Maryland Links: Preview, The Podcast, FFFF Offense (chart), FFFF Defense (chart) Something's been missing from Michigan gamedays since the free programs ceased being economically viable: scientific gameday predictions that are not at all preordained by the strictures of a column in which one writer takes a positive tack and the other a negative one… something like Punt-Counterpunt.
PUNT By Bryan MacKenzie@Bry_Mac Some time in the early 19th century, Stuff was invented. Before that, the manmade items in the world consisted entirely of food, swords, farming implements, pantaloons, and scrolls. But Stuff was great. Early Stuff was fine by modern standards, but was COMPLETELY NUTS by the standards of the day: fancy hats and sewing machines and bicycles with gigantic wheels for some reason. And as time passed, more and more Stuff came into existence. And everyone was happy. By the 1960s, though, a problem had arisen. With the creation of the interstate highway system and improvements in modern infrastructure and technology, transportation had evolved to the point where people could now order Stuff from places other than their local Stuff Purveyor. They could order Distant Stuff. But the modern Stuff was becoming more advanced, and therefore more breakable. So how could we ship Stuff great distances without it breaking? But then in 1962, a Dow Chemical employee named Robert Holden took some time away from his company’s… uh… problematic research to do something positive for humanity. And while messing around with some polystyrene, he came up with a brilliant solution: the packing peanut.
[After THE JUMP: Jim Delany adds Elsa and the snowman]