Michigan stuff

Either Notre Dame was over-rated or Wisconsin was under-rated. How else to explain the Michigan State Spartans traveling to South Bend and easily handling the Irish, then going back home to East Lansing and getting absolutely pummeled by the Badgers?

The bad news is the Spartans can kiss any national championship aspirations goodbye. A team can't get thrashed in their own back yard to the tune of 30-6 and expect anybody to consider them serious contenders. The good news is MSU plays four "patsies" in a row before their showdown with arch rival Michigan.

Speaking of patsies, UM has played their usual cream puff games to start the schedule. Blowouts. Are they really that good and worthy of a #4 ranking? We'll see. The very same Wisconsin is coming to Ann Arbor next weekend. Should be a great game.

On the other hand, Wisconsin is going through a brutal stretch. After opening with a win against LSU, followed by a couple of their own patsies, they played/will play the following:

@Michigan State
@Michigan
Bye week
Ohio State
@ Iowa
Nebraska

That's quite the gauntlet.

The Detroit Lions are up to the same old antics. They beat an average at best Indy Colts team on the road, then went home to lose to the lowly Tenn Titans. Few expected them to win in Green Bay today. They didn't.

The glass half-fullers will say the Lions came roaring back to make it a close game. 34-27 would appear to be the case.
The glass half-emptiers would counter by saying the game was all but over in the first quarter with the Lions behind by three touchdowns. Green Bay was on cruise control for the rest of the game.

Next up for the Motown puddytats are Da Bears. If they can't beat Chicago at home to fall to 1-3, they can kiss another season goodbye as well. It's not like the league handed them a tough schedule. Besides their mandatory divisional games, their toughest competition would appear to be Philly and Houston and Dallas on the road. Still, the Lions being the Lions will be lucky to go 8-8. Just another year. In fact, the "gurus" at Sports Illustrated picked them to finish dead last in the NFC North with a 5-11 record. Meanwhile, the ever lovable, if foolish koolaiders in Detroit probably think their heroes can still salvage 11-5 -- maybe even 12-4. It truly is laughable.

With 8 games to go, the Detroit Tigers are still very much in the mix for a wild card spot to reach the postseason. KC and the Yanks have fallen back some. Houston and Seattle are right on their tails. And the Baltimore Orioles are a couple games up. Toronto has all but sewed up one wild card spot.

The Tigers need to go on another mini-run or get help elsewhere. As stated in this column before, it looks like it could very well go down to the last day.

Last but certainly not least, yours truly mourns the passing of Arnold Palmer at the age o 87. I never met the man, nor even saw him play in person. But I know one thing. Besides being the best golfer in the world back in the day, he was a class act all along.

RIP Arnie.