The GMAC Bowl is less than two hours away. It's Tulsa versus Ball State.

Last year David Letterman's favorite team played in the International Bowl and lost by 22 points. Last year the Golden Hurricane played in this very bowl and set an NCAA record for margin of victory in a bowl game, beating Bowling Green 63-7.

And I like Ball State to win tonight. I don't know why, but I do. But maybe part of the reason why is that Cardinal running back MiQuale Lewis is a mighty mite of a back and no fun at all to tackle.

Ball State 31, Tulsa 28

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When it comes to dancing with sideline hotties, Notre Dame people and USC people have quite different styles. Mind you, both of them are creepy, but one is a little less surreptitious. Here's Marina Del Rey Maualuga and Erin Andrews in a clip you've probably already seen (our own Matt Casey posted it yesterday) before the Rose Bowl.

And here's former Irish hoops coach/unofficial Notre Dame ambassador Digger Phelps bustin' a move with a Kansas cheerleader (So that's how you dance to Bon Jovi?).  

I thought it was impossible to feel bad for Ohio State unless you were from Ohio, but right now I do.

The Buckeyes, handicapped by a limited offense and then by the absence all second half of Beanie Wells, still led 21-17 with less than two minutes to play.

Then their linebacker, Rose, whiffed on an interception opportunity. Not easy, but doable.

Then the Buckeyes came within an inch or less of stopping Texas on a 4th down.

And then, finally, a Buckeye safety took an all-or-nothing shot at tackling Quan Cosby on a slant-in route and he, too, whiffed.

Hook 'em, Horns. But I ache for the Buckeyes. They played their innards out, and after all the misery they've endured in January the past two years, deserved better.

It's extra-bitter cold on High Street this evening.

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And, hey, I harbor no ill will toward Matt Vasgersian, but isn't he the MLB Network dude? And even if he weren't, is he really the best Fox could do? When Texas fielded a punt with :38 remaining in the first half on their own 9, he kept telling us how many timeouts the Longhorns had remaining. With that little time remaining, and with the ball where it was, it was far more relevant how many timeouts the Buckeyes had remaining, no?

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But my biggest problem with Fox? They just don't take college football seriously enough. They take us back to the studio in L.A. and they actually say, "That was a great college football game." Like, well, it wasn't the NFL, but it still was okay. From there it devolves into Eddie George (Buckeye) being sad and Jimmy Johnson (Texan) being happy and then on to Colt McCoy's NFL potential.

ESPN has its foibles, but at least when you tune in to Rece, Mark and Lou, you know it's all about college football and that their passion for it is as fervent as yours. That's all we ask. Hey, guys, you're the ones lucky enough to be paid for talking about this game on TV. Act like it's the privilege that it is.

Boeckman to Pryor for a TD? Seriously!?! That's even better than I conjured. I just thought Boeckman should throw the game-winning or game-tying TD pass. But to toss a TD pass to Pryor (his first TD catch as a Buckeye)? Too Hollywood.

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Pryor just short-armed the 2-point conversion, though. That's about his fifth pass that has fallen short tonight. The Fox commentators are being kind and discussing how the Buckeye coaches will work on improving Pryor's footwork in the offseason.

Honestly, gentleman, allow me to save you a little time: "Terrelle, listen up. Grow a sack and step into your throw. Plant your back foot and stride forward as you throw the ball. Someone may hit you. And it may even hurt a little. Tough. That's why you're not paying tuition, son."

Cplt McCoy scores one play after getting his second roughing-the-passer call of the night. I've watched a lot of bowlage the past fortnight (What is this? WImbledon?), as have you, and my "Most Disturbing Trend" (outside of Flomax ads) is the swiftness with which refs have been flagging rushers for Roughing the Passer. They may as well call the penalty Touching the Passer.

How many flags have we seen in which the pass rusher had already taken his final step as the QB released the ball, hit him below the helmet, and still got flagged? It's outta control. And this latest penalty on Thaddeus Gibson was just the wrong call. Just a bad call.

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If Ohio State wins, does Chris Myers approach Colt McCoy, jump the gun, and say, "I guess your girlfriend's gonna dump you now"?

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Our first new great sports term of 2009: Crab Dribble. Directly, it's LeBron James' description of his "move" that was called a travel (and rightly so) in the closing seconds of Cleveland's loss at Washington yesterday afternoon. Indirectly, it should come to refer to any circumstance in which someone of privilege believes that he should get his way, no matter the transgression, simply because he is who he is.

