A salute to the winning haiku from earlier this season. Win or lose Saturday, we’ll always have this:

Gilliam the Badger “Michigan State will know by kickoff if the Wolverines did their little brothers a favor, and beat the Buckeyes in Columbus. Unfortunately, this year it would take Lloyd Carr coming back from the dead for Les Blues to have a chance. I mean Schembechler. I really don’t think it would matter anyway, as I can’t see PSU doing anything less that blowing out Sparty in Happy Valley. Go U Northwestern! Congratulations to Pat Fitz and the smarties from Evanston. Wisconsin beat the up-and-coming Gophers to warm up for…Cal Poly. Cal Poly is 8-1, and is averaging about 50 points a game. Appalachian State, anyone?” Lew, the Wolverine, the Hoosier “Despite Coach Spank’Tonio’s anti-Michigan antics (dude, OSU is Michigan’s biggest football rivalry, and always will be, regardless of your lame attempts to goad big brother), I’ll be pulling for Sparty this weekend in Happy Valley (and a subsequent loss by Oregon State). And then I’ll be counting the days before USC gets to open up another can of whup ass on the Buckeyes in the Rose Bowl. It’s Ohio State/Michigan week and, well, if you can’t beat ’em…. F ’em! Gotta love Ohio State/Michigan week! ” Biggie the Spartan “Looking forward to Saturday….it could be argued that this is the biggest game MSU has played in last 18…

From Michigan Today, just posted, check it out. John U. Bacon [author of Bo’s Lasting Lessons] talks a little about Rich Rodriguez days before his first Ohio State game. “People say it’s harder to be at the top than the bottom,” he says. “But I guarantee you, anyone who says that has never been at the bottom. We’re going to get there. It won’t be tomorrow, and it won’t be easy, but we’re going to get there.”

* [Update – part II posted] Props to WTKA for getting Desmond Howard on this morning to talk about the big game, his ‘This Isn’t Michigan’ comments on 1460 WBNS in Columbus, Rich Rod and the state of the program. A must listen, thanks to Lew for passing this along while I was out of town (hiding):

Update 11/18: mgblog is posting he’s got solid sources confirming McGuffie is gone. [Ed 11/17/08: This is blog, this is a rumor, many insist it is silly. That’s fine, but this is crap that people talk about at Fraser’s and at tailgates and I’m talking about it. I have no evidence that McGuffie is seriously considering transferring and I hope he doesn’t.] Original post 11/16: There’s been a lot of Sam McGuffie talk about and I’ve heard Fred Jackson was puzzled by the freshman’s request to not play Saturday. Here’s the deal–if McGuffie wants to leave that’s fine. There were a pile of backs ahead of him on the depth chart when he arrived. From what I could tell, he busted his ass and in the eyes of Jackson and RR, he did enough to earn a start in the opener despite the political fallback that could have resulted with all the other guys that had been there (and playing for Jackson BTW). What else could a guy ask for? Ninety percent of guys transfer because either they’re not satisfied with their playing time or there’s been a coaching change. These coaches obviously like the kid and demonstrated that if he works hard and performs he’ll get the ball. He was getting a fair shake from the coaching staff so…

Noooo….Zoltan Mesko and company’s lead in net punting was slowly salted away in the Ice Bowl Saturday vs. Northwestern. Jokes aside, it’s remarkable how many top tier teams place well in this category. Eleven of the top 20 teams in net punting are in the running BCS bowl slots.