Thoughts on the weekend...

- Big Ten. Not so good. 7-3 is not a bad week, unless it's your three top teams all losing. Maybe not as strong as we thought.

- Florida State: If you're only up 13-10 on the Citadel at the half, it doesn't matter how many points you score in the third and fourth quarter. It's still a crappy performance.

- Judging by the performance of every non-Texas Big XII team over the last couple weeks, the Horns might not be challenged for the rest of the year. Oklahoma is more one-dimensional right now than Seann William Scott. Nebraska looked good, but it was against a team who lost to Vanderbilt, so take that for whatever it's worth. Missouri lost at home to New Mexico and Kansas State needed Marshall to make an absolutely retarded play to escape with a win. Yes, ISU beat up on Iowa, but I would have loved to see four quarters worth of Drew Tate before we dub that a huge win.

- The Big East went 5-2, which is impressive until you realize that four of the wins were over D-1AA teams and the other one was against Buffalo. At this rate, Dave Wannstadt might resign before October.

- I hate the idea of playing conference games so early in the year (as some teams from the ACC, SEC and Pac-10 did this weekend and Miami and FSU did last week). Considering how much more they mean to everyone except national title contenders, wouldn't you want both teams in peak form before you kicked those off? I remember Michigan and Illinois opening their seasons against each other in the mid-90s, and hated it then, too. I know, you've got to be ready whenever, but I think you would want at least two games under your belt before playing a league game.

- I'm still not ready to talk about the OSU game. The what-ifs are enough to drive you insane (the almost-safety on the kickoff, the Texas field goal that banked in off the upright, the stupid late hit penalty on Chad Hoobler that set that kick up, Ryan Hamby catching/ dropping/ catching/ dropping/ catching/ dropping one pass in the end zone, the *this close* kick returns by Santonio Holmes and Ted Ginn that were almost six, Justin Zwick playing the last drive, Justin Zwick not sliding and instead fumbling on the last drive... the list goes on and on). OSU should have won that game, but based on the way they played, they didn't deserve to. Texas did. (If that makes sense)

One more thing. I should preface this by saying that I was at the OSU game and walked all around the campus before the game, and did not see anything remotely hostile directed at any Texas fans. There was a group of Texas fans in my section and they all talked about what a great time they had in Columbus, before and during the game. We had a nice conversation, shook hands after the game and I (and others) congratulated them on their win. That's not to say that nothing happened to anyone this weekend, but I didn't see it.

A related story: Back in 1997, I was at the OSU-Michigan game in Ann Arbor and was pushed, cursed at and had a beer dumped on me in the stands after the game ended. Guess what? There are assholes everywhere. That does not mean that every Michigan fan is an asshole. It means that some drunk was an asshole.

Today, Michigan fans on one board are ripping OSU fans because of stories about this weekend (Texas fans getting sworn at, etc). The UM fans say it's BS to blame it on a few bad apples.

The subject of the bottle-throwing at the UM-ND game came up shortly afterward. Michigan fans apparently have no problem saying, "It's okay, it was only a few bad (student) apples."

Awesome.

Frankly, I think the whole bottle-throwing incident is just begging for UM to put together a PSA to air on the scoreboard.

It starts with a shot of the back of a player in a Michigan uniform. He's screaming at fans about their stupid and childish bottle-throwing and asking where they got the idea.

Then the camera could pull out to show the students crying and angrily screaming, "I learned it by watching you, Marlin Jackson!"

Then show Jackson with a stunned look on his face and close with some serious-sounding warning about how football players who hit people in the head with bottles will have fans who try to hit people in the head with bottles.

Just trying to help.