To most of you, the headline above may seem like an unnecessary foray into my personal life, but longtime CC readers are all too aware of the significance.

It was early November, 2006. I was a starry-eyed undergraduate with less than a year of blogging under my belt, and the football team I love was the talk of the sports world.

Unbeaten, ranked third and just a week removed from the biggest win in program history, the Louisville Cardinals were a mere four victories away from playing for the national title in Glendale, Ariz.

In a move that would have forced Crash Davis into an early retirement, I decided this was the perfect time to get a fresh fade for the first time since late August.

Debate raged, Louisville traveled to Jersey to face equally unbeaten Rutgers, the game started, something about a field goal and a penalty, Scarlet Knight fans rushed the field, I was unhappy, "ill-advised haircut" took on a personality of its own.

On the drive home this afternoon my mind was bombarded with ways to justify this, but all were hollow and lacking any semblance of truth. If this were October or late September I would have just let things go and been Joaquin Phoenix for Halloween, but it's not, and 24-year-old Mike Rutherford simply can't pull off the approaching homeless look like 19-year-old Mike Rutherford thought he could.

Ideally, this would have been done yesterday with less on the line and a more manageable rookie haircut opponent, but life is life, and the fine folks at SuperCuts don't make in-house visits.

I don't know what else to say other than that I'm sorry, and that I'm still confident we can make this work.

We're at the Comfort Inn. Room 112. I love you.

Go Cards.