attempted comedy

It is a day after National Signing Day and the Big Ten has inked yet another lackluster group of mostly 3-star recruits. Fearing a further drift toward mediocrity, representatives from each relevant school have secretly gathered together. Their goal:  rescuing the competitive future of their once mighty conference!

A prayer is offered to AIRBHG and thanks given unto BHGP for allowing me to rip off their format.

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Scene: A little-used back room of the Palmer House in Chicago, its walls lined with trophies honoring the conference's academic achievements, and tasteful sweaters. A group of men and a duck mill about, most huddled around a smartphone showing walrus porn. One is eyeing the gilded stand lamps, apparently wondering if they're bolted down. They are watched by a shadowy figure in a ski mask. JIM DELANEY enters…

: The Big Ten Emergency Meeting on Recruiting Top Talent to the Midwest will now come to order. B1G T3N Divisions, ROLL CALL:

: Leaders!

: Legends!

: Dammit Barry.

: Leaders!

: I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce our two newest members, Notre Dame and Texas.

: Hark, fair commissariat, thou speakest in error, for surely thou didst mean mineself and mine good compatriot of Mary's land.

: I can get my parking validated right?

: Unh, right. Good afternoon.

: Good afternoon.

: Championships!

: What's he saying?

: It's the…no, Brady we're not doing the thing.

: CHAMPIONSHIPS!

: Undoubtedly the stout knave is expecting some manner of riposte.

[More. Oh so much more, after the JUMP!]

National Signing Day still ongoing, but we already have a pretty good idea how things are going to play out.

6:00 a.m.  -  The sun has yet to rise in College Station, Texas. A lonely fax machine sits in Kevin Sumlin's office. There is no way for it to know the hell it is about to experience. It can't comprehend such things. It is just a machine.

7:10 a.m.  - Brian Kelly receives his 100th Letter of Intent for 'Lennay Kekua,' to go along with 37 for 'Manti Te'o's Fake Girlfriend' and 6 for 'That Catfish chick.' "Very original, jackass," he thinks to himself. Kelly looks in his mini-fridge, but finds it empty. He calls up Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, and threatens to leave for the NFL if Notre Dame doesn't pony up breakfast.      

7:13 a.m.  - An out-of-breath Swarbrick arrives with an Egg McMuffin. Kelly grunts a half-hearted, "okay I'll stay."

Om nom nom

7:44 a.m.  -  Out of absolutely nowhere, damn near every five-star recruit in the country commits to Ole Miss. Yep. Ole Miss. This is in no way suspicious. Stuff like this happens occasionally; the best players in the country will sometimes all decide, basically at the same time, to attend the same school, even if that school hasn’t won its conference since the Kennedy Administration. Why are you so suspicious of this? Just because Ole Miss is 13-24 (and 4-21 in conference) over the last three seasons? Or because Ole Miss has never been ranked higher than 15th in Rivals’ rankings? Or because one of their five-star recruits tweeted out a picture of a pile of cash recently?  That’s all just circumstantial evidence, man.

8:02 a.m.  - Michigan blog circles awaken, but unlike most are unconcerned with the events of this day. For you see, Michigan is different than the other schools, who view the purpose of recruiting as stockpiling talent and accumulating star ratings. Michigan is not concerned with such things. Michigan attempts to accumulate Michigan Men. Men who think only of the team. The team, the team, the team. And though they are few in number, their moral standing and forthright character will make them superior athletes, scholars, and gentlemen at the end of the day. Some players may be more highly ranked than these Michigan Men, but those rankings do not capture the essence of teamsmanship and sportitude that make these Michigan Men special. And though those more highly ranked players may choose other schools, in doing so they demonstrate that they are, in fact, not Michigan Men, and were therefore unworthy to don the winged helmet. Those who stay, gentlemen. Those who stay.

8:12 a.m.  - Word hits Michigan blog circles that Derrick Green has submitted his LOI. Michigan fans respond with a "WOOOOOOO FIVE STAR RUNNING BACKS BABY!!! OUR CLASS KICKS YOUR CLASS'S THREE-STAR ASS. SUCK IT, DANTONIO. NUMBER ONE!!!"

