(a series involving radical departures from regular blog topics.)
...to call attention to the U.S. Women's World Cup team uniforms. The home uniforms ("kits") have gold as their base color. Check it out for yourself. I haven't looked at the updated U.S. Federal Government web pages, but last time I checked the colors of the country's flag were red, white and blue. Gold is not one of them, notwithstanding comments about American wealth and commercialism.
I'm already troubled by the fact that soccer goalkeepers have a different color jersey than the rest of their team, often one that isn't even a variation of the club colors - what kind of team uniform is that? Now we have an entire soccer team wearing different colors than the country for which they play. What is with this?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Lou Holtsth's Pregame Thspeechesth (and other comments on ESPN's college football studio crew)
One of the lamer aspects of ESPN's college football runup show College Football Live is Lou Holtz's pregame speeches. Each week Lisping Lou delivers an inspirational tome in the guise of a team's coach preparing the kids for a big game.
Unsurprisingly, the speeches are full of cliches and syrupy pep-talk material. Speaking as Lloyd Carr, Lou told the team to have eyes in the front of their heads so they could look forward, not backward. How thrilling.
Imitating Joe Paterno, he suggested Michigan was arrogant: "I bet they do the crossword puzzle in pen because they think they never make a mistake. They made a mistake when they scheduled Penn State."
OK...Penn State is in the Big Ten Conference. The conference office schedules the games, not Michigan. Maybe he's harkening back to his days at independent Notre Dame, when anyone who came into South Bend had elected to schedule the school.
I'm surprised he didn't use the pun Penn Statement.
Holtz's cheesy speeches are nice enough to listen to, but I'd never give one to my team. The feature is ok, but its fatal flaw is that the pre-game speeches are overwrought Hollywood plot devices more than genuine football pageantry.
In his retrospective video "The Schembechler Years," Michigan coach Bo Schembechler let the air out of the balloon, saying specifically that the idea of the fire-them-up halftime speech was "a misnomer" - partly because halftime is to make adjustments, and partly because the time to motivate with speeches is during the week, at whatever time the coach feels an extra touch is needed. Coaches will tell you that usually a high-energy speech right before the game is a mixed blessing, as the players might get too woudn up to execute, and then be unable to refocus if the game gets away from them.
I want to go on a little further about College Football Live, CF Scoreboard, and CF Final, all of which are variations on the same format with the same people, led by the looong stretchy accent of Rece Davis (if anyone knows where Davis' accent comes from, please enlighten me). The show used to be a hip and fun rundown of that week's college football action, mixing long-form highlights with short but sharp analysis. Things have gradually changed over the years, and not for the better.
Opinions on Mark May are well-documented in the blogosphere (here, for example, and here, which really comments on the whole bunch) and in accordance with blog policy I will not repeat them. I enjoy hearing his opinions, even if I don't agree, although his rep took a hit with me when he delivered a racist hysteria after Kentucky hired Rich Brooks instead of the clearly inferior candidate Doug Williams. (Brooks is white and Williams black, as is May.)
Guys with opinions are what make the show. My real problem is that they've gone from commentators to half-concealed cheerleaders, complete with shtick. Case in point: the chanting of "Sweed, Sweed, Sweed, Sweed!" when Texas receiver Limas Sweed comes up on highlights. It's almost like they're having too much fun in the studio to consider whether the people watching want to hear it.
Then there's the negatives. These guys get a kick out of mocking crappy college football programs, the sacrificial lambs that serve as fodder for the top teams ESPN likes to suck up to. Rece Davis thinks nothing of condescendingly saying "that's why you're Vanderbilt" when showing a Commodore miscue. His lame "fighting [coach names]" becomes belittling when he's talking about a bad team. Illinois (who still stinks despite Ron Zook's recruiting binge) is "the fighting Zookers." Stanford becomes the "non-fighting Walt Harrises."
It's like to make up for the suckup, they feel the need to rip someone else, as if taking down Duke football showed originality in journalism. Lou Holtz may be a big Notre Dame shill, but at least he's not part of cutting down 20-year olds on national television.
I think what's really going on is a sort of postadolescent jocksniffing. I don't know if Rece Davis played ball or not - for all I know, he was All-State - but he seems to have an infantile need to stick it to the weak sisters. Maybe it's sitting near May, winner of a national title and two Super Bowls, who himself appears stuck in some kind of football machismo. Only Holtz shows a consistent semblance of class, although he sometimes goes overboard - as he does with his reflexive references to teams as "the University of Florida" and "the University of Notre Dame" to name two examples. What does he think, these football programs are trying to be schools?
Unsurprisingly, the speeches are full of cliches and syrupy pep-talk material. Speaking as Lloyd Carr, Lou told the team to have eyes in the front of their heads so they could look forward, not backward. How thrilling.
Imitating Joe Paterno, he suggested Michigan was arrogant: "I bet they do the crossword puzzle in pen because they think they never make a mistake. They made a mistake when they scheduled Penn State."
OK...Penn State is in the Big Ten Conference. The conference office schedules the games, not Michigan. Maybe he's harkening back to his days at independent Notre Dame, when anyone who came into South Bend had elected to schedule the school.
I'm surprised he didn't use the pun Penn Statement.
Holtz's cheesy speeches are nice enough to listen to, but I'd never give one to my team. The feature is ok, but its fatal flaw is that the pre-game speeches are overwrought Hollywood plot devices more than genuine football pageantry.
In his retrospective video "The Schembechler Years," Michigan coach Bo Schembechler let the air out of the balloon, saying specifically that the idea of the fire-them-up halftime speech was "a misnomer" - partly because halftime is to make adjustments, and partly because the time to motivate with speeches is during the week, at whatever time the coach feels an extra touch is needed. Coaches will tell you that usually a high-energy speech right before the game is a mixed blessing, as the players might get too woudn up to execute, and then be unable to refocus if the game gets away from them.
I want to go on a little further about College Football Live, CF Scoreboard, and CF Final, all of which are variations on the same format with the same people, led by the looong stretchy accent of Rece Davis (if anyone knows where Davis' accent comes from, please enlighten me). The show used to be a hip and fun rundown of that week's college football action, mixing long-form highlights with short but sharp analysis. Things have gradually changed over the years, and not for the better.
Opinions on Mark May are well-documented in the blogosphere (here, for example, and here, which really comments on the whole bunch) and in accordance with blog policy I will not repeat them. I enjoy hearing his opinions, even if I don't agree, although his rep took a hit with me when he delivered a racist hysteria after Kentucky hired Rich Brooks instead of the clearly inferior candidate Doug Williams. (Brooks is white and Williams black, as is May.)
Guys with opinions are what make the show. My real problem is that they've gone from commentators to half-concealed cheerleaders, complete with shtick. Case in point: the chanting of "Sweed, Sweed, Sweed, Sweed!" when Texas receiver Limas Sweed comes up on highlights. It's almost like they're having too much fun in the studio to consider whether the people watching want to hear it.
Then there's the negatives. These guys get a kick out of mocking crappy college football programs, the sacrificial lambs that serve as fodder for the top teams ESPN likes to suck up to. Rece Davis thinks nothing of condescendingly saying "that's why you're Vanderbilt" when showing a Commodore miscue. His lame "fighting [coach names]" becomes belittling when he's talking about a bad team. Illinois (who still stinks despite Ron Zook's recruiting binge) is "the fighting Zookers." Stanford becomes the "non-fighting Walt Harrises."
It's like to make up for the suckup, they feel the need to rip someone else, as if taking down Duke football showed originality in journalism. Lou Holtz may be a big Notre Dame shill, but at least he's not part of cutting down 20-year olds on national television.
I think what's really going on is a sort of postadolescent jocksniffing. I don't know if Rece Davis played ball or not - for all I know, he was All-State - but he seems to have an infantile need to stick it to the weak sisters. Maybe it's sitting near May, winner of a national title and two Super Bowls, who himself appears stuck in some kind of football machismo. Only Holtz shows a consistent semblance of class, although he sometimes goes overboard - as he does with his reflexive references to teams as "the University of Florida" and "the University of Notre Dame" to name two examples. What does he think, these football programs are trying to be schools?
