Dear Diary Gets Down to the Quantum Foam

Zoltan ponders how the gradient potential of his latest punt lines up exactly with that of collateralized debt obligation investment products in the 2008 bubble, and if they are correlated, could this end prostate cancer and teach cats to play ping-pong?

Somewhere in the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster complex, about a Yottameter from the Great Attractor, on a wet, rocky satellite of a smallish yellow star on the belt of a medium-sized Virgo Complex galaxy, there was a football game. In the first half, despite the best efforts of their opponents, Michigan's offense gained enough yards to traverse the Hoover Dam; in the second half they barely made it the length of a 747.

Millions who witnessed a representation of this occurring on stacked LCD pixels went online to find the similarly sized (and metaphorical) grain of salt, or compare the offensive coordinator's brain to the like-massed Paramecium. They tore out hair follicles, pounded their couches to release thousands of silt and skin particles which had settled there, and angrily flicked the transistor gates deep within their electronic devices to exclaim how this loss hurt to their very DNA.

In the abstract, a loss to Ohio State, even if largely expected, was too horrible to countenance. And so the Diarists burned glucose deep into the night while attempting to make sense of what was essentially the movement of a whole lot of atoms but to us a whole lot of matter. Zoom far enough in or out and you no longer have to see it.

The Micro. For the real quantum foam of the events in question, again I quote bronxblue…

The whole gang was back, to give the OSU faithful one more opportunity to cheer on a myth, a delusion about its history that seems painfully obvious to everyone not wearing crimson and grey.

So between the first and second quarters of the final game the 2012 Buckeyes will play, a premature finale caused by Mr. Tressel’s behavior during his years in Columbus, the fans in attendance gave him a standing ovation, one of the biggest cheers of the day. … The narrative went, at least in some circles, that most schools would have done the same, that fans love to cheer on winners and that most of those players were completely above board and played fairly, won every game that season, and, let’s be honest, Miami was no saint either. The thinking went that this was a team that the school should be proud of, or at least should be able to recognize publicly.

…who is going to keep winning Diarist of the Week until such point as BlueSeoul comes back to game wrap (with pics). I sat high up in the student section where freshmen who were probably 7 years old for 2002 cheered louder than the alumni. One kid in a black longcoat who spent most of first half with cheap nacho cheese on his chin yelled "Fuck Michigan!" at us through it all. This is Ohio State in a nutshell: cartoon bad guys oblivious to how stupid they look.

ST3 boiled Inside the Box Score down to Borges quotes. On the boards, Profwoot narrowed it to the script. And caup took it to the O-Line coach. Hypothesis: the more you know about football the deeper down the coaching ranks you can find blame. Theory: the 2003 team would have been national champs if it wasn't for (student mgr) Jeff Levine. Damn you, Levine!

Shane Morris puts the game in perspective.

[After the JUMP, we zoom out far enough to see the Space Emperor's Mustache]

The Macro. As the wise droid said the damage doesn't look so bad from out here. Eye of the Tiger resurveyed the 2012 season on the George Lucas scale and found it Attack of the Clones and Temple of Doom. I agree with the latter but this was Episode III all the way: a mediocre payoff to medium expectations that felt like it might be good at some point despite some cringe-worthy love scenes, only to descend into "killing younglings," robot midwives and Frankenvader at the end.

TSS tried to create a general offensive line unit stat by giving them depreciating credit for yards the further they get from the line of scrimmage. Then he took the play I talked about in Hokepoints this week and there goes that unified theory. I say take it away from the O-line and call it a run game assessment because the chart passes the sanity test.

Captain Hindsight, i.e. saveferris looks back to wonder aloud whether Gardner to receiver was worth it. Realistically it might have cost Michigan the Nebraska game (and hence the Bo Division), but it may have won Air Force. Since there's no guarantee in re: Nebraska, the massive all-in call at the beginning of the season seems to have ended with a split pot. LSAClassOf2000, most boring man in the universe,* created three statistical roundups that tell the story of yes that is what you saw:

* Still not a diss. Just sayin' they look like pages out of a Stats 401 reading. It's internet; add a cat playing ping pong or something.

The board's macroviews include a review of next year's schedule, the snowflake 2012 review, and snowflake depth chart, and a lot of stuff covered in this week in schadenfreude.

Diaries Etc. Hoops primer if you're just joining the bandwagon (the bandwagon was recently renovated too #SeriouslyWeHaveNoIdeaWhatTheFuckToDoWithAllThisMoney #BigTENNNNN!) There was also a KState preview that I hope ClearEyesFullHart continues doing. Brian mentioned MLaw06's chart of Priority Points changes. THE_KNOWLEDGE on coaching changes (just tell me who gets JLS this year!). OT and tears, but sometimes we do good without trying.

Non-OSU Best of the Board

ZOLTAN! MUSTACHE! ZOLTAN MUSTACHE!!!

In 2009 I wore my Space Emperor (of Space) shirt to every home game. In 2009 I also has a blog that tried to get David Wright to grow a mustache. 2009 me would have flipped out at this:

For those of you who don't know, Zoltan is currently growing out a... interesting... mustache to support Movember USA and their prostate cancer fund.  He is entering the final few days and we are trying to rally donations at the peak of his lip sweater.

That's from Tim North, who you remember as walk-on DL who climbs depth chart in Spring before it was cool. As I mentioned a few weeks ago these guys have put together a world class charity organization faster than a punt returner can yell 'oh shiiiiii.'

DON'T YOU DARE BRING YOUR RHYMES TO THE HOUSE OF BREASTON

Technically NC State's CJ Leslie played next door, the poem that made him internet famous is admittedly decent. But son you just walked in the realm of the poet, here lemme show it:

That's nice that you wrote it, here we Bo it. Stopping now forever.

YOU SUCK REFS EXCUSE ME LINESMAN BUT I BELIEVE YOU MISSED AN ILLEGAL BLOCK TO YOUR SIDE OF THE FIELD

The OP asked about referee responsibilities and this response is about the most concise description I've ever seen of each ref position and what they're supposed to be calling.

ETC. Help the D.C. alumni come up with questions for Brian, such as "when are you gonna buy yachts for everybody?" Te'o is great and I don't think defensive players should have to play special teams (nobody asked Troy Smith to moonlight at safety), but is he as good at LB as Woodson was at everything? Last defensive player I would have given it to is Suh—don't know if Manti is on that level.

Your moment of zen:

I wonder if it can be taught to play foosball. –Zoltan/everyone.