The Futon Report

But this is pretty awesome too.

Whee! It’s college football time, which means the Mid-American Conference is ready to lose all their nonconference matchups in the first week!

Take last night, for example:

Central Michigan 31, Eastern Illinois 12
Well, okay, that’s the conference champion and it’s against a FCS team, so you’re bound to have a win. Certainly some of the worse teams will…

Ball State 48, Northeastern 14
…well, sure, but Ball State was in a bowl. Certainly one of the pissbuckets of the MAC didn’t fare as…

Eastern Michigan 52, Indiana State 0
…The hell? Okay, still. These are just FCS teams. Against other FBS schools, certainly they were blown out at…

Buffalo 42, UTEP 17
!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!

Vanderbilt 34, Miami U. 13
Ah, there it is. God, I was scared for a second.

Football is football, and the conference is 4-1 to start the year. Call it the pinnacle of the year, because tomorrow’s games might not yield the delighted results. Fortunately you don’t get any of these channels:

Actually Started A Couple of Minutes Ago, I Just Learned

Temple at Army ◼ ESPN Classic
All I can say is: that is without question the right channel to feature this game.

Saturday, August 30

12 noon — Bowling Green at #25 Pittsburgh ◼ ESPNU
Kirk Herbstreit said a couple hours ago that this is a trap game for Pitt. Assuming that BGSU never plays defense and always has the ball, he will be correct.

12 noon — Akron at #13 Wisconsin ◼ BTN
I have no doubt the Zips can score a touchdown.

2:00 p.m. — Ohio at Wyoming ◼ The Mtn.
The last Ohioan to visit Wyoming, I think, was me back in March. And I’ll say this about Wyoming: Mountains.

7:00 p.m. — Western Michigan at Nebraska ◼ FSN
Mind you, WMU beat Iowa last year to end the season. And to the Eastern time zone, it’s essentially the same state.

7:00 p.m. — Northern Illinois at Minnesota ◼ BTN
Minnesota lost to a certain MAC school last year on a Saturday night game. This was their way of saying they don’t want that to happen again.

7:30 p.m. — Boston College at Kent State ◼ ESPNU
They’re playing the game in Browns Stadium. Which means BC might be the finest team to play on that field this year.

(Photo credit: Mark Mulville/Buffalo News)

With nothing better to do at the end of an irritating work week, the greatest joy beyond a certain 20 downloads has been coming up with a fantasy football team name. The rule in the league was that it had to be a Detroit Lions-themed name. I thought of a few, and here’s what I came up with, with one appropriately-cited exception:

• Kilroy Waz-Zahir
• Stoney Case of the Mondays
• I Can See Your Andre Ware
• Dominic Crayola
• The Artose-D2s
• Aveion Flu (this one courtesy of my co-worker Ryan)
• Choppin’ Brock Olivo
• Gus Frerottage

Finally, some levity in this Brett Favre ongoing story.

Last night we all found out about the Favre-to-Jets trade, seeing the “JET FAVRE” headline from a mile away. Last I heard, the Jets gave up just a 4th round pick. But today I found out what the specifics were, and one’s just hilarious. Read more

The Crime: Using the word Favregate.

One of my pet peeves among writers covering ongoing news is taking some kind of scandal or complicated, drawn out story and adding the -gate suffix to it. (See: Gate, Spy). Scandals imply lying, dishonesty, corruption, and/or general fuckupery. This Brett Favre story has none of those qualities, which might be why it’s such an annoying story. Yet, here we are. Favregate. People are saying it.

For the crime of misuse of -gate in a major sporting event story, I hereby ask that the following writers be suspended from their publications for 24 hours: Read more

Just what I needed what now. The MAC football preseason poll:

WEST DIVISION (6-5-4-3-2-1 point system)
1. Central Michigan 207
2. Ball State 168
3. Western Michigan 143
4. Toledo 98
5. Eastern Michigan 80
6. Northern Illinois 60

EAST DIVISION (7-6-5-4-3-2-1)
1. Bowling Green 206
2. Miami 202
3. Buffalo 145
4. Kent State 137
5. Temple 120
6. Ohio 119
7. Akron 78

Great. Now there are expectations for this team again.

Sheesh. First Lou Holtz’s pep talk, now Graham Watson going through the most hated team in each college football bowl conference. Bristol just has it out bad for UT, don’t they?

Oh, it’s not because they suck or anything. It’s because they’ve been so historically good, from Chuck Ealey to the undefeated season in 1995. Look at the other teams tagged most hated:

ACC: Miami
Big11Ten: Ohio State
Big12Twelve: Texas
Pac10Ten: USC
Security Exchanges Commission: Alabama, Ken Lay (tie)

I’m all for nicknames. They’re cute, fun, and way more memorable than the tons of garden-variety names. Plus it prevents parents from having to name their children something outlandish like ZoQwell.

But this?

I’m going to be completely honest, I wasn’t expecting that at all. Bruce Gradkowski to the Rams? Well, good luck to “Medium-Large” B.” ◼ Blade

Update: March 16, 2009: Hargrove was cleared of these charges a couple months later, and this past weekend I interviewed him for a Toledo Free Press article where he was able to tell his side of the story.

Ah, jeez.

Police in Botkins said they seized two kilos of suspected cocaine Monday night, and arrested two people.

They said one of the suspects, 23-year old Loren Hargrove, is a recent graduate of Bowling Green State University, where he was a football standout.

Hargrove was one of BGSU’s defensive captains last year, and he’s still in Shelby County jail. If you look at WHIO’s video report, you’ll see a visibly scared shitless BGSU graduate trying to figure out what the hell happened.

He says it was a misunderstanding. I’d like to believe that.

(Photo: David Maxwell/Getty/Viewimages)

Then again, so can I. Doesn’t mean a team would want either one of us.

Stopping me from making a team is primarily my poor vertical jump, adequate throwing arm, and a tendency to try and stop the pass rush through UN sanctions. Stopping Chris Henry from making a team used to be his court-ordered house arrest, but that’s not an issue anymore. Now the only bugaboo left from him getting another chance at the pros is merely the fact that he’s Chris Henry. Read more