A sports day to remember

The "official" "Re-Launch" of TSE will start on Monday and Tuesday but how can a sports blog not mention something about a day like this in the sports world? We start early in the day in Columbus...

I am a Buckeye fan through and through but this season, especially after the debacle that was last season, came with a lot of questions. Can Todd Boeckman and company replace Troy Smith, Tedd Ginn and Anthony Gonzalez? Will the defense be stout enough to keep the untested offense in contention? What color vest will Coach Tressel wear? The myriad questions started to receive their answers when the Buckeyes dispatched of the #6 FCS Youngstown State Fightin' Penguins in Ohio Stadium today. Really, the game was in no doubt and the offense, which had many annoying 5-yard penalties, showed a few signs of things to come. And Tres wore a grey vest today. All told, though, the best part was easy enough to identify:


There is nothing in the world like the Alumni band and TBDBITL putting four Script-Ohio's on the field at once. Almost made the $60 ticket worth it (though mine was comped - happy birthday to me).

But that's when things started to get interesting.

MGoBlog.com, the preeminent Wolverines blog had the picture to answer 1000 questions.


Technical Difficulties indeed. Michigan goes down to Appalachian State in front of 107,000+ in the Big House. The Mountaineers are no slouches themselves in the FCS (formerly Division 1-AA) having won some national championships of their own, so it's not like UM was going up against the scout team from WBUP-TV in Marquette. Appy was in it all the way and won in grand fashion, blocking the would-be winning field goal as time expired. As a Buckeye fan, I have my hat tips and finger wags about the loss, but as for college football, this one was huge, perhaps the biggest upset in college football history. Hell, ESPNews compared it to USA over USSR in the 1980 Olympics, if you want a grand scale to put this on. So where does Michigan go? And when Oregon comes into the Big House next week what can we expect? Mike Hart still put on a show, but if that show can't beat the FCS, then what are the Wolverines to do?

A quick sidebar: what do you do with Michigan in the rankings next week? One would think that losing to an FCS team would get you out of the top-25 (some have even suggested giving Appy St. a vote or two in the rankings next week). I think they'll drop down to #22-#24, but if they fall out of it, that would surprise me too much.

Finally, the story that trumps even a monumental college football upset came at Fenway Park. Clay Buchholz, called up to replace an inactive Tim Wakefield, went out and did something no Boston rookie had ever done. The MLB.com game cast spells it out pretty well:


Buchholz throws a wonderful no-hitter (with some fantastic help from Dustin Pedroia on defense) as the Sox win 10-0 at home. The story in Boston is that the brass told Buchholz would be dropped down to the PawSox even if he did something like...throw a no-hitter. Well, Buchholz did it in start #2 so it looks like his bags should stay in Boston for the near future.

So Ohio State wins, Michigan loses and the BoSox snap out of a 4-game slide in a huge way. All-in-all, for me anyway, this was one hell of a day for sports.

The Re-Launch will begin next week, so look forward to all the Sports Elitists you can handle.