@ #22 Nebraska

MADISON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM:

MONTEE BALL BLOCKED ME ON TWITTER! I am fucking DEVASTATED. If you can't tell from the amount of caps lock I'm throwing in you grill right off the bat, this is a big deal. Might be time for another BADGER PREVIEW INVESTIGATION:

WHAT WE KNOW

Sunday night I was watching that traveshamockery of a football game when I saw someone retweet Monteé. Odd, I thought, since I didn't see his original tweet in my feed. So I clicked on his profile, hit the 'follow' button, and was slapped with the cold, hard reality up above. Monteé Ball - one of my favorite Badgers - personally blocked me on Twitter.

THEORIES

As cool as I am, Monteé never followed me on Twitter. So what led him to block me?

Maybe I tweeted something negative about him. To test out that possibility, I used the ever-handy All My Tweets to check out my last 3,000ish tweets (insert your own joke about how that should cover the last 2 weeks). Here are all the mentions I've made of @M_Ball28:

• WTF? @M_Ball28 blocked me on Twitter?! I've never been so devastated in my entire life. Sep 25, 2012
• @jaypo1961 @M_Ball28 People get PAID for jobs… Sep 12, 2012
• @carlyks Told my diehard Badger friend they @DangeRussWilson and @M_Ball28 are my top 2 favorite Badgers ever. I stand by that. #purewisco Aug 12, 2012
• TMZ not painting an accurate picture? NO WAY RT @M_Ball28: The report that I was involved in a fight is totally false. Aug 02, 2012
• RT @M_Ball28: I appreciate the support and thank you for the concerns.I will be okay! See you guys in September! #WiscONsin Aug 01, 2012
• Love it. #MonteeBallShow #MBS RT @M_Ball28: #onwisconsin http://t.co/idy1VQuP Jul 20, 2012
• #OnWisconsin RT @M_Ball28: wisconsin boys destroyed that workout this morning.. eyes on the prize, last year was last year. 2012 #letsgetit Jun 28, 2012
• Can't even explain how awesome it is to have @M_Ball28 and @jwhiteout20 in the backfield at the same time. #canadianpower Apr 11, 2012

So there ya go. Calling him one of my favorite Badgers, defending him when he was getting slammed for the fight, and heaping praise. I think we can safely rule out any form of Twitter bashing as the cause of him blocking me. That really leaves only one other possibility:

MONTEE BALL READ LAST WEEK'S PREVIEW

Or one of his friends did and let him know about it. Yeah, I poked fun at him adding the accent to his name and aired my frustration over our lack of success running the ball. But I can guarantee he's heard a thousand worse things said about him after games. So I'm not sure if I should feel awesome because Monteé Ball may have read my Preview... or crushed because he hates me as a result of it.

Regardless, I'll continue to root for Monteé because I still think he's an awesome Badger. I just wish we could sit down over a couple Gatorades and clear the air. Womp womp.

PS - Is it bad that I actually was a legit little sad over this? Stung my Badger pride.

CHICAGO BADGERS: Will's is still the best place to watch a Badger game as far as I'm concerned, so might as well go for a 5th week in a row.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: I lied last week. I will actually be doing a HuffPo Live college football roundtable discussion thingy TONIGHT at 8:40 pm CST. Head over to HuffPo Live as I do everything in my power not to act a fool.

SHAMELESS PLUG #2: The better half of Statesider 302A will be taking control of ESPN980 this Saturday from 11 am - 3 pm CST. Give it a listen at ESPN980.com. He knows more about sports and less about cheese than you could ever imagine. You just might learn something.

(via)

WHO/WHERE/WHEN

TV: ABC

WEATHER: 50'S, CLEAR, BLAND AS NEBRASKA

UTEP

We have officially reached THREAT LEVEL PURPLE MIDNIGHT:

There's not much else to say. Shockingly, firing our offensive line coach after 2 weeks did not fix the offensive line. Double shockingly, benching our quarterback at halftime did not immediately cause the offense to revert back to elite mode. We just need to come to terms with the terrifying conclusion that this team is not very good. BUT THAT'S OK! They're young, and there is some talent there. It's just not ready for primetime yet. Between DOB and Stave, one of them should be able to develop into a decent QB by the end of the season or the beginning of next season. Ball's looked unimpressive so far, but White and Gordon are full of promise and potential. I guess what I'm trying to say is re-calibrate your expectations, have fun on gameday, and enjoy the ride. As bad as this team might be, the days are dark once the offseason rolls around.

PS - I tried warning people that if you see me with a marker on gameday, you'd be wise to run the other way. Consider yourselves MOTION DUBBED:

You know the weird part is that this all seemed like SUCH a good idea at the time. Also, I learned that unlike beer pong and flip cup, you do NOT get better at drawing pictures when you're hammered.

CHICAGO BADGERS: Damnit. The stars have been aligned all season. But things are changing. Winter is coming. THE 11 AM GAME HAS RETURNED. It's every man, woman and child for themselves when it comes to 11 am games. Except you really shouldn't get kids involved the type of activities we enjoy. Terrible idea.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: For some reason, I will be playing EXPERT in a College Football round-table discussion-type thing on Huff Post Live next Wednesday around 7:50 pm CENTRAL. I have no idea how this is gonna play out, or how foolish I'll look and sound, but check it out if you wanna see me vidchatting from my kitchen about how miserable Wisconsin and the Big Ten are. Feel free to leave comments in there about how handsome and articulate I am. It's the internet - everything you say is TRUE.

