Off-Beat Badgers preview: Ranking the days which should be holidays
If you are looking for hard-hitting analysis, yeah, this ain’t it. But if you want a fun, entertaining read, you’ve found the right place. For more of Brandon Rifkin, please head to his blog or follow him on Twitter.
Voting and family obligations kept me away from a TV on Saturday, and it looked like I didn't miss much. That's fine. Well, Hornibrook getting another concussion is certainly awful, but I don't think it matters who plays quarterback this year. This team simply isn't very good, and they're going to have to scrap and claw their way to a solid bowl game to salvage this season.
The edge is off, though. The shine is gone. Time to take Badger gamedays for what they are at their core: perfect opportunities to day drink with friends and live your best life. That's what I plan on doing the rest of the season. Join me.
RANDOM MUSIC WE'RE DIGGING HARD THIS WEEK
https://youtu.be/bSJhAOaxkwc
Raw, shreddy, & catchy. That's the holy trinity of rock music. I'm all over this song and all about these girls. I don't think this is the last we'll be hearing of them.
BIG TEN FEAR RANKING
1. Michigan, 8-1 (6-0). The office kicked off a little unofficial weight loss competition that runs through January. So if I'm irrationally irritated or cranky in the next several months, it's most likely because I would stab you for a bucket of french fries. #AdiosCarb
2. Ohio State, 8-1 (5-1). Speaking of weight, I had to go through the driver's license renewal process this week and I did NOT enjoy the geriatric working there assuming we were keeping the same weight from four years ago. Sorry, bud. We're chopping five pounds off that and pretending it's accurate.
3. Michigan State, 6-3, (4-2). PUPPERITO:
Is it bad that I'm trying to turn my dog into a blanket dog? Sometimes she curls up and I have no choice but to read her mind and assume she wants me to swaddle her in a blanket. But am I OVERHEATING the poor hound?
These are the things keeping me up at night.
p.s. – due to a recent shoe eating incident, she is currently a BAD GIRL
4. Northwestern, 5-4, (5-1). You know what else kept me up all night this week? Watching the results come in for the Wisconsin governor race.??????????????
5. Penn State, 6-3 (3-3). Let me guess: there's gonna be a WHITE OUT this weekend for the UW/PSU game. WHAT EVER WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT
6. Wisconsin, 6-3 (4-2). More injuries. It just isn't ending. Truly unfortunate to see the downfall from the preseason hypetrain to our current situation. Finish strong, win a decent bowl game, and bring on Mertz.
7. Iowa, 6-3, (3-3).
Days That Should Be National Holidays, RANKED:
1) Friday After Thanksgiving -- POSTGIVING DAY. It's positively outrageous to expect productivity the day after we are legally forced to drink and eat like sáuvagès. I used to have to work that Friday and I did NOT work at a bar or restaurant. Complete garbäge.
2) Election Day - NATIONAL VOTING DAY. Not only should there be as few barriers as possible for people to get out and vote, but we should all be able to party the night before and the day of in celebration of our democracy.
3) Monday After The Super Bowl - SUPER MONDAY. The Super Bowl has grown to be about to much more than football. It's a social gathering on par with Thanksgiving, except instead of turkey and weird cousins it's wings and your friends. There's appeal for everyone: football, commercials, halftime show, food, drinking, etc. And NO ONE likes that person at the Super Bowl party that reminds everyone of the impending doom of waking up for work the next day.
4) New Year's Eve -- END OF YEAR'S DAY. I just want to wish someone a HAPPY END OF YEAR'S DAY. I love how corporate America has quasi-officially made it a half-day. Given how easy it is to work from home for most office jobs and how annoying commutes are for a lot of people, asking everyone to come in for three hours is weird and inefficient. Knock that crap off. Let us all eulogize the prior year properly. AND A GOOD END OF YEAR'S DAY TO YOU AS WELL, CHIEF.
8. Purdue, 5-4 (4-2). I can say with a high level of confidence that I'm worried about my browsing habits when this is a targeted ad for me:
The weird thing is I don't remember googling "sweatshirt that looks exactly like me." Whatever, I'm getting this for my girlfriend for Christmas and we can do some weird twinning next summer.
p.s. -- as a hairy man I must say I find the centrally distributed chest hair pattern here curious. And that is a MASSIVE belly button. You could pour a bowl of soup in there. It looks like a black hole sucking all of the hair into its vortex.*
* -- I know next to nothing about black holes but am pretty sure they have a vortex.
9. Indiana, 4-5 (1-5). We (tentatively) have a title for the first "Game of Thrones"prequel series: THE LONG NIGHT. Oh HELL yes! Gimme all of the legendary Starks, journeys east of east, and some old school White Walker drama:
https://youtu.be/zECQXn6yFms
p.s. -- okay now just a start date for season 8 plz
p.p.s -- okay and also how about a release date for "Winds of Winter" plz
p.p.p.s -- okay and please take your vitamins George plz
10. Minnesota, 4-5, (1-5). As I've spent a lot of time in my life re-watching "Seinfeld"and various other sitcoms from the '90s, I've concluded that laugh tracks are absolutely the worst. Can you get versions of these shows without the laugh tracks and compare? Would the timing of all of the jokes be weird if you just muted the laugh tracks? QUESTIONS.
11. Illinois, 4-5 (2-4). Me before the first snow of the year: "brace yourselves, all of the cliche snow snaps/instas/tweets are coming, SO ORIGINAL EVERYONE"
Me seven seconds after the first snowflake falls: furiously tweets LOOKS LIKE FALL IS SNOWVER #snowparty
12. Nebraska, 2-7, (1-5). Yeah I'm pretty pumped for a taste of snow. Cold without snow is miserable. Gimme that gentle muffled sound of snow falling any day.
13. Rutgers, 1-8 (0-6). I should clarify from last week: Rutgers only recruits ATTEMPTED murderers. Because it's important that their recruits are miserable at everything they try.
14. Maryland, 5-4 (3-3). I can't say I'm surprised that Tim Tebow somehow got his name thrown into this "controversy."
THIS WEEK'S GAME IN HAIKU
We watch just to drink
This team is going nowhere
Let's just simulate
YOUTUBE
https://youtu.be/WgmyxD_RPDY
The simplest pranks are the best pranks. Let's all safely assume it's real.
https://youtu.be/5UowNDaxRqU
Two months after getting shot and Reagan gives a perfect response after a balloon loudly pops during a speech. It's almost as if you need a certain degree of charm and wittiness to become President. Hmmmmm.*
* -- I actually have no idea what I think I'm being clever about here.
https://youtu.be/q8LnwVi7u_g
This was better than I expected, and on a week where the video well is running real dry we just have to accept that.
PREDICTION CITY
Yeah I don't know about this one. THE PICK:
Wisconsin 8, PENN STATE 24
***
ON WISCONSIN