Until Further Notice
Fact: USC is Number 1. We can quibble about strength of schedule, the early bye week, etc as the season goes on. For right now, SC held serve at home and then went on the road and pounded a legitimate opponent into submission in its own house. When you run for 300 yards on Nebraska (who has had consistently strong defenses through all its upheaval), the nation should take note. I’m comfortable putting the Trojans at the top until they show otherwise, or until Florida or LSU get another quality win by a healthy margin. Does anyone want to try to tell me Nebraska is a worse opponent than the overrated Virginia Tech squad that played torro to LSU's bullfighters? (In the weak Big XII, Oklahoma will need an exceptionally strong set of performances, and since it’s well-known that Bob Stoops runs up the score, voters should be very careful how much weight they give to OU’s margin of victory.)
What about the Ducks? Oregon looks as-yet unstoppable, but I’m not sold yet; I’m Tina and I’m not going back to Ike until November comes without any bruises. Ever since 2002, with one exception Oregon has had a bad habit of tanking down the stretch.
I will seen Oregon (@ Stanford) in person this week; I’ll revise and/or strengthen my opinion after that.
San Jose State got shut out by Stanford, 37-0, and after a lame and uninspired effort Spartans coach Dick Tomey put out a serious warning:
Misnomer of the Week: “You can’t lose your job to injury”
I haven't done the researchy-things to figure out where this idea came from, but football fans appear to be walking around with the idea that a starter's job belongs to him no matter how much time he misses with injury. You may have seen "coach" Dick Butkus saying this in his fraudulent ESPN reality show.
In Michigan's dilemma over the injured Chad Henne and the true freshman fill-in Ryan Mallett, fans are suggesting Henne's position on the depth chart is sacrosanct. (Mallett has shown little to graduate him past a three-year starter, but in two weeks' time he might have a thick enough resume to merit a competition.)
This discussion reached the height of proposterity in the Brady vs Bledsoe debate in 2001. When anyone with eyes could see Brady was the best guy for Bill Belichick's strategy, Bledsoe hardliners cried about how unfair it would be for the incumbent to not get back on the field when he recovered from the shorn artery that opened the door for one of the biggest stars in American sports. (Three Super Bowls later...)
This axiom is a bogus idea. In the football meritocracy, the best players play - period. Sometimes your half-injured guy is better than the backup. Sometimes the backup comes in and tears it up, and might even encourage the coaching staff to change up the gameplan to fit the new guy's skills. And occasionally you find that diamond in the rough who just needed a shot of game action to prove himself.
It appears to be an unspoken policy in the NFL; but it's different in the pros - players aren't rapidly developing with experience and playing time, and it's rarely the case that you simply can't play a promising player because of myriad shortcomings that mollify with experience. It's pretty clear who's better than whom, and the best guys play when they're not on the training table.
Let's put it in perspective: if you couldn't lose your spot because you were on the mend, no one would know who Lou Gehrig is.
AROUND THE PAC-10
It was another big weekend for the state of Oregon. After the Ducks pantsed Michigan and Oregon State's flopover provided another plus in Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly's Michigan head coaching application packet, both teams managed to win last weekend.
The state of Washington wasn't too bad either. While UW lost at home to Ohio State, it was not your average 19-point loss if you've been following Washington football. This was a full stadium, watching a team go toe-to-toe for close to three quarters with a national championship contender. The Huskies were not afraid to deploy QB Jake Locker in triple-option schemes, and he threw a frozen rope touchdown pass that must have broken the receiver's hand.
Meanwhile, Washington State slapped border sister Idaho around, tacking on more points than USC did (45 to 38). (The Vandals also scored four touchdowns, 18 points more than they did against the Trojans). Alex Brink threw for over 400 yards again, and the Cougs have scored 111 points in three games.
UCLA coach Karl Dorrell got exposed again in an ugly 44-6 loss at Utah in which the Bruins turned it over five times. Anyone who thought UCLA was even a dark-horse national championship contender had been in the smog too long, but I'm the biggest UCLA doubter west of the Central Valley and I didn't see this one coming.
The embarassment of Arizona football continues, a 29-27 loss to New Mexico being the latest insult. It's brutal to make these predictions this early, but it will be a race between Mike Stoops and Dorrell to fax those resumes out to get dibs on the best assistant coaching jobs for next season.
Floppycock Of The Week
There won't even be a list of finalists. It's gotta be Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis. I won't even bother linking to the criticisms; I can't open my apartment door without being hit with another hyperlink to ND hysteria (from Domer blogs) or schadenfreude (from everyone else).
It's hard to describe from a straight football standpoint how hosed Notre Dame is. Meechigan didn’t play out of its mind, but the execution was masterful – every Notre Dame mistake got punished. Turnovers were turned into points. Missed blocks turned into sacks. No running game led to a ridiculous pass rush. Notre Dame gave plenty of opportunity, and Michigan capitalized every time, even with a true freshman playing his first full game under center.
Playing well against an inferior Notre Dame team is, well, something for Michigan to be proud of given their recent history against inferior Notre Dame teams (1998, 2004, 2005).
But back to Domer Nation - In the interest of preventing redundancy, I will attempt to add two fresh points to the discussion after Weis laid that thousand-yard shellshock stare on the media after the game.
First, this team is poorly coached in the fundamentals. Before you even get into coverages, blitzes, pass-protection schemes, combination routes, you've gotta coach the basics - stance, steps, leverage, snapping the ball, handing off, blocking, tackling, catching, and the like. The recent evidence suggests - nay, proves - that Notre Dame has been slacking off practicing these things. Hundreds of high school centers who aren't going to Notre Dame on scholarship can execute a shotgun snap without a problem for an entire season.
This leads to…
Second, I'm questioning Weis’ ability to coach his program. Notre Dame has way more talent than what's getting on the field. The results suggest either gross coaching incompetence, or a disconnect between coaches and players. (Stanford fans will notice the team looks a lot like the Cardinal's 2006 squad - listless, passionless, without cohesion or a sense of team).
Weis is obviously a good football man and knows his X's and O's, but I think he's made major miscalculations regarding:
a. Managing a depth chart when there is no waiver wire to get new guys. They seemed to spend a lot of time running up the score with Quinn's crew instead of getting experience for new guys.
b. What needs to be done to turn 18-year old former high schoolers into complete class-A football players. That's probably a pro thing, where the players already have a full toolbox of skills and you maintain them with some drills (or let them bleed away, more accurately). The bad snaps and the regression of their highest-profile recruit (Sam Young, started as a true freshman last year) indicate this.
It's possible he saw USC tearing things up and thought you just bring in the top players and they automatically play at an All America level. NFL-centric types love to tell me that "college coaches aren't that smart, they just get the best players." He's totally in love with his own intelligence, so Weis may have bought into that and skimped on talent development, expecting natural ability to take over.
Another thing: The offensive line has stunk, big time, and Domers are content to blame the line coaches and demand that they be fired. But is it possible these guys aren't that hot on their coach sticking them with a true freshman at quarterback and relegating the seniors to a rebuilding season? In a larger sense, could it be that the elder statesmen of the team - the ones recruited to work in Tyrone Willingham's non-boastful, head-down program - don't care much for having an arrogant gasbag at the top?
Going back to his history, Weis may only now be realizing that the Bill Belichick way, cutting any malcontents without reconciliation, simply can't work in college football.
Someone told me we were "overreacting to the latest data point." There's not one latest data point - there's five, as in five straight blowout losses, each one a deeper miasma than the one before it.
A final point: Why did Weis run off quarterback Demetrius Jones? In the beginning, it sounded like Jones' transfer to Northern Illinois (a bizarre and unclear story at this point to begin with) was simply a case of a guy who got beat out and wanted to play elsewhere. Then Jones fired back against the impression he snuck out the back door without telling the team by suggesting Weis misled him about his shot to be the starter. (Side note: Jones' bio is still available on Notre Dame's athletic site.)
