Wishful Irish What IfsSounds like Ivan Maisel of ESPN got a little pissy on his weekly chat. He clearly doesn’t think Notre Dame can pass by a 1-loss Michigan. Check out this brief exchange on his Nov 21st chat, and his smart ass remark: Rick (Dublin, Ohio): What do you think? If Notre Dame goes into #2 USC and beats them at USC do you think they could get into the title game? I mean thats a huge statement! Ivan Maisel: I think Notre Dame will play Ohio State if Michigan loses between now and Dec. 2. Coincidently, Maisel actually has Notre Dame projected to play Michigan in the 2007 Rose Bowl, but retracted that prediction during the chat. Many have learned that insiders at the Rose Bowl have leaked that they don’t want a Michigan vs. Notre Dame rematch in Pasadena.
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Urban Meyer Wiener
Coach Outraged over possible RematchSALINE, MICHIGAN Memo to Urban Meyer, take a cold shower. Check out this quote I snagged from ESPN.com this evening from the Florida coach: Florida coach Urban Meyer said Sunday a rematch between Michigan and Ohio State would be cause for immediate change to the BCS. “If that does happen, all the [university] presidents need to get together immediately and put together a playoff system,” he said. “I mean like now, January or whenever to get that done.” Part of me wishes they would institute a playoff anyway, but Coach Meyer, why the outrage? He went on to explain that it wouldn’t be fair to Ohio State [that’s life without a playoff, Coach], that Michigan had their shot and didn’t even win their conference. He then went on to explain why the other close teams (Arkansas, Notre Dame, and USC) really didn’t deserve a shot either. With two weeks left in the season it is clear this man has no class. Here’s to hoping that Lloyd Carr quietly defends his team’s chance on a neutral-field game against the Buckeyes, but leaves it at that. I don’t know if Meyer still has an out clause in his contract to coach at Michigan, but someone should tell Meyer that Michigan doesn’t hire weiners. The problem with all these…
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Man Builds LEGO Buckeye Horseshoe Stadium
[Update 1/16/2011: Check out the 2011 version of a LEGO Horseshoe, it puts this one to shame.] In the first shot across the bow between Buckeye and Wolverine fans, it was learned today that an OSU-backer finally achieved what nerds on both sides of the Michigan-Ohio border have been attempting for years: to construct replicas for their respective stadiums out of LEGO blocks. If you are not a fan or a nerd, this is comparable to the Russian launch of Sputnik in 1957. According to various sources, the 1:275 scale model of Ohio Stadium took 2000 hours (what?) & 2.5 years to build and stands about 10 inches tall. We can not verify if the builder included any drunk LEGO Buckeye fans sleeping outside the stadium or peeing on the Horse Shoe walls. Rumor has it that the original owner traded this LEGO masterpiece for a 6 pack and a half-spent tin of Kodiak. Several Wolverines are scrambling to complete their replicas before Michigan stadium undergoes its renovation in 2008. The closest we’ve come to compete with the mini-Ohio Stadium is a (gulp) LEGO Michigan Marching band tuba player (fyi, I really found this in google images, and it really is supposed to be an M band member):
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Michigan Crushes Indiana in Warm Up
BLOOMINGTON, IN What a great way to round out the season before the big one against the Buckeyes next week. Michigan crushed the Indiana Hoosiers on both sides of the ball and cruised to a 34-3 win. Next for the Blue is a mega-hyped, media-saturated week leading up the showdown in Columbus.
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The Winner By Knock-out
Wolverines grind out tough one in State College ANN ARBOR MICHIGAN OCTOBER 14, 2006 Michigan passed the biggest test of the season thus far, dropping Penn State for the eighth straight time by knocking out the Lions’ first and second string QBs. The PSU fans wore their lily whites in support of JoPa, and Lloyd Carr called it the loudest crowd he’s ever played in front of (sorry Oregon, but Carr would never acknowledge such an honor to a non-Big Ten stadium). Here are the takes on this game: – Sack Men. Seven sacks, along with 9 other Tackles for Loss, 2 quarterbacks knocked out. Penn State didn’t know what hit them. The third string QB had absolutely no chance, the screen pass for a touchdown was a fluke. Chalk this win up to the defense. The M ‘D’ remained the #1 against the rush in the nation, with all the sacks and the domination of Tony Hunt netted PSU negative yardage on the ground. Here’s a link I found from the official NCAA site that updates team and individual statistics very quickly, and provides comparisons against a team’s league and all the other NCAA teams. – Drops. If there was one downside to the game it had to be a the drops. Michigan had a few drops both by…
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Second Half Shutdown of Wildcats
Trip to Chicago topped off with another Big win EVANSTON, ILLINOIS OCTOBER 30, 2005 Despite being up 16 late in the fourth quarter, few of 10,000+ Michigan fans that attended the Northwestern game Saturday night could relax. Not after watching the fate of the previous five games being settled in the final seconds. Only when the Wildcats exhausted their timeouts and Michigan picked up a well earned first down did the maize and blue fans breathe easy. In fact, the only group that really seemed relaxed the entire game was the Michigan sideline. Sitting three rows behind the bench for this crucial 33-17 victory, one of things I took away from this was how calm, poised, methodical and perhaps unemotional the Michigan machine really is. The only real excitement out of this team was after Grant Mason’s outstanding interception late in the second quarter, and of course when the game was over. Overall, this was a much needed win and continues a stunning revival of a team that was left for dead four weeks ago. Here are the takes on this game:– Depth. Lloyd Carr consistently gets criticism for not challenging for national titles despite having highly ranked recruiting classes year after year. This is certainly a valid discussion point, but I hardly ever hear Carr praised for delivering the…
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Should We Trust the BCS Computers?
Sagarin featured in Wall Street Journal in October 19, 2005 piece SALINE, MICHIGAN OCTOBER 26, 2005 The debate on the use of computers as in input to determining the teams that play in the college national championship has raged since the BCS was first introduced in 1998. One of the most prominent mathematical formulas that is used to rank college football teams is run by Hendricksville, Indiana resident and former Indiana MBA Jeff Sagarin. Mr. Sagarin was recently featured in a Wall Street Journal piece due to his efforts to make Indiana move permanently to the Central time zone. The majority of the state for many years has remained on Eastern Standard time throughout the year, causing much confusion when the rest of us switch our clocks ahead in the summer for Daylight savings time. In April 2006, Indiana will move to use daylight saving time. The rub: each Indiana county needs to decide whether it is going to be on Central or Eastern time presenting some other dimensions of confusion, but that’s another issue. Sagarin has lobbied hard that the position of the sun over Indiana at noon makes it senseless to be in the Eastern time zone. Here’s some of his data on the topic from his website if you are interested if you have a few weeks…
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Hippies Displace Michigan Hoops Team
SALINE, MICHIGAN MAY 31, 2004 The Wednesday May 26 issue of the Ann Arbor News had a piece on the disturbing state of Michigan’s basketball facility. Check out this excerpt: “At the center of Michigan’s issue is a practice facility. The men’s and women’s teams share the Crisler arena court with each other – and whatever other events are scheduled. Before leaving for the NIT tournament last March, Michigan was forced to practice at the IM building because of the 32nd annual Dance for Mother Earth PowWow at Crisler Arena.” Are you kidding me? This is the state of Michigan basketball?
