Unverified Voracity Blames Google

Indeterminate issue. RSS subscribers may have noticed the disappearance of the daily mgo.licio.us linkdump. This is an issue on Feedburner's end and I can't do anything about it until they fix it. Sorry. I assume it will magically resume working at some point in the near future.

Also, while I'm talking about site stuff: the twitter feed is usually just a repackaged RSS feed, but I've wanted to make it more newsy, too. One manifestation of this: on signing day I'll be twittering news as it comes in.

Pre-emptive bombing. Signing day approacheth, so it's time for Dr. Saturday to do yet more research on the accuracy of recruiting rankings in a futile attempt to forestall those annoying columns from cranky newspapermen declaring that "recruiting rankings don't matter because Utah," to paraphrase DocSat. As per usual, the finding is that they're somewhere between useless and gospel. They are worth paying attention to but not worth pulling your hair out over, as the following table suggests:

That's a breakdown of 332 games between BCS opponents organized by gaps in overall recruiting rankings. It's flat until you get to 400+ points per year, which may sound like a big gap but isn't really: current #1 LSU has about 2500 points this year, which puts them about 400 points in front of #6 North Carolina. North Carolina, in turn, is about 400 points in front of #12 Oklahoma. That's at the bottom end of the range where recruiting ratings really start to get separation, but even if you increase it to 700 points—the midrange—we're talking about the gap between #7 M and #22 Mississippi State.

I'd like to see these things take things like opportunity costs and attrition into better account, as raw numbers indicate the SEC is washing out 50% more recruits than the Big Ten is, which leads to inflated recruiting rankings just because they've got more d00ds in their base.

Kampfer stuff. Red has (reluctantly, I'm sure) addressed the issue:

It all comes down to intent. Sometimes it's not what you do, it's why you do it. Or what it appears to be. I think this was the issue. This was not a pre-meditated thing, but it was an instant reaction, and it was ... too serious to overlook. You can't just say drawing blood. I mean, I hate to tell you this, but I put a kid's eye out one time by lifting a stick. And he wasn't expecting it, I lifted it too high, he lost an eye, and it was an accident. Everybody felt terrible. But, boy, when you swing your stick at someone's head intentionally, when he's down, someone that hasn't even done anything ... Anyway, I don't think we need to revisit it, but that was a serious incident. Very serious, and the kid will never do that again.

There's considerably more from him in the above-linked article; the other item that jumped out was a response to the question "Has the CCHA issued a warning for the next time the teams play?" Red said "they don't have to," basically, and continued:

We're not carrying anything over, and personally, I don't think Michigan State will be carrying anything over. So if we do play them in a game, I don't think you'll see anything. ... I don't think there's any real serious animosity. I mean, Kampfer's gotta just accept that it was a bad deal, the players have been punished, let's move on.

As for moving on, eh, the attempt is being made. The Ann Arbor police are "investigating" the incident—which seems like a 30-second process consisting entirely of watching the video, but whatever. Kampfer didn't skate yesterday; he's expected to give it a go today.

Game on, I assume. Ohio State has cancelled classes for a reason other than "it's Wednesday again": there's a big damn ice storm in town. There's been no indication this will affect tonight's basketball game (6:30, BTN), but it may seriously depress attendance, for whatever small benefit that might provide. Previews are up at UMHoops and Varsity Blue; Ohio State is favored by six.

Livin' on the edge. I'm having a hard time figuring out whether Tajh Boyd's commitment to Clemson is a good or bad thing. Ohio State was the other major contender and the Buckeye depth chart outside of Terrelle Pryor currently reads: 26-year-old walk-on and former baseball player Joe Bauserman. That's it. If Pryor gets injured or shoots a dog or something, it's freak-out time.

On the other hand, Michigan and Ohio State are battling for 2010 MI QB Devin Gardner, and depth charts and all that.

Etc.: Mock Rock is on February 3rd this year. Prepare your cringing-from-afar muscles.