Notre Dame has had success (Arnaz Battle, Carlyle Holiday) in turning their castoff running quarterbacks into wide receivers. Hell, they’ve had a guy flip-flopping between tailback and linebacker (Travis Thomas), but apparently Jones was promised he wouldn't be split wide for someone else to throw to.
Another good dual-threat player Notre Dame couldn’t make use of became a legend at his new school – Northwestern quarterback Zak Kustok, who was an absolute star for his two seasons in Randy Walker’s super-spread offense.
Either Jones had an attitude problem, or they asked him to switch positions and he said no), or he got run off. Any of these make someone look bad, and I'm inclined to expect more from a middle-aged coach than a 19-year old ballplayer who lives under said coach's fist.
What about the Ducks? Oregon looks as-yet unstoppable, but I’m not sold yet; I’m Tina and I’m not going back to Ike until November comes without any bruises. Ever since 2002, with one exception Oregon has had a bad habit of tanking down the stretch.
I will seen Oregon (@ Stanford) in person this week; I’ll revise and/or strengthen my opinion after that.
San Jose State got shut out by Stanford, 37-0, and after a lame and uninspired effort Spartans coach Dick Tomey put out a serious warning:
Well we were awful, we were badly coached. We were a bunch of prima donnas. We just don't compete. We are going to practice at 6:30 in the morning. Full gear. Anybody not there is cut and any coach who is not there is fired. We've got a short time to put this thing together but right now were just the [blank]. Stanford's really improved their game and that just shows how much better their coaches are then we are. How much better their players are than we are. They've done a great job. I commend coach Harbaugh and his staff.Keep in mind this is nearing 11pm. After a busride home, the players weren't going to get to bed until after midnight. I'm all for morning practices, but 6:30 the morning after a game is beyond the pale. Coming off a 9-4 season, San Jose State was supposed to have its best team in its three years under Tomey, but three tough road games (Arizona State, Kansas State and Stanford) and injuries to its one-two running punch may have put them out of another good season.
Misnomer of the Week: “You can’t lose your job to injury”
I haven't done the researchy-things to figure out where this idea came from, but football fans appear to be walking around with the idea that a starter's job belongs to him no matter how much time he misses with injury. You may have seen "coach" Dick Butkus saying this in his fraudulent ESPN reality show.
In Michigan's dilemma over the injured Chad Henne and the true freshman fill-in Ryan Mallett, fans are suggesting Henne's position on the depth chart is sacrosanct. (Mallett has shown little to graduate him past a three-year starter, but in two weeks' time he might have a thick enough resume to merit a competition.)
This discussion reached the height of proposterity in the Brady vs Bledsoe debate in 2001. When anyone with eyes could see Brady was the best guy for Bill Belichick's strategy, Bledsoe hardliners cried about how unfair it would be for the incumbent to not get back on the field when he recovered from the shorn artery that opened the door for one of the biggest stars in American sports. (Three Super Bowls later...)
This axiom is a bogus idea. In the football meritocracy, the best players play - period. Sometimes your half-injured guy is better than the backup. Sometimes the backup comes in and tears it up, and might even encourage the coaching staff to change up the gameplan to fit the new guy's skills. And occasionally you find that diamond in the rough who just needed a shot of game action to prove himself.
It appears to be an unspoken policy in the NFL; but it's different in the pros - players aren't rapidly developing with experience and playing time, and it's rarely the case that you simply can't play a promising player because of myriad shortcomings that mollify with experience. It's pretty clear who's better than whom, and the best guys play when they're not on the training table.
Let's put it in perspective: if you couldn't lose your spot because you were on the mend, no one would know who Lou Gehrig is.
AROUND THE PAC-10
It was another big weekend for the state of Oregon. After the Ducks pantsed Michigan and Oregon State's flopover provided another plus in Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly's Michigan head coaching application packet, both teams managed to win last weekend.
The state of Washington wasn't too bad either. While UW lost at home to Ohio State, it was not your average 19-point loss if you've been following Washington football. This was a full stadium, watching a team go toe-to-toe for close to three quarters with a national championship contender. The Huskies were not afraid to deploy QB Jake Locker in triple-option schemes, and he threw a frozen rope touchdown pass that must have broken the receiver's hand.
Meanwhile, Washington State slapped border sister Idaho around, tacking on more points than USC did (45 to 38). (The Vandals also scored four touchdowns, 18 points more than they did against the Trojans). Alex Brink threw for over 400 yards again, and the Cougs have scored 111 points in three games.
UCLA coach Karl Dorrell got exposed again in an ugly 44-6 loss at Utah in which the Bruins turned it over five times. Anyone who thought UCLA was even a dark-horse national championship contender had been in the smog too long, but I'm the biggest UCLA doubter west of the Central Valley and I didn't see this one coming.
The embarassment of Arizona football continues, a 29-27 loss to New Mexico being the latest insult. It's brutal to make these predictions this early, but it will be a race between Mike Stoops and Dorrell to fax those resumes out to get dibs on the best assistant coaching jobs for next season.
Floppycock Of The Week
There won't even be a list of finalists. It's gotta be Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis. I won't even bother linking to the criticisms; I can't open my apartment door without being hit with another hyperlink to ND hysteria (from Domer blogs) or schadenfreude (from everyone else).
It's hard to describe from a straight football standpoint how hosed Notre Dame is. Meechigan didn’t play out of its mind, but the execution was masterful – every Notre Dame mistake got punished. Turnovers were turned into points. Missed blocks turned into sacks. No running game led to a ridiculous pass rush. Notre Dame gave plenty of opportunity, and Michigan capitalized every time, even with a true freshman playing his first full game under center.
Playing well against an inferior Notre Dame team is, well, something for Michigan to be proud of given their recent history against inferior Notre Dame teams (1998, 2004, 2005).
But back to Domer Nation - In the interest of preventing redundancy, I will attempt to add two fresh points to the discussion after Weis laid that thousand-yard shellshock stare on the media after the game.
First, this team is poorly coached in the fundamentals. Before you even get into coverages, blitzes, pass-protection schemes, combination routes, you've gotta coach the basics - stance, steps, leverage, snapping the ball, handing off, blocking, tackling, catching, and the like. The recent evidence suggests - nay, proves - that Notre Dame has been slacking off practicing these things. Hundreds of high school centers who aren't going to Notre Dame on scholarship can execute a shotgun snap without a problem for an entire season.
This leads to…
Second, I'm questioning Weis’ ability to coach his program. Notre Dame has way more talent than what's getting on the field. The results suggest either gross coaching incompetence, or a disconnect between coaches and players. (Stanford fans will notice the team looks a lot like the Cardinal's 2006 squad - listless, passionless, without cohesion or a sense of team).
Weis is obviously a good football man and knows his X's and O's, but I think he's made major miscalculations regarding:
a. Managing a depth chart when there is no waiver wire to get new guys. They seemed to spend a lot of time running up the score with Quinn's crew instead of getting experience for new guys.
b. What needs to be done to turn 18-year old former high schoolers into complete class-A football players. That's probably a pro thing, where the players already have a full toolbox of skills and you maintain them with some drills (or let them bleed away, more accurately). The bad snaps and the regression of their highest-profile recruit (Sam Young, started as a true freshman last year) indicate this.
It's possible he saw USC tearing things up and thought you just bring in the top players and they automatically play at an All America level. NFL-centric types love to tell me that "college coaches aren't that smart, they just get the best players." He's totally in love with his own intelligence, so Weis may have bought into that and skimped on talent development, expecting natural ability to take over.
Another thing: The offensive line has stunk, big time, and Domers are content to blame the line coaches and demand that they be fired. But is it possible these guys aren't that hot on their coach sticking them with a true freshman at quarterback and relegating the seniors to a rebuilding season? In a larger sense, could it be that the elder statesmen of the team - the ones recruited to work in Tyrone Willingham's non-boastful, head-down program - don't care much for having an arrogant gasbag at the top?
Going back to his history, Weis may only now be realizing that the Bill Belichick way, cutting any malcontents without reconciliation, simply can't work in college football.
Someone told me we were "overreacting to the latest data point." There's not one latest data point - there's five, as in five straight blowout losses, each one a deeper miasma than the one before it.