"Bruce Willis is dating Brooke Burns?" 

"Crab dribble."

"Oh."

Read that piece I linked. My favorite "Amen!" moment is when Caron Butler says, "And I was like, 'Oh, man, there is a God!"

Amen.

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Ohio State was just called for roughing the passer again. Which is odd, because Texas ran the ball.

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Oh, and by the way, Intentional Grounding? Let's stop all of this "Was he inside or outside the tackle box?" junk. Intentional grounding should be left to the official's discretion. For example, when Terrelle Pryor tossed a missile into the dirt five yards ahead of himself in the 2nd quarter, that would be intentional grounding in my world.

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Season premiere of Scrubs tomorrow night. On another network. Still, it's Scrubs.  

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"Bernie Madoff is under house arrest in an $11 million house?!?"

"Crab dribble."

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Colt McCoy's girlfriend just told Laura Okmin that she has designated Will Muschamp as "Boyfriend-in-waiting." I mean, which is...wow.

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I just have to say it: "SANZENBACHER!!!"

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Is that Tim Roth show, Lie To Me (Fox) going to premiere on the same evening at that Tom Cavanagh/Eric McCormack show, Trust Me (TNT)? I hope so.

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If Jim Tressel has ever seen one sports film in his whole long life, then he realizes that Todd Boeckman has to be his quarterback for the rest of this game. I mean, if he has even the slightest appreciation of pathos.

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Colt McCoy just fumbled the ball...which bounced interminably and ultimately harmlessly out of bounds before any Buckeye could retrieve it. If Mack Brown's son-in-law coached for Ohio State, that never would have happened. 

At the half, it's Buckeyes 6-3. Ohio State finds itself in exactly the type of game it hoped to be in, while the Longhorns are wondering how they got lasso'ed into playing a Big Ten game circa 1955...

Chris Myers. Laura Okmin. One of you, please, head up to the McCoys' seating area and find out if Colt McCoy still has a girlfriend. If he plans on pulling an Ian Johnson tonight, he can't keep throwing passes such as the one that ended the half.

Wait. Is that Matt Saracen I see warming up for Texas to start the 3rd quarter?

 You're asking the same thing I am: How is that the most highly prized recruit in the nation a year ago shot-puts his screen passes?

I have no dog in this fight, but if there is a God, then Todd Boeckman will throw the game-winning pass in the final moments and then, when Laura Okmin grabs him for the postgame huggy-feelie, say, "I'd just like to thank Coach Tressel for benching me the final nine games of the season to prepare me for tonight. Yeah, thanks, Coach."

And then, for effect, he'll go C. Thomas Howell in "Red Dawn" and bellow, "Wolverines!"

On to the second half, kids...

Good news...(good news??? Great news!): Beginning this evening, January 5th, our favorite sitcom will be airing each weeknight at 7 p.m on...wait for it....Lifetime: Television for Women. That's correct: How I Melt Your Mother, weeknights at 7 p.m. (two episodes each night...now that void between Mad Money and prime time has finally been filled.)

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Funny story from the Rose Bowl. At the Rose Bowl gala or party or dinner or whatever on the eve of the game (which would be New Year's Eve, correct?), it was decided at the ABC table that someone needed to muster the courage to ask Cloris Leachman (you know her as Dancing With the Stars' ousted octagenarian, but she'll always be Nurse Diesel to me) to dance. Well, wouldn't you know it: Brent Musberger rose, approached Ms. Leachman--what was she doing there? I dunno (Update: My sis just told me that Cloris was the Grand Marshall of the Rose Parade and did the pre-game coin toss; My bad, but in my defense I was on a flight during the game)--and did the honors.

And wouldn't you know it? Brent and Cloris, who both were huge in the '70s, by the way (and now one is months away from his seventies, the other beyond hers), coupled up for three songs in a row. I love it: Brent, you rule. 

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Tonight's Fiesta Bowl. Hmmm. My head says Texas, but then I read Longhorn head coach Mack Brown's comments in today's paper: "If the teams are fairly even, the team that wants to be there the most and has the edge and is more motivated usually wins."

And if you don't believe him, go back and watch the first fifteen minutes of last Friday's night's Sugar Bowl. Kudos to Kyle Whittingham, the Utah head coach, for having the Utes as ready to play as any bowl team I've seen since Boise State stormed into the Fiesta Bowl two years ago. It was 21-0 before anyone could even get the smelling salts to the Tide sideline.

