The Futon Report

As has been said before, the false sense of hope is worst in mid-November, when the Falcons have a very reasonable hope of making a championship or bowl game. The easiest way to avoid it is to forget the game was Friday night and not Saturday night. That way all the angst can be doled out in one run-on sentence once one sees the 40-34 loss box score:

HOW ON EARTH DOES A TEAM BLOW A 20 POINT FOURTH QUARTER LEAD AT HOME AND A 14 POINT LEAD WITH THREE MINUTES TO PLAY AND THEN LOSE THE GAME IN DOUBLE OVERTIME AND I HATE LIFE?

Phew. Now we can just worry about Friday’s UT-BG game and be done with it, then move onto basketball season like honorable little soldiers.

(Photo credit: Jetta Fraser/Toledo Blade)

Why did I turn that off? Because it was freaking 30-6, that’s why. Central Michigan had a comfy 24-point lead on the road against a substandard NIU team, so I guess I’ll just see what else is on the … zzzz

[Sussman falls asleep on couch, dreams of riding in a spaceship made of pancakes]

… mmmf …. mmwwa? Let’s see how bad that game turned out [takes sip of morning Pepsi, checks score]

It went to overtime!? Oh, NIU still lost 33-30. But still.

Apparently NIU had to recover two onside kicks to make the comeback happen, and your Special Teams Player of the Week might as well be Mike Sobol, because he recovered both of them.

So CMU stays perfect in the conference, setting up a rather bucknutty showdown at Pleasant Mountain next Wednesday when Ball State shows up.

(Photo Credit: Beck Diefenbach, DeKalb Daily Chronicle. Not the spit-take one. Nickelodeon seems to have filmed that.)

Image by schoschie via FlickrBGSU doesn’t play this week, but if they beat Buffalo and Akron loses somewhere down the line, the Falcons can still win the MAC East. With three conference losses.

Also, mathematically 3-6 Temple can win the division as well, but that’s more funny than it is probable.

See, scenarios like this are why hope springs eternal in dirty puddles. BGSU has shown — of all things — the inability to score even when their defense plays halfway well. Look at four of their losses:

Boise State 20, BGSU 7
EMU 24, BGSU 21
Miami 27, BGSU 20
NIU 16, BGSU 13

This year they are 3-4 when the other team scores under 28 points. Last year that mark was 5-0. I didn’t expect the defense to improve this much, but they’re about 4th or 5th in the conference (out of 13) in many defensive categories. With Sheehan/Turner/Barnes/Partridge, this should’ve resulted to a three-, two- or maybe one-loss season thus far. They’re 5-5.

And even though they’re remarkably disappointing, they’re still in it. This reminds me of 2006, when they broke Temple’s magnificent losing streak, and yet still they were alive in November for a shot at winning the division. Oh, they certainly didn’t. But the same scenario is playing out now.

There are two more games for these guys. Just win ‘em both, put the record at 7-5 and finish strong with a quiet three-game win streak to end the season. That’s all I ask.

Just to see if I have this straight:

◼ Points vs. Eastern Michigan at home in four quarters: 21.
◼ Points vs. Akron in the final quarter: 23.

Oh, and EMU lost to Army, who lost to Temple by 28, who lost to Central Michigan by 10, who lost Dan LeFevour to injury at halftime.

And somewhere NIU beats Miami, WMU trips up Buffalo in overtime, nobody noticed Ohio-Kent State, and I haven’t even mentioned ranked Ball State’s win over Western Kentucky.

Hell, that’s a pretty solid MACSploitation recap if you needed one. Consider my work finished for the weekend. Now to go and rattle off 32 straight live blogs.

Why, hi, everyone. The live blogginess and speed readability, coupled with a couple of hours of actual, honest, Real Job endeavors, it’s finally time to check back in with this here site. What’s in the news? Well, it’s … other sites.

If’n you didn’t notice, the Toledo Free Press up and chucked their old site and overhauled it. A couple thoughts:

• Wordpress? Ha. You can tell it’s a new-age newspaper when they use the same software that powers my blog.
• Look at what you can do on the front page! You can, like, scroll over “sports,” and there’s my name. Pow. Right there with the other experts. I have to say, I’ve never been a rollover item before.
• So, on my new author index, I, um, didn’t write most of that.
• God, I need a new headshot.

Most delightfully, though, is the addition of comments to articles, as evidenced by this weekend’s apology to Eastern Michigan and Ypsilanti, which sure enough irritated some EMU fans. (Ever see EMU smack talk before? It’s FREAKY.) This probes what I’ve thought all along about my TFP columns: there have been countless spiteful and vindictive thoughts from dissatisfied readers that went completely unheard, and I for one now feel deprived of them. Fortunately the right has been wronged, somewhat, and we can all move on in our lives having been enriched with nuggets such as:

I heard that EMU may have burned a jersey in the locker room after the game and at first I thought that was insulting to Bowling Green but after hearing about how negative and unprofessional the press has been towards Eastern Michigan University I wish they had burned the jersey right on the 50 yard line.

