The U-M Media Relations department circulated this after the game. I’m not publishing it because I have some beef with the calls or think they had a major impact on the game. I haven’t seen the replay of the lateral yet but assume they made the correct call, and it looked like Michigan got a huge break on the fumbled punt that was negated by the bad interference call. I’m not sure who’s asking the questions– Following are the quotes from Todd Geerlings, the Referee from today’s Michigan-Purdue Game. What was the interpretation on the fourth down review with the forward lateral? What was it that the replay official saw? TODD GEERLINGS: “The replay official saw that the ball, when it left his hand to the point where it touched the receiver’s hand, was clearly forward from the 13 to the 12 yard line. That’s why we had an illegal forward pass from the spot of that pass.” Who called for the review? GEERLINGS: “The booth called for the review and I announced that on the field prior to. The coaches on the field were trying to but Purdue did not have a challenge left so they couldn’t have. They were trying to but just as I got the buzz on the pager, I just turned to Purdue and said…
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Eastern Michigan Post Game notes
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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Kampfer, Tropp Zapruder Film (Stills)
At least as of this morning, the video I posted of the mauling of Steve Kampfer at the Michigan-Michigan State hockey game last night seems to be the only one out there. Here are a few stills in a little higher quality than the YouTube item:
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50th Anniversary: The Two Point Conversion
I found this article on the prolific York Daily Record website pointing out that we’re upon the 50th anniversary of the two point conversion in college football. It’s a great read, definitely check it out. So why is this on MVictors? Look who pushed for the rule change: Among those on the committee who liked the idea and were part of the unanimous approval were Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson and former Alabama and Duke coach Wallace Wade. But the leading proponent was Michigan coach Fritz Crisler. He said after the rules committee meeting that the two-point play “will add drama to what has been the dullest, most stupid play in the game.” Once the rule kicked in the following season teams went two-point crazy until they came to their senses, perhaps with the help of an egghead in the math department: In 1958, teams quickly became infatuated with the opportunity to score more points. That season, there were more two-point conversation attempts than extra-point kicking tries. In 578 games that season, teams went for two 1,371 times, converting 613 for 44.7 percent, and attempted 1,295 kicking extra points. The fad faded as the math evidence piled up. Over the long haul, the one-pointer was a better bet than the two , and by 1965, college football was down to 331…
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Replay Beef: (First) Sheets TD should have been reviewed
It’s 21-14 right now. Michigan just scored on a nice toss from Threet. Memo to opposing defenses: we have enough trouble moving the ball just in general—-blitzing this offense is foolish. Thanks for that one d coordinator from Purdue. So let’s get this off my chest. If we’re going to have instant replay they’ve got to use it, especially in the right spots like on TOUCHDOWNS. On Purdue’s first score as Purdue running back Kory Sheets stretched toward the end zone his knee hit the ground. The good angle on TV was blocked by the ref’s gigantic hat, rivaling the ref’s hat at the 2004 Rose Bowl: Dudes, if it’s close you have to stop and look at it. I don’t know whether they would have found anything but they have to look at it! Come on. I don’t put this on Rodriguez, but he could have asked for the replay too, but that’s just there when the guys in the booth aren’t doing their job. UPDATE: Sheets just scored again on a nice play, absolutely a touchdown when watching on the TV. And what do they do? They review it! Just to be sure. That’s the right thing to do…what happened on the first one??? Losers.
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Hockey to add Shootout
Not a surprise, was discussed all season but looks like it is close to being final: In a release from the NCAA today, it says the rules committee has voted to maintain the current game structure of 60 minutes, followed by a five-minute overtime, but individual conferences are allowed to use a shootout at their discretion. The shootout could be used to award points towards the league race, though any game decided by a shootout would go into the record book for NCAA Tournament qualifying purposes as a tie. Take? Nice!! Got to do it. If the CCHA doesn’t adopt this we riot. I’ll be watching. UPDATE: The Blog that Yost Built breaks the proposed rule changes into tiny little pieces, as you’d expect.
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Michigan Football Lost Luggage in 1914
There’s been so many great items auctioned lately and this one is really nice. A pre-WWI scorecard from the Wolverines trip to play Harvard. The piece consists of 4 pages: the cover, an layout of the starting line-ups, a scorecard and roster, and finally a list of key college football rule changes for 1914. Pretty cool. It fetched a sweet $366.50 on eBay. Check it out: Rule ChangesOne cool thing about scorecard is the back cover lists ‘Important Changes in 1914 Football Rules.’ You could tell the college football rulesmakers were concerned solidifying some of the rules around the game’s latest innovation: the forward pass. Two of the key rules listed in the scorecard related to the quarterback position. It didn’t take folks long to realize that a QB shouldn’t be able to dump the ball to avoid a sack: 3. A penalty to 10 yards is inflicted on the team attempting a forward pass, and, finding the making of the pass impossible, intentionally incompleting the pass by grounding the ball. While taking away the ability to ground the ball, they knew back then that they’d need to protect those precious quarterbacks: 4. There shall be no roughing of the player who has just made a forward pass. Street Clothed WarriorsThe trip to Cambridge was a big one from the…
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Path to Pasadena Now Clear
What a great win last night for this team and for Henne, the kind of gutsy performance that people will remember for years. By coming off the bench twice to save this game and this season, Henne put his footprint on this post-apocolyptic 6 game run right next to that of Hart. And hats off to Manningham and Arrington who played their butts off all day. Quick takes on this game: Fumbos in the Booth – Why wasn’t the Arrington catch in the endzone immediately reviewed by the replay officials? Carr had to use a timeout to get them to look at it- what were they doing? Just because it was correctly overturned (eventually) doesn’t excuse those clowns in the booth. That was a huge, huge play and if Carr didn’t step in it looks like it wouldn’t have been overturned. The Difference – Carr deserves a lot of credit here for how this team played. Other than Ryan Mallett’s miscues and a bad pass from Henne that resulted in a pick, the team played a very error-free game. Their first penalty wasn’t until the fourth quarter and you saw solid play in the kicking game and M didn’t drop many passes. This is a well disciplined team while Illinois could have won this game if not for bad penalties,…
