On occasion I will have vivid, narrative dreams experienced at the cusp of consciousness. Generally the world needs saving and I'm the man to do it. They're sort of like dadaist Jerry Bruckheimer movies except invariably I lose, at which point I wake up with the blood of six billion dream-people on my hands. It's a little unsettling.

But not as unsettling as the dream I just had. Approached by a small team of aerospace engineers, astronauts, and Michael Rappaport (don't ask -- I don't understand either), I accept a berth on a small privately-funded starship that is making a journey to a planet one of the team members has deduced contains intelligent life. We plan to get rich by bringing back fantastically advanced alien technology.

The trip is a fiasco. We are discovered, our spaceship is impounded, and we are forced to live on this slightly foreign planet filled with people who look almost human and work for them in a sort of indentured servitude/slavery.

Apparently this is what alien planets look like.

It seems that these people are a hidden race and we can never go home, as their discovery would lead to some sort of cosmic sanction. The overriding mood of the dream is poignant loss. My friends are all gone, Rappaport is a useless tool, and I'm on a foreign planet largely composed of strip malls and Starbucks (actual line: "Something's fishy here. Check out that Taco Bell. I'll buy that they have Starbucks millions of light years from home, but Taco Bell?" It's all very sad.

Anyway, after some high speed rollerblading (again, don't ask) we pass the Vanderbilt football team practicing. I say "ha ha, you're going to lose" when it hits me: since I am an alien slave on a planet millions of light years from home the chances of me being at Michigan Stadium on September second are nil. Apparently Vanderbilt is not likely to put in an appearance either, but this does not occur to me. My mind fills with one oppressive fact: I Am Going To Miss The Game.

It is at this point, and this point only, that I resolve to escape, which means death if caught. My first tactic, perhaps spurred on by the overall weirdness of my life, is to attempt to wake up. My eyes open and I am once again within easy driving distance of Michigan Stadium, no hyperdrive or escape from slavery required. I exhale.

Bye, random person. It's a word:

Amaker: am-a-ker, verb. To blow something long considered a fait accompli, especially in an unsually humiliating and frustrating fashion.

That will teach me to go write up a post ahead of time... there was content today! But it's irrelevant now. Bleah.

Meanwhile, Virginia point guard Scottie Reynolds has asked Oklahoma to release him from his LOI, as Kelvin Sampson is now the coach of Indiana. Michigan was one of the schools pursuing Reynolds before his commitment and are rumored to be interested in him should he become suddenly mobile.

Oh, yes.

It's almost time, and so... more crazed Japanese NBA (Link is essentially just what's above, but make sure you scroll down for the cutest devouring ever if you click.) (HT: Detroit Bad Boys)

If yesterday's overanalysis wasn't enough for you, Michigan Sports Center has another spring "game" recap with some differing opinions -- I actually disagree with everything before his bullets save the disappointment with the quarterbacks -- but let that not dissuade you. And I love Vijay because sometimes it's nice to have player-by-player progress reports and projections for everyone on scholarship.

BC&RS has more Michigan baseball; Yost Built is covering hockey... no one's left yet. Yay.

Back to normal? Patrick Beverly announces his choice between Michigan and Arkansas tomorrow... and given the level of freakout going on at the various message boards it does not sound anything like it did mere days ago when enigmatic baskeball insider DOTMAN was dropping :) and milk and honey ran through the land. Losing Beverly would probably require re-inventing "Amaker" as a verb. I'll use it in a sentence:

"Dude, what happened? You were in! She's so hot... and where is she now?"
"I dunno. I thought she was so into me. I got amakered, man."
"Harsh. What are you going to do now?"
"See that girl with the mole?"
"That's a mole? It looks more like a ferret superglued to her jaw."
"Well..."
"No."
"Yeah."
"You know the stadium seating you had installed in your bedroom?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't think I'll be renewing my season tickets."

Aaaand scene.

We haven't lost him yet, though. I'll tell you when he announces. A bit of good news: DeShawn Sims was named the MVP of the Capital Classic -- and he's signed a LOI so it's okay to get somewhat invested in him.

Etc.: Chris Heisenberg analyzes the changes in Hockey Canada's rules and says they're a transparent attempt to keep the NCAA's mitts off of big time Canadian juniors. Save the childrens indeed.

