Michigan and Eastern Michigan renew the battle for bragging rights in Washtenaw County. According to Google Maps, it is just 6.0 miles from Rynearson Stadium in Ypsilanti to the Big House. You may know that the Wolverines have never lost to EMU (7-0) or any other MAC conference school (22-0), but did you know Eastern isn’t the only team in Washtenaw county that’s battled Michigan? On October 10, 1891 Michigan locked horns with Ann Arbor High School and dropped them like a…well, like a high school team, rolling up 62 points on AAHS’s zero. I guess there weren’t any I-AA lambs to schedule to open the season back then.
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Shand vs. Martin Update
Not much news with former WTKA morning host Dave Shand and his case against Michigan athletic director Bill Martin. Latest I’ve heard from Shand’s legal team is that Martin has filed a motion to dismiss the suit and that this is going to be heard on November 28. As I understand it, Martin is claiming he is immune from the suit because he’s a government official. Umm…ok. I’ve seen some harsh comments directed at the athletic department lately in light of the Artis Chambers mess. Perhaps Martin & company should have spent more time worrying about tracking eligibility and less time worrying about talk show hosts? Meanwhile the morning show has been taken over by Gobluewolverine’s Sam Webb with sidekick Andy Evans. Their show, “The Michigan Insider with Sam Webb” has a long way to go. They certainly benefit from this being football season and as usual, there’s never a dull moment in covering Lloyd Carr’s camp. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Webb’s show after the regular season and especially after the bowls. Love or hate Shand, I think his show had the ability to draw in the occasional non-Wolverine fanatic, and I’m not sure if Webb and Evans can pull that off. We’ve also seen the return of Shand’s original show on Sunday mornings- Off The…
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86 Nixed for EMU
The Free Press is reporting this evening that Mario Manningham is being penalized for violating team rules and won’t suit up this Saturday against Eastern Michigan. This is obviously a big downer especially with Manningham having his best game last week in Evanston. No surprise the specifics of the incident aren’t available. Maybe Carr finally got wind of Manningham’s epic Worm at the end of the Penn State game?
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Big Ten Rose Bowl Tie-Breaker Rules
10/25/2009: The Big Ten rules changed in 2009, FCS games played is no longer a factor. Click here for more. 11/8/08 Update: Spartan fans, that Iowa win over PSU is a buzz kill. Had Penn State won out and lost to Michigan State, Dantonio and company would go to the Rose Bowl per the rules below. Not to say that Ohio State won’t lose again but I think that’s unlikely. As reported by Jim Carty and noted here, I’ve confirmed the rule changes to the Big Ten tie-breaker. The rule change applies to the Rose Bowl only, but it does penalized Big Ten teams for scheduling teams from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), aka the former Division I-AA. I got this from the Big Ten offices, who also mentioned that this would be put online at bigten.org ASAP: METHOD TO DETERMINE BIG TEN CONFERENCE AUTOMATICREPRESENTATIVE TO THE BOWL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES Effective for bowl games following the 2006-09 regular football seasons, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) will consist of five (5) bowl games: BCS National Championship Game, Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. Participation by a Big Ten Conference member institution will be determined as follows: a. BCS National Championship Game. In the event the conference has one or two football teams ranked No. 1 and/or No. 2…
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Novel Voting Concept
I think SI’s college football writer Stewart Mandel is starting to get it. Now if all the other coaches and media members can catch on. After going into his take on why they shouldn’t release college football polls until week 5, he nonetheless came to this conclusion: What I ended up doing is something we should probably all start doing around this time every season: Throwing out my previous ballot and starting from scratch. As a result, some teams moved up or down from last week more dramatically than others despite similar results Hmm…there’s an idea. Leave your ego at the door and don’t let your previous ballots influence your vote from week to week?
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Chambers Situation still foggy
Freshman DB Artis Chambers, who played limited duty on special teams, was declared ineligible for the rest of the sesaon. I’m not exactly sure what the deal is. All we know is that Michigan claims it is a Big Ten eligibility rule and not an NCAA rule (whatever that means). As I understand it, the Big Ten has tighter academic eligibility requirements than the NCAA, so it is probably tied to that. Bill Martin took the blame and advised that “We’ve had a misinterpretation of the Big Ten freshman-eligibility rules,” Martin said, referring to Chambers’ status as a second-semester enrollee last January. “We found this out Thursday afternoon.” As far as sanction, here’s what was posted in the Free Press: “We’ll have to wait and see what the Big Ten says,” Martin said. “I can’t rule anything out (sanction-wise). I would think we’ll get resolution sometime this week.” Chambers will remain in school. The rules “are a little arcane, and we simply misapplied an older version of the rules,” Martin said. We’ll see what Michigan is going to do. I wouldn’t put this anywhere near par with the J. Joy Miller scandal of 1909 but there are some similarities. I’m guessing this will result in an apology to Penn State and a slap on the wrist.
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In Game: Northwestern
A few live notes as this game progresses: Henne MVP, made the plays they needed to make. Give him credit he looked good. I don’t think they wanted to play him. On the pregame show the word was that Henne would start the first possessions of each half. Carr made the right call by keeping him in to close out the game. Great win, 28-16. Hart’s Stretch Whoa, they didn’t say anything but right before Hart’s touchdown (to go up 27-16) he stretched and lost the ball. They called him out of bounds but it was close…would have been a touchback with the Cats taking the ball on the 20. Again the Big Ten crew is clueless. Extra Point Timeout? NO EXCUSE! M just used to timeout because they weren’t sure whether they should go for 2 up 20-16 with 10 minutes to go. Unreal! Unprepared. Were they not expecting to score a touchdown? How can you know be aware of the score and the circumstances?? We wasted a timeout. – Mesko. Zoltan has been solid all year. Punts have been high and deep, and he’s been great holding for Gingell. Henne Staying in 2nd Half. Had to do it. You’d be seriously rolling the dice with Mallett. With Henne you’ve got a bigger playbook and his knee look fine.…
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Road Apples
One of the biggest knocks on Lloyd Carr’s program has been its inability to win the first road game of the year. Critics of Carr say the trend unmistakenly points to a lack of preparedness which falls on the coaching staff. Since the ’98 season the Blue have won only 2 road openers: 1999 at Syracuse and last year’s beat down in South Bend. That left a 6 year stretch from 2000-2005 where Michigan dropped the opener. Here’s the dismal record: Michigan Road Openers since 1998 1998 @ Notre Dame Loss – 36-20 1999 @ Syracuse Win – 18-13 2000 @ UCLA Loss – 23-20 2001 @ Washington Loss – 23-18 2002 @ Notre Dame Loss – 25-23 2003 @ Oregon Loss – 31-27 2004 @ Notre Dame Loss – 28-20 2005 @ Wisconsin – Loss – 23-20 2006 @ Notre Dame – Win – 47-21 2007 @ Northwestern In the past decade the first roadie has been a non-Notre Dame, non-conference opponent but it looks like that won’t happen again for quite awhile. Like it or not, Michigan will pretty much fill the pre-conference schedule with home games leaving the opener for either Notre Dame or, when the Irish game is home, the first conference opponent. A few other takes heading into the weekend: Pumping the Records Two major…