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Weekend whimsy: Up is down, down is sideways, Brock Osweiler is shrinking

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Some light reading and our favorite stories of the week to speed you through Friday.

Can’t trust a blessed thing in this world. If we can’t depend on Brock Osweiler being 6-8, what can we depend on? Next thing you’ll tell us Ron Zook is, at best, a mediocre and unenthusiastic jetskiier.

More like “leaders of the pack beating a fast trail out of Denton,” amirite, Hoosiers? The problem, in the end, with naming conference divisions “Leaders” and “Legends” is that every league, no matter how stacked, is going to have its Indiana. Smart and sassy Michigan internet fixture MGoBlog follows up our shoddy “research” with some “research” of its own — and speaking of shoddy, Brand Explorers still can’t spell “analysis.” Fun extrapolation from the ensuing comment thread: “This, combined with the the poll posted on the board yesterday, suggests that Michigan fans disapprove of the division names more strongly than they approve of Brady Hoke.” Who just won Michigan a Sugar Bowl, you might have heard.

The state bird of Ohio. Is not football, but don’t mention that to the northern cardinal.

Ricky Williams, graven idol. We can only hope that future civilizations, surveying the wreckage of post-zombie-apocalyptic America, will find these bronzed tributes to our beautiful game and build a religion around them.

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  • Published On Feb 24, 2012
  • ‘Research’ can mean a lot of things

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    Jim Delany and his B1G brethren have elected to stick with "Leaders" and "Legends" as division names. (US PRESSWIRE)

    “Hey guys, I’ve come up with a new mnemonic for remembering which teams are in the Leaders division. Ready? Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Wisconsin.” — A joke we have been working on, to no avail

    While we were raised on one team and own many expensive hooded sweatshirts (and one spacey t-shirt) dedicated to that team’s supremacy, we are professional polytheists when it comes to college football. We have favorite teams in every conference, whose good fortune cheers us and faceplants sadden our days. We want the best for the best sport. We are also blessed with almost superhuman strength when it comes to liking dumb things ironically, but you guys: We are utterly unable to get on board with this “Leaders & Legends” thing the Increasingly Inaccurately Named Big Ten continues to insist is A Thing, a notoriously ill-conceived branding attempt we are now all apparently stuck with.

    Our favorite pull quote from that Tribune report, and it’s not close:

    The Big Ten plans to “work harder to help fans understand why the names were chosen” and “understand who is in which division.”

    Now you know the exact percentage of people who understand anything about anything. It’s [33.333 - [haters]].

    It was a diabolically shrewd plan on the part of Jim Delany and his ilk, when you think about it: Wait a year for the conference faithful to become inured to the idea, then toss out some “research” (conducted by a firm with a name straight out of a DOS game and that, as alert reader J. Clark points out, misspells “analysis” in a graphic on its front page) to prop up the campaign and count on inertia to do the rest. Plus, they already had all this stationery made.

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  • Published On Feb 07, 2012