A final point: Why did Weis run off quarterback Demetrius Jones? In the beginning, it sounded like Jones' transfer to Northern Illinois (a bizarre and unclear story at this point to begin with) was simply a case of a guy who got beat out and wanted to play elsewhere. Then Jones fired back against the impression he snuck out the back door without telling the team by suggesting Weis misled him about his shot to be the starter. (Side note: Jones' bio is still available on Notre Dame's athletic site.)
Notre Dame has had success (Arnaz Battle, Carlyle Holiday) in turning their castoff running quarterbacks into wide receivers. Hell, they’ve had a guy flip-flopping between tailback and linebacker (Travis Thomas), but apparently Jones was promised he wouldn't be split wide for someone else to throw to.
Another good dual-threat player Notre Dame couldn’t make use of became a legend at his new school – Northwestern quarterback Zak Kustok, who was an absolute star for his two seasons in Randy Walker’s super-spread offense.
Either Jones had an attitude problem, or they asked him to switch positions and he said no), or he got run off. Any of these make someone look bad, and I'm inclined to expect more from a middle-aged coach than a 19-year old ballplayer who lives under said coach's fist.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Polling Shenanigans
The contortionary fallout from Michigan’s loss to Appalachian State continued when the AP sillily declared that I-AA teams were eligible for the I-A poll. (It should be mentioned that a I-AA poll already exists, although it is not operated by the AP.) The discussion is so preposterous I hesitate to give it any attention, but it’s ripe for the picking.
The first problem with this is that keeping track of all the rank-worthy teams is a tough enough task. I-AA games, even involving good teams, are not on TV in many parts of the country. Are I-A media voters supposed to actually see these teams or simply continue the moronic trend of ranking by looking at final scores and statistics instead of actually seeing what’s going on? Does the AP actually think it’s improving the quality of its poll by giving voters more work to do?
In the interest of fairness, why can’t I-A teams be ranked in the I-AA poll? With all the opening-week blowouts mismatching I-A and I-AA teams, the poll would be flooded with top-division squads. Surely the powers that be in I-AA football don’t want this, but they feel content to crash the I-A poll party.
Stop. In the tautology of the day, a I-AA team is not a I-A team. It has consciously elected, for whatever reason (financial/regulatory/scholastic/institutional/traditional) to not compete at the highest level of college football. That doesn’t make it a bad program – good football is fun to watch whatever the classification – but it also doesn’t make it a competitor to the top.
That also doesn’t mean it can’t beat an occasional I-A opponent (Michigan was Appalachian State’s first victim in at least five tries), but a win shouldn’t be confused with a statement of superiority.
Michigan State basketball beat the Harlem Globetrotters a few years back. Does that mean Tom Izzo should take his team on an international tour, line up a nightly patsy and dress the Spartans in red white and blue? No. Michigan State doesn’t want to be a basketball circus. That they played one for a game doesn’t change that.
The AP poll is far more credible than the coaches’ or Harris poll, but it shot itself in the foot in this instance.
There’s another thing going on – Michigan is simultaneously a good team and a bad team, depending on what argument is being made. Commentators have made a huge deal about the game being the first loss by a ranked I-A team to a I-AA team, but Michigan fell out of the poll after the game.
So…let’s get this straight. Appalachian State’s two-point win over fifth-ranked Michigan was so powerful that they should be ranked with the I-A teams. Meanwhile, Michigan showed it was such a good team that it wound up unranked in both polls the next week.
Where’s the congruence here? Did they beat a good team or a bad team? Good (i.e. top ten) teams don’t usually fall completely out of polls no matter how badly they get beat.
Recent evidence suggests Michigan is more deserving of their current unranked status than they were last week, when a blocked field goal was all that stood between Michigan and escaping the upset. So which one is it – was Michigan a good team whose credentials give Appalachian State credibility, or a lame outfit who loss to the best team in I-AA football shouldn’t have surprised us?
So App State, a very good team, beat a I-A team that is now unranked and unregarded. For this one person voted them into the I-A poll? Hell, a Stanford team that wound up 5-6 lost to UC-Davis (a provisional I-AA school moving up from Division II) in the second week of 2005. No one clamored for Davis, who had close losses to I-AA powerhouses New Hampshire and Portland State, to get votes in the I-A poll.
But that’s the situation we were in after the first week of the season.
The first problem with this is that keeping track of all the rank-worthy teams is a tough enough task. I-AA games, even involving good teams, are not on TV in many parts of the country. Are I-A media voters supposed to actually see these teams or simply continue the moronic trend of ranking by looking at final scores and statistics instead of actually seeing what’s going on? Does the AP actually think it’s improving the quality of its poll by giving voters more work to do?
In the interest of fairness, why can’t I-A teams be ranked in the I-AA poll? With all the opening-week blowouts mismatching I-A and I-AA teams, the poll would be flooded with top-division squads. Surely the powers that be in I-AA football don’t want this, but they feel content to crash the I-A poll party.
Stop. In the tautology of the day, a I-AA team is not a I-A team. It has consciously elected, for whatever reason (financial/regulatory/scholastic/institutional/traditional) to not compete at the highest level of college football. That doesn’t make it a bad program – good football is fun to watch whatever the classification – but it also doesn’t make it a competitor to the top.
That also doesn’t mean it can’t beat an occasional I-A opponent (Michigan was Appalachian State’s first victim in at least five tries), but a win shouldn’t be confused with a statement of superiority.
Michigan State basketball beat the Harlem Globetrotters a few years back. Does that mean Tom Izzo should take his team on an international tour, line up a nightly patsy and dress the Spartans in red white and blue? No. Michigan State doesn’t want to be a basketball circus. That they played one for a game doesn’t change that.
The AP poll is far more credible than the coaches’ or Harris poll, but it shot itself in the foot in this instance.
There’s another thing going on – Michigan is simultaneously a good team and a bad team, depending on what argument is being made. Commentators have made a huge deal about the game being the first loss by a ranked I-A team to a I-AA team, but Michigan fell out of the poll after the game.
So…let’s get this straight. Appalachian State’s two-point win over fifth-ranked Michigan was so powerful that they should be ranked with the I-A teams. Meanwhile, Michigan showed it was such a good team that it wound up unranked in both polls the next week.
Where’s the congruence here? Did they beat a good team or a bad team? Good (i.e. top ten) teams don’t usually fall completely out of polls no matter how badly they get beat.
Recent evidence suggests Michigan is more deserving of their current unranked status than they were last week, when a blocked field goal was all that stood between Michigan and escaping the upset. So which one is it – was Michigan a good team whose credentials give Appalachian State credibility, or a lame outfit who loss to the best team in I-AA football shouldn’t have surprised us?
So App State, a very good team, beat a I-A team that is now unranked and unregarded. For this one person voted them into the I-A poll? Hell, a Stanford team that wound up 5-6 lost to UC-Davis (a provisional I-AA school moving up from Division II) in the second week of 2005. No one clamored for Davis, who had close losses to I-AA powerhouses New Hampshire and Portland State, to get votes in the I-A poll.
But that’s the situation we were in after the first week of the season.
Week In Review
A late post of last week’s action due to travel.
Misnomer of the Week: Football commentary, like other sports, has acquired a large number of phrases that have meanings apart from the words that comprise them.
On occasion you will hear broadcasters praise a receiver or defensive back’s well-timed leap for a ball, saying “he catches the ball at its highest point.”
The ball’s highest point is far higher than any human can jump. What they really mean is catching the ball at HIS highest point, so the ball is in the air for the least amount of time and another player doesn’t have a play on it.
It was a big day in the city of Seattle. First, Washington ended Boise State’s 14-game winning streak, forcing four turnovers and shutting out the visitor in the second half in a 24-10 win.
You didn’t hear it here first, but Jake locker is a stud. He’s Marques Tuiasosopo all over again – he can run, throw, and will the offense into the end zone. More than one coach has said he’s the best of the many fine quarterback prospects to ever come out of the state of Washington. Assuming he stays healthy, he’s going to be making a lot of noise. Fans that had marked their Washington game as a win had better break out the white-out.