8:54 a.m. - A kid with discernable football talent sends his paperwork to Colorado. All are confused.

Did… did you watch the last few years?

9:10 a.m.  -  ..."What is this madness?" wonders the poor fax machine. He has not stopped churning for a moment. He is on his third drum of toner and sixth ream of paper, and there seems to be no end in sight. There is no time to contemplate the greater meaning, however, as another fax is coming in...

9:36 a.m.  -  A bright-eyed and talented young running back from Iowa beams ear-to-ear as he hands his paperwork to his high school athletic director. "Send this to the attention of Kirk Ferentz at this number, please," he says. As the fax machine starts to whir, the young man feels a strange twinge in his right knee, and he suddenly senses that someone, or something, is behind him. He turns, but nothing is there. He shrugs and laughs it off. Alas, it is too late for him already.

Soon. Soon.

10:01 a.m.  - Urban Meyer enters his office to gaze upon the hundreds and hundreds of LOIs on his desk. Seemingly every major recruit in the country, including those who already enrolled early at other schools, has sent their pledge to Ohio State. Meyer feels a touch of guilt for having not explained better to all of these young men that most of their offers were not "committable." Meyer sifts through the pile for the letters from the 21 kids he really wanted, and places the rest of them in the recycling bin.

11:53 p.m.  -   Mark Dantonio picks up... you know what? No one really cares.

File Photo. I think. I didn’t look very hard.

12:01 p.m.  - Brian Kelly calls Jack Swarbrick and and informs him that he is considering leaving to coach the Baltimore Orioles, and that he is rather hungry.

12:07 p.m.  -  Swarbrick arrives with a chicken carbonara sandwich from Quiznos. Kelly reaffirms that he is still completely devoted to Notre Dame.

12:47 p.m. - Bo Pelini receives a letter of intent from a highly touted defensive lineman. Pelini immediately calls the young man and berates him for 20 minutes for his inexcusable penmanship.

YOUR Fs LOOK LIKE F***ING Ts. AND HOW THE HELL IS THAT A D?

2:17 p.m. - In Tuscaloosa, a dozen non-contributing underclassmen and a handful of oft-injured juniors are asked to load all of their equipment onto a truck as part of a "new drill." They don't suspect anything, despite the fact that their first task upon arriving at Alabama had been to unload about a dozen sets of football pads and other equipment from a truck very much like this one.

2:58 p.m.  -  A Tennessee commit tells local reporters how excited he is to compete for an SEC Championship. No one has the heart to tell him.

3:39 p.m.  -  ... Too much. This is simply too much. His motherboard smoking, his outer shell warped from the heat, the poor fax machine longs for the sweet release of death. They are coming slower now, but the short break between letters only offers cruel hope that maybe, just maybe, the the previous letter will have been the last. And yet, each respite is interrupted by OH COME ON, WHO THE HELL NEEDS THIS MANY WIDE RECEIVERS?

4:11 p.m.  -  In West Lafayette, Darrell Hazell hears the knock on his office door that he has been dreading. Brady Hoke enters, walks to Hazell's desk, and picks up Hazell's pile of LOIs. Hoke thumbs through them slowly, removes one from the pile, folds it neatly, and places it in his pocket. Hazell starts to protest, but realizes the futility. Danny Hope had explained to him about the natural order of things. Hoke adjusts his wizard hat and leaves without a word. Hazell vows revenge, but deep down he fears he may just be fooling himself.

6:41 p.m.  -  Gus Malzahn once again checks the connection on his fax machine. Had he given his recruits the wrong fax number? I mean, he DID have some commitments, right?

Ostensibly because they simply don't have the resources to keep Lane Kiffin from tweeting recruits every five nanoseconds, the NCAA this week announced they're getting rid of those limits altogether. They're also planning to let schools send as much mail as they want.