The Sugar Bowl was, as well, as hard-hitting a game as I've seen all bowl season. I was astounded--and horrified, and not in a Keith Morrison way-- at how many hits Tide running back Glen Coffee absorbed, and it seemed he never went down on the first hit. There were at least two 3rd-down conversions he made on sheer willpower. Then, late in the game, he stayed in to block a Ute linebacker and just got crushed. When you see a player lying on his stomach on the sideline, and writhing in agony, that's some serious pain.

Anyway, it was apparent from the first three minutes on how much more inspired the Utes were than the Tide. So how do we apply that to this evening's Fiesta Bowl? Is the Longhorns' motivation to show that they belong in Miami instead of Oklahoma greater than Ohio State's seniors' desire to finally win a game versus a top ten opponent? As well as to exorcise the demons of the last two BCS bowls? Not to mention that the demise began in this very stadium, nearly two years to the night ago in a loss to Florida?

Tough call. I wonder if Ohio State is still a divided locker room, if the seniors still resent the manner in which Jim Tressel discarded Todd Boeckman after the 38-3 disaster at USC. Boeckman is no superstar, but then again he was without Beanie Wells that evening in L.A. And facing the most formidable defense, in my opinion, of the decade.

How much has Terrelle Pryor evolved since the season-ending win, on Nov. 22, versus Michigan? How determined are players such as James Laurinaitis, Malcolm Jenkins and Alex Boone to go out on a positive note? How effective can the Ohio State rushing attack be?

The Longhorns are 8-point favorites. I say Ohio State covers. I'd like to think that, along with all that talent, the Buckeyes have too much heart to be humiliated in a third straight BCS bowl. I hope for their sake I'm correct.

But I don't care who wins. All I care about is that someone at the Fiesta Bowl (Junker????) wises up and demands that they open up the roof at University of Phoenix Stadium. Let's not be wusses, please.

The last time I attended the Fiesta Bowl, they kept the roof open for the pre-game military flyover, then closed it for the game. That's just wrong. As Bob Young of the Arizona Republic asks, "Why buy a convertible if you're going to keep the top up all the time?"

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Speaking of covers, USC was a 9.5 point fave over Penn State. When a Trojan punt snap sailed high over the head of USC punter Greg Woidneck in the waning moments, resulting in a 37-yard loss that gave the Nittany Lions first down on the Trojan 14, Vegas got nervous. USC led 38-24 at the time, and our favorite dance enthusiast, Brent Musberger, cryptically intoned, "A lot of people in Nevada just stood up."

See, broadcasters are never allowed to explicitly mention the spread, so they make comments such as that to inform the audience that they're clued in.

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Least sportsmanlike thing I've spotted this bowl season: Nevada QB Colin Kaepernick, who was already playing with a badly sprained ankle, takes a sack in the 4th quarter of the Inhumanitarian Bowl. A Maryland defender--I'm not sure whom (and someone from ESPN should have demanded they replay this and comment on it)-- reached down a paw to help up Kaepernick. Then, when young Colin reached out, the Terp Twerp pulled his arm away. I'd thought guys stopped doing that in Pop Warner. 

Saturday’s U.S. Army All-American Bowl was, as it is annually, the most sure-fire forum of teens destined to be millionaires you’ll find anywhere in the United States. And that includes Harvard, Princeton and Yale freshmen orientations.

Most striking? The speed and size of these 17- and 18-year olds is equal to that of NFL players from just a decade ago. Granted, these are 100 or so of the premier prep players nationally. But consider this: In the 1986 NFL draft, there were a total of two 300-pounders selected. Saturday’s game at the Alamodome featured nine 300-pounders.

The Hogs, the famed Washington Redskins offensive line that literally led that franchise to three Super Bowl victories between 1983 and 1992, averaged 280 pounds. The O-line for the West side this past weekend averaged 314 pounds, and the shortest of those five stood 6-4.

Just be glad you never had any of them in your gym class.

A few observations from the weekend:

— Willie Downs, a 6-3 safety from Tallahassee, Fla., had a pick-six (or, as Bill Simmons calls it, a TAINT) in the first quarter that featured a runback as eye-popping as anything you’ll see from the Baltimore Ravens’ Ed Reed. Downs made a leaping grab of an overthrown pass from West quarterback A.J. McCarron, ran up the left sideline briefly, then reversed field and headed into the end zone untouched.