To paraphrase Glenn Frey, the heat is off. After a split-personality 5-7 season last year that had fans clamoring for his ouster, Tyrone Willingham is 2-0 with a home battle against an enigmatic Ohio State team. If the Huskies go to 3-0, it’s hard to imagine a better candidate for Pac-10 Coach of the Year.
Now the bad: UW may still be a one-man team. Last year, Isaiah Stanback’s dual-threat quarterback hijinks lifted Washington to a 4-2 start. When he broke his foot against Oregon State and was lost for the season, UW took a decided nosedive and won just one more game all year. The team that beat UCLA was wholly different from the one that lost to Stanford at home for the first time in 30 years. Willingham elected to keep Locker’s redshirt on for the future of the program. The future is now, and he’s delivering.
The man who replaced Tyrone in South Bend has yet to score an offensive touchdown. Willingham was 2-0 in his first season at Notre Dame with a team that didn’t score an offensive touchdown until its win against Michigan that pushed it to 3-0.
Washington State held its annual Qwest Field game following the Husky game, in a contest that gives western Washington-area Cougar fans a chance to see their team live without braving the frosty passes of the Cascades.
Against San Diego State, WSU continued to improve from its impressive opening loss at Wisconsin. Cougar quarterback Alex Brink, a brilliant passer and the most experienced quarterback in the Pac-10, moved up the WSU record ladder for touchdown passes.
The Cougs were hit with massive attrition over the summer but seem to be holding it together. They will be very injury-sensitive, but they’ve got the first-string talent to scare anyone in the conference.
Meanwhile, the state of Oregon went on the road to the midwest and went a long way towards determining who will be coaching Michigan football next year. Duck quarterback Dennis Dixon looked sharp – make that all-American – in Michigan Stadium, the second coming of Wolverine nemesis Vince Young. It’s difficult to dispute the allegation that Michigan players packed it in once the 32-7 lead was built.
Whether the game has passed him by, he has lost passion for the job, or he’s delegated responsibilities to assistants who have failed, Lloyd Carr cannot be credibly imagined as Michigan’s coach in 2008.
Around the nation…
Navy lost to a better team in Rutgers, but if you haven’t seen the Academy play, make an appointment with ESPN – the Midshipmen’s offense is so much fun to watch. Between an awesome athlete at quarterback, option pitches to slotbacks with wide running lanes, a bruising fullback dive and play-action passing, Navy can move the football despite having the smallest recruiting pool in Division I-A.
They also play hard on every play. No loafers there.
Even against a superiorly talented defense, Navy kept the opponent on its heels (ill-advised interceptions kept Rutgers ahead). Navy coach Paul Johnson is in his sixth year in Annapolis, and it’s almost certain he’s not going anywhere.
LSU blew out Virginia Tech in Baton Rogue, completely dominating the game in the most predictable rollover since the midterm elections. ESPN pumped this thing up all week as a matchup of top-ten teams. Apparently the folks at the WWL didn’t watch the VT game they broadcast last week, where the Hokies struggled at home against East Carolina, particularly when it came to moving the football.
Hmm…questionable quarterbacking, going into a hostile road environment against an immensely talented defense…well, it doesn’t take a Cajun fortune teller to imagine what was going to happen.
(And who decided Virginia Tech was “America’s Team”?)
Stalingrad redux: In 1942 the yet-undefeated German war machine (only called to a draw at the edge of Moscow) went for a knockout stroke on the Russian city of Stalingrad, on the Volga river. Facing a hastily-organized Soviet resistance, the Wehrmacht occupied the city in fierce street fighting and all but accepted victory. A Soviet counterattack in the bitter Russian winter enveloped 200,000 men of the Sixth Panzer Army and other units, who began to starve to death. Less than 10,000 would return to Germany. One of the most horrifying battles in the history of warfare left the German Army mortally broken and the Soviet Union on its way to a superpower status it would hold for nearly fifty years.
Not to compare these teams to the despicable empires, but I can’t help but detect the same feeling of epic showdown is coming to Ann Arbor this weekend. The winner gets a chance at a decent, possibly respectable season, the kind that Stanford and Duke would kill for right now. More importantly, the loser becomes the purveyor of a lost season, the Worst Best Team in college football – the latest to take a turn in the morbid carousel of failure that has afflicted Alabama, USC, Texas, Nebraska and Florida State in recent times. (Or in Notre Dame’s case, it’s a free repeat of 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999…Returning to Glory since 1993.)
Misnomer of the Week: Football commentary, like other sports, has acquired a large number of phrases that have meanings apart from the words that comprise them.
On occasion you will hear broadcasters praise a receiver or defensive back’s well-timed leap for a ball, saying “he catches the ball at its highest point.”
The ball’s highest point is far higher than any human can jump. What they really mean is catching the ball at HIS highest point, so the ball is in the air for the least amount of time and another player doesn’t have a play on it.
It was a big day in the city of Seattle. First, Washington ended Boise State’s 14-game winning streak, forcing four turnovers and shutting out the visitor in the second half in a 24-10 win.
You didn’t hear it here first, but Jake locker is a stud. He’s Marques Tuiasosopo all over again – he can run, throw, and will the offense into the end zone. More than one coach has said he’s the best of the many fine quarterback prospects to ever come out of the state of Washington. Assuming he stays healthy, he’s going to be making a lot of noise. Fans that had marked their Washington game as a win had better break out the white-out.
To paraphrase Glenn Frey, the heat is off. After a split-personality 5-7 season last year that had fans clamoring for his ouster, Tyrone Willingham is 2-0 with a home battle against an enigmatic Ohio State team. If the Huskies go to 3-0, it’s hard to imagine a better candidate for Pac-10 Coach of the Year.
Now the bad: UW may still be a one-man team. Last year, Isaiah Stanback’s dual-threat quarterback hijinks lifted Washington to a 4-2 start. When he broke his foot against Oregon State and was lost for the season, UW took a decided nosedive and won just one more game all year. The team that beat UCLA was wholly different from the one that lost to Stanford at home for the first time in 30 years. Willingham elected to keep Locker’s redshirt on for the future of the program. The future is now, and he’s delivering.
The man who replaced Tyrone in South Bend has yet to score an offensive touchdown. Willingham was 2-0 in his first season at Notre Dame with a team that didn’t score an offensive touchdown until its win against Michigan that pushed it to 3-0.
Washington State held its annual Qwest Field game following the Husky game, in a contest that gives western Washington-area Cougar fans a chance to see their team live without braving the frosty passes of the Cascades.
Against San Diego State, WSU continued to improve from its impressive opening loss at Wisconsin. Cougar quarterback Alex Brink, a brilliant passer and the most experienced quarterback in the Pac-10, moved up the WSU record ladder for touchdown passes.
The Cougs were hit with massive attrition over the summer but seem to be holding it together. They will be very injury-sensitive, but they’ve got the first-string talent to scare anyone in the conference.
Meanwhile, the state of Oregon went on the road to the midwest and went a long way towards determining who will be coaching Michigan football next year. Duck quarterback Dennis Dixon looked sharp – make that all-American – in Michigan Stadium, the second coming of Wolverine nemesis Vince Young. It’s difficult to dispute the allegation that Michigan players packed it in once the 32-7 lead was built.
Whether the game has passed him by, he has lost passion for the job, or he’s delegated responsibilities to assistants who have failed, Lloyd Carr cannot be credibly imagined as Michigan’s coach in 2008.
Around the nation…
Navy lost to a better team in Rutgers, but if you haven’t seen the Academy play, make an appointment with ESPN – the Midshipmen’s offense is so much fun to watch. Between an awesome athlete at quarterback, option pitches to slotbacks with wide running lanes, a bruising fullback dive and play-action passing, Navy can move the football despite having the smallest recruiting pool in Division I-A.
They also play hard on every play. No loafers there.
Even against a superiorly talented defense, Navy kept the opponent on its heels (ill-advised interceptions kept Rutgers ahead). Navy coach Paul Johnson is in his sixth year in Annapolis, and it’s almost certain he’s not going anywhere.
