The Angel of the Big House discusses the tough times, the reaction from fans, on Bill Martin, Rich Rod, Shafer and more second guessing.
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Boren, keep it up
Thanks to BiggieMunn for the link, here’s Justin Boren at a Buckeye bar dressed as a former Michigan coach in Nike gear, perhaps Mike Debord?
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We’re Still #1* (and why the defense is really disturbing)
Yes, nearly solely due to the remarkable season of punter Zoltan Mesko, Michigan remains atop the nation in net punting this week. You may have noticed that Mesko was listed as a semi-finalist for the Ray Guy Award last week and I think this is a bigger factor than his punting average, although he’s still solid in that category at #7 in the land with an average of just over 45 yards/punt. Michigan should be pretty good at covering punts because they’ve covered almost more than anyone in the country. In 2008, Michigan’s 61 punts are more than just 3 other teams (Auburn, Washington State, and Wyoming, all with 63) and we’ve punted for more yards (2705) than easily anyone else. Factoid: It’s about 2705 yards from the Big House to the Ann Arbor-Saline Road exit on I-94. So what does this mean?* We’ve got a great punter* We’ve done a decent job covering these great punts* As mentioned, we punt a lot therefore we’re getting good at it.* A lot of our drives stop deep in our own side of the field, therefore we don’t have a lot of punts that serve to pin the opponent back. Mesko is getting his full leg into most punts.* While we’re tops in covering punts we’re still #96 in the country in…
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Coach, Mention The Jug
The original Little Brown (White?) Jug, from Historic Michigan Football Photos. Surely Coach Rod has a lot on his mind and the history of the Little Brown Jug is likely not one of those things. Just after the hire last December I wrote the following: Count me as a one who will be disappointed if during his Monday press conference on November 3, 2008, Coach Rodriguez fails to recount the history of the Little Brown Jug, as Coach Carr did each year during his tenure Here’s to hoping we’ll get some mention of the Jug today. Update: Here’s today’s press conference broken down into clips thanks to MLive. Mention of the jug? Yes but barely. Rodriguez mentioned the jug as something that they have to play for this week and said that it’s “neat”. It’s really NEAT man!: Video: “11/3 Monday Press Conference Rich Rodriguez from MLive”
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Familiar position for Rodriguez
Interesting stuff on Jim Carty’s blog this morning, he mentioned it on his call into WTKA this morning. He pulls out a few of the West Virginia sports columns from November 2001, the year Rich Rod’s crew went 3-8. Check out the parallels to the current situation. Is this comforting at all? Not really man, but interesting. Elsewhere in an exciting time in the nerdosphere: * Michigan Sports Center wants Shafer’s butt. * WLA wants everyone to stop bitching. * Maize and Blue Nation begs for your patience.
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Take a Slice: Michigan fans, where do you stand?
I spoke to Power Index pollster Lew a little bit during the Purdue game and suggested that at this point in the season, Michigan fans had pretty much settled on their opinion of Rodriguez and his staff at this point (no matter what happens the balance of the season). Well, if that point wasn’t hit before or during the Purdue game, we’ve definitely hit it now. Win or lose to Minnesota, Northwestern and Ohio State, I think the fickle Michigan base has settled in with their opinion of Rich Rod and staff for the rest of the season and into the longest off-season we’ve had in 33 years. I think it breaks down into about six categories, and here’s my toss of turf in the air at where the Michigan football fan population fall: A few notes:* The strongest group of Michigan fans (30%), are that loyal group that are on board no matter what. They would have been fine with a DeBord hire, for instance. You won’t hear from them too often on blogs, on the radio, message boards.* I think there’s a lot of people out there (20%) that wouldn’t fall into that loyal no matter what category, but are fully on board with Rodriguez and allowing him to do what’s he’s got to do (the ‘In Rod…
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Respect for the Streaks
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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.
