Unverified Voracity Asks Why

Why? There are certain things that burn themselves into your brain and never leave. These are unusual events, like a punt return touchdown against Ohio State or your brother setting his pillow on fire. Usually they don't involve charts:

What is this a chart of? Rick Reilly's dental jokes per year. It is part of an extensive article by Josh Levin that contains perhaps the most pointless project ever undertaken by man:

As a service to sportswriting and dentistry aficionados, I've compiled all of Reilly's tooth jokes on a single page, with a link to the relevant story when available.

I… what do you even say? I spend my life dissecting college football in minute detail and at some point I laughed out loud and asked "why? why would you do this?" One thousand cocktails to Levin.

Basketballin'. Michigan-Maryland at 7:30 tonight on ESPNU, which no one gets. I assume someone will ask for streaming info on the board and someone else will provide it, so if you're like most of America and don't have ESPNU you can watch it on the computer.

As to the game: UMHoops has your pregame, and Beilein's radio show schedule this year. The Washington Post takes the opportunity to profile Beilein's rebuilding project.

Assuming Michigan doesn't get any additional Savannah State-like scares from the smaller teams on the schedule, the upcoming game against Maryland looms as perhaps the biggest of the year. Win and you're likely to hit the conference schedule with just two losses, both to Duke, and the scalps of Maryland and UCLA. A .500 conference record probably gets Michigan in the tourney. Lose and you're probably going to have to go 10-8, which seems doubtful.

Oh, I guess they could beat Duke. But probably not.

While we're on the subject of Duke, this should be fun:

Jay Bilas, a former Duke player, is going to be the color commentator for Michigan's game against Duke on Saturday.

Over/under on patently false accusations Amaker wasn't given sufficient opportunity at Michigan is set at two.

LOL. A Scout headline($):

Muschamp to Visit Hicks in Ohio

Ha.

Coach rotation? Brian Kelly is staying at UC? And they're renovating Nippert* Stadium? Charlie Weis is staying at Notre Dame? Is anyone hiring, firing, or accepting a coaching job going to make a decision that makes sense this year?

On the Weis thing: as mentioned, I'm torn. Weis has recruited a ton of talent over the past two years (his first real class has mostly washed out, with a number of four-star guys transferring) and eventually you figure Notre Dame is going to get results from it. Better to have Weis in charge than someone who's demonstrated an aptitude for anything other than recruiting, I guess. And if they struggle to 8-4 next year you'd have to imagine it will be tough for a coaching staff on terribly shaky ground to bring in more guys.

OTOH, Weis getting canned might have gotten Michigan a recruit or two and accelerated a critical building process as Rodriguez tries to stay ahead of the executioner's axe. And I generally root for chaos at rivals because unstable programs are bad ones, consistently. If Brian Kelly isn't an option there are precious few available coaches who strike me as fearsome. There's no Urban out there, and programs like Tennessee are reaching for guys like Lane Kiffin. Maybe next year someone will emerge.

*(Whenever anyone mentions "Nippert Stadium" I'm reminded of that scene in Christmas Vacation wherein Chevy Chase unleashes a torrent of accidental innuendos at a hot chick in the mall.)

Etc.: Smart Football on the Urban Meyer offense; some references to Rodriguez. A recap of the WLA-RBUAS mini-war from an unaffiliated source. Former Michigan safety Vada Murray has lung cancer. (HT: Spawn of MZone.)