As you might know, Ryan and I attended Indiana University. This year, the Indiana Hoosiers are 3-0. For most schools, this is not an accomplishment of note. For Indiana, it’s the start of maybe-quite-possibly-if-things-break-our-way another 6-6 season — maybe! let’s hope! — and another middling bowl game, the second in three years. Three more wins, fellas. That’s all it takes.

Reading that preceding paragraph might give you some idea of how discouraging it is to be an Indiana football, but it’s hard to describe unless you’ve lived it. Freshman and sophomore year of college, I bought football season tickets. I went to every game. I rooted for Indiana. They never repaid the favor. Even worse, the games weren’t fun. Maybe 40,000 people showed up, if you were lucky. All you did was watch Indiana get its collective cranium beaten in by a mediocre Big Ten team. Then you went home in time to watch actually exciting college football and wonder if maybe you made a mistake coming to a school with such a horrible football culture. God, look at the Swamp. What am I missing here?

My junior year, the Hoosiers started 3-0, including a win over Kentucky. I was covering the team for the Indiana Daily Student. After the Kentucky win I was convinced, just convinced, that Indiana could maybe-quite-possibly beat a few Big Ten teams, including Ohio State. I held on to this delusion late into the season. Indiana finished 3-9. The day they played Ohio State in Bloomington, there were more Ohio State fans than Indiana fans in seats. They chanted O-H-I-O from the four corners of the stadium. It was the loudest Indiana crowd I’d ever heard, and not even half of the people there came to see Indiana play.

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What is it with supposedly tough men crying these days? Football coaches and hockey players are supposed to be, like, the toughest, scariest dudes on the planet. But there was Patrick Kane, standing outside the courtroom with his Mummy and Daddy, crying like a little schoolgirl because he got in trouble. You’re on the cover of NHL 09! Unacceptable!

And now here’s Rich Rodriguez, standing at a podium blubbering like an idiot because his program — wrongly, perhaps, but still — is in dire trouble. As Tony Soprano once said, what happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type? This is just irritating:

At a news conference in Ann Arbor, Rodriguez became emotional and had to gather himself several times with glassy eyes as he denied any wrongdoing. “I guess I’m here to tell you that whatever you’ve heard or want to believe, the trust is that this coaching staff cares very deeply about the young men in our program,” he said.

I sort of believe Rodriguez, so maybe the whole crying thing works, but still. Have some dignity, man. You’re no better than the girl who cries her way out of a traffic ticket, or the little boy who breaks his toys and cries until he gets a new one. Same function, same execution, same watery residue.

If I’ve said this to my theoretical future children once, I’ve said it to my theoretical future children a thousand times: Crying only makes it worse. Take your punishment like the adult version of whatever gender you will be. (Hopefully it’s one or the other!)

Yesterday, the blogosphere was on fire about Greg Paulus working out for the Green Bay Packers. Our own Will Brinson wrote about it, and also mapped out some potential life choices for the former Duke point guard. One such choice — since Paulus does have a year of football eligibility left, if he so desires — was to play a season at the collegiate level.

After last night, this option seems a bit more near. Fox Sports’ Jeff Goodman, via @umhoops, is reporting Paulus was in Ann Arbor yesterday morning meeting with Rich Rodriguez about playing quarterback for the Michigan Wolverines. I gchatted said link to Eamonn. What follows was our discussion. I cleaned it up a bit because we used the f-word some, and because it’s sometimes hard to slug through an IM chat in its original state.

Onwards:

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It is no secret the Winter Classic has been a rousing success for the NHL. It’s just like an actual hockey game, except they play it outside and put it on a special day. It’s sort of like when I blog with pants on and not in my parent’s basement.

When I first ran across this Ann Arbor News story about Michigan’s “Big House” hosting an outdoor hockey game in December of next year, I thought it was just the Big Ten latching onto the NHL’s idea. But, I was wrong. Dead wrong. Turns out Michigan and Michigan State played at Spartan Stadium in 2001, and Wisconsin and Ohio State played each other at Lambeau Field in 2006. According to CBS Sports, those are two of five outdoor hockey games in North America.

Anyway, the particulars:

Mike Stevenson, executive associate athletic director at Michigan, said Tuesday the university is conducting preliminary research for staging a hockey game at Michigan Stadium after the football venue’s $226 million renovation is completed.

