Polls

Bama a unanimous no. 1 of course; Oregon moves up to 2nd with Ohio 3rd and ND falling to fourth. Good to see ND fall multiple places after that lambasting. I think we can all agree an Alabama vs. Oregon title game would have been much more interesting than the one we got... oh well.

http://collegefootball.ap.org/poll

Michigan is the only team with 5 losses to make the final poll. Glad to get some respect seeing as we had a mighty tough schedule and 4/5 of our losses were quite close. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and we were 0-5 against ranked opponents. Definitely proud of our team, and a lot of it was just balls not bouncing our way, but this season was clearly a letdown. Here's hoping Gardner & co. can make a statement in 2013, and most importantly beat Ohio. As always, Go Blue!

So, we are in the cold doldrums of another long summer, so I figured I would spark some conversation by seeing what side of the fence everybody is on.  I'll post few debatable topics just to see where the battle lines are drawn...

1. LBJ, NBA MVP and Champion - happy for him or hope his house gets hit by a tank?

2. OSU - Win every game but one, only beat the SEC, or secede from the Union to form a province of Bolivia?

3. Navarre - If we find the Weinke loophole, would you take four more years at his average productivity?

4. Ditka or God, who would win in a fight?

5. Mascot - Giant blue weasel, life sized garden gnome from Brian's post, or does it not matter as long as they hurry the hell up...

6. Now that RDT has been outed, who is the next alter ego to slip up?

7. Ale or lager?

Crazy day in football. Here's mine:

1) Bama 2) LSU 3) OK State 4) Boise 5) Stanford 6) Oregon

HUGE GAP (there probably is one somewhere between 3 and 5 as well)

7) Arkansas 8) OU 9) Houston 10) Nebraska

11) Clemson 12) South Carolina 13) VT 14) MSU 15) Wiscy

16) M 17)K-State 18) Penn State 19) ASU 20) Georgia

21) USC 22) GT 23) Cincy 24) WVU 25) Auburn

Dropped: Texas A&M, Texas Tech

The hockey team has moved to #1, according to USCHO.

http://www.uscho.com/rankings/d-i-mens-poll/

Insert usual stuff about value of early-season polls here.

#20 TCU loses

#16 South Florida crushed by Pitt

#15 Baylor loses

#14 Texas A&M picks up second loss

#10 South Carolina loses

1 of  #11 VT vs #13 Clemson loses

possible (likely)  #12 Florida loses to #3 Alabama

edit: also one of #7 Wisconsin vs #8 Nebraska

I think for sure we jump South Florida, Baylor, Texas A&M and end up in the #15 range. I also think we probably should be considered one of the top 15 teams. If Nebraska loses bad, we could jump them as well.

The University of Michigan Softball team climbed to #3 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll, and to #4 in the USA Today/Coaches poll.

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/softball/d1/espncomusa_softball

This is a well deserved promotion considering their excellent showing in the Judi Garman Classic held in California this past weekend.  UM handily defeated #6 Arizona State and #7 Arizona.  Georgia was rated #1 in both polls but recently lost 2 games, thus the drop out of first place.  Last week's #4 team, Washington, also lost at the Judi Garman classic, so they dropped a few spots.

The Wolverines open the Big Ten Season today by playing at Northwestern.  Game time temperature is about 32 degrees.  Our last game was 65 degrees.  So it will be a little chilly on the...ah...um...hands.

Per my previous post, we are in great shape to start the conference.  NW might give us a few problems, as well as tosu and Iowa.  Again, my Big 10 prediction is to lose only 2 (+/-1) game during the Big 10 season.

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/big-ten-preview-softball#comment-1018394