Friday Night Lights dimmed

MINNEAPOLS -- I'm sitting here at Schwalbach's house, watching the snow fall ... already? I suppose we used to have lots of snow on Thanksgiving most years growing up, but not lately. Had a nice meal last night at Pepito's with Toren, Schwib, Polzin, Toohey, Eric Werner, and Will, Olson, and Molle showed up later to add to the meaningful discussion.

Shockingly, few wanted to talk about the Wisconsin high school football championship games, except for someone who asked me if I'd even gone to the Iola-Scandinavia game on Thursday. I did, with Mr. Austin and Greg Loescher, but not much to report there. Some shaky early offense and special teams play put the Thunderbirds in a 14-0 hole halfway through the first quarter, and it was a steep uphill climb the rest of the way. Had I-S played a perfect or near-perfect game, Stratford could have been beaten, but there's a reason they've won five gold balls in a row - depth, execution, strategy, experience.

Great season for Iola, though, lots of fun to watch and a terrific galvanizing event for the community.

Sign of the game, held by a Stratford fan: "Iola has the car show, but we have the titles." Clever.

-Another easy win for the basketball team last night. Didn't see it, but looking at the box score, saw the Marcus Landry and Jason Bohannon led the way with 17 apiece - very encouraging. As ajs posted Friday, there's been talk that J-Bo had knee surgery over the offseason and that's set him back. I haven't seen evidence of a lingering injury or recovery, more of a deal where he's not shooting well ... although that could be a byproduct of not having his legs just right.

Never really worried about Landry, no reason for him to force his offense in these cupcake games, but nice to see that he still has it nonetheless. If we can find ways for him - and Jon Leuer - to play the 3, especially on defense, that makes our lineup awfully imposing from an shot-blocking perspective.

-Interesting to be up here in Gopher country and gauge fans' attitudes toward Tim Brewster. I suppose you have to be optimistic, but he is about to be responsible for the worst season in school history. His saving grace is allegedly his recruiting prowess, but given the number of de-commits he's had lately, that prowess is far from a given.

One member of our party wants to see if Brewster and Bret Bielema shake hands before the game, given Bret's words about how "Minnesota has been good to us" lately and Brewster's reaction to that. Hey Tim, it's not a false statement, and Minnesota has been good to Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, et al in recent years. Do something about it.

Bill Callahan Farewell Tour

Jim Austin emailed this to me earlier this week, with the note: "may be blog-worthy is the Badgers match up with the Huskers in a mid-December bowl."

I'm pretty sure mid-December bowls are reserved for the Minnesotas and Northwesterns of the Big Ten, so I'm going to go ahead and post it now.

The situation in Lincoln is interesting. Apparently Cally has made it known he will not resign before the end of the season - Tom Osborne has to be loving that. Funny thing is, when they fired Frank Solich a few years back to guard against "slipping into mediocrity," I could see where they were coming from and sort of agree. But man, has Nebraska fallen.

And consider Callahan's slide: Super Bowl coach with the Raiders in 2002, fired after the next season, and then almost personally responsible for the steep decline in one of college football's most storied programs.

A litlle while back I jokingly broached the subject of Cally and Cosgrove rejoining the UW staff next year. Won't happen, but what if they were to join Brad Childress, Jim Hueber and friends in the Humpty Dome next year? They could turn Tarvaris Jackson into Mike Samuel 2008, or Brooks Bollinger into Brooks Bollinger 1999. They could bring back Brian White to help Adrian Peterson get better. ;)

Of course, this all assumes Chilly is back next year, which my Vikings fan friends would probably cringe at.