A weekly look at conquered favorites and other notables picking up the pieces of shattered ambition.

Not loud. Not necessarily proud. Just loyal. Loyal and sad. There is a smattering of Michiganders in this video following the now-3-8 Wolverines' home loss to Northwestern in unholy winter conditions:

If you are one of them, you are automatically awarded the black belt in fandom.

Answer the question, Tommy. Auburn's own fans weren't that hard on the Tigers for a close, could-have-been loss to Georgia -- losing six out of eight tends to have a certain numbing effect on expectations -- but Tommy Tuberville comes in for a beating from The Sporting Blog, of all places, for his late game personnel strategy:

Needing a TD late in the fourth quarter with 8 minutes left, Auburn opted for the following play sequence.

1st-10, UGa28 6:08 B. Tate rushed to the right for 3 yard gain
2nd-7, UGa25 5:41 B. Tate rushed up the middle for 4 yard gain
3rd-3, UGa21 5:12 B. Tate rushed to the left for no gain
4th-3, UGa21 4:13 K. Burns incomplete pass to the right

Two cardinal sins in one series occurred here. First, the hot hand, Mario Fannin, who rushed for 107 yards and had 2 TDs on the day, sat on the bench for the final drive. Why? The math-deficient answer from Tommy Tuberville:

"Ben [Tate, who finished with 37 yards on 14 carries -- ed.] was running the ball pretty good," Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville said afterward.

Clearly, compared to Fannin (7.4 yards per carry), Tate (2.6) was not "running the ball pretty good" by any objective measure. Tuberville clarified his answer Sunday, when he told reporters Fannin (who just moved back to running back from receiver about halfway through the season) hadn't had enough practice time in the backfield to learn pass protection. Two problems with that explanation:

One: Fannin is a third-year player who spent two full seasons at running back before moving to receiver, and has been back at running back for like a month; is he just that dumb re: pass protection? And two: Auburn wasn't passing the ball in the above sequence. It was three straight runs, in a one-score game with a minute left. So Lester wasn't running the ball "pretty good," and Fannin's pass protection couldn't have been a liability on, you know, non-passing plays. So why was the hot running back on the sideline with the game on the line, again?

Flat. Everywhere it's flat. And the sky ... it's closing in. Kansas State clinched a second straight losing season by submitting to an old-fashioned pounding by Nebraska, and is probably assured of losing players after this week's pillow fight with Iowa State, too, with the impending exit of coach Ron Prince. Among them is backup quarterback Carson Coffman, who threatened after his third mop-up stint in as many weeks to transfer if he doesn't replace star-studded recruit/scout favorite Josh Freeman as the starter in '09.

The most unscientific poll of all-time suggests K-State fans would prefer Coffman, actually, since Freeman's alleged breakthrough junior campaign has fallen extraordinarily flat. Not up, not down, but flat, like the prairie on which it's unfolded, or Freeman's position on the turf after being knocked out of Saturday's game in the third quarter. In Big 12 play, he's thrown five touchdowns to six interceptions, and gone through four games with neither. If not for non-conference patsies and the three-touchdown, three-interception track meet against Oklahoma, Freeman would be having one of the most boring seasons in history. But there is no quarterback controversy.

Speaking of Prince, if you want an example of a lame duck who's feeling loose in his last days on the job, attempt to connect the dots between this Nintendo-based response and the question it was intended to answer, regarding Prince's aking over the offense in the second half from coordinator Dave Brock:

"Back when I was a kid, my sister used to rip the controller away from me in Super Mario, saying, "Here, let me get us past this level." And, in some ways, it made sense. She had played Mario longer than I had since she was the older, more experienced big sister. But I have to tell you, when she directed Mario into a hungry plant and killed him -- then gave me the controller back -- it got pretty tense. In some ways I resented her for it. I mean, I was a pretty good Mario player. "Well, dangit, Jessica," I would say, "I could have done that!" Safe to say, our working relationship in Nintendo was destroyed forever. It was never quite the same after that."

Along the same lines (sort of), Prince said later on his Sunday night radio show he could tell at halftime "the game wasn't going the way that I wanted the game to go" -- i.e. Kansas State had no chance to win -- and he took over play-calling to deflect blame for the inevitable disaster from Brock (or, on the other hand, take credit for the incredible comeback, however unlikely). By stating that publicly, of course, Prince only humiliates Brock further -- he can't even be trusted to finish his own blowout! Thanks, boss!

Elsewhere in Disillusion: South Florida has planted the flag of surrender at midfield. . . . Minnesota is 7-4 on the heels of last year's 1-11 disaster, but after starting 7-1, it feels like the bad old days again. ... And only because I do one of these every week, I can only imagine the comments that didn't make it online during the Houston Chronicle's live blog of Texas A&M's 41-21 loss to Baylor.