Remember the South Park episode after 9/11 where Sharon Marsh is left drooling on the couch watching CNN? That aired almost exactly 10 years ago. That's also pretty much how the MGoDenizens felt all week through another round of conference realignment that didn't quite match galactic expectations. Raise your hand if you could identify every player on the above telly prior to this week.

Those pics (all the little icon in the middle) are the cast of Hardware Sushi's Diary of the Week-winning report on EXPANSIONPALOOZZIZZA 2011. A taste:

Texas: Anyone interested - $10 for an HJ, $20 for a BJ, $40 for a ZJ, $300mil for an LHN. If you have to ask about the ZJ, you don't want it. Anyone?

Mizzou: We so want the B12 to survive COUGH ess eee see COUGH big ten COUGH COUGH

Jim Delany: Harumph and so forth. Big Ten likes twelve members. You will receive my condescension and be grateful, peasants.

The boards had a good expansion thread a day (best one linked) until the Pac12's sudden aneurism of sense.

For those of you who chose the Renaissance Festival over football last Saturday (what's the point of having a blog if you can't troll your friends), our resident Gonzo jhackney provides assurance that Ann Arbor was hardly different, except at ours they let Sir Lewan out of the jousting ring after half-time, and several burros died:

After halftime, Michigan had a fire lit under their ass and the lighter fluid to ignite it was the usual brand, Denard Robinson. The defense also stepped up their game to begin to look respectable, but the rushing attack by the fighting EMU’s still plagued them. Denard galloped his way on his feet, which I am convinced are small unicorns blessed by the Pope.

The second half renaissance was good enough to earn some high first quarter (of the season) marks from Maize_in_spartyland, and get StephenRKass to wonder aloud if defense and special teams are maybe making their way to the positives column.

Other stuff too good to put in an etc. section: wlubd put together the 2013 offer list. Right now it's 22 guys but that will get to over 100 by March. This will be in the Usual Stuff tab and updated.

Lanyard Program is creating a Mini Program you can print on Game Days. Sample page:

Chris of Danger… Danger of Logic made picture pages move:

And cjm made a wallpaper for SDSU week.

Don't change the channel! Coming up after the break it's the weeklies and best of the board.

This Week in Things that are Weekly

The Mathlete is awesome in all ways. The front page is getting kind of crowded recently and nobody remembered to bump his official weekly Mid-Week Metrics column, so I'll mention it here. This was Michigan's chances of winning the EMU game from kickoff to finish, adjusted for team strength:

That's about how I felt, except my paranoid mind takes 95% win probability and does bad things. You can mentally place events of the game into this. You can also send mind bullets in the Mathlete's direction until he agrees to go back and make ND and WMU charts as well.

Enjoy Life has got to be enjoying his turnover tracking this year…

…after three of not so niceness. The rest of the weeklies:

• ST3 goes Inside the Box Score has few surprises except 23 (!) players made the defensive stats.
• Jeff has a Pick Six update (Notre Dame is causing havoc).
• The Ugly Game of the Week by stubob includes some great gif action re: Akron State Golden Bobcat Rockets v Colorado.
• The Conference Power Rankings by bwgrudt1494 shows the Big Ten surprisingly in 3rd (WAAAAY behind the SEC) and the Big XII (23-2 in non-conf. games) on top.
• WestMichiganMan has Boise State and Baylor atop his resume ballot and Michigan at 14.
• Maize_in_spartyland's Upset Watch picks Michigan in a close one over SDSU and can't figure out Notre Dame either
• Lordfoul is making his [Einstein quote] diary about lessons learned a weekly thing.

Best of the Board

UNDER THE LIGHTS MAKES ROAD TRIP GO AHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Here's the ESPN Road Trip: Ann Arbor episode (HT Boyz n da Pahokee) which has to be the first time the hosts of a reality show spent literally 1/4 of the episode screaming unintelligibly:

BndP also has the every snap videos for EMU: Offense, Defense. This is helpful to watch when reading UFRs. [Ed: Shhh.]

BORGES OFFENSE BETTER THAN RR'S SAY STAT GEEKS

Rly. User Nick (just Nick) posted Fremeau's latest rankings, which put M's offense at No. 1 in the country. My guess was that MAC defenses get way overrated at the beginning of the year but WMU's is 59th and EMU's is 114th. Actually WMU's stats don't count, so that stuff making the Road Trip folks scream above against Fremeau's 4th ranked ND defense is getting majorly overrated. [Ed: FTR, those stats are heavily based on projections from last year, in which Michigan had the #2 offense and ten returning starters.]

WHICH OF THESE NAMES DID I JUST MAKE UP?

1. Ohio QB Brogan Roback
2. Florida OL Larmey Tensil
3. Indiana DT Gronda Peenwheezle
4. Illinois RB Ty Isaac

Three of those guys are blue chip prospects in 2013 who are considering Michigan. Bumped to diaries this morning is Lancer's update on these dudes, with links. You'll have to click to find out who's real, and start getting to know the top of the Class of '13.

COME MEET THE HOCKEY/HOOPS TEAMS TODAY…LIKE RIGHT NOW

Not sure what time Brian plans to post this today but if it's the afternoon you might wanna knock off work and run down to Yost and/or Crisler like right now. The icers and cagers are having open houses in their homes today. Red Berenson et al. will be at the barn from 3:20 p.m to 6. Then head down to meet Beilein's boys, Borseth's bunch, and the Crisler renovations from 5:00 to 8. Both events are free yo!

WHAT WAS THE GREATEST GAME OF THE '90s?

If you're over 25, vote here in this thread by Wolverine Devotee. There should probably be a separate category for Ohio State games because back when we were still terrorizing Cooper that game was an entire animal all of itself. I voted for the '95 "Not that Good?!?" game over '97 because I was at that game with a fever (chills plus Ann Arbor in November = not happy) and spent the whole time trying to will both myself and Michigan to not puke on ourselves. If you don't count OSU and don't count Jan 1, 2000, put me down for '97 Penn State.

WHO ARE THE COOLER POOPERS, AND WHY MUST THEY SAVE US THE HYMNALS?

A2Hawk put the current MGoTagline into the Urban Dictionary. I don't particularly care for the UD but the post is gold for those who don't know the origin of the phrase.

HOW DO I GET 250 PEOPLE TO YELL 'NO!' AT ME AT ONCE?

Start a thread asking if Michigan should play a game at Comerica Park. Worth a look just for the gifs by the multitudes who didn't think a simple 'nay' would suffice. Same guy who asked the greatest question of the '90s poll above, much worse question.