• What a weekend for football! Michigan lost. Ohio State lost. Iowa lost. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a commanding Spartans win. Oh, wait. Never mind.

• Hawaii sure does love playing the villain role, doesn't it? First, the Warriors picked fights with Southern Cal. This week, they took a cheap shot on Drew Stanton, players cupped their hands to their ears to encourage more boos from the crowd and their coach visibly showed up the officials, pleading for a call. It's one thing to antagonize your opponent when you're competitive. It's another thing to do it when your opponents have outscored you by 74 points in two games. Maybe there's no Hawaiian translation for "humble pie."

• Give Hawaii credit though - it knows how to take paranoia to another level.The Honolulu Advertiser reported last week that Hawaii held its Thursday practice at Haslett High School to "hinder MSU's spies." While we're not buying on that conspiracy theory, Hawaii might have stumbled on a good idea here. Maybe we ought to send all of our criminal justice majors to South Bend, Ind. to do some "surveillance work" on Notre Dame. (And while we're at it, someone should remind Hawaii that just because it practiced at a high school, doesn't mean it should have played like a high school team on Saturday.)

• Capital One is sponsoring a National Mascot of the Year competition, with a prize of $10,000 for the winning school. A glaring omission from the field of 12 mascots? Sparty, the two-time defending champion of the Universal Cheer Association's national mascot competition. Even Miami's Sebastian the Duck, whose costume looks like something you'd wear on Halloween, is among the competitors. What gives?

• Several former MSU baseball greats were in town this week for MSU Baseball Alumni Weekend, including current Tigers hitting coach Kirk Gibson. While it's great that Gibby is still connected to the campus, doesn't he have more important things to do? Like, you know, helping the Tigers actually score a run?