Because there are way too many (less than savory) thoughts going through my head while watching the first 16 minutes of this Michigan-ND game, here’s my attempt at what the kids are calling “liveblogging” for today’s college football action:

-Dear Michigan…Do you remember the back of Darius Walker’s jersey from last year? You must have been awful fond because you keep taking peeks at it today. (Of course, by the time I got over to the computer to enter this, Michigan’s defense has tightened up considerably, and Brady Quinn is doing his best Tyler Palko impression.)

-If Mike Hart is done for the game with that leg injury, I like it opening the door for Kevin Grady, if he can keep it up. He’s shown that he can be a damn good back, and games like this always end up with some kid making a name for themselves. Hopefully Grady can be that kid. It would also be nice to get solid efforts from Lamont and Rollo, but that’s probably way too far to go for the cheap Sanford & Son joke, right?

-Wisconsin is manhandling Temple, 30-0 very early in the second. Given that even with taking the third quarter off, and not gaining six inches at the end of the game, BG still scored 42 points against the Badgers, I think my plans to get back for BG vs. Temple on October 1 are becoming a priority.

12:53pm
-Remember when Marshall left the MAC for “a much better conference” in CUSA? Yeah, how’s that 10:30 am kickoff treating ya?

Apparently not too well, as there’s supposedly been some incidents of fans throwing stuff at the Kansas State bench. Them hillfolk ain’t too keen on gittin’ up ‘fore the sunrise for no football, I reckon.

-Just in time for me to comment on Michigan’s defense tightening up, they prove me wrong. I don’t know if I’d make the Brady Quinn-Tom Brady comparisons just yet, John Saunders, but he apparently did remember how to throw a pass…

1:25
-Chad Henne, meet Tyler Palko. Sheesh!

-Effort of the day so far goes to Marshall. Nice job forcing the fumble late, even better job throwing a pick when you just needed to run to the middle of the field and kick the GW FG.

-Wisconsin now up 58-0 about three and a half minutes into the second half. BG might score 100 on Temple in three weeks.

1:45pm
-If nothing else is going right, I still love me some Tyler Ecker.

-What’s the deal with the influx of college football players with hyphenated last names? How exactly does that work?

1:55pm
-If this is the confidence we’re getting from Michigan near the goal line, I hope they score ALOT of 50 yard touchdowns this year. Shady play calls, horrid reads… if this fourth-and-goal doesn’t go in, someone needs to look up Scott Dreisbach’s number.

…and there it is.

Just because Braylon Edwards had a 3,219 inch vertical and go-go Gadget arms doesn’t mean everyone else does. It’s becoming almost as apparent how big B.E. was to the maize and blue as Jason White was valuable to Oklahoma (down 9-7 to the Tulsa F. Golden Hurricane late in the third…make that up 14-9, but still closer than it should be, obviously).

-“Statistical Anomoly of the Week Award”: Temple now has more first downs than they do total yards of offense.

2:14pm
-Yeah, I’m leaving for work right now, and if Michigan somehow wins this game by the time I get there, there’s no way they deserve it. Of course, ND is about two drives away from totally not deserving it, either, but that’s two more drives than Michigan. (Red Zone? We don’t need no steenkin’ Red Zone!)

Let the Charlie Weis sweatsuit-related fellatio continue… and let it begin with Lou Holtz. (Want Trev Alberts out? Be careful what you wish for.) With full cupping support from Rece Davis.

-And while I’ve never spent a large amount of time around a representative sample of Michigan fans, I always defended them as a little classier than some others. But throwing shit on the field because your team is sucking eggs isn’t cool. It’s just… just… Marshall-ish.

3:59pm
-I stretched out the departure for work long enough to catch Chad Henne not throw his third straight completion to the kid in the fourth row behind the endzone, instead, hitting Mario Manningham for a touchdown, somehow getting the ball back, and some how not converting at all in the eight blocks of static before I could pick the game back up. (Hello, Sirius? Yeah, I’ll be looking for you this week.)

-Iowa State is now up 16-0 on Iowa in the Battle for the Cornhole, or whatever it’s called, and the Hawkeyes look like they might be giving Michigan some company in the 20-ish spot of my BlogPoll this week, now that starting QB Drew Tate is out of the game through multiple faults of his own.

-And look at this one shaping up in Oxford (OH)… Central Michigan pulls to within three of the Miami(OH) RedskinForehawks, a game which could give BG a leg up in the MAC East race even before they beat Ball State 813-6 tonight.

