Pitch Right the premier (only?) Navy blog on the internets, and Adam's been busy dealing with various requests from Irish blogs all week.  He's answered some questions here and here, with his look at the awful Navy defense highlighted at BGS here.  He thinks that Notre Dame's offensive woes will be cured with a dose of the Midshipmen defense, which is almost unbelievably small compared to their Irish counterparts.  Obviously is there is an offense capable of floundering even with a massive size advantage in the trenches and a height advantage down the field, it is ours, but coming off of a bye week, you'd think we're capable of putting up some serious points.

Anyone who thinks that Notre Dame's defense is going to shut down Navy needs to realize that even though we've won pretty handily the last two seasons, the Irish have been gouged by the triple option.  Navy is going to identify where Trevor Laws is on the line, then take their variety of choices the other way.  When that starts to get clogged up, the Midshipmen are more than capable of completing a few long passes down the field.  If the offense can't give the defense time to rest while making Navy play catch up, 43 years might end the streak.

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Remember way back in September, when Tyrone Willingham and the Washington Huskies were 2-0 while the Irish floundered?  Everyone was gleefully pointing out the differences between Ty and Charlie Weis, with the former's success making the latter's failures even worse.

Well, Washington hasn't won since their Week Two victory over Boise State (how in the world did they beat Boise State?) and the residents of Seattle are becoming sleepless..err, restless.  The absurd Slate column that gets randomly quoted is laughable when you consider Karl Dorrell, Chan Gailey and Ty Willingham still roam NCAA sidelines.  I was going to take the time to refute Jonathan Chait's rather randomly scathing column, but it's not worth the time or effort.

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This is from the New York Times PLAY Magazine last week, but it's one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis, writing about the plight of the kicker.  It focuses on the NFL side of things - Adam Vinatieri - but the same standards apply to college kickers.  As with most things Lewis writes, it's a great read, so enjoy.

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SMQ looks back on the insane month that was while EDSBS gives you your weekend preview.  Saurian Sagacity is keeping track of our potentially historically bad offense, so it would be nice to put up some serious yardage Saturday and begin our climb out of the bottom of the all-time worst barrel.  Sadness, sadness, oh sweet sweet sadness...

On the national stage, Ohio State plays disappointing Wisconsin, disappointing Purdue plays disappointing Penn State, Matt Ryan gets to try and add another line to his fraudulent Heisman resume against Florida State, Arizona State and Oregon throw down in a game we all actually get to see (albeit at 6:45, but it's on ESPN!) while LSU travels to Tuscaloosa to take on Alabama, John Parker Wilson and eleven months of hate since Nick Saban took the head coaching job for the Crimson Tide.  Wouldn't it make next year all the more exciting when he returns to Baton Rouge if he knocked the Bayou Bengals (and the SEC, for that matter), out of the national title hunt?  This should be reason enough alone to root for the ghost of Bear Bryant to make an appearance.

Who knew Houndstooth hats were so fashionable? Image pirated from Hey Jenny Slater