If you're a big school like Michigan who can afford to pay a guy to do nothing but send mail and text people wonderful Michigan facts, this is horray. But if you're a young football player upon whose skills rests the future employment of a hundred highly motivated collegiate coaches, prepare for the USC Legion of Owls…

What can you do to fight back? Well it's not like recruits don't have options, and I'm not just talking about picking a hat. You, young sirs, are for this brief window the sole source of information for a voracious, massive, and more than a little creepy information vacuum. Collegiate hopefuls of America's high school, I tell you today you can approach the recruiting process with poise, intelligence, humility, and maturity, or you could wield that which has ever been the tool of your kind—troll them.

Now some of you have tried this before—demanding your program have a good medical school to sound academically inclined, making up fake visits to Notre Dame, making up fake dead girlfriends, even committing to big schools sight-unseen to drum up internet interest *cough*DeQuinta Jones*cough*—I call such sad attempts sophomoric. Inspired in part by DeAnthonthy Arnett, in part by a conversation with Ace when Michael Ferns announced, and with help from Brian Cook, here follows a handy list of ways the nonpareil prospect can pique the system, discomfit the coaches, and have a little fun at the expense of all those strangers hanging on the bell.

==Idiot disclaimer: I am not actually advocating any of this.==

Remedies for the Coach With the Iron iPhone:

You are a running back whose backflip hurdle over a defender hit YouTube and now Bob Stoops is waiting at your car after the game: "Hello." But wait, now Mark Stoops climbs out of your back seat: "Hello." And now here's Urban Meyer's helicopter landing in the middle of the parking lot with a Corvette and dealer plates: "Hello." Suddenly your lower body trembles and a purple thing emerges, its face reconstituting into that of Brian Kelly: "Hello." Lane Kiffin taps you on the shoulder. "Hello." Lane Kiffin has surgically implanted himself into your shoulder. "Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello." What do you do?

1. Hold "hair ceremony" instead of hat ceremony. Display toupees modeled after your finalist coaches.

2. Skype video invite to Brian Kelly, Les Miles, and Urban Meyer so they all think you're calling to commit to them, then do hat dance between three schools and "lose connection" to video. Repeat following week. (Please record this)

3. Flip to your former chosen school's most hated rival, and in so doing read the same exact statement a guy going the other way did last year.

4. Tell him you'll commit, but only because you believe the rumors saying he'll be replaced with Ron Zook in a month.

5. Insist on being called "future major violations case."

6. Claim you're a package deal with your team's kicker, provide name and phone # of least athletic person you know (it's not like anybody ever gets film on a kicker).

7. Invite coach for an in-home visit; once he's seated ask if he'll watch your baby sister while you run out real quick.

8. Demand your final two schools prove they will know how best to deploy your talents by playing each other on NCAA using created teams made up entirely of you.

9. Suggest to Ole Miss that they text your dad to "work out a deal." Provide phone number of friend/co-conspirator/NCAA enforcement agent.

Remedies for the Reprobate Recruiting Reporters

So many sites today promise subscribers instant information on the latest whims of recruits considering their schools. Mention interest in a visit and you'll instantly have seven dudes from seven services camped out in your shower. Here's how you flush 'em:

1. Call recruiting services and continually ask them if they have a top five list. Refuse to offer any information unless the reporter announces his favorite schools. Follow-up: If reporter changes those schools, tell him he's dishonest and drop him.

2. Announce you will only talk to recruiting reporters under 16.

3. Only answer recruiting questions with boilerplate quotes that have strong sexual double-entendre.

4. Pick recruiting service. Respond to all inquiries from recruiting service with quotes from "Baby Got Back". Pick different recruiting service. Respond to all inquiries from recruiting service with quotes from Robert Frost. Pick third recruiting service. Respond to all inquiries from recruiting service with obfuscated C programs that print "Baby Got Back"/Robert Frost mashup quotes.

Describe the recruiting process for you so far? "I'm tired of magazines."

Is distance a major factor for you? "Like men we look too near."

How did you feel when you got that Ohio State offer? "You say you wanna get in my Benz?"

Would you consider other offers if your coach takes that NFL job? "My homeboys try to warn me, but I have promises to keep."

Bonus: "Take the average black man and ask him that" as a reply to most recruiting questions will make an interviewer really uncomfortable until they figure out what you're doing.