LSU blew out Virginia Tech in Baton Rogue, completely dominating the game in the most predictable rollover since the midterm elections. ESPN pumped this thing up all week as a matchup of top-ten teams. Apparently the folks at the WWL didn’t watch the VT game they broadcast last week, where the Hokies struggled at home against East Carolina, particularly when it came to moving the football.
Hmm…questionable quarterbacking, going into a hostile road environment against an immensely talented defense…well, it doesn’t take a Cajun fortune teller to imagine what was going to happen.
(And who decided Virginia Tech was “America’s Team”?)
Stalingrad redux: In 1942 the yet-undefeated German war machine (only called to a draw at the edge of Moscow) went for a knockout stroke on the Russian city of Stalingrad, on the Volga river. Facing a hastily-organized Soviet resistance, the Wehrmacht occupied the city in fierce street fighting and all but accepted victory. A Soviet counterattack in the bitter Russian winter enveloped 200,000 men of the Sixth Panzer Army and other units, who began to starve to death. Less than 10,000 would return to Germany. One of the most horrifying battles in the history of warfare left the German Army mortally broken and the Soviet Union on its way to a superpower status it would hold for nearly fifty years.
Not to compare these teams to the despicable empires, but I can’t help but detect the same feeling of epic showdown is coming to Ann Arbor this weekend. The winner gets a chance at a decent, possibly respectable season, the kind that Stanford and Duke would kill for right now. More importantly, the loser becomes the purveyor of a lost season, the Worst Best Team in college football – the latest to take a turn in the morbid carousel of failure that has afflicted Alabama, USC, Texas, Nebraska and Florida State in recent times. (Or in Notre Dame’s case, it’s a free repeat of 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999…Returning to Glory since 1993.)
Friday, September 7, 2007
The Next Michigan Man
As a Michigan affiliate (eight relatives have attended the school), I feel I should address the Wolverine coaching situation. NOTE: This sausage-being-made analysis can be carbon-copied, with certain salient modifications, to any major program looking for a coach. So expect to see ripoffs of this when Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno, Philip Fulmer et al get the axe or retire. (Good God, this will be a busy five years what with so many decade-plus tenured coaches inevitably stepping down at such big places.)
My prediction is that prior to November (possibly in the wake of their next loss), Lloyd Carr will reveal he is retiring at the end of the season. This will allow the university to begin a coaching search in earnest, get a jump on other schools and possibly save some money by snapping somebody up before a bidding war can ensue. It might also give the team some personal motivation to finish the season on a high note for the first time in five years.
The scuttlebutt is that Carr was planning on stepping down at the end of 2007 anyway; he’s been obviously unhappy with recent developments in college football – the expansion of recruiting hype, the money, the twelfth game, the pressure – and it’s clear from the Appalachian State game and his postgame press conference that he’s lost his passion for the job. An announcement of his departure will surprise no one.
Before discussing the candidates, a few points:
First, Bo Schembechler being dead REALLY sucks now, since he won’t be able to participate in the coaching search to keep an eye on the integrity and character of the candidates. Bo simply had a zero-tolerance policy for crappy character and wouldn’t let the department hire someone he didn’t trust.
Secondly, Michigan has to avoid the Nebraska Mistake. When Steve Pederson sent Frank Solich on his way, he hired an ex-pro coach (who had just been fired in his second season with Oakland) with slick X’s and O’s credentials who was going to bring the program into the 21st century. Instead the program is a madhouse of mediocrity, with no connection to its winning tradition. (And if anyone’s noticed, for all his high-powered passing game coaching, the only time Nebraska is successful is when they deploy a power running attack.) Nebraska fans are left confused, wondering whether to root for the hometown team or root against victory in the hopes it will get Bill Callahan fired. (This is not a joke. I know of at least one former NU player who feels this way.)
Third, on the other hand Michigan needs also to avoid Alabama Syndrome. When Bear Bryant died, Alabama looked at a coach named Bobby Bowden. Instead they hired Ray Perkins, helped along by his ‘Bama alum status. Since then a revolving door of former Crimson Tide players have donned the metaphorical houndstooth hat. Gene Stallings’ national championship notwithstanding, none have lived up to the Bear’s shadow. (Interestingly, Michigan’s coaches benefited greatly from having Bo alive to publicly support them, and were not eaten alive by the fanbase.) They tried Mike Price, then canned him for stripgate and (unjustly) refused to pay him on the way out.
Fourth, I don’t think Michigan will pull a Nick Saban and pay ridiculous top dollars for an already-established big-time coach. Inducing a coach to make a lateral move takes big dollars. Michigan doesn’t want to become a player in the arms race of collegiate football and hitch themselves to a $3mil/year head coaching payment. (If they did, Lloyd Carr would have been gone already.)
Fifth, as a corollary to #3, Michigan should accept that the Schembechler era might be over. If that is the case, the whole house should be open for cleaning – the career assistants, the strength and conditioning program, the secretaries, everything. If Michigan wants to be Michigan (i.e. guardians of the winningest record in college football), it has to accept that the new guy deserves total control. Anything less cripples the coach’s ability to implement his program.
With that in mind, here’s a discussion of possible coaching candidates and the headhunting philosophies behind them. (Note: this is only a discussion, not a narrowed-down list.) Michigan’s true options lie in one of three areas:
1. Find “Michigan’s Jim Tressel,” a homegrown guy who knows the state and is coaching in the GLIAC or somewhere else in the state. Problem: Tressel can get his entire Buckeye team from Ohio with enough left over for Michigan and the smaller Ohio schools. The state of Michigan ain’t got that much talent and U of M needs someone who knows how to go outside the borders.
2. Find a qualified head-coach-in-waiting in the assistant ranks of Division I-A football. Tons of college coaches got to the top this way; I won’t even bother naming an example.
3. Hire a head coach from a mid-major program who is big-time material but otherwise unconnected to the school. This is how Bo Schembechler (coaching at his alma mater Miami University) got to Michigan.
Unfortunately, the guy for plan #1, Brian Kelly, was just hired by Cincinnati last winter. He spent 13 years at Division II Grand Valley State with back-to-back national titles, followed by three years at Central Michigan (succeeded current Michigan OC Mike DeBord) where he won a MAC title. Hard to believe he’d jump ship after one year, but if he has a good season in Cincy the job might be too big for him to turn down. Grand Valley just won another title, but it’s hard to tell how much that coach can stand on his own.
On Plans 2 and 3, widely (or narrowly) rumored candidates for Michigan include:
Rich Rodriguez (head coach, West Virginia) – Last year Rodriguez parlayed a highly public courting by Alabama into a raise to stay at WVU. He’s a good coach for sure, but it’s hard to predict how his run-first spread attack would blend with a roster recruited to run a pro offense. Michigan could afford him but doesn’t want to – but hell, IM just hired West Virginia’s basketball coach.
Cam Cameron (head coach, Miami Dolphins) – Cam worked at Michigan for a decade (see points 2 and 3). Buying him out of the pros would probably cost more than UM is ready to pay. A good thing, because has was a failure as head coach at Indiana and is an unknown college commodity by this point. Doubtful.
Les Miles (head coach, LSU) – Miles is a trendy name to float, a former Michigan player and coach now the head of a southern football empire. The first issue is money (see point 4 above) and he’s getting mention because of his UM affiliation (points 3 and 5). I can’t put my finger on it, but something seems off about him, like he’s not in 100% control of things. He certainly doesn’t have the presence of Bo. And who knows if he’d even leave the only serious football school in the state to go to a weaker talent pool to fight with Michigan State over? Big problem: a bad habit of blowing big leads, both at Oklahoma State and LSU. Incredible talent might mask coaching deficiencies. Bang for the buck appears low. I’d be disappointed.
Jeff Tedford (head coach, Cal) – With his core of offensive talent graduating this season, 2008 would be the perfect year to start again. Plus he’s wardrobe tested in blue and gold with a history of supercharged offenses. Minuses: Tedford’s program hasn’t quite gotten the boot on the neck of the Pac-10 Conference. He’s never been off the west coast. He’s almost to the point of being a legend in Berkeley, the first consistently successful coach there in 50 years. And it’s his show. Don’t think he’d come.
