Coming to you LIVE from Half Moon
Bay & Santa Clara, CA
Part III of the Revenge Tour is
Pleasingly Complete
So, yeah.
I missed the game on Saturday afternoon as I had a WAY TOO EARLY Flight
to catch on Sunday Morning (7:30 AM) and I was up at 4:30 so I woudn’t
be late. Still, I caught most of it on
the tube and it was all very sweet.
The two sacks on PSU’s opening drive were
AWESOME!
Patterson to everyone was AWESOME!
Seeing Black and Gary back in the line-up –
AWESOME!
Higdon pounding the Rock – AWESOME!
Do you get the sense that I’m thinking this team is pretty
AWESOME right now?
You’d be right…
Yes, there’s the question that lingers as to
whether or not the teams Michigan is ABSOLUTELY DESTROYING on this “Revenge
Tour” are any good…
And to that I say, “Are the teams that BAMA and
Clemson are playing and destroying any good?”
Hmmm…that’s a good question isn’t it? Do great teams just make decent teams look
worse? Remember: This was a PSU team that was one play (and a
lousy call) away from beating THE STU.
Granted, THE STU is dropping in everyone’s opinion (and the numbers
definitely support that opinion) as to how good they are, especially
after the Purdue Pounding and the near escape against the Cornhuskers, but
still.
I do think
the B1G teams are perhaps not what everyone thought they would be pre-season. This prognosticator was the
only one to say that I thought PSU would be way worse than advertised (you
can’t lose 30% of your offense, your O-Cordinator and some two deep
guys and think you’re going to bounce along without missing a beat). I also claimed that LNU was INCREDIBLY LUCKY to be
a 10-win team last season and that not much had changed in East Lansing
to convince me they’d be a 10-win team this season.
But still, just about every other predictor in this
crazy sport had these teams ahead of Michigan in the East.
So, which is it? Are theses teams still “good” and Michigan is
just plain great? The numbers are
starting to bear that out. After 9
games, you are DEFINITELY what you are and Michigan is a handful on
defense. And the really best part? They keep getting better on offense.
You know something else?
When you watch this team, you can see that they are HAVING FUN
DESTROYING teams.
Schembechler said that your team takes on the characteristics
and personality of it’s coach(es). That’s
why I’ve always been more of a “Coach” guy vs. a “Player” guy. The coaches are always at the Universities,
or at least, they used to be around longer than they are now, and you get to
know them better.
This team is just like Harbaugh.
Likes to have fun but puts the game-face on when the time comes. And, yeah, I get that a lot of other coaches in
college football are just like that.
But there’s a chemistry at work in Ann Arbor
in 2018.
Drink it in and enjoy it.
THE TEAM is earning it as players…
We’ve EARNED this as fans…
Damn…I wish we could fast forward to November
24th. But in a way, the
anticipation is OH SO GOOD!
Why This TEAM IS A TEAM
A cool BTN segment on Chase and Shea….
I
know there’s a lot of “teammates” like this, but these are WOLVERINE teammates at
this point!
The Rest
Of the Mess
Complete Unmitigated Disasters
The GOPHERS – I wasn’t going to lead with this one and rub salt
in the proverbial wound, but DAMN – HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU LOSE TO THE ILLINI? The flecker immediately canned his defensive coordinator, which,
yeah, you should when you give up 55 to a team what was averaging less than 20
a game. I don’t know where the Gophers
go from here, but this is an intestinal fortitude test for PJ Fleck and this
team. Purdue, Northwestern and Wiscy are the last 3. If you can win at least ONE of those games, I
think you could call it somewhat of a success?
But I don’t see how right now.
IOWA – Okay. I know I SAID that I’d take Purdue in every
remaining game, but I THOUGHT the Hawkeyes could handle Purdue. There really is a new sheriff in town in the B1G West, and his
name is Jeff Brohm. I wonder how long he’ll
stay. Hopefully for awhile as I believe
he could eventually be a force to be reckoned with…
Come Back Off the Ledge
LSU – I didn’t think LSU was
where they needed to be (yet) to beat Bama, but I wanted to BELIEVE IT. Orgeron is a good coach and has learned a lot in his tour of different
locales and I do believe that eventually, he can put it all together and knock
Satan’s Warriors off the mountain. But I
get the fans frustration. Not scoring on
your arch nemesis is frustrating and you want to punch somebody. Keep the faith and look at how it happened in
Ann Arbor.
We Won But
THE STU – When you have to play DEEP into the 4th quarter to
beat a team that started out with an historic 0-6 record that didn’t score
against the TUN until garbage time in the 4th quarter, you may want
to start getting a little worried. And I’m
SURE the STU faithful are getting a little worried. Oh, they’ll shoot their mouths off in a
couple of weeks and blame it on whatever, but they know it’s coming. The TUN has a DEFENSE and defense travels,
baby!
The Domers – The Purple Kitties were within 3 points in the 4th
quarter and the domers scored a 2-score separation TD late in the game to salt
it away. But the domer defense is quite
suspect at this point and if I had to pick a winner TODAY between Michigan and
the domers, well, that pick is easy. The
domers could still lose one somewhere along the way and they should be
incredibly nervous fans.
