out, as we would miss out on weeks of strangely entertaining intersectional sniping with Maize 'n' Brew about the proper place to put Northwestern in a totally fictional, totally implausibile total realignment of college football.
• Other Atlanta bloggers are out because Michigan already has one at Braves & Birds.
• Aaaand Syracuse's Matt Glaude (& co) are out, since Michigan already has a stat-obsessed engineery type prone to gibbering in the corner when things don't go his way.

Those blogs disposed of and many other blogs that cover their teams extremely well but would be largely redundant amidst the dozen or so Michi-blogs politely ruled out, there's one that stands out: Sunday Morning Quarterback. Matt Hinton, the pride of Southern Mississippi ever since Brett Favre turned into an ESPN soap opera, has the sort of prose knack that can keep you riveted to a preview about any one of D-IA's scrubbier members -- or, as he endeavors to do, all of them. Keeping up with my Bloglines account is sometimes a daunting task. Sometimes getting through all the information coming into it is a bit of a chore, but even after four days off and a hellacious number of posts to catch up to, I found SMQB worth lingering over. He's the Big Ten Wonk of college football and should be given gifts.