It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It Is Taking It Easy on the Livestock Today

When it's news that you're not sexually abusing the livestock, that's probably a bad sign: When it comes to schools whose fanbases and students take liberties with farm animals, okay, your first instinct isn't always Michigan. Michigan probably isn't even in the top 10. The top 10, of course, is all Iowa State--except for #7, which is "Nebraska haha just kidding it's Iowa State." But lo and behold, there's Rittenberg claiming exactly that in the screencap I grabbed last night.

So you go to the article in question... and it has nothing to do with sheep wearing ball gags and gimp masks. What the hell, Worldwide Leader?

Ah; turns out it's Google Reader, automatically translating the word "Mouton" in the headline, since "mouton" is French for "sheep." Why does Google Reader do this? For bestiality jokes, that's why.

We probably could have used this before yesterday's podcast: Morehouse has a comprehensive breakdown of Arizona. It's full of facts and noted notables, which is probably his way of making us look bad. Petty, that man. Just petty. A quick rundown:

• Arizona will make your offense have an angry: The Cats' D held Dan LeFevour to barely more than 100 yards of ttotal offense, and they similarly shut down Northern Arizona despite taking their their starters off the field about when the opening kick went into the air. Roughly.
• Nic Grigsby is a little firecracker. He's no quarkback, of course, but anyone who can burn a defense for a 94 yard touchdown deserves a serious amount of respect. People are relieved that Arizona runs a pro-style offense and not a spread-and-shred. I'm not so sure about that. Iowa has traditionally worked well against run-first spread teams--just ask Zook-era Illinois and Walker-era just Northwestern--while a straight-ahead running attack gives an offense a better chance to find double-teams and/or account for more tacklers. It's going to take an inspired effort from the linebackers to keep Grigsby contained, and they haven't had any of those efforts yet this season.
• At the same time eee new quarterback and eee no all-conference tight end. The good news, then, is that their passing game doesn't look like a major threat. Matt Scott is a mobile QB who hasn't lit up the defenses that he's faced yet, and the Cats will still miss standout TE Rob Gronkowski. Thank God. It would make sense, then, to have Sash or one of the OLB shadow Scott, since he likes to take off pretty often. Hell, if the Iowa defense is up for switching up spy responsibilities, it usually makes life hell for a quarterback going through his progressions and assignments. But now we're just thinking out loud.
• 24-17 is Morehouse's prediction; we're not inclined to disagree all that much, but we don't see two touchdowns coming from that Arizona offense, Grigsby be damned (with all due respect to NAU and CMU, um, give us a break). We're also worried about assigning three TDs to an Iowa offense that may still be missing Bulaga, since there's no word that he's practicing yet. Our prediction comes tomorrow.

If you've been waiting for your JoePa fix, thank you for your patience: Our new feature, FauxPa's Fireside Chat, went up today at our bill-payin' gig at SbB. It's not quite the same as the Chronicles, which will still probably make an errant appearnace every now and then here, but it's still worth reading anyway.

Mike Leach wants you to spend your money wisely: And by that, he means burying a trunk of gold on an uninhabited island, yes?

(Terrorist Fist Jab: the Doubled T's Nation)

The very definition of Football Affluenza: The Daily Trojan, complaining that their true freshman who just won in Columbus isn't good enough yet. Sir, please try slumming it with a significantly worse program for a while. If you need help finding one, please look at 95% OF THE REST OF I-A. Observe:

But to say that he is now a certifiable star? To say that he has officially come of age?

I disagree.

Come on: He completed 15 of 31 of his passes in the game — 48 percent, which would’ve been good for ninth in the Pac-10 last season — and some of the misses were glaring.

HOLY SHIT. MATT BARKLEY WON AT OSU IN HIS SECOND GAME OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL AND YOU'RE BITCHING. GET FUCKED BY A FIRE HYDRANT, YOU SPOILED BRAT.

Telling you all not to break the law would be foolish and naive, of course, because this is college and college is for drunken anarchy: The UI held their annual "here's how to avoid being arrested" event yesterday. While the DI did us the disservice of not publishing the really obvious tips ("Don't steal a cop car; not even as a joke!"), our general observations have been that you have to try to get arrested in Iowa City. Oh, you'll get a PAULA if you even say the word "alcohol" and you're under 40, but the handcuffs don't come out until you start losing your shit.

Briefly...

• Bob Stoops doesn't want to play Iowa. Further proof that like Ohio State, OU is ducking Iowa. What's Stoops afraid of? Why hasn't he been fired?
  
• BSD has a nice breakdown on how to get a goal-line run play stuffed. The three basic factors: PAD LEVEL, PAD LEVEL, PAD LEVEL.
• Illinois loses Martez Wilson for the season for a neck injury. The Zooker's roll seems to be slowing accordingly.
• Iowa commit Marcus Coker went up against two other Iowa commitments, Jim Poggi and Anthony Ferguson... and utterly annihilated them, racking up 392 yards and 5 TDs. The coolest part of the story, though? This:

He plays on a field surrounded by buildings. I. Want. That.

Otto the Orange is helping defeat swine flu at Syracuse. Come on, now you're just baiting TNIAAM, guys.

And finally, this, and the rest of the album, is the shit.

There's A Game On Saturday rolls through tomorrow, people. Get some sleep.