Whew!  Local sports talk radio was quite a hoot today, as Rodriguez was thoroughly blasted by the folks that come out whenever Michigan loses, and they came strong today.   For those out of town, here’s a snip of mgoblog’s Brian Cook on WTKA 1050AM this afternoon.  He and co-host Mark Copeland fielded mostly angry calls like this one, which caused Cook to snap when the listener likened Rodriguez to former Spartan head coach John L. Smith: [display_podcast] . That’s good radio.  And props to Cook for demanding the call be ended when he did.  While stringing this guy out evoked a lot of the great commentary (and I don’t have a problem with people taking shots at Rodriguez/Michigan), one criticism I have of WTKA is they let many of these callers go way too long.  Keep in mind this clip only captures a portion of that dude’s call [here’s the entire segment].   Another thing that’s getting annoying, and was part of that call, is all the folks talking about what Bo Schembechler did/ didn’t do when he was coaching, and what he would/wouldn’t do if he still had an office on campus.  It’s getting pretty tired and it’s got to be bordering on offensive to those who knew Bo best, and maybe moreso to those that are still here.  Former…

Rodriguez was pretty cool for the most part during the Monday morning press conference.  Here’s a little audio of Rodriguez responding to a question from Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News this morning who asked if Rich Rod’s yelling at players perhaps creates some tightness in his team.  This is one of the criticisms that thick Spartan fans drop on Tom Izzo when MSU struggles. His animated  (and at times sarcastic) response included his second reference to tea and crumpets this year.  The first was earlier in the year referring to his relationship with Mark Dantonio, with whom RR doesn’t not have tea & crumpets. It’s worth a listen: [display_podcast] The best lines: “It’s kind of amusing.  If we had a quarterback that threw it to the wrong guy, and the guy picked it off and went 100-something yards for a touchdown and all that.  And he come over to the sideline….if people expect me to put my arm around him, whether he’s a freshman or a senior, and say, ‘Honey that’s ok, don’t worry about it, misreading and all that kind of stuff.  Let’s talk about it in the future and we’ll sit down on the couch and have tea and crumpets…’” -> Links to press conference notes from mgoblog, and AnnArbor.com. Child ID Program: Before Rodriguez’s presser, they…

It was painful exercise for me, stacking Michigan up against the rest of the league this week.  Once again the Wolverines take the biggest drop in the Index, mercifully spared from the cellar.  There was a shift at the top, with Penn State and Ohio State barely jumping the Hawkeyes: Coach Lew the Blue (as in sad) Wolverine:  Football is 1/3 confidence, 1/3 execution and 1/3 determination.  A slip in any factor throws the whole thing out of balance, and then you’re hanging by a thread. Michigan had all 3 in spades the first two games of the season, but then the execution seemed to start slipping during the first half of the Eastern game, and then Penn State seemed to sap all that was left of the team’s confidence.  Against Illinois, failure in all three aspects reigned:  dropped passes and fumbles are a symptom of lack of confidence;  missed reads and blown assignments show failure to execute; and the inability to punch it in from 1st and goal at the 1 and the horrible attempt at tackling on Illinois’ last TD = lack of determination.  This was an easier pill to swallow last year when it could conveniently be chalked up to the coaching change and new system, but it’s totally unexpected at this point of season 2.  So…

The AP poll is in for Week 10.  Crap, no votes for Michigan again this week. After reviewing each of the voters’ rankings here’s a few things that stuck out: Top Slots: Once again, with the exception of one voter, all of the writers have Florida, Alabama or Texas in their top three.  That voter is once again  Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News who kept Texas #4, removed USC at #2 and replaced them with Oregon. Apparently ESPN/ABC’s Kirk Herbstreit didn’t get his ballot in this week, don’t know the circumstances.  Top 10/Region – Here’s the national vote, spliced by the region of the voters (Central is effectively Big 12 country, mostly dudes from Texas): Big Ten by Region –Here’s how the Big Ten and Notre Dame was rated, by region: Angelique.  Here’s how The Angel of the Big House put her vote this week and last.  Interesting that she completely rejiggered her top five and kept Iowa and Boise St. put at 6 and 7.  Also note her love for Notre Dame on the current ballot, from out of the top 25 last week all the way to #18 today:

“Winning fixes everything.”  That was a common refrain this summer and into the season as Rodriguez and the program absorbed a variety of hits (3-9, Feagin, practicegate, mortgages, GPA, etc.).   It’s true for the part, maybe never seemingly moreso when Michigan reentered the top 25 a few years weeks ago.  Most probably didn’t give much thought to the other side of that equation especially after September.  Not only losing, but losing badly apparently regressing.  It’s so hard to classify the Michigan fan base (it’s something I think about all the time), but simplifying things a ton, let’s says there are two groups– those that are with Rodriguez and those that aren’t.  The result of this loss is that Rodriguez has lost many more than he picked up after the Notre Dame game.  What comes next are the vocal critics taking over, crushing Rodriguez for his actions on and off the field.  On Sunday, frequent WTKA caller ‘Mark from Lansing’ likened RR’s situation to that of Gary Moeller in the wake of his bad night at Excalibur, suggesting that Mo wouldn’t have been fired if those 8-4s were 10-2s.  You’ve heard (and you’ll hear more) folks saying that Michigan use the NCAA practicegate investigation to push Rodriguez away.  There is a clause in his contract allowing Michigan to do so if…

But we can fix it, I swear. We gotta find a way to make this… fit into the hole for this…usin’ nothin’ but that. …

I’ve been promoting the auction supporting the Pat Maloy scholarship for a bit now and wanted to highlight a few cool items heading into the weekend: Full size Tom Brady signed helmet:   Red Berenson signed Michigan sweater, nice: Michael Phelps signed Sports Illustrated, epic (left, wish I could get him to sign the one on the right though):   Anthony Carter signed jersey: And much more here.

Updated: Analysis on 11/1/09 This would be much more fun if Michigan were represented anywhere on any one of the ballots of the 60 Associated Press college football pollsters for 2009, but here’s some data nonetheless. After reviewing each of the voters’ rankings here’s a few things that stuck out: Top Slots: With the exception of one voter, all of the writers have Florida, Alabama or Texas in their top three.  Jon Wilner on the San Jose Mercury News slotted the Longhorns #4 (and USC second). Trojans: Speaking of USC, they don’t have the widest standard deviation in the poll but it’s close.   Wilner’s #2 is the highest slot for Pete Carroll’s crew, with lowest going to Jay Tate of the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser who’s got the Trojans at #11. Closer to home: Hawkeyes: Those who follow Brian Cook’s BlogPoll might know that Brian mgo-Tim himself slotted the Hawkeyes #2 this week.  Six have Iowa the highest at #4 while two of the biggest haters come from just up the road: Eric Hansen of the South Bend Tribune has them #12, and Pete DiPrimio of the Ft. Wayne (IN) News-Sentinel #11.  Here’s how everyone else voted for Iowa in Week 9. Penn State: Craig James was one of the first to show Michigan some love earlier this season, and this…