Quick Hits

• New poll, new opportunity to make it look like I have readers. I voted for Syracuse. I'm a little concerned about winning in the dome, to be honest. In our last poll, as you can still see, Patty Fitz won 25-16 over Bill Carmody. An astute, anonymous commenter brought up the very good point that if Fitz coached basketball at NU, the football team would probably drop in quality as he'd have to split his time. As someone who cares more about basketball than many other things in life, I could live with that, if it attracted a higher level of recruit - I could see Fitz as a Calipari-esque coach without the skeeziness and abandoned wins, someone who might know less about basketball than Carmody forgot yesterday but could get higher-caliber recruits, and keep someone who actually knows how to coach on the payroll, and win a few more games than under Carmody. Obviously, the poll was sarcastic - but think about it: The program might actually be better off. 
• Kyle Rowley's enormous left foot is fractured. Feet aren't meant to support seven-footers, regardless of their size, and Kyle is big, even for someone his height. I hope this isn't the type of thing which nags at him throughout his career, because he could turn out nicely. I've said this once, I'll say it a thousand times, Rowley needs work on his basic fundamentals. Give him a red tee, let him fully recuperate, practice with the team when he's ready, and just focus on school and basketball without the extra worry of being a Big Ten center. I'm sure the work ethic is there, but he needs time, and even if next year is now for NU basketball, Rowley will contribute to the team more in three years than he will this year, so, hand Mirkovic the starting spot and let Rowley recover. The worst thing would be for Rowley to think he's okay and then refracture the thing and need whatever surgery Yao got this offseason while he's still under 20 years old, costing NU a potential prospect.
• Football's 16 days away. I checked up on Coach Fitz's twitter again, to see how his usage of the exclamation point is going, and in doing so, gain valuable insight into the mindframe of the world's most intense human. It turns out, it's actually decreased: over his last 20 posts, he's used 20 exclamation points, a perfect one !pp (exclamation point per post) thanks to my apple+f research abilities. I credit the slight downslide to two different reasons: 

First, Fitz has learned to lean on the caps lock much more than he used to. I theorize that this has led to a decrease in exclamation point usage without signifying a decrease in Coach Fitz's actual intensity, as he's just using a different method of portraying the same intensity. Where that post might have read "Just had an extremely productive team meeting" it now reads "Just had an EXTREMELY productive staff meeting".

Next, it's important to note that Fitz's exclamation point usage has become limited to fewer posts. Of his last 20, only 11 feature exclamation points. This means that Fitz's use of the single exclamation point has virtually died out - when he's using exclamation points, he's using multiple. 

My psychological analysis of this evidence is this: With football season fast approaching, Coach Fitz's intensity has given way to to a calmer, focused state. However, when he receives stimuli from the outside world that prompt his intensity to surface, it surfaces in a higher magnitude than when Fitz is at his normal state. 

• So that's it for now. Vote in the poll, and give a reason if you're voting for a team other than Syracuse in the comments section - I'm genuinely curious as to why you'd pick, let's say, Eastern Michigan.