4:20pm
-Yes, Greg, it’s really 4:20.

-Nothing too much new here, though Iowa State is now at halftime, and Miami(OH) has added a field goal. Time for the Chips to break out Craig Fisher!

-Also, this post is now full of trackbacky goodness to MGoBlog.

5:23pm
–Come on and fight, Central, down the field,
Fight for victory!
Fight, fellows, never yield,
We’re with you, oh varsity!
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Onward with banners bold, to our colors we’ll be true
Fight for maroon and gold!
Down the field for CMU!

6:37pm
-Iowa goes down, South Carolina/Georgia looks to be the heavyweight fight of the moment, and NIU’s Joe Novak is dragging his brass eggs back to DeKalb, a 38-37 loser at Northwestern.

Which brings up the age-old debate. Do you always play for the win on the road? Or when you have someone like Garrett Wolfe running for 7 yards a carry is it all right to try your luck in OT?

As much as I can’t stand Mrs. Meyer’s Husband, his play call in the same situation in the same stadium is one of the things I can begrudgingly give him props for.

-Much love to Earlham College… Down 62-55 with 3:04 left, they get a 67 and a 44-yard TD pass to beat Manchester 69-62, the most points ever in a D-III game.

-18 minutes until BG kicks off. 37 minutes until I can exhale at 21-0.

7:06pm
-Uh oh. Three minutes in, and BG is already down 7-0… and the offense already has a three-and-out under their belt. Hold on… TOUCHDOWN FALCONS!

7:46pm
-Yeah, the defense that showed up in Madison last week was no aberration. 14-14 in the first quarter, and if BG doesn’t pull away soon, I’m gonna be alot more nervous than I really should be for a game at Balls Tate.

-At least OSU has come out firing. Uh. Yeah.

8:21pm
-A seven-point lead with a little time left in the second quarter, and that oh-so-powerful third quarter offense gearing up for the Falcons. Now I know how Toledo feels when they head to Muncie. This really can’t be happening.

9:32pm
-Um, Ball State is within 4 and on the 1 yard line. Worse yet, I’m stuck listening to the homerriffic BSU radio feed. I wasn’t GOING to do any heroin tonight, but plans may change.

-From what I’ve seen between stints of working of this OSU-Texas game, the ol’ “K-balls” are getting quite the workout. And that’s about it.

Someone PLEASE tell me this is the defensive game of the century so I can stop scratching my head.

9:39pm
-It’s almost like BG isn’t trying. And not in the good way.

-At least they’re not Union (Ky.)… they lost 82-7 today.

10:10pm, 10:20pm, 10:36pm
Never one to let work get in the way of a good liveblogging, a few nerve-wracking mental notes leaves me with a rundown of the last 45 minutes…

-BG woke the offense up early enough to get the go-ahead score, and the defense (gasp!) comes up with the INT return for six (and only six thanks to shank artist extraordinaire Joe Timchenko) to hold off the Cards 40-31. WHEW!

Now 10 or so days to rework the entire system and not embarrass themselves at Boise State. Omar Jacobs was solid again, 400+ yards, 5 TD’s, but he threw his second INT of the year and lost a fumble for two of BG’s four turnovers (resulting in 24 Balls Tate points).

-And taking a very, very slight edge off the Michigan loss was the Texas comeback win over Ohio State. Though the way things happen at Ohio Stadium, I was totally expecting the near-miss on the goal line at the end was going to lead to a 99 1/2 yard something or other that would make Cal-Stanford look like a 6-yard out and give the Buckeyes the win.

Thankfully, I was wrong. Now if Oklahoma can just find the non-Adrian Peterson part of their offense in time for their trip to the State Fair and get everyone off the trip on Texas’ jock that’s sure to come.

-That said, I’m going to probably go back and forth on whether Texas takes over USC for #1 in my BlogPoll ballot. True, you shouldn’t lose spots for not playing, but when you’re one game into a season where you’re #1 just because you ended there last year (and the year before), it might not be out of the realm of possibility that Texas earned that spot, if just for this week.

10:57pm
-The powers-that-be are letting me watch the LSU-Arizona State game, which is nice. Even better (from a pure excitement standpoint) is that I turned it on in time to see the blocked field goal for a TD, and now a blocked punt for six.

Only problem is that damn name graphic they put up when Erin Andrews comes on. We know who she is, now please stop blocking our view!

Oh, and I think it’s a conspiracy now that the media creates all these disasters just so they can use the word “normalcy”.

Just a thought.