And by "game" we mean "practice," which was fine by me since it was 69 and sunny. Disjointed bullets:

• A bunch of un-illuminating position drills started things off. The safeties do a weird drill in which seven of them line up as an offensive line, FB, and RB with one guy playing off the lne as a safety. They run a play, and the one guy at safety comes up to make a tackle at the fictional point of attack. Seems inefficient.
• Sears is that fast; Carlos Brown is also. Brown had one of the highlights of the scrimmage when he scored from a long way out on a run up the middle.
• The crowd's biggest reaction came when Alijah Bradley laid out on a wheel route, hauling it in with every inch of his 4'6" body.
• Neither quarterback looked sharp. Henne dumped the ball off so many times during the passing drills that I was convinced that was the point of the drill for a while, but that's probably not right. He also telegraphed a pass to someone in the flat that Leon Hall had jumped and almost intercepted. He did have one excellent throw, a 25 yard bullet right in Breaston's hands, but Breaston was intefered with and could make the catch. Still, after hearing stuff about Henne kicking ass for the second straight spring, I was hoping for more. He looked just like he did last year, alternating awesome with definitely not awesome. As for Forcier... let's just hope Henne stays upright. Didn't look ready at all.
• Forcier did do a couple of good things, and they were usually to LaTerryal Savoy, who reminds me of Avant. He scored a touchdown -- check this reader-provided video (recommend you right click and save as).
• Doug Dutch can't catch. This is bad for a wideout.
• That thing about Bass at quarterback? They were serious, and they're still serious. Carlos Brown got an entire series at QB running the zone read, draws, and sweeps. It didn't work -- see this reader-provided video (save as) -- since the defense knew what was coming, but it was interesting.
• Ecker dropped the first pass of the scrimmage, prompting groans. Someone near me yelled "pitch it!"
• Yes, it is endlessly hilarious to see a jersey with the entirety of "B.J. Opong-Owusu" on it.
• Punting went as you might expect. Ryan consistently went about 35-40 yards and had nothing remotely returnable. Mesko had a couple ok punts and then launched one 55 yards, causing a tingle to samba its way down my spine. Inconceivable!
• It's odd seeing McKinney play DT next to Germany at DE; they look like they should be swapped. Germany had a couple of nice plays but I think they say more about the opposition at RT than his ability.
• For all the crap Carr gave the linebackers during the press conference, they shut down the run consistently during the scrimmage.
• This should come with a heavy bias disclaimer: Jamison looked good. I probably focused on him more than any other player. He was tough for the offensive line to handle and performed well against the run.
• Garrett Rivas missed a 22-yard field goal. Yay.

One final note: the "we're doing construction" excuse for not letting fans and kids on the field for autographs was exceedingly lame and more bothersome than scrapping the game format. It's Carr's perogative to have his team practice any way they like, but making something dumb up to get out of being nice to some fans is disrespectful. I'm sure if the department really wanted to they could find somewhere in the area where people were not in mortal danger of one of the backhoes being struck by lighting, coming to life, and going on a rampage.

Longhorns blog Burnt Orange Nation asked Joey and I a series of questions on the upcoming season. We answered with tremendous detail. You can check out the Q&A session here, which goes as you might expect. Probably nothing you haven't heard already if you're a Michigan fan, but it's better than getting kicked in the ribs.

The Heisman trophy -- proclaimed by itself and everyone else to be the most prestigious individual award in American sports -- has a dirty little secret: it sucks. Thrall to its diverse and more-than-slightly befuddled voting constituency, more often than not the Heisman goes to a default candidate chosen more for his circumstances than his magnificence. Some months later he usually loses a bowl game; some months after that he's drafted in the seventh round. He goes on to have a nondescript Arena League career and marries a girl who could probably be a model -- but not a Victoria's Secret one.

For every Barry Sanders there is a Ron Dayne; for every probably-worthy QB winner like Matt Leinart there are a half dozen noodle-armed system quarterbacks who shouldn't be let within 20 feet of the trophy: Detmer, Ware, Toretta, Weinke, etc. What does it say about an award when you can construct an clever list of ten rules that reduce the field to a half-dozen possibilities before the season starts? It says that you're eliminating 99% of everyone in college football before the first game. And it says that maybe this voting thing isn't working out so well.

We're in good hands here, people.

We're all in agreement as to who should not receive the trophy: losers. More difficult is determining who should get the damn thing, but as I always say, when dealing with matters of superiority and inferiority, Nietzsche is your man. Except I never say that.

(A note for actual philosophy-people: what follows is going to be a very pop understanding of Nietzsche because the popular concepts associated with Nietzsche fit better with what I'm driving at than the actual complicated bits, which I haven't attempted to intepret correctly anyway. A pre-emptive apology for spreading ign'ance.)

