Great Moments in Homerism, and other matters

To start off, I'd like to congratulate myself for winning this week's Coulter/Krugman Award in the BlogPoll. While most voters didn't have the courage to put the Badgers in their top 25s this week, I boldly stepped up and ranked them #15. As Brian says, Wisconsin is "officially on upset watch" this weekend. Hopefully I'll be vindicated and other people will pay some attention to the Badgers. It would really suck to lose at home to a backup quarterback and a mid-major team.

On a more somber note, best wishes and prayers go to Terry Hoeppner. The coach of the Hoosiers is undergoing his second brain surgery in ten months and will miss two to four weeks of work, meaning that he probably won't be on the sidelines for the UW-Indiana game. I always root for the bottom few teams in the conference because the year-to-year variations are what keeps Big Ten football interesting, and Hoep seems to be the kind of guy who could potentially turn a losing program around.

Turning to the Badgers, I have a new favorite columnist on campus. (Adam Hoge gets it too, but doesn't say it as well as Poppy.) I'm glad some of the smarter Badger fans are starting to realize this kind of thing:

Speaking of beer, the excuse every student has when asked why Camp Randall can’t fill sections J through P before kick-off is pregame partying. Nothing against it, but if you’re so hardcore, why don’t you just wake up a few hours earlier?

PREACH IT! For a world-class university that loves to party, we sure do get the football games all wrong. Know the rules of the game, respect the opponent and their fans, get in the stadium before kickoff and stay till the bitter end.

Jeff Potrykus believes that a tough game would help the Badgers out. Maybe, but those tough games are notoriously easy to lose. I'd prefer the Badgers, say, get some stops on third down instead. Sure, tough games might make tough teams, but when the Badgers go on the road to Michigan a week from Saturday, they'll know what they're up against ... and that's a very different thing from coming home and shaking off the rust against Western Illinois. Suffice it to say that if the game against the Aztecs on Saturday is "tough," I'll be in panic mode.

As always, this weekend's game is suffused with backstory involving Bret Bielema's coaching pedigree. College football is a small world. We get it. Frankly, I'm more interested in why student tickets were mixed in with those of the marching band and, more importantly, why that won't happen again.



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