You might be thinking, what the hell do these pictures have to do with Notre Dame football?

"For the nine months prior to Todd's birth on July 4, 1969, Trudi used no salt, sugar, alcohol, or tobacco. As a baby, Todd was fed only fresh vegetables, fruits, and raw milk; when he was teething, he was given frozen kidneys to gnaw. As a child, he was allowed no junk food; Trudi sent Todd off to birthday parties with carrot sticks and carob muffins. By age three, Marv had the boy throwing with both hands, kicking with both feet, doing sit-ups and pull-ups, and lifting light hand weights. On his fourth birthday, Todd ran four miles along the ocean's edge in thirty-two minutes, an eight-minute-mile pace. Marv was with him every step of the way." (Sager, Esquire)

Ok, so Marv wanted to make sure his wife was a breeder and produced perfect lab conditions for his Dr. Frankenstein experiment. Nothing wrong with that, right? And who doesn't set up a My First Boot Camp in their living room in hopes of their progeny establishing an everlasting sports legacy for the family name? Like Maya Angelou said, it takes a village to raise a child, and Marv certainly couldn't do it without enlisting the help of a few friends:

"Along the way, Marv consulted a series of experts: Tom House, the Texas Rangers' innovative pitching coach, found Todd's throwing motion to be 4.53 inches too low. A vision specialist in Westwood made Todd wear prism glasses, stand on a balance beam in a dark room, and bounce a ball while reciting multiplication tables." (Sager, Esquire)

Once, during halftime at a home game, Todd retrieved a premade rig out of his locker and went to the bathroom to shoot up. Sitting on the toilet, half listening to the chalk talk, he slammed the heroin. As the team was leaving the locker room for the second half, he struggled with the screen in his glass crack pipe - he wasn't getting a good hit. Then the pipe broke, and he lacerated his left thumb. By the time he got out onto the field, his thumb wrapped in a towel, the game had already started. He took up the clipboard, his only duty. "I didn't even know what play they were calling," Todd says. "Nobody looked at the shit I wrote down anyway." (Sager, Esquire)

"Tate said he cried when he ran out of the tunnel and on the field and saw 110,000 people and truly realized how much Michigan football means to so many people," he said. "It gets me choked up just thinking about him telling me that because it tells me my son really gets it."

Like Brett Favre, Tate Forcier just cares about football so damn much. And finally on to the rest of this week's Friday Afternoon Tailgate Preview and what to expect from Week 2 of the 2009 College Football season. 

Sure Lane Kiffin's Wild Boys made things look easy against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers but things might get a little more interesting against a non-directional school from the PAC 10. Kiffin and Cajun Boy Ed Orgeron are mighty familiar with the Bruins from their days out at Camp Win Forever and can't wait to show off their new SEC bred speed. Look for the Wild Boyz to whip Rocky Top into a frenzy just in time for their fateful date with the Florida Gators at the Swamp next week.

Gary Patterson and the TCU Horned Frogs Introduce Al Groh's Face to the Curb (Again)

That 11.5 point spread should probably be moved up to 20 after last week's debacle against William and Mary. But then again, Gary Patterson's defense has only had the entire off-season to prepare for Groh's juggernaut O. Let's just say I like this line just a little bit. 

Greg Paulus Yearns for the Confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium After His Trip to Beaver Stadium