Greg Schiano (head coach, Rutgers) – Schiano got a look at going back to Miami as head man but stayed at his alma mater. He’s quietly built a made-to-last program in Piscataway and plays an old-school style that would make the Ann Arbor transition easier. He has strong connections to vital New Jersey and Florida recruiting pipelines – essential now that Tressel’s got Ohio locked down*. Let’s be serious, anyone who can make Rutgers a regular threat should get a look. Schiano is a choice I could get enthused about.
(*Although let’s be serious, Michigan can recruit itself – the Wolverines need to be thinking about a guy who can coach, not some stuffed-shirt Rick Neuheisel wannabe who likes to play golf and sweet-talk 17-year olds.)
Bill Cowher (semi-retired former Steelers coach) – Hardass reputation, pro experience. The only thing he knows about college is that his daughter goes to one. I’m not excited by a former pro coach whose college coaching potential is totally unknown, and UM might get an arrogant ass like Charlie Weis. No way does the Wolverine brass want some kind of egomaniac running things.
Jim Harbaugh (head coach, Stanford) – Aside from being unproven at the highest level, Jimmay dissed Michigan academics, suggesting bogus diplomas and steering of kids into easy majors. I don’t want to reprise that debate, but despite doing his best Bo impersonation on a daily basis definitely Harbaugh has said enough inflammatory stuff to get him shut out of Schembechler Hall for a while.
Jon Tenuta (Georgia Tech defensive coordinator) might fit Plan 3. He’s a great defensive mind who’s been at it long enough to know how the game works and how to work recruiting. He’s currently Associate Head Coach so he knows the administrative details of being the head coach. He coached at Ohio State for 5 years so he knows the importance of beating Ohio.
(I haven’t listed any other assistants because they’ll all fit the same basic description of experience, skills, etc.)
Wild, unsubstantiated predictions: After feelers for all the usual suspects, I think Kelly and Schiano along with a relatively unheralded assistant a la Tenuta get a good hard look.
My prediction is that prior to November (possibly in the wake of their next loss), Lloyd Carr will reveal he is retiring at the end of the season. This will allow the university to begin a coaching search in earnest, get a jump on other schools and possibly save some money by snapping somebody up before a bidding war can ensue. It might also give the team some personal motivation to finish the season on a high note for the first time in five years.
The scuttlebutt is that Carr was planning on stepping down at the end of 2007 anyway; he’s been obviously unhappy with recent developments in college football – the expansion of recruiting hype, the money, the twelfth game, the pressure – and it’s clear from the Appalachian State game and his postgame press conference that he’s lost his passion for the job. An announcement of his departure will surprise no one.
Before discussing the candidates, a few points:
First, Bo Schembechler being dead REALLY sucks now, since he won’t be able to participate in the coaching search to keep an eye on the integrity and character of the candidates. Bo simply had a zero-tolerance policy for crappy character and wouldn’t let the department hire someone he didn’t trust.
Secondly, Michigan has to avoid the Nebraska Mistake. When Steve Pederson sent Frank Solich on his way, he hired an ex-pro coach (who had just been fired in his second season with Oakland) with slick X’s and O’s credentials who was going to bring the program into the 21st century. Instead the program is a madhouse of mediocrity, with no connection to its winning tradition. (And if anyone’s noticed, for all his high-powered passing game coaching, the only time Nebraska is successful is when they deploy a power running attack.) Nebraska fans are left confused, wondering whether to root for the hometown team or root against victory in the hopes it will get Bill Callahan fired. (This is not a joke. I know of at least one former NU player who feels this way.)
Third, on the other hand Michigan needs also to avoid Alabama Syndrome. When Bear Bryant died, Alabama looked at a coach named Bobby Bowden. Instead they hired Ray Perkins, helped along by his ‘Bama alum status. Since then a revolving door of former Crimson Tide players have donned the metaphorical houndstooth hat. Gene Stallings’ national championship notwithstanding, none have lived up to the Bear’s shadow. (Interestingly, Michigan’s coaches benefited greatly from having Bo alive to publicly support them, and were not eaten alive by the fanbase.) They tried Mike Price, then canned him for stripgate and (unjustly) refused to pay him on the way out.
Fourth, I don’t think Michigan will pull a Nick Saban and pay ridiculous top dollars for an already-established big-time coach. Inducing a coach to make a lateral move takes big dollars. Michigan doesn’t want to become a player in the arms race of collegiate football and hitch themselves to a $3mil/year head coaching payment. (If they did, Lloyd Carr would have been gone already.)
Fifth, as a corollary to #3, Michigan should accept that the Schembechler era might be over. If that is the case, the whole house should be open for cleaning – the career assistants, the strength and conditioning program, the secretaries, everything. If Michigan wants to be Michigan (i.e. guardians of the winningest record in college football), it has to accept that the new guy deserves total control. Anything less cripples the coach’s ability to implement his program.
With that in mind, here’s a discussion of possible coaching candidates and the headhunting philosophies behind them. (Note: this is only a discussion, not a narrowed-down list.) Michigan’s true options lie in one of three areas:
1. Find “Michigan’s Jim Tressel,” a homegrown guy who knows the state and is coaching in the GLIAC or somewhere else in the state. Problem: Tressel can get his entire Buckeye team from Ohio with enough left over for Michigan and the smaller Ohio schools. The state of Michigan ain’t got that much talent and U of M needs someone who knows how to go outside the borders.
2. Find a qualified head-coach-in-waiting in the assistant ranks of Division I-A football. Tons of college coaches got to the top this way; I won’t even bother naming an example.
3. Hire a head coach from a mid-major program who is big-time material but otherwise unconnected to the school. This is how Bo Schembechler (coaching at his alma mater Miami University) got to Michigan.
Unfortunately, the guy for plan #1, Brian Kelly, was just hired by Cincinnati last winter. He spent 13 years at Division II Grand Valley State with back-to-back national titles, followed by three years at Central Michigan (succeeded current Michigan OC Mike DeBord) where he won a MAC title. Hard to believe he’d jump ship after one year, but if he has a good season in Cincy the job might be too big for him to turn down. Grand Valley just won another title, but it’s hard to tell how much that coach can stand on his own.
On Plans 2 and 3, widely (or narrowly) rumored candidates for Michigan include:
Rich Rodriguez (head coach, West Virginia) – Last year Rodriguez parlayed a highly public courting by Alabama into a raise to stay at WVU. He’s a good coach for sure, but it’s hard to predict how his run-first spread attack would blend with a roster recruited to run a pro offense. Michigan could afford him but doesn’t want to – but hell, IM just hired West Virginia’s basketball coach.
Cam Cameron (head coach, Miami Dolphins) – Cam worked at Michigan for a decade (see points 2 and 3). Buying him out of the pros would probably cost more than UM is ready to pay. A good thing, because has was a failure as head coach at Indiana and is an unknown college commodity by this point. Doubtful.
Les Miles (head coach, LSU) – Miles is a trendy name to float, a former Michigan player and coach now the head of a southern football empire. The first issue is money (see point 4 above) and he’s getting mention because of his UM affiliation (points 3 and 5). I can’t put my finger on it, but something seems off about him, like he’s not in 100% control of things. He certainly doesn’t have the presence of Bo. And who knows if he’d even leave the only serious football school in the state to go to a weaker talent pool to fight with Michigan State over? Big problem: a bad habit of blowing big leads, both at Oklahoma State and LSU. Incredible talent might mask coaching deficiencies. Bang for the buck appears low. I’d be disappointed.
Jeff Tedford (head coach, Cal) – With his core of offensive talent graduating this season, 2008 would be the perfect year to start again. Plus he’s wardrobe tested in blue and gold with a history of supercharged offenses. Minuses: Tedford’s program hasn’t quite gotten the boot on the neck of the Pac-10 Conference. He’s never been off the west coast. He’s almost to the point of being a legend in Berkeley, the first consistently successful coach there in 50 years. And it’s his show. Don’t think he’d come.
