DaveZdyrko.com

Oh, boy. If you were watching yesterday’s Miami Hurricanes debacle against Ohio State with me, the chances are good that you would’ve left with some wounds. I had been looking at this game ever since I heard that it was going to be played as redemption for the Buckeyes beating us in the Fiesta Bowl in ’03. Sure, winning really wouldn’t have meant anything substantial, but after that last defeat, OSU instantly became one of my most hated college football teams, right up there with the Gators, the Irish and the ‘Noles.

I wanted this win and to see Miami play so sloppy and just get crushed had me so infuriated that I started breaking things around the apartment and downtown Boston when I’d go outside for a “deep breath”. It made me sick and seeing the classic “deer in headlights” stares on the sidelines from both Randy Shannon and Jacory Harris made me want to smack both of them around until they showed any sign of life.

But now that I’ve calmed down and most of the alcohol is out of my system, I’m starting to see the bright side of all this mess. While true that we’re just not as good as Ohio State or any of the nation’s elite, we don’t have to be. We play in the ACC, which is no better than the WAC or Conference USA these days. As bad as Miami got beat by OSU, the Noles got beat worse by OU. VTech lost to James Madison, an FCS (Division 1AA) team. GTech lost to a middle of the road Big 12 team in Kansas.

The conference we’re playing in just isn’t that good and that honestly fits this mediocre team and mediocre coach perfectly. It’ll be a huge battle for us, but there’s a chance that we can win the ACC and make it into a BCS bowl — and hopefully get lucky and play a Big East team and not someone good from the SEC, Big Ten, Pac-10, or Big 12. As much as this loss hurts, the season isn’t over yet. We still have a shot to win Gold at the Special Olympics.

I’d like to welcome Michigan’s behemoth 6′ 7″ left tackle Jake Long to the dysfunctional Miami Dolphins family. As I’ve previously stated, I didn’t have a favorite among the candidates and would have been just as happy with Chris Long, Glen Dorsey, or Vernon Gholston. But, going with Long is a very solid pick and I hope he turns out to be the cornerstone of our offensive line for the next 7 to 10 years.

Two of the most important factors in winning football games are protecting your quarterback and pressuring your opponent’s quarterback. Jake Long will hopefully help accomplish the first task. If he proves to be a stud LT along the lines of Orlando Pace or Ron Yary, the only other offensive tackles taken with the 1st overall pick of the NFL draft, our QB’s and RB’s should be in excellent shape to be successful over the course of the next decade.

Both John Beck and Ronnie Brown should be extremely happy with this pick and I hope for their sakes, as well as mine as a fan, that he proves to be worth the five year, $57.75 million contract with $30 million guaranteed he just signed for. Now it’s all about me anxiously waiting to see who the Dolphins select with their 2nd pick, which is the first pick of the 2nd round but is essentially the same as the last pick of the first round because it’ll be the 32nd player chose because of the Pastryshits’ forfeiture of the 31st pick. Maybe we can get a QB or pass rusher with that selection!

While waiting for the game I’m working on to compile in the background, I figured it’d be a good time to share the reasons why I have such disdain for the Big Ten football conference. First, I don’t think OSU’s team sucks, nor do I think the conference sucks. The animosity is filled predominantly by the fact that the conference has been extremely overrated and over-hyped for
as long as I’ve been watching college football.

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