The Wisconsin Auburn game was totally entertaining. It was also Barry Alvarez's last game as head coach, and his win solidified his position as the winningest (percentage, minimum 10 games) bowl coach in history. Although Aflac deserved a penalty flag for its trivia question, which asserted that Pat Dye's bowl record of 7-2-1 bested Alvarez's 7-3 record by .750 to .700. In fact, both records work out to a winning percentage of .700. I hope their actuaries can calculate benefits better than that.

For pure drama, you couldn't beat the UCLA Northwestern game. UCLA recoverd from a 22-0 deficit, scoring 36 unanswered points. After NWU closed to 36-31 late in the fourth quarter, UCLA returned two (!) onside kicks for touchdowns, sandwiched around another Northwestern touchdown drive. Final score, 50-38. Wow!

I weep for America.

- This past weekend's games were the most poorly officiated games in memory.

- The Champ Bailey fumble was not incorrectly called, or upheld on replay.

- The Asanti Samuels pass interference was the worst call in a big game in a long, long time.

- Denver false-started on their first field goal, and given that the ball barely cleared the crossbar, would not have been good from five yard longer.

- Do away with the force-out rule if you must, but change the possession rule to require only one foot in bounds.

- The only rule worse that the possession rule is the touchdown rule.

- The Pittsburg/Indianapolis game was not a classic. It was an old-fashioned ass-whipping that had a pretty interesting end-game.

- Peyton Manning is a whiny, punk-ass crybaby. His offensive linemen ought to take turns bitch-slapping him.

If you are writing to Cary, you must be a regular Salon reader. I'm guessing that the original letter writer not only read Cary's reply, but has been following the reader responses. And she is probably pissed.

I know if it were me, I would want to defend myself against my detractors. But as a fairly regular reader of this column, I have yet to see a LW follow-up in the letters section. I wonder why.

Must be a bitch, King. It's that boring week before the Super Bowl, the Senate just confirmed a new Supreme Court justice, the President is gearing up for the state of the union address, and you still have to come up with five hundred words about sports.

Maybe next time you can just call in sick.

I like some of the suggestions vis-a-vis the timeout, primarily because I hate dragging out the game, and giving television all those extra commercials.

I would be in favor of eliminating the backcourt violation altogether. After all, the whole point in to score a basket, which is almost impossible from the backcourt. And with a shot clock, there is no incentive to use the entire court as a stalling technique, since stalling is restricted to 35 seconds anyway.

Packer and Nance are OK, just as the rest of them are. In this day and age, basketball is primarily a game of individual athletic accomplishment, so the announcers are irrelevant. They almost never tell the viewer anything they haven't seen on the screen, and can intuitively understand.

Note to King. There is basketball, then there is women's basketball. Because the are only marginally related, they should never be discussed in the same article.

In a game like basketball, where an 11-0 run is not uncommon, it's pretty harsh to call the Zags hiccup last night a choke. Certainly not the choke of the year. That award has to go to Bode Miller, who still can't take a sip of water (beer?) without gagging.

Coach K's job is to coach college players, not produce NBA players. At that, he is one of the great college coaches, past or present.

It's not "premature" to rank K as the best ever. It is over-the-top ridiculous. John Wooden is far and away the greatest college coach of all time. No one comes close, and no one ever will. Period.

More like a cheap knock-off.

How about a little originality, Jason?

Oh, and by the way, you are supposed to juggle in time with the music.

I think Cary is testing his readers. He is trying to see if he can coax them into utter revolt over his choice of dumbass letters written by utterly fucked up losers.

Today, he may have succeeded.

James Gandolfini can go fuck himself!

We just hate you and your column because you replaced Garrison Keillor's "Mr. Blue" column, and you, dude, are no Garrison Keillor.

What in fucking hell are you talking about? Men pee out their cocks, but women don't pee out their clits?

If you eat pussy, and you never get your mouth/lips/nose/tongue/face where the pee comes from, you're not doing a very good job!

Kai Bird is a Pulitzer prize winning author and a contributing eitor for "The Nation". He won the Pulitzer for a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

His most recent research has led him to conclude that the American spy identified in the Venona Papers as "Ales" was not Alger Hiss, but another American Diplomat, Wilder Foote.

I don't mean to pick on Joan Strand's letter from page 8, but her quote from Paul Simon's The Boxer is a classic.

Joan, It's not "just a come-on in the war zone 7th avenue".

The lyric, in context is:

Asking only workman's wages, I come looking for a job.

But I get no offers, just a come-on from the whores on seventh avenue.

I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome, I took some comfort there.

WTF is "lack of sand"?

Come on, King, grow a pair. Man up. Have some cojones. Write it like you mean it: "Romeo Crennel of the Cleveland Browns showed a similar lack of sack...".

Schumer is an asshole.

Feinstein is, well, Feinstein.

We.Are.So.Fucked.

It's "The Asswipe formerly known as the artist Prince"