Mr. Burkhardt does the heavy lifting for us, creating polynomial-based trendlines showing efficiency trends for each Big Ten team so far this year. Forewarning: MSU's chart is somewhat panic-inducing, but keep in mind you have to mentally control for fluctuations in schedule strength (which has been on the tougher side of late).

You've probably heard some of these stories, but Adam Rittenberg put together a really nice and long piece about MSU's role in desegregating college football.

MSU is among the top 16. Fans get to pick the winner, so go vote.

Not saying this was the reason we lost, cause it's not. But I don't think it's fair for Nix to be villainized for something he didn't do. You be the judge.....

Those of us who want offensive coordinator Dan Roushar off the staff might interested in the above link. Roushar is interviewing for the running backs coach job with New Orleans. I can't get a sense from this story about his odds of landing the job, but the other named candidates have experience either as college head coaches or at the NFL level, so I'd tentatively peg Roushar as a long shot. Regardless, this indicates that some people with a lot more knowledge about coaching savvy than most of us consider Roushar to be a decent position coach, at least. Something to keep in mind going forward.

This article really shows what a good family make up Izzo has developed with his program here at MSU.

...this story might get your attention. The main focus is on O'Connor transferring, for understandable reasons- he's a higher-profile recruit at a position where OSU has less depth, and it's an innocent loss in that O'Connor just didn't adapt well to life in Columbus. To me, Crowell's the real story. As I read this, he's being booted from the team because of a scholarship crunch, and no one in Buckeye land cares much because they have plenty of talented young options at LB. It's easy to say that Meyer is one of those dirty, immoral SEC types, but it's usually harder to say exactly how. Well, this is a pretty damn good example.

This is last week's news, but I noticed there's nothing up about it so I figured I'd post this. After contributing to the Giants' 2011 Super Bowl win, Thomas retired after not being able to find another team. The Lions signed him because, in short, Titus Young turned out to be a head case and Burleson and Broyles are both coming off injuries.

I obviously don’t know any inside info… it sounds like these guys do… the veracity of their claims/insights may be proved if he ends up at Detroit… http://vmedia.rivals.com/uploads/951/1345979.MP3

Egad, what a season.