Then the Florida State-bound DB tossed the ball into the stands, drawing a 15-yard penalty. Terrell Buckley, Deion Sanders, here is the newest member of your fraternity.

— Of all the endomorphs on display, nobody drew more stares than Alabama-bound lineman D.J. Fluker, who goes 6-7, 335 pounds. Scouts described him as the player in San Antonio most prepared to step immediately into an NFL camp — and he’d be stepping in wearing size 22 shoes.

Fluker has attended three different high schools in the past three years, but it has nothing to do with his being an academic liability or a problem child. Fluker’s home in New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and since then he, his mother and siblings have lived somewhat of an itinerant life.

What do the initials D.J. stand for? Danny Jesus. Seriously. Someone at the game joked that his dad was named Danny, and at his birth his mother took one look at him, then exclaimed to the father, “Danny! Jesus!”

— Fluker will be slated as Andre Smith’s replacement at left tackle, perhaps destined to block for the aforementioned McCarron, who should continue the Tide’s tradition of tousle-haired passers who could stand to be slightly more athletic (see: John Parker Wilson, Brodie Croyle, Jay Barker) but will be beatified by Tide fans nevertheless.

— Other tailbacks, such as Bryce Brown and Christine Michael (yes, Christine…he pronounces it “Kristen”, which is still a feminine name, but you best not say that with a smirk if you know what’s good for you) were more highly touted, but I was most impressed with Texas-bound tailback Chris Whaley. He’s 6-3, 225 pounds of pure downhill bowling ball. As Pat Haden remarked, “Most of the running backs here are trying to juke defenders and avoid contact. Whaley runs as if he’s looking for people to hit.”

Well, not only is MVP Peyton Manning out of the playoffs but so are the men who finished in a second-place tie behind Manning - my choice Chad Pennington (see previous entry) and Atlanta's Michael Turner.

Two things.

1) This doesn't bode well for fourth-place finisher Adrian Peterson (3 votes) who plays against Philly this evening.

2) How often does the league's MVP win the Super Bowl. Not that much. The last three MVPs that won the Super Bowl were Kurt Warner in 1999, Terrell Davis in 1998 and Brett Favre in 1996.

The guys since 1999 that got their widdle hearts bwoken?

2000: Marshall Faulk

2001: Kurt Warner

2002: Rich Gannon
2003: Peyton Manning & Steve McNair

2004: Peyton Manning
2005: Shaun Alexander

2006: LaDainian Tomlinson
2007: Tom Brady

2008: Peyton Manning

Fleeting thoughts while watching the Dolphins last gasp at a stirring upset against the Ravens (apparently) go South.

* The name is Henning, Dan. He's the Dolphins offensive coordinator who just dialed up a reverse to Ted Ginn on second-and-8 from the Baltimore 25 with his team trailing 20-9 and a little more than seven minutes left in their Wild Card game today. Ginn mishandled the handoff and the result wound up being a 20-yard loss. Fwump, fwump, fwaaaaaahhhhh. I am piling on Henning a little bit here. The Dolphins are not going to win a football game with their offensive talent playing straight up against the Ravens defense. You need to use some skullduggery. Hell, the Dolphins 2009 offensive success has been predicated on skullduggery. But given that play likely ended Miami's hopes, it's ironical.

* I was one of the four media members that voted for Chad Pennington as the NFL's MVP this year. Peyton Manning won it, getting 32 of the votes. Michael Turner also had four. Pacman Jones didn't have any. Why Pennington? Because his value is measurable. Last year, Miami went 1-15. This year they went 11-5. He threw 17 touchdowns and only seven picks (although he's got four so far today). Without him, the Dolphins weren't going to be 11-5. They were likely a 6-10 team. Now, if you want to say the Colts would be that much worse without Manning, I ask, "How do you know?" The Patriots were supposed to be cooked with Matt Cassel at quarterback. They were not. They went 11-5. Who's to say Jim Sorgi couldn't do that? Especially when he would have been throwing to Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark and the WR Formerly Known As Marvin Harrison. That's the other aspect of Pennington's candidacy that made his more valuable to his team than Manning. Pennington was throwing to Ted Ginn, Anthony Fasano and Davone Bess. To me, it was actually an easy call.

* CBS just followed Nick Griesen for 45 seconds stalking John Harbaugh for a Gatorade-dousing. Seen one, seen 'em all, sure. But just as the bucket was about to get dumped, the producer cut to the play at-hand. A kneeldown. I've seen more of those than I need to as well.