WHO/WHERE/WHEN

TV: ESPN2 AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHY

WEATHER: LOW 50'S, RAIN, PROBABLY SHOULD GET EXTRA DRUNK SO THE RAIN DOESN'T AFFECT YOU AT ALL

Utah State

THAT IS HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW. Literally impossible to sugarcoat this: what a terrible fucking loss.  It does absolutely nothing towards preventing us from winning a B1G title, but it was AWFUL to watch that game. I don't even understand how the offensive line is this pathetic. Four of the guys starting for us played significant minutes last season when we ran the ball like we were playing against little league teams. Yeah, I called them little league teams because I didn't play Pop Warner football and I don't know if I'm spelling it right or what the fuck it even is. UGH.

I made myself a promise yesterday (9/11) that I was gonna stop crying about the little things. Between watching Jerry 'The King' Lawler have a heart attack LIVE on RAW and all the 9/11 coverage that I could not stop watching, it was an emotional day. So whatever. We lost. The season's far from over, Bielema made a swift change to try and right the ship, and my 11-1 prediction is still TOTALLY POSSIBLE IF NOT A LOCK-IT-UP GUARANTEE. The Badgers, like life, will find a way.*

*I think I've now referenced Jurassic Park in every preview this season. We're on our way towards a DiMaggio-esque streak here. HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS.

PS - The closest thing to the 'hold on to your butts' clip on YouTube is this terrifying thing that someone with at least half of a brain and two arms actually made and thought was a good idea. You know those stats like 'Every hour, 3.4 trillion days of video is uploaded to YouTube'? That's because 3.3 trillion of those days are crap like this.

PPS - If any of your friends from rival schools give you shit about UW losing last week, just slap this in their grill and they'll shut up real quick:

CHICAGO BADGERS: You're on your own. I'll just let you know that FatPour - a new Badger bar in Wicker Park - opens this Friday. But you can't go without me because that would be totally unfair, since I wanna go and go to Big Star after and live forever and look at those fucking hipsters.



WHO/WHEREWHEN

TV: BTN
WEATHER: LOW 60'S, NIGHT GAME, POTENTIAL CREW-NECK WEATHER

@ Oregon State

1-0. Those are the ONLY numbers that matter. Don't be fooled into thinking that 26-21 is of any importance. Would you like to win more comfortably? Sure, it's easier on the ol' blood pressure. But as long as you leave every Saturday 1-0, you're accomplishing your goals. So yeah, I could sit here and overreact to the fact that Monteé Ball looked pedestrian, our offensive line was outplayed by Northern Iowa's D-Line, and the defense was back to its old ways of giving up big plays with blown coverages at inopportune times. Or I could enjoy the fact that Badger Football is back in our lives and we are currently undefeated. Yup, I think that's a much better plan. OPTIMISM.

With that said, we got a big one this week. It's been a rarity for Wisconsin to travel away from the warmth and comfort of Camp Randall in the non-conference portion of the schedule, but that's exactly what we're doing this week as we head west to take on the Oregon State Beavers*. One thing worth remembering: Oregon State's first game was canceled due to the menacing Jewish Hurricane Isaac, which on its surface sounds stupid because Oregon State is way the fuck over there and Isaac was all the way down South. But their first opponent was some shit school from the South, and apparently Isaac was using all the plagues to prevent them from traveling to Corvallis. The only thing worse than a poor performance in week 1 is not even HAVING a week 1. Advantage: BUCKY.

*I thought beavers were an incredibly stupid animal to make your mascot, but then I started watching AMC's Into the West miniseries. I absolutely LOVE historical miniseries, so when we saw they were re-airing it the DVR was immediately fired up. My top takeaway from episode 1? Beaver pelts were like GOLD before people started finding actual gold. Early on, one of our fair-skinned white boy settler friends bartered a pot and 30 beaver pelts for a Native American girl. Beaver pelts and a pot for a HUMAN BEING (although at the time I suppose they were considered savages, and assuming this show is relatively close to the truth, I'd have to agree). Clearly he makes her his wife, and they actually seem really happy and pregnant... until some Apache jackasses stormed their hovel and stole the baby like they were the Others from LOST. Moral of the story: Get a receipt when you trade beaver pelts for humans. Also, Indians were fucking crazy.

PS - Nice beaver


CHICAGO BADGERS: Could Will's have been any more fun last week? I really don't think so. The only chance of topping it comes this Saturday when Will's is doing their annual Muskyfest. I think this will be my 3rd Muskyfest and I still have very little idea what it actually is, but here are the facts that I've gathered:

• There will be live music on the street next to Will's and TV's out there. MINI MIFFLIN STREET DRINKING
• Some girl will be crowned Musky Queen 2k12 at the end of the night based on the votes of drunk idiots like us
• Buy a drink, get a vote
• People will be drinking very heavily as a result of that last fact

I can't think of a single reason to go anywhere else this weekend. Round 2, get it.

LAST CALL FOR REFERRALS: I promise this is the last time I'll bug you about this. Thank you to those of you who have sent me fresh blood; hopefully they don't hate you for having to deal with me from now on.


LET'S go!



WHO/WHERE/WHEN

TV: FX
WEATHER: LOW 80'S, SUNNY, I DON'T TRUST THIS REPORT AT ALL

I don't know who to yell at, but somebody should be yelled at for putting us on FX. That's a D-list sports network.