It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It: June 4

Come to the Manzi   Big day for Ricky Stanzi in the blogosphere.  First, his turn comes up under The Rivalry, Esq.'s microscope.  TRE gives Stanzi's mechanics an A-.  By comparison, Daryll Clark received a B+, Tate Forcier received a B-, and Kellen Lewis received a $4.90 tip from table 17 late in his shift at the Bloomington Applebee's.  TRE praises Stanzi's ability to survey defenses and improvise, but criticizes his play action fake.  There was no category for throwing inexplicable second-quarter interceptions; had there been, Stanzi would have taught the course.

In other SDS news, Dr. Saturday seizes on an anonymous STANZIQUOTE from a Big Ten coach as the most recent example of Athlon-sponsored absurd coachspeak:

To be sure, some of the insights are just bizarre, such as:

Iowa: "(Ricky) Stanzi's a young Tom Brady to me. He's got the size. He's got the same kind of mechanics. He's very efficient. He doesn't make bad choices, and he takes what the defense gives him and that's it." -- An opposing Big Ten assistant coach.

He ... had 11 touchdowns to nine interceptions against teams that weren't Florida International and was less efficient than Juice Williams. Hall of Fame, here he comes.

Obviously, Hinton will receive his karmic comeuppance for attacking The Manzi, but a young Tom Brady?  It looks like Brock Spack spent those cold winter nights in East Lafayette with an Iowa Football media guide, a giant bagel, and a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese.

Don't Touch That Dial   Next Wednesday, June 10, is chock full of classic Iowa replays on the Big Ten Network:

	6:00AM ET	The Big Ten's Greatest Games - Basketball: 2/7/04 - Iowa at Indiana
	8:00AM ET	The Big Ten's Greatest Games - Football: 2002 - Purdue at Iowa
	10:00AM ET	Big Ten Field Hockey '08: Big Ten Tournament Championship Game: Ohio State vs. Iowa (HD)
	12:00PM ET	Iowa Campus Programming: Iowa Magazine: Sustainability
	12:30PM ET	Iowa Campus Programming: Getting Ready for the Boom
	1:00PM ET	Big Ten Men's Basketball '08-'09: Wisconsin at Iowa (HD)
	3:00PM ET	Big Ten Softball '09: Illinois at Iowa (HD)
	5:00PM ET	Big Ten Wrestling '08-'09: Big Ten Championships (HD)
	8:00PM ET	The Big Ten's Greatest Games - Basketball: 1987 NCAA Tournament: Iowa vs. Oklahoma
	10:00PM ET	The Big Ten's Greatest Games - Football: 2008 - Penn State at Iowa (HD)

	12:00AM ET	Big Ten Friday Night Tailgate '08: Iowa (HD)
	1:30AM ET	Iowa Campus Programming: Iowa Magazine: The 2008 Flood (HD)
	2:00AM ET	The Big Ten's Greatest Games - Basketball: 11/24/95 - Connecticut vs Iowa
	4:00AM ET	The Big Ten's Greatest Games - Football: 1990 - Iowa at Michigan

So go ahead.  Come down with a sudden case of the swine flu, get up early to watch Jeff Horner kill the Hoosiers and Brad Banks scramble past the Boilers, grab a quick nap, then scream at your television through the night (that 1990 Iowa-Michigan game in the middle of the night is especially excellent). (T/F/J: The Nihlist)

We're Also Better at Things Like "Reading Books," "Preventive Dentistry," and "Not Electing George Wallace to High Office"   T. Kyle King, the only man with a Harvard degree an article published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy who still refers to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression War Betwixt The States, finally concedes that Big Ten football is superior to the SEC (well, at least in scheduling...):

Why not go ahead and get the non-conference slate out of the way first and build up to all-important S.E.C. play? If you wanted to follow Bill Snyder’s philosophy of "stair-stepping into your season," you could start with a Division I-AA team, then play a Sun Belt team, then play a lower-tier B.C.S. conference team, then play an up-and-coming mid-major or a legitimate B.C.S. conference opponent before beginning S.E.C. play.

 

Although the league boasts many heavyweights, the conference is not without its bottom-dwellers, so there are some soft spots in the S.E.C. slate; it isn’t as though running a gauntlet of eight straight conference outings would be tantamount to visiting Baton Rouge or Gainesville every Saturday. Besides, moving the non-conference games to the front of the schedule would serve the highly desirable functions of getting the Georgia Tech game out of the way early and shifting the Auburn game back to the end of the year where it belongs.

 

To me, that makes a lot more sense than playing Tennessee Tech in November. What do y’all think?

The irony of this, of course, is that the very scheduling which TKK praises is slowly melting away.  While the conference season still starts in late September and runs through mid-November, the abolition of the infamous "no games after Thanksgiving" rule allowed Wisconsin to schedule its 2008 closer against San Jose St. and Illinois to schedule TWO non-conference games (against Cincinnati and Fresno St.) after the close of its 2009 conference slate.

Tim Brewster Tweeting o' the Day   After taking Tuesday off, Brew was so active yesterday it deserves its own post later this afternoon.

Miscellany   It's saying a lot for an organization so inept, but the NCAA might have made its dumbest decision ever in adding a "no charging" circle around the basket...without actually adding the circle.  Peyton Manning takes a cue from Bruce Pearl and gets that Volunteer spirit.  Jay Paterno had an early morning.  And Hulu, which was the greatest invention in the history of humankind, is probably becoming a paid subscription service.