Photo: Garcia/AP

The Left for Dead Bowl (aka “the Papajohns.com Bowl”)
Rutgers vs. NC State / Birmingham, AL / December 29th, 3pm / ESPN

Right about the middle of the season neither of these teams looked like they would sniff the post-season, let alone qualify for the illustrious Papajohns.com bowl. Thanks to a six-game winning streak for Rutgers and a four-game winning streak for NC State, they’ll dance in Birmingham this afternoon. Rutgers is favored by 7 and NC State is yet another 6-6 team playing in a bowl game.

The Emotion Bowl (aka the “Valero Alamo Bowl”)
Missouri vs. Northwestern / San Antonio, TX / December 29th, 8pm / ESPN

According to Vegas (Missouri favored by 12.5), this doesn’t look to be much of a game. For your consideration though is:

*The fact that the past three Alamo Bowls have been decided by an average of only 4 points
*Northwestern comes in with a 3-game winning streak and gets their best offensive player back healthy (Tyrell Sutton), and
*Missouri comes in with a two-game losing streak including the beating at the hands of Oklahoma (62-21).

Emotion will be the decision-maker for this one with Missouri having championship expectations at the beginning of the season and now playing in a consolation game, twice removed. Missouri’s strength (offense- 6th in scoring) goes against Northwestern’s (defense- 23rd in scoring) and Missouri’s weakness (defense- 74th in scoring) goes against Northwestern’s (offense- 75th in scoring). The Big Ten needs Northwestern to come through in this one.

The “How to Waste a Smokin’ Offense in 12 Easy Games Bowl” (aka the “Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl”)
Nevada vs. Maryland / Boise, ID / December 30th, 4:30pm / ESPN

I had such high hopes for Nevada in 2008 after watching a young Colin Kaepernick light it up in 2007; too bad the Nevada defense never really showed up. The Wolfpack are 12th nationally in scoring offense but a dismal 98th in scoring defense. Nevada got destroyed out-of-conference against Missouri and Texas Tech and failed in their chance for a WAC statement in their loss to Boise State. I’m still hopeful for ACC destruction so I’ll once again be pulling for Nevada to win. Nevada is favored by 2.

The Commercial Bowl (aka the “Texas Bowl”)
Rice vs. Western Michigan / Houston, TX / December 30th, 8pm / NFL Network

There are two games at 8pm on Tuesday night- this one on NFL Network plus Oklahoma State-Oregon over on ESPN. This matchup doesn’t even merit picture-in-picture for me; it’s what I’m flipping over to when the ESPN game is on commercial. Rice is favored by 2.5.

The Go for Two Bowl (aka the “Pacific Life Holiday Bowl”)
Oklahoma State vs. Oregon / San Diego, CA / December 30th, 8pm / ESPN

Of the remaining bowl games, this one has the highest over/under at 76 points. Both teams are very proficient at offense (top ten in scoring) and very deficient in defense (69th & 77th in scoring defense). Both teams have gained over 3,000 yards rushing and average over 41 points per game.

Oregon waddles in with a three-game winning streak, including a dominant win over rival Oregon State which kept OSU out of the Rose Bowl. Oklahoma State’s last game was the against Oklahoma where they traded punches pretty successfully until they just ran out of gas and eventually lost 61-41. This game won’t give us the “Big XII offense against a good defense” test, but should be a good measure of how good Oklahoma State is. I like the Cowboys because of QB play- I think Zack Robinson will be the better of the two QB’s on the field and will be the difference. Oklahoma State is favored by 3.

More installments to follow…

Making use of the shaking/jiggling ability of the iPhone, software maker Mystic Game Development created an app called “iBoobs” (shown above). The iBoobs application is a computer animation of a large pair of breasts in a bikini top. Shaking the iPhone makes them wobble from side to side, or up and down, depending on the movement.

According to a report, the folks at Apple rejected the app because of “objectionable content”. I didn’t realize inertia, gravity, and nature are all “objectionable”.

I’m not saying I’m the type of dude that would put this app on my iPhone, that is if I were the type of dude to own an iPhone. This would have been an optional app though- users would have had to download it to their phones. It’s not as if the app would just show up in the middle of a conference call (though that would dramatically improve most of the conference calls I spend my time on).

Here’s a video from youtube showing the app in “action”.

You’re welcome.

“It was just one of those years it all kind of came together.” - OT Jeff Backus (Michigan grad)

Indeed Jeff. Indeed. If you can’t be good, be good at being bad.

Let us be among the many to congratulate the Detroit Lions on sweet perfection. The Lions are the first team in NFL history to finish 0-16, doing so by losing today at Green Bay 31-21. I detailed the importance of this accomplishment last week for the city of Detroit, but I didn’t think I would actually see it happen.

Going winless during a 16-game schedule in the salary cap era is no simple accomplishment. It takes futility from the top down- from the President to the GM, football operations, coaching staff, and of course the players. And it was no statistical fluke either- the Lions finished 27th in scoring offense and dead last in scoring defense. Not surprisingly, the Lions didn’t place a single player on the Pro Bowl roster either.

In other NFL news, here’s the recap of the Buffalo-New England game. I had the pleasure of driving through the very wind that created havoc in Buffalo and I can attest- it was crazy.

You’re welcome.