US Army All-American Bowl Liveblogging! (First Half)

Picture the scene... you're sitting around your house on a Saturday morning and your girlfriend calls you and asks if you want to have brunch with her family. Normally, you'd be fairly amenable to free silver dollar pancakes, even if it means enduring some awkward conversation, but today is not a normal day. It's the high-school all-star game. Sorry, tootsie, but home boy has a date with Tom Lemming today, and no amount of waffles or eggs Benedict can interrupt.

If any of this made sense to you, congratulations, you're a junkie.

Just to remind you all, this game is sponsored by the U.S. army, so the over/under on lame Army commercials is like a million.

A lot of these blue-chippers will be announcing their college choices. When that happens, I'll put the contents in bold face, so you can skip over my pithy commentary and get right to the commitments, if that's your thing.
And we're off to the races! Virginia running back Ryan Williams puts on the Virginia Tech hat. Not terribly surprising that he picked his hometown school over Rutgers and Boston College.

Michigan-bound Sam McGuffie takes the opening kickoff and does not hurdle over any defenders. You can almost hear the entire crowd sigh with disappointment. Now it's time to see Notre Dame commit Dayne Crist take over the West offense. The announcers said he went to the same high school as Jimmy Clausen in the intro, but that's not correct. Hooray, fact checking!

The West drive stalls, and we have a punt and our first two Army commercials. Zing. Now it's time to see Tyrelle Pryor, the presumptive number one recruit in the universe ever. Rich Rodriguez is somewhere, salivating.

Covaughn Deboskie, RB from Arizona announces... for Cal! At least I think he did. He had his (daughter? sister?) pick a hat, so he might not have had any say in the decision. Oh well. Meanwhile, Tyrelle Pryor has scored on a nifty little read option. He's 6'6", for you keeping score at home. 7-0, East.

Army commercial count: 3.

Brandon Smith, DB from New Jersey, picks... Michigan. Good pickup for Michigan. That kid's got quite the head of hair on him. Plus, the announcers said he might play QB for Rodriguez's spread if they don't get Pryor. Hmmm.

The QB for the West is Andrew Luck, heading to Stanford. They said his dad's name is Oliver. Oliver Luck. As in, "even with Oliver Luck, she couldn't avoid the falling piano."

Army commercial count: 4

No commitments after this commercial break, they're just interviewing somebody who looks like Abe Vigoda.

Touchdown, West. Gabbert (Missouri commit) on a pretty fade to Dan Buckner. 7-7.

East QB Star Jackson (no, not Star Jones) has thrown two passes... an interception and a 50 yard touchdown. East, 14-7. And now we are treated to a Brady Quinn commercial, bringing the Notre Dame blow job level up to critical mass. Hold on tight, lads.

West is running some Emory & Henry. Notre Dame QB Dayne Crist drops the snap and it is recovered by ND DL Sean Cwynar. Notre Dame Notre Dame Notre Dame.

Marquis Gray, QB from Indiana chooses... Minnesota! Best of luck to him in the Twin Cities. A long field goal for the East has enough leg but sails wide. That was Notre Dame WR John Goodman holding. Notre Dame Notre Dame.

Sam McGuffie goes two more plays without jumping over anybody. The bloodthirsty crowd pelts the field with tomatoes and beer cans in a hail of boos.

Army commercial count: 5

Shane Hale, LB from Pennsylvania chooses... Pitt! My God, is there anything the Wannstache can't do? Nice catch! Meanwhile, West makes a field goal to pull within 14-10.

Army commercial count: 6


Gerrell Robinson, WR from Arizona chooses... Arizona State! Nooooo.... he spurns the Irish. The production crew is panicking. Shut this game down!

Army commercial count: 7