. . . with the exception of yesterday’s most important match up, in what felt like yet another BCS National Championship game in the sense that:

1. Ohio State lost
2. ESPN had two sideline reporters and the College Gameday crew at the game
3. An excessively long halftime
4. The nostalgic pregame and postgame coverage
5. Ohio State lost
6. Erin Andrews looked fine (which is sorta true for any day that ends in ‘y’)
7. Students lined up 31 hours in advance.
8. Ohio State lost

Amidst the disturbing recent news that the Pac-10 Poon has not updated its site since March, we’d like to thank Hotdog & Friends for picking up the baton.

They kicked off the weekend — and countdown til Aug 30, the much, much, much anticipated start to college football season — with a Pac-10 preseason poll that ranks schools based on their respective women studying at each fine educational institution. Quite accurately, the list goes ASU, U of A, USC, Oregon and UCLA in the top-5, followed by a talent gap wider than Michael Strahan’s two front teeth.

(Noteworthy: Yes, No. 8-ranked Cal may have the hottest pole vaulter in America, but there’s no “pole” in “team.”)

Despite how questionable you feel a referee is, The Guys Who Make The Calls always appear to be the sharpest and most attentive workers on courts and fields — with the exclusion of the Pacific 10 Conference, the NBA and now, Belarus.

Appears that referee Sergei Shmolik drank so much that he rode the mechanical bull before a soccer match in Belarus. Due to back pain, Shmolik was helped off the field — drunk.

In TV footage shown Wednesday on Russian television, Shmolik staggered as he was helped off the field at the end of Saturday’s match.

Personally, because soccer doesn’t really do it for me — you know, like that borderline 6.0 chick even with the beer goggles — I’d have to agree with this ref’s measures. Common now… Belarus? I couldn’t tell you the hemisphere, nevermind the contident that Belarus resides on.