5. Insist that your name is Lee Fucking Corso.

6. Insist that people call you Lee Fucking Corso even though they know that's not your real name.

7. Hold hat ceremonies every Tuesday. One of the hats is "Decision Next Tuesday." Eventually you'll call it Walt, so every press conference ends with you pickin' ol' Walt.

8. Commitment ceremony has five hats. Each hat reveals a different cheese. Describe your favorite cheeses. Pause. Say "but I'm going to have to go with.... PORT SALUT!!!!!!!!" and eat 10 oz in one bite. When done, stare at assembled crowd. Pause again. Say... "what, I like cheese."

9. Game of Thrones gambit: Tell five different journalists, in confidence, that you're silently committed to a different school, wait and see which one gets leaked. Follow-up: Announce you are committing to the Lannisters.

Remedies for the Message Board Morans

Who us? We're annoying?

1. Go on message boards to solicit video testimonies from fans as to why you should go to their school of choice. Publish the best of them.

2. Announce press conference for "big announcement," where you play Catlab dubbed over with french noveau vague and film noir soundtracks, occasionally turn back to audience and explain "You see? You get where I'm going yet?"

3. On your announcement day, proclaim you have buried your decision in a box you've geocached based on some obscure statistic, but which coordinates are actually in the middle of the hippo pen at your local zoo.

4. Find some annoying person on the fan site for the top team you didn't commit to, claim it was that person's posts that made you choose the other school, watch that person get devoured.

5. Do the same with whatever the last protest was at that school. "I was going to commit to Michigan but then I saw they were protesting to save the whales, and I hate whales."

6. At your hat ceremony, stick a large wad of cash under one hat you were about to discard. Act surprised, try to cover it, then say you're canceling the ceremony while you think things over a bit longer.

7. Hold your hat ceremony in a hat store.

8. Answer all questions as if you were being asked about your NCAA dynasty.

(Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments)

A guy who gets it slightly more than the first commenter on the post.

In re: the sabotage version of Special K for a Day:

Brian,

This is pretty obscure, so you're totally excused for having missed this, but I think all institutional destroying from the inside pretty much begins and ends with this deep cut: mid-70s Ann Arbor art-noise collective Destroy All Monsters reuniting in 2002 (with the late Mike Kelley on vocals) and disemboweling "The Victors" (begins about 0:47).

Take care,
Mike

This is it:

I still like it better than "In The Big House."

Lefties.

Brian,

Obviously Hoke and Co. are killing it on recruiting now and things couldn't be better. One thing my friends and I were talking about is how come there are so few good lefty quarterbacks historically. I'm only 29 so my football references are limited, but beyond Steve Young, Vick, Mark Brunell, Esiason, and Tebow can you think of any other top lefty quarterbacks that panned out? Should we be worried about Sugar Shane? Any idea why this is the case? Do high school coaches see strong lefty quarterbacks and immediately focus them on pitching?

Go Blue!

I was initially going to dismiss this as paranoia but here's a blog post listing every lefthanded QB in NFL history as of this year. There have been 39 total, and the list of current lefty starters is Vick and Matt Leinart. Since Young retired in '99, the only lefties to have anything resembling a career are Scott Mitchell, Brunell, Vick, and Leinart with Tebow pending and Chris Simms carving out a modern-day-Todd-Collins ramblin' backup sort of career. Lefties are only 10% of the population but that's a period of 22 years with four(!) lefty QBs of any significance, one of them (Vick) a guy whose amazing physical gifts bought him chances he otherwise would not have gotten. Young was a scrambler, too.

The baseball explanation is plausible. The google leads you to the wikipedia and shows you an extensive discussion of the over-representation of lefthanded players in a lot of sports, including baseball, and when you think about the profile of a potential NFL quarterback and a potential MLB pitcher there's not a whole lot of difference. It's nice if they're tall, they don't really have to run much, and they have to be able to throw a ball through a brick wall. The baseball players don't have to be able to take a helmet to the ribs without folding in half. Football players don't seem to have that kind of restriction. A Venn diagram of the two groups has the NFL prospects as a subset of those for MLB.

