Unverified Voracity Is Fresh And New

WOOOOOOO. According to the Boston Globe, the Rose Bowl will pick LSU and Michigan (barring a UCLA upset).

Ferentz. Oft-rumored as a potential Carr replacement, the bloom has come off the rose a bit with these last couple disappointing years in Iowa City. Mark Hasty takes a look at the Iowa program now and under Hayden Fry:

A quick perusal of the Iowa boards last night found a significant clot of posters who were actually hoping for Kirk Ferentz to leave the university. This is the one of the most unheard-of things I've ever heard of. I'm as disappointed as anyone with Iowa's 6-6 regular season, but statistically, these sort of aberrations have been part of Iowa football since the dawn of the Hayden Fry era.

Bizarre sidenote: I'm reading Friday Night Lights at this very moment and Fry is mentioned as the quarterback of Odessa High's 1946 state championship team.

Much has been made of this Yahoo article on various Michigan message boards, since it compares Michigan and USC's games against ND and declares advantage Michigan, but it's a classic example of not looking at all the information available. Also: can we stop pretending that a "bowl team" is a meaningful distinction. Iowa's going to a bowl this year: they're 2-6 in-conference and lost to Indiana and Northwestern. By playing in a major conference you are guaranteed to have approximately half your schedule make a bowl, because someone's got to win conference games and they're all playing I-AA opponents in the noncon.

Name at cornerback: FL 4-star Doug Wiggins is down to Georgia and Michigan. Also, some bad news from Pasedena: WR/DB commit Zion Babb was declared academically ineligible for his team's playoff game (they got crushed 43-7) and "will meet with Michigan officials this week to discuss his academic status."

Rejoice somewhat. Buried in the latest Forde-Yard Dash is this nugget:

The speed-up-the-game (34) efforts of the NCAA were laudable in theory (we do not need four-hour football games) but not so laudable in practice. The impact on offensive numbers and late-game strategy was too significant to stand. An NCAA source said we can expect at least a moderate revamping of that rule in the offseason.

Woo.

Etc.: NBCSports columnist and ND alum John Walters A) calls his thing "Upon Further Review" -- I probably should have picked a less obvious name for charty madness -- and B) wonders if ND actually deserves a BCS bowl. Stone him! Report from the football bust. Actual UFR spreads! No doubt temporarily! To That's News To Me, who take a look at the Titans comeback versus the Giants.