So. WWND? First, grow an amazing mustache. Second, take the problem at hand -- who is the best football player -- and attempt to mesh it with his understanding of human nature:

[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body... will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant — not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power.

Faced with a game of stark military aggression, Nietzsche would probably see two kinds of players: those who respond out of fear and those who impose their will on things. Meatheads call the latter "swagger." Nietzche would see masters and slaves. The giant guy in the burnt orange loping through the secondary? Master. We're looking for masters, looking for those whose understanding of the game comes from a knowledge of what they can do instead of what they fear their opponents can. We're looking for those who transcend: ubermensch. Overman.

Whereas it was Nietzsche's overman who "balances over an empty space," from the perspective of the ardent college football fan it is we who teeter over an abyss of the unknown, emotional well-being on the knife's edge, waiting for someone to rise up and push us forward... or back. As anyone who's spent too much time with Sid Meier knows, Nietzche accidentally stumbled across a gorgeous description for the sort of sporting event that you realize is far too important to you:

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.

The fan is simultaneously tied and carried by "those who cross over," looking down, looking across, eyeing the opposing forces. We cling to the handholds afforded by our captor-champions, and watch as a battle -- our battle -- unfolds on a bridge of rope.

The ideal Heisman candidate is frightening to behold unless he is on your side, in which case he is your flagbearer and protector. The ideal candidate is a force of nature that rolls through his opposition against tremendous odds. His name is graven on the tombstone of instant replay's creator as a justification. He is not sunnily efficient, or competent, or a great fat beast who crushes only the weak. He is slightly terrifying. There is a small but real possibility that he is the escaped prototype of a CIA-developed breed of unkillable soldiers; he is not man; he is overman.

Items Of Interest

• ubermenschliche. that's a German adverb for "superhuman" that I'm appropriating as a noun in this context. What are ubermenschliche? Plays that etch themselves into college football history for sheer amazement value; plays that seem like magic we can't understand. At their best, these are exertions of one player's will on all those around them: Howard's Heisman-pose-generating return; Roy Williams's flying squirrel attack; Leinart's forth-and-nine fade. The Heisman voters usually do get this right by focusing on the plays in a season which seem like pure exertions of will, but the emphasis on them here will be even greater. Anyone who picks up the shattered pieces of a season and fuses the shards back together will have a leg up.
• Bowl Games. The Heisman's given out before the bowls occur, probably due to college football's odd, longstanding opinion that bowl games were cute exhibitions or something. Bowl statistics didn't even count towards records until very recently. Obviously the voters can't take bowls into account unless they have a time machine, but some Heisman trophies are obsolete by January 1st. It would be silly for a retrospective look to ignore some of the greatest performances in college football history.
• In the same vein: The last couple games of the regular season. For some reason Heisman voters are allowed to submit ballots before the end of the regular season. Some take advantage of this opportunity every year. This enterprise, er, doesn't.
• (Some) NFL performance. the Heisman is a college award and shouldn't go to whoever gets drafted #1 in a particular year, but the NFL performance of a particular player can help confirm or disconfirm the talents of certain players who play at small schools or amongst a horde of other stars that may camouflage their weaknesses. Note that players not ticketed for NFL success -- option quarterbacks, 5'9" wide receivers, guys playing on six knee surgeries -- are not punished for their circumstances.

Items Of Disinterest

• Damned numbers. Right, right, I'm Mr. Computer Man with the charts and tables and stuff, but all of those things apply to teams. Attempting to divine which player's overall performance was superior because of a touchdown here or two hundred yards racked up against Ball State is impossible.
• Quarterbacks and running backs. Not prejudicially, mind you, but it's ridiculous that since 1935 only five players (Larry Kelley, Leon Hart, Tim Brown, Desmond Howard, and Charles Woodson) who haven't played the aforementioned positions have happened to be the best players in the country. That's wrong.
• Who you play for. Obviously quality of opposition matters, and it's hard to pick up ubermenschliche credit if you're not playing in important games, but we judge on the content of talent, not color of helmet.
• Eligibility. If you're a freshman and the best player in the country, it's your award.
• Career achievements. even if you've been good for the past three years, no one cares.

First Up: the most personally grating Heisman to Michigan fans in the past ten or so years: 1999. Ron Dayn
e won it largely for griding Montana A&M State under his heel but never beat or even cracked 100 against Michigan in his entire career. Nominate candidates in the comments.

Some background: 1999 season review. And a preview. And some other stuff.