The main difference between the two groups is their reaction to left-handedness. MLB says "yes please, with a cherry." The NFL says "this is inconvenient, now I have to reconfigure the offensive line. " So the guys in the NFL subset are much more likely to be sucked out of football, and voila: your population of 6'4" lefty riflemen who enjoy getting crushed is even more depressed relative to righties.

That's a long way of saying that I don't think Michigan has much to worry about in re: Shane Morris. The forces that make lefty NFL quarterbacks rare aren't likely to apply to individual quarterbacks who happen to be lefthanded.

Gnomes!

addendum to most embarrassing Michigan items

probably should be slotted in just under the flying squirrel sleeping  bag:

the name is incredible.  Where is thematic gnome 1?

I think I may know the answer to this since I stumbled across a thematic gnome in my perusal of the official site:

I didn't put it on the list despite its ridiculousness because it's a mean gnome wearing a Michigan hat, what looks sort of like jean shorts, and fake wolverine-like shoes that I doubt exist in real life. It's almost so ridiculous it's defensible? I don't know.

The comment thread on that post turned into a confessional about which users had which items—no one confessed to the chili powder—so these things are obviously subjective. That is, they're subjective unless you're the other variety of person on that thread: the ones who were incensed that the product they perceived as most ludicrous was not higher.

Super conference-type-substances.

brian, discussing superconferences today got me thinking. if the standards of a conference are 1 crossover game (as in a 16 team superconference) and a post season championship game, then doesn't the big ten and pac 12's future scheduling agreement of 1 game per year and champions playing in the rose bowl create something of a 24 team superconference between the big ten and pac 12?

why should either conference accept any more lower rung schools to dilute their tv money and bowl payouts to get to 16 teams when they already act in the equivalent capacity of a superconference?

trippwelborneID

I'm like… whoah. The chatter about the Big Ten-Pac-12 pact giving the conferences the advantages of a "superconference" without the drawbacks didn't make much sense to me when it happened, but putting it in that perspective is close to sense.

The way it makes things make sense is by making superconferences seem inexplicable. The ACC went to 14 in a panicked attempt to stave off poaching, or at least preserve a semblance of quality in its aftermath. The SEC went to 14 because Mike Slive screwed up his television negotiations. Absent those motivators why would anyone make a move like that? There is a clear motivation to get to 12—championship game—and none to go to 14 or 16. The superconference meme relies on the idea that the champions of the 16-team Death Stars will meet in a playoff, but how do you get there? You can't have a playoff without the Pac-12 and Big Ten, and neither of those conferences has any motivation to expand.

Hell, if you're Texas or Oklahoma the same logic applies to your ten-team conference. Right now those two teams have the easiest glide path to a playoff. They seem uninterested in getting the conference up to even 12 now that they've stabilized things.

The reasons you usually hear about the motivations to expand are hand-waving about footprints and stuff, unexamined Commisioner's New Clothes assumptions. Opposed to that are very obvious concerns about scheduling and keeping the pie slices the same size when you add teams. 16 team contraptions aren't a stable state. The rumbling in the ACC suggests even 14 is going to be awkward.

A week or so ago, Ohio State sent a recruiting letter to "Peroia, IL" that eventually reached the home of Michigan OT commit Logan Tuley-Tillman after the post office got done laughing at it. Tillman, perhaps following the example of Devin Gardner, burned the thing and put a picture of it on the internet.

Now that twitter has migrated off of college campus and Pitchfork enthusiasts, this ended badly. LTT fielded a number of misspelled death threats, Kyle Bosch sort of responded in kind, and the son of a federal judge put out a bounty on Tillman's knees that he eventually turned into a donation to the university of Michigan after he realized he was the dumbest guy in this entire scenario, and that this took some doing.

In an effort to prevent something like this from happening again, we've scoured Tuley-Tillman's social media accounts for other incidents in which he's burned something and posted a picture of the internet. By exposing these now, we hope to get any and all kerfuffles related to them out of the way before the young man arrives on campus.

These photos are absolutely not doctored, but if it turns out they were it was Heiko who created the images.