Also, look! Stock quotes!

Here’s a team that lost by double digits to FIU. No points against Ball State. And at one point, looked like they might not’ve been able to beat any other teams on their schedule, thus solidifying a one-win season and the ripping up of Tom Amstutz’s business cards.

But then:

Toledo 13, Michigan 10.

Is it okay, fellow BGSU fans, to enjoy this one? Why, yes. Yes it is.

Next week: Watch Toledo lose 61-13 to Central Michigan.

Eastern Michigan 24
Bowling Green 21

The worst part? I can’t make any goddamn EMU jokes for at least, like, a year.

Image by hail2thesuss via FlickrThe G…. Game of the Week? Between two 2-2 teams, an undefeated team trudging along after the horrific Dante Love collision, and WMU trying to improve to 4-1 against Temple, the televised/featured MAC Game of the Week is freaking Eastern Michigan and Northern Illinois? Sure, I know they probably determine these things before they suit up their laces, but how can even in July people in suits look at this game and say, “Yep, EMU and NIU will be the game to watch.” Just because a game ends 6-3 doesn’t mean it will be an exciting showdown between two evenly-matched teams. Gah.

12 noon — NIU (1-2, 0-1) at EMU (1-3, 0-1) ◼ ESPN Game Plan
To echo Norm McDonald, “Happy Birthday, Jesus! Hope you like crap!”

12 noon — Kent St. (1-3) at Ball St. (4-0) ◼ ESPN Game Plan
I still think the Cardinals have a real chance to go undefeated, even without the services of Dante Love. Perhaps they have even more incentive to run the table with their senior on the sidelines cheering them on.

2:00 p.m. — VMI (2-1) at Ohio (0-4) ◼ The hills (because, see, they have eyes)
Boo? Boo Jackson? Dark One? Beelzebub? Chief? McCloud!

2:00 p.m. — WMU (3-1, 1-0) at Temple (1-3, 0-1) ◼ Hell, the NSA has everything monitored, ask them for a copy
Could this be the first ever win for Temple over the Broncos? For the first time, consider it a solid “maybe.”

3:30 p.m. — Cincinnati (2-1) at Akron (2-2) ◼ FSN Ohio
Not a fair fight in football. Yet somehow a fair fight in baseball.

4:00 p.m. — Buffalo (2-2, 1-0) at CMU (2-2, 1-0) ◼ Alternate Dimension ESPN Game Plan
Suddenly CMU doesn’t look like the prohibitive favorite anymore, says Mark Torosian of the Bleacher Report. And out of nowhere … Buffalo kind of does. Ladies and gentlepeople, your Official Non-Official MAC Game of the Week.

4:00 p.m. — BG (1-2) at Wyoming (2-2) ◼ The Mountain
First Boise, Idaho. Now Laramie, Wyoming. If this is BG’s clever way of trying to become a West coast mid-major team, I’m not impressed.

7:00 p.m. — Florida Int’l (0-3) at Toledo (1-2) ◼ BCSN
Glass Bowl, meet Ned. Ned, Glass Bowl.

Perhaps I ought to be grateful that with a 1-2 start, BG is still projected as a bowl team by one guy who works for a major sports news organization. Fair enough. But some things in life just shan’t be lived through again.

After that oh-so-sweet win over the Pittsburgh Wannstedts on Saturday, I figured a couple of Associated Press voters to throw a couple of farthings the Falcons’ way. And sure, ’nuff, it happened. They have 17 votes, putting them 33rd, ahead of Virginia Tech. The people who voted for ‘em?

Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times: 25th
Mike DeArmond, Kansas City Star: 25th
Joe Rexrode, Lansing State Journal: 25th

Michigan. Texas. And Missouri. (And Kansas, kind of!) Anyone else?

Scott Wolf, LA Daily News: 21st

Awright, 21st! That’s five whole poll points! And from a man in California no less! Surely nobody would go above th…

Adam Van Brimmer, Savannah Morning News: 17th

Um. Really? Seventeenth? I mean, hey, big Falcon support here, but 17th? Higher than when they were 8-0 in 2002, when they were 20th? Was Pittsburgh Van Brimmer’s sleeper pick to make a BCS game?

It should also be noted that he put BG ahead of West Virginia (actually 8th), Wisconsin (11th), Arizona State and BYU (15th). I guess the old Daytonian proverb is true. Nothing is more refreshing than to have a team from Ohio do something in Pittsburgh and have it felt in Georgia, and nowhere else.

Breakdown of AP voters ◼ Associated Press