Greg Schiano (head coach, Rutgers) – Schiano got a look at going back to Miami as head man but stayed at his alma mater. He’s quietly built a made-to-last program in Piscataway and plays an old-school style that would make the Ann Arbor transition easier. He has strong connections to vital New Jersey and Florida recruiting pipelines – essential now that Tressel’s got Ohio locked down*. Let’s be serious, anyone who can make Rutgers a regular threat should get a look. Schiano is a choice I could get enthused about.
(*Although let’s be serious, Michigan can recruit itself – the Wolverines need to be thinking about a guy who can coach, not some stuffed-shirt Rick Neuheisel wannabe who likes to play golf and sweet-talk 17-year olds.)
Bill Cowher (semi-retired former Steelers coach) – Hardass reputation, pro experience. The only thing he knows about college is that his daughter goes to one. I’m not excited by a former pro coach whose college coaching potential is totally unknown, and UM might get an arrogant ass like Charlie Weis. No way does the Wolverine brass want some kind of egomaniac running things.
Jim Harbaugh (head coach, Stanford) – Aside from being unproven at the highest level, Jimmay dissed Michigan academics, suggesting bogus diplomas and steering of kids into easy majors. I don’t want to reprise that debate, but despite doing his best Bo impersonation on a daily basis definitely Harbaugh has said enough inflammatory stuff to get him shut out of Schembechler Hall for a while.
Jon Tenuta (Georgia Tech defensive coordinator) might fit Plan 3. He’s a great defensive mind who’s been at it long enough to know how the game works and how to work recruiting. He’s currently Associate Head Coach so he knows the administrative details of being the head coach. He coached at Ohio State for 5 years so he knows the importance of beating Ohio.
(I haven’t listed any other assistants because they’ll all fit the same basic description of experience, skills, etc.)
Wild, unsubstantiated predictions: After feelers for all the usual suspects, I think Kelly and Schiano along with a relatively unheralded assistant a la Tenuta get a good hard look.
Week In Review
(4 September 2007)
Warning: not all posts will be this dry and redundant (and redundant). As the season goes on and we find out who’s actually any good, the coverage will turn to the story behind the story.
Last week’s action…
Oregon State beat Utah 24-7 in Corvallis – The Beavs looked unimpressive in the win over the Utes, sloughing through the game despite Utah missing its quarterback for much of the contest. Oregon State was incredibly focused and effective down the stretch last season, culminating in the 39-38 no-time-left win in the Sun Bowl. The only exception was a flopover loss against UCLA at the Rose Bowl.
Receiver Sammy Stroughter’s soap opera continues as he grieves in the loss of unnamed family members. The Beavers missed his production and new quarterback Sean Canfield looked shaky. Mike Riley had better get this ship tightened up before the Pac-10 schedule begins.
Washington won 42-12 at Syracuse – First the good: Jake Locker’s debut was masterful. The homegrown quarterback ran and threw like a white Vince Young. The team made very few mistakes and didn’t let a weak ‘Cuse offense get into the game in its own house. The defensive line was dominant.
Now the bad: it was against Syracuse. Syracuse quite frankly stinks and is probably worse on Day One of the season than the recently-famed Appalachian State. The Orange (who forced that stupid name change?) couldn’t protect the passer and couldn’t stop the UW running game. The biggest problem was continuing the offensive gameplan when it was clear the passing sets were failing.
Not a red-letter victory, but without doubt a trend-upwards win the Husky fans can feel good about. Boise State just got a bit more worried about next week’s game.
Washington State @ Wisconsin – The Badgers won 42-21, but the story behind the story is how WSU’s offense went right down the field on its first two drives, showing great run-pass balance. More than once, WSU downfield runners reversed field and left the Wisconsin defenders grasping for air.
After taking a quick lead, WSU dried up offensively, lacking the explosiveness to keep the pressure on, and wilted in the face of the Badger power running game. The nail went in the coffin when the Cougars punted with under a minute to go in the first half, then got a penalty tacked onto the return. Wisconsin got a deep pass into the end zone for a two-touchdown lead and the rest was just for show.
Cougar quarterback Alex Brink, the most experienced passer in the Pac-10, really showed his skills. He has a quick release when the routes are open, and used his mobility to buy time and make completions. Wisconsin appeared as advertised, with a big offensive line that will wear down opponents and a functional, efficient passing attack.
To keep track of the Apple Cup matchup, Washington State showed it has a greater diversity of weapons than Washington. WSU’s defense couldn’t hold up against a prototypical Big Ten offense with a huge offensive line, but Washington’s defense benefited from an untalented Syracuse offense sticking with its failing gameplan and not adjusting to the Husky pass rush.
Wisconsin is a much tougher opponent than Syracuse, so I would call it a draw so far.
A note on these games: In the process of claiming Michigan’s loss to Appalachian State “showed the Big Ten was the weakest BCS conference,” Neil Berman of Your Sports NightCap buttressed his argument by suggesting that Wisconsin struggled with a weak WSU team. He further suggested that UW’s win over Syracuse somehow showed more positives for UW than hanging in at a very tough Wisconsin venue showed about WSU. My analyses above speak for themselves, but as a reminder, it’s really too early to draw many conclusions other than that WSU can throw and UW’s quarterback can run.
UCLA won at Stanford, 45-17 – in the debut of Cardinal coach Jim Harbaugh, the home team went to 0-7 in its new stadium. We didn’t learn much about Stanford that we didn’t already know – the wide receivers can be dangerous, the defensive line is thin, and the defensive backs lack top-flight talent. That being said, Stanford’s only shot to win this one was to take advantage of UCLA mistakes. Except for two missed field goals, the Bruins didn’t make any.
I thought UCLA looked slightly overrated. Their defense sure didn’t play like a top-ten unit and QB Ben Olson is no Alex Brink.
Cal beat Tennesse 45-31 in Berkeley – Head-case quarterback Erik Ainge got along pretty well with a busted pinky on his throwing hand, but ultimately the offense didn’t have the strength, speed or guts to get on top of Cal.
The mythologic “SEC speed” on defense got totally outclassed. The Golden Bears ran over, through and around Tennessee and scored their first three touchdowns on offense, defense and special teams. Philip Fulmer stupidly punted to DeSean Jackson, the most dangerous player in the west, who broke four tackles en route to a spectacular touchdown.
Except for a period where Tennessee scored 10 points and pulled within a touchdown, Cal dominated the game. They were not afraid to hit the Vols in the mouth and make huge revenge statement after last year’s flop in Knoxville.
Oregon beat Houston, 48-27 in Eugene – this was a game (34-27) until the end of the third quarter. The teams combined for 52 first downs and almost 700 rushing yards. I didn’t see the game so I’m not going to speculate on possible defensive weaknesses, but the huge yardage put up by the Cougars should give any Duck fan pause.
Oregon is in very dangerous territory – happy from a win, the Ducks take their balanced offense to Michigan this weekend, in what could be the most hostile case of rebound victory in history.
BYU 20, Arizona 7 – The Sonny Dykes super-charged offense fell flat in Tucson as the Cougars ran up a 20-0 lead. Willie Tuitama went 26-for-36, but Arizona had to punt eight times and had seven penalties to go with 32 net rushing yards. Now that the heat is officially on Mike Stoops, the Wildcat offense, horrible for years, has the entire staff’s jobs around its neck. Is it basketball season yet?
Arizona State 45, San Jose State 3 – Spartans coach Dick Tomey, the man Arizona should never have let go, couldn’t work much offensive magic without his top two tailbacks. Dennis Erickson’s debut with the Sun Devils saw 520 yards in total offense to the Spartans’ 115.
The schedule doesn’t make it easy for San Jose State – their four-game road trip goes next to Kansas State (who hung tough at Auburn last Saturday), an improving Stanford squad and Utah State. Back-to-back road games at Fresno State and Boise State might all but kill the Spartans’ chances of repeating their 9-4 2006 record. This might be a case of a better team with a poorer record.
USC 38, Idaho 10 – Is there anything to say but we saw this one coming? USC beats season-opening opponent; not news. One thing USC has to work on is finding a tailback they can depend on. The by-committee approach got the job done last season, but they need