Tate Forcier's Homework

LTT on decision: "I felt that a six-foot wheeling gunslinger was what the CFL had been lacking after Doug Flutie's retirement."

OSU fans' response:
AL: "Them's so squiggly it makes my brains hurt."
RON: "You aten't got but one brain, Al."
OSU: "You have just received a bachelor's degree in logic."

Negative outcome: Lack of Devin Gardner redshirt.

Jim Bollman's Playbook

LTT on decision: "It's a complicated story involving subspace dimensions, but the short version is it threatened to suck the entire universe into an alternate physics where anything that leaves the ground explodes in a shower of viscera. This was revealed by Tate's answer to question 5.5, which I unfortunately had to burn to save the CFL."

OSU fans' reactions: Weeping joy.

Negative outcome: Happy OSU fans.

A Garbage Dump Full Of Tires

LTT on the decision: "The Big Ten needed a twelfth team."

OSU fans' response: Appointed Jerry Kill to coach it.

Negative outcome: Existence of Minnesota football.

East Lansing Couches

LTT on the decision: "All part of a diabolical plot to make MSU students look not very smart."

OSU fans' response: "We are aware MSU students are not very smart."

Negative outcome: Waste of time that could have been spent reading Chaucer.

Helm's Deep

LTT on the decision: "You have no idea how much I hate elves."

OSU fans' response: They cower under the great no-seeing Eye when a white-clad Hoke arrives from the East on the fifth day. [Memo to self: get Heiko to photoshop a see-no-Evil Tressel Sauron.]

Negative outcome: Huge rock lands on Antonio Bass.

Billy Joel

LTT on the decision: "I'd imagine this one is self-explanatory."

OSU fans' response: Slow-motion NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, declaration that "Rocket Man" is the best song ever.

Negative outcome: 404 file not found

Random Bush In The Middle Of The Desert

LTT on the decision: "A man has to practice. Surely there will be no consequences arising from this."

OSU fans' response: "Can you give us an illustrated version of this thing?"

Negative outcome: Have you ever read the book of Joshua? Things got dark.

Chicago

LTT on the decision: "PEROIA FOREVER WOOOOO SUCKIT CHICAGO."

OSU fans' reaction: "He never had the stones to play for Meyer. I don't see him burning down New York. Burning the city of Chicago to a cinder is the coward's way out."

Negative outcome: Millions of dollars in property damage, deaths, you know, that kind of stuff.

Inspired by A UConn version of this list spawned by this t-shirt:

I trawled the M-Den's website for the most ridiculous things you could own with a block M on them.

HONORABLE MENTION: A road version of the UTL jerseys that Michigan has never worn and does not even have the big central block M that was the main distinguishing feature of the UTL jerseys. A lace garter so that you won't "let your Michigan pride go by the wayside on your wedding day." A tie-dye tee. A pumpkin. A stuffed alligator(?!). Creepy pillow pet.

10. Michigan-Themed FOX Robot

25 bucks.

It's the mascot of a television station that does not televise college football. Only this low on the list because they did a really good job with their futuristic robot winged helmet and it might transform into a car.

RECOMMENDED FOR: People who still think "Fringe" was a good idea.

9. Pet's First University of Michigan Cheerleader Dress

22 bucks.

Pet's first University of Michigan Cheerleader Dress? You aren't content with being able to humiliate the dog—try to get a cat in this and you will end up with a handful of fur and blood—at all times other than when you are washing its college-themed cheerleader outfit. You need to have a backup Pet Cheerleader Dress for your squeaky little pretend husband in case there is a Pet Cheerleader Dress-related emergency. You know the dog is male. You don't even care.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Terrible, terrible people. Hitler had a dog. He never put it in a Pet Cheerleader Dress.

8. Camo Michigan Tee

The UConn version this had a shocking amount of tie-dye. Michigan has stayed away from most laughable fashion mishaps, but cannot escape the state's large number of hunters. So here's a camo t-shirt for wearing under six other layers of clothing when you go hunting in the winter… or for wearing to the Wal-Mart. You're just wearing this to Wal-Mart, aren't you? Nobody hunts in t-shirts.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Men whose trucks feature decals of Calvin pissing on a rival truck brand. Michigan State fans making parody videos.