LATERS – Winning in Lubbock is tough, I’ll give you that. But giving up 46 points to the Red Raiders
when you’re trying to impress the committee isn’t a good look, especially if
you lose another game somewhere along the way...Later Fans should be WORRIED! Speaking of which:
WVU – Wow. The Stones on
Holgerson cannot be weighed by a mere scale alone. That call at the end of that game was for
EVERYTHING!!! One 2-point conversion that maybe
made the season but it also could have doomed the Neers’. Amazing call and even more amazing play. Still, the Big iiX has a major defense
problem from the top to the bottom of the conference. The Committee is watching!
THE MMQ’s “I DON’T NEED A COMMITTEE!”
Unfortunately, this is
becoming academic. The SEC is playing
for nuttin’ in November (Bama and Georgia have the SEC divisions locked up) and
there’s not too many eliminator games on the schedule for the next couple of
weeks, save the absolute horror of an upset somewhere along the way in the B1G
or the ACC.
Still I’ll run ‘em down
as usual:
SEC: Bama – Georgia Winner is
IN! Loser – MAYBE. Again, with Georgia more than likely getting
the 5th spot today that Michigan previously occupied, there’s still
a lot of scenarios where (GOD forbid) if Michigan loses, the loser of the SEC
Championship is still in the CFP. I’ll
explain why I’m pretty sure the Big iiX is out of it at this point below…
B1G: Michigan is IN. The STU could be in but
NEEDS SOME HELP. Michigan can win out
and they will hold their 4th spot in the CFP play-off. That’s academic. I think the question comes in as to who gets
in if Michigan loses to the STU, the STU wins the B1G Championship and THE STU
has the one stinky loss to Purdue. See
the SEC analysis above and you start to see that a 2-loss Georgia might slide
in ahead of the STU.
ACC: Clemson is IN! There is no other team in the ACC that’s even
part of this discussion, save the pseudo ACC team the domers.
The domers: IN. Until they lose. Which, I think both Syracuse and USC have a
shot. Because they’re home. However, I think the committee is seeing that
the domers are not the team they were earlier and the stats bear that out.
Big iiX: IN – Nobody. WVU and the Laters need a lot of help. And the problem is that they still have to
play each other and they will more than likely have to turn around and play
each other the following week in the Big iiX title game as they will be the
best two teams in the conference, sans divisions.
Speaking
of Divisions...
I’m a football fan. The SEC November has begun where I already
mentioned that the SEC is playing for nothing for the next 3 weeks. The only really interesting conference stuff
happening is in the Bbig iiX and the B1G (this weekend: THE STU and LNU). That being said, what the hell has college
football come to that we don’t have a November where there’s at least something
to look forward to? And get this:
The B1G West Champion could be a team with 5
losses! Yep, The Purple Kitties have the
best shot at this point to win the B1G West (after Iowa’s loss to
Purdue). They have games @ Iowa, @ the
Gophers and then the Illini at home. If
they win 2 of those, there are the B1G West Champs. I know.
Sickening. On top of that, if you
REALLY WANT TO MAKE YOURSELF ILL, go look at the Purple Kitty’s stats. They suck.
They should be a dog in all three of their last games (are you listening
Gophers?) but they’ll probably still find a way to win.
The ACC, believe it or not, could have Pitt
as the Coastal Champ, also with 5 losses.
If they beat Va-Tech this weekend, which, hey, Va-Tech lost to ODU, they
could easily pull it off.
And don’t even get me started on the Pac 12 South, which is a
complete and utter mess.
So, what am I trying to say? SCREW DIVISIONS!!! At the end of the season, grab the two
highest ranked teams, similar to what the Big iiX does (the one thing I respect
about them) and let them duke it out.
In the B1G, that would most likely be Michigan and the STU. In the ACC, that would probably be Clemson
and either Boston College or Syracuse.
In the Pac 12, Washington State and Washington. Yes, I know they’re all from the same
divisions, but it just doesn’t matter when the other division is CRAP.
Get rid of them!
The Hot Seat
ZAPPED List
We’ll keep track of
who’s gone as the season progresses….
1.
Durkin – I know I didn’t comment on this last
week, but when it looked like Durkin was going to remain the HC of Maryland, I
was ready to begin ignoring college sports altogether. Thanks to the Prez for making things
right.
2.
Mike
Jinks – Bowling Green. I guess starting out 1-6 in the MAC gets you
canned now…
3.
Beatty
– KANSAS. Kansas has been bad at
football so long that I really don’t know how you even begin to fix it at this
point. They’ll hire someone and all he’ll
be is the next guy to get the hook.
Electric Chair of Death
Seat!
1.
Ash –
Rutgers: I
guess Rutgers is simply going to ride this train till the end of his
contract. I mean, who are they going to get?
The Hot Seat
1.
Fleck
– Fleck’s seat is going to remain toasty for the rest of the season unless he
can scrap a win out of the last 3 games.
2.
Smith
– Oregon State. Yeah, they’ve had a
couple close games…but the seat is hot
3.
Kiffin
– FAU
4.
Frost
– Nebraska – needs to win a BIG Game, and had one in his hands - TWICE
5.
Sumlin
– Arizona. What a disaster of a season…
6.
Malzhan
– Losing to Tennessee is a fireable offense in Auburn
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