An outdoor game at the 100,000-plus capacity “Big House,” which Stevenson said could be played in December of 2010, likely would shatter the world record for outdoor hockey attendance, and come 10 months after the Wolverines’ anticipated outdoor game at the University of Wisconsin.

And yeah, you read that right: Michigan is expected to play Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium in February of next year. So that will be two outdoor hockey games for the Wolverines in one year, if everything checks out.

Hey, maybe the football team should try playing indoors to reverse their fortunes. OH MY GOD I’M SO HILARIOUS.

Dr. Saturday is right: Live mascots do rule. Sure, it seems slightly cruel to force one of the what, like, five remaining buffaloes in the world to run out in front of Colorado football fans every Saturday, but I suppose that’s better than releasing the big guy into the wild for Sarah Palin to kill. The novelty of the exercise is cool, and Uga, Georgia’s little bulldog, he’s a pretty cool dude, it seems. Real mascots: usually cool.

Hinton, upon composing his ode to these noble beasts, discovered a new thing about real mascots: Michigan used to have one. Michigan, being the Wolverines, used a real, live Wolverine, until this happened:

… the animals grew larger and more ferocious, and as Yost states, “It was obvious that the Michigan mascots had designs on the Michigan men toting them, and those designs were by no means friendly.” Therefore, the practice of bringing wolverines into the stadium had to be discontinued after only one year.

Indeed, there was a group of people at Michigan who once thought it a good idea to tote around a big, surly Wolverine to football games. These people no doubt saw the jaws of death, but it probably took them a few times before they realized, you know, maybe this whole “taming a vicious, wild beast” thing isn’t really going to work out.

Coincidentally, Michigan is now a well-respected collegiate institution. Go figure.

And yes, we already linked this today.

After last night’s docket, the Big Ten/ACC Challenge is notted up at 3-3. And if Illinois had actually decided to SHOOT THE BALL BEFORE THE CLOCK RAN OUT, and Iowa didn’t send a kid to the line that was 3-of-14 on FT attempts on the year, there’s a chance — a small chance — the Big Ten could be up 5-1 in the challenge. A challenge they’ve never won since its inception in 1999.

But no, it’s knotted up at 3-3. Here’s how I see it playing out.

Indiana at Wake Forest — Did you see how Indiana looked against Notre Dame and St. John’s in the Maui Invitational? Hint: The Hoosiers did not look very good. Wake Forest is a 24-point favorite. If my alma mater pulls this off against the Demon Decons, I will give each reader of this blog a brand new puppy.*

North Carolina at Michigan State — This is an intriguing matchup, with Tyler Hansbrough still iffy for tonight’s affair and freshman Tyler Zeller out for the year. Michigan State is pretty dang good. It’s also at Ford Field. But yeah: This is North Carolina; there was a reason they were the unanimous preseason No. 1. Carolina wins this won.

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Anytime you inherit a storied program with a long history of winning and tradition and all that jazz, you better keep the boat moving at the same speed in the same direction, or fans are going to go bonkers — oftentimes unjustifiably so. (One time I almost saw two kids fist fight over Mike Davis in the stands at an Indiana game. Looks like the guy yelling “Fire Davis” got the better end of that deal.)

So it goes for Rich Rodriguez this year at Michigan. He came in as the Next Big Thing — well, maybe second to Les Miles — and the Wolverines have been absolutely wretched this year to the tune of 3-8. With the Buckeyes being the heavy favorites for the UM-OSU tilt this weekend and the Wolverines destined for their fifth loss in a row to their rivals, Rich Rod has some words for you fans out there:

“It’s amazing some of the things that people would say [on a message board] or yell at you of a personal nature,” Rodriguez said Monday. “You almost want to tell them, ‘Get a life.’

“There’s a whole lot bigger problems. Look at the economy.”

Rich, your comments are not without some warrant. But dude, a word of advice: you took over the head coaching job at Michigan. And you’re not doing so hot yet. These people love them some football. Do not insult them. Do not “almost tell them to get a life.” Thank them for their continued support as you flounder through this season and tell them to stick with you as it will only get better from here.

Or, you know, tell them to worry about the economy. Either works.

Also see: Can’t Stop the Bleeding, Deadspin