Another nice win as Michigan pulls away in the second half to take down Ron English and the EMU Eagles. Tip of the hat to English whose squad put together a gutty first half and played hard throughout. It’s easy to forget about the giant holes in our defensive line when guys are sprinting for touchdowns right and left (or north and south I guess), but it remains a concern. Miscellanea: QB Depth: As Tate Forcier lay flat on the ground with his face in the turf, visions of sugar plums and roses (which remain on the far right of the possible season outcome continuum) got a bit blurred. Denard’s two poor passes over the middle show he’s not ready to be the quarterback of this team and that’s not a shock. Big things could happen with Forcier at the helm but if he goes down and Robinson is inserted, we become a better team than 2008 but not much more. Speed: There are many reasons to be giddy about this season, but we’re seeing that promise of speed with three demonstrations that are on par with any burst we’ve seen in years, maybe since Steve Breaston in the 2005 Rose Bowl. Consider (I’m going to collect these like when fans put up K’s at baseball games): Robinson’s fumble-turned-touchdown run…
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The Grind, Beilein audio and Wildcat mix-tape
After the Penn State loss, I’m guessing most M fans would say a NCAA tourney bid is not going to happen in 2009. That’s of course a 180 from just over a week ago, but we were warned by a few folks this season might go this way. Shots aren’t falling and the team is struggling, Coach Beilein talked with Sam Webb and Andy Evans this morning on WTKA about where the team is at, what he’s doing to get things back on track, and how he & Pittsnogle faced a similar slump one year at West Virginia: [display_podcast] . The situation is even worse than Brian at mgoblog suggested just earlier this week: Moving forward, the last two games have blown whatever margin of error Michigan had in their effort to make the tournament. Even if you assume wins home and away against Northwestern and away against Iowa—potentially dodgy but absolutely necessary to make the tourney—you have to find three wins in these games to get Michigan to .500 in conference: Home: Penn State, Michigan State, Minnesota, Purdue Away: Ohio State, Purdue, Minnesota Yikes. One of those assumed games is Saturday’s tilt against Kevin Coble and the bomb-dropping Northwestern Wildcats who showed Michigan State a little something called style last night at Breslin. A few highlights from the action,…
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New adidas Coaches Gear?
Fight fire with fire, the cure for Sweatervestitis: Yikes. Receiving this from your grams would tie a nice bow on a miserable year. Speaking of the holidays, are you 100% guaranteed to receive a Michigan related gift every year? [poll id=24] Related: More stuff from eBay: * Someone’s selling Rich Rodriguez’s spread offense playbooks on eBay man! Bollocks. [Hat Tip: Spawn of MZone] * You can own the website domain, images and content on UMICHFOOTBALL.com for $499, here’s the auction (with free shipping!).
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Paging Doctor Rodriguez
Letters continue to steam into the Ann Arbor News. I scanned the paper today and the News dropped the Rodriguez missives in their own little section. This gem from writer Leslie landed inside ‘FOCUS: U-M FOOTBALL’ on the Opinion page: Ann Arbor News 11.10.07 As if Rodriguez doesn’t have enough people coming after him for what’s he’s actually paid to do. Leslie couldn’t resist herself and dropped the old coaching-salaries-are-out-of-control anvil. Yes, the sales of Twizzlers at Saturday’s game could fund a ballet troupe for three decades–we got ya Leslie. Indeed there are more important things in the world than football. But guess what–There’s a reason why 110,000 people pack into Michigan stadium each week and millions more watch on TV. We need an escape, sister, so lay off the U. and Rodriguez & fly right.
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HBO’s The Rivalry Released on DVD, Review
Glad to hear that HBO’s documentary on the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is now available on DVD. You can get a copy here from Amazon.com or head over to your local Borders. I really enjoyed it; here’s my review from last November (with a few tweaks): ———————————————- With the hype building for Saturday it was a great night to watch the premiere of HBO’s first documentary dedicated to sports: The Rivalry. Initial review by those that at pre-screening event was that it was slanted toward the Buckeyes and didn’t mention Lloyd Carr. I went in with an open mind: – The content definitely slanted toward the Buckeye side of the house. I’d say the last half of the piece was 80% focused on Ohio State fans and Woody Hayes. – Overall it was well done. While they didn’t have any mention/picture/video of Lloyd Carr, they didn’t exactly spend a lot of time on Tressel. But the Carr omission was a little weird. I mean, they showed footage of John Cooper and a lot of Earle Bruce, but and didn’t mention Carr? – The quotes from Bo were great. They talked about the gold pants that each OSU coaches and players gets if they beat Michigan (and later show up on eBay). One thing that never occurred to me is that Bo…
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Slick Nick Sheridan
To the victor goes the spoils, look who was seen with #8 in Minneapolis after the game: So let’s get down to it:* Sheridan played great, not just good. I, like you, expected a train wreck today so give him a lot of credit.* His final passing stats don’t do justice (18-30, 203 yards and 33 rushing). He played smart, he protected the ball, and actually threw a handful of very nice balls downfield, at least two of which were flat out dropped by the receivers.* Give Sheridan half the credit, the rest to Scott Shafer and the defense for protecting the Little Brown Jug, which will now be held in the familiar confines of Schembechler Hall until November 2011. How ’bout dem apples!:
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Respect for the Streaks
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The Braylon, Penn State Shirt Controversy [Resolved]
I’ve had a couple emails asking me to look into why Braylon Edwards was wearing a shirt with a Penn State logo last night during an interview on Monday Night Football: Whew – after a little research I solved the problem. Turns out the camera only showed a small glimpse of the shirt, here’s the full thing: Follow MVictors on Twitter