7. Telepathic Dog Superhero Driver Cover

Thirty bucks.

Very few Michigan-branded pieces of crap make any attempt to make their product actually look like a wolverine. Instead we get a steady stream of squirrels and bears and dogs. Usually the dogs aren't sent from another planet to use their super powers to fight crime on the golf course, though.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Superhero leagues short on cute animals or telepathy. Golfers who need a little telekinetic help for their slice.

6. Valve Stem Caps

Thirteen bucks.

As a diehard Michigan fan who is hard to shop for, I have acquired a spectacular amount of block-M-emblazoned crap I hide deep in a closet over the years, and these flabbergast even me.

This company must specialize in samzidat ways of expressing your loyalty to a particular college team. Stockdale: when your deep-cover Soviet infiltration mission is cramping your ability to express your college sports fandom. Other products in their line include subdermal block-M tattoos, Jim Brandstatter books encrypted so that they look like 1950s-era Russian novels*, and vodka made from potatoes cut into block Ms before fermentation.

*[Conveniently, the only modification needed was a search and replace from "Schembechler" to "Stalin".]

RECOMMENDED FOR: Valve stem enthusiasts. People you secretly hate and feel may be vulnerable to "what's the point of anything" existential paralysis upon considering these.

5. Michigan Themed Tree Face

Twenty bucks.

Some things on this list are products sane people own pointlessly branded with college logos. This is not one of those things. It's a face you put on a tree. This face you put on a tree comes with a faux Michigan hat… that you put on a tree.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Crazy old bats who already have an army of tiny plastic deer in the yard. The criminally insane. Lonely ents.

4. Maize and Blue Lawn Flamingoes

Twenty bucks. Horrifyingly, they are out of stock.

The guy writing the copy on this isn't even pretending to try:

These Michigan Wolverines FlaminGO Fans make a great gift for that sports fan who has all of the ''Normal'' fan gear. A classic American icon with a new twist! Support your Wolverines in tacky style!!

Sincerely, Lane Pryce. 

RECOMMENDED FOR: People who thought the tree face was a good idea.

3. Chili Powder. Yes. Just Chili Powder.

Six bucks.

It's literally just chili powder:

Ingredients: Sun dried ground chili peppers, cumin, beef flavor, onion powder, garlic powder, chicken flavor, oregano, cayenne pepper, black pepper, habanero and jalapeno peppers.

No blue dye or anything. At least with bags of stuff or ketchup or whatever you get the effect of eating out of the Michigan theme container. Here you put the stuff in the chili the night before and leave the jar at home.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Nobody. This is the most pointless Michigan-themed product possible. Michigan-themed nothing is less pointless than this. A jar of nothing.

2. Terrified Ski-Jumping Wolverine Statue

A cool two hundred smackaroos. Incredibly, also out of stock.

The chime rang and the Estonian stood, sliding down the ramp to his destiny. His destiny would be 8th place or something. Wallace the Wolverine's was far less certain.

Wallace had a moment to consider the series of bad decisions that had led him, a proud and noble wolverine from Saskatchewan, to this place, a B-list ski jump event in Switzerland. He'd never even been to Fiji, and yet here he was, Fijan passport stapled to his fur, planks strapped to his feet, staring down at a 70-foot drop that flared up at the end. If only he'd… no time for that now. The chime.

"FOR FIIIIIIIIIIJJJIIIIIIIIIIIII…"

RECOMMENDED FOR: Animal ski-jump sadism fiction enthusiasts.

1. Bladerunner Squirrel Sleeping Bag

Just $77.

One: it's not a wolverine. It's a flying squirrel. A flying squirrel wearing a futuristic helmet. Absolutely no attempt has been made to make this thing look like a wolverine. Two: given the configuration of these things you are inviting your child to slice open your favorite school's mascot and sleep inside it like it's a taun-taun, guaranteeing months of intestine-themed nightmares.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Parents who hate their children, want them to have an advanced understanding of the alimentary tract, or enjoy being woken up by cries of "OH GOD IT'S DIGESTING ME DADDY." Also pervs.