He’s right about this stance. I heard CBS color man and former Detroit Lion/Boilermaker Gary Danielson raising his concern about the college football overtime rules. He’s not opposed to the format; his issue is with the suits that steer policy on NCAA statistics. His beef is that the NCAA recognizes overtime statistics on level with those that occur during the first 4 quarters. As we know, the start-from-the-25-until someone-wins approach to handling regulation ties was instituted in 1996. What hasn’t been widely discussed is that dispensation of the stats rolled up during the indefinite OT period. Big Gary maintains that the numbers rolled up in overtime shouldn’t count in the books. Teams should get a win or loss in overtime, and the record books should leave it at that. I don’t know why he started this stance; I don’t know if it is personal (he doesn’t appear to hold any Purdue records of note) or whether it is just a bonafide take. Either way he’s right. Statistics in college football don’t hold the same distinction as those in sports such as baseball. Records related to the quarterback position, for instance, have been written and rewritten over the past two decades without a lot of fanfare. There can never be pure apples to apples historical comparisons in stats in most major…
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2006 College Football Rule Changes
A summary, review and comment on the changes in the football code ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN AUGUST 28, 2006 The big whigs that run college football made some interesting modifications to the rule book this year. Here’s a quick rundown of some of these rules changes and my take. 1. Coaches Challenge. Basically this provides that a coach may call a time-out then indicate to the referee that he is challenging a call on the field. A few points here: – The coach gets one per game, but it requires that the coach have timeouts left to use. Although the coach gets the timeout back if he is correct, the coach doesn’t get another review. – The replay referee is still reviewing every play. Basically it works like last year but this gives a coach a chance to get their timeout back when they intentionally stop the clock for a review. – The rules committee also clarified the rule for when instant replay is in effect. It is solely the discretion of the home team. – I wonder if we’ll see a scenario when a coach calls his last timeout at the end of a game (to kill the clock), and at some point during the time-out requests a replay of the last play. The hope is that a) the coach…
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Michigan Football Preview 2006
What you need to know about this squad SALINE, MICHIGAN AUGUST 10, 2006 Expectations are high once again for Michigan. Here’s this season’s look at the upcoming season and this team. – Last Season. Obviously this was ugly, and 2005 will be looked at as the worst season since the early 80s. Michigan could have won every game on the schedule and had significant leads in every game, blowing it five times in losses to Notre Dame, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Nebraska in the Alamo Bowl. And the wins didn’t come easier either, with Michigan winning on the last play of the game against Michigan State in DB13 (OT), Penn State and Iowa (OT). While it is the worst season since I entered the U of M campus in the Fall of 1989, it probably featured the most exciting games. – Sun Belt Refs. Speaking of exciting, the Alamo Bowl all in all was quite a ride. The pathetic crew of referees from the Sun Belt conference that lost control of the game are a running joke in town. Check this out, the Sun Belt conference even produced a full report to rebut the hammering they took in the national media [check it out]. These guys were so clueless. – Last Play of the Season. I captured the diagram…
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Alamo Bowl 2005: Huskers Drop Michigan, Near-Miracle Final Play
Michigan surrendered another double-digit second-half lead and lost the Alamo Bowl to Nebraska 32-28 late last night. The game featured several twists, bad calls, and nearly one of the greatest plays in college football history. No matter how you look at it, this loss was reflective of a sad season that will sting throughout the winter, spring, and summer up until the 2006 Wolverines take the field. If Lloyd Carr doesn’t do something to stop this trend, Pam Ward will be calling Michigan games for ESPN2 next season. Here are the takes on this game: – Final Play. See the diagram above. Listening to the radio in the morning and reading both the Detroit Free Press and News in the morning, you’d think that the final play was not a big deal. ESPN, fortunately, thought otherwise, breaking it down several times after the game and today in between breaks. This really makes this one a bitter pill. After watching it several times on ESPN.com, it looks like Tyler Ecker thought he could turn the corner on the Nebraska defensive back and score. He was pushed out of bounds at about the 14. Stevie Breaston, who played a great game on special teams, was trailing Ecker the whole time begging for the ball. Had Breaston got the ball, M would have…
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Big Ten Conference Tie Break rules
Here’s the rules for every Big Ten BCS tie scenario SALINE, MICHIGAN OCTOBER 31, 2005 It’s another tight Big Ten football race for the championship and to determine the team that will receive the Big Ten’s automatic BCS bid. Here are the rules: • If there is a two-way tie, the winner of the game between the two will represent the conference. If the teams did not play each other, it is then based on overall winning percentage. • If there is still a tie, the most recent team to earn a BCS automatic selection is eliminated. • If three teams are tied and if one team defeated both of the others, that team is the representative. • If two of the three teams defeated the third team, that team is eliminated and the remaining two teams revert to the two-team tie procedure. • If two of the three did not play each other, the BCS representative is determined by winning percentage in the overall schedule. If all three have the same winning percentage, the most recent representative is eliminated and the other two revert to the two-team tie procedure. • If four or more are tied … if one team defeated each of the other three, then that team is the representative. • If two of the four teams…
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Comedy of Errors, Irish Stop Michigan in 2002
Comedy of Errors In South Bend, Michigan’s Sloppy play hands game to Irish SOUTH BEND, IN SEPTEMBER 15, 2002 Traveling down to South Bend is always an epic time. Brian Kunde, Ted McDowell, Kelley Kuehne and Greg Dooley stayed down at the Inn at St. Mary’s on Friday night in order to get an early start on gameday. Notre Dame defeated Michigan today in a very sloppy game. Here are some photos (all pictures by the webmaster) from campus and from the game. Now to the game: In sum, while I’ve seen Michigan play poorly in certain stretches of games, I’ve never seen the volume of big mistakes as seen on Saturday. Except for the last scoring drive, M consistently made major errors throughout the game. Fumbles, dumb penalties, dropped passes, poor passes, defensive breakdowns seemed to be the norm. It got to the point where we were just waiting for the next screw-up. Here is my breakdown: Navarre: It wasn’t his fault. As we limped out of the stadium, some old M man muttered “Navarre sucks”. Sometime he does, but he delivered the ball when he needed to. He missed many receivers and rarely put the ball exactly where he needed, but he was close enough. He stepped up in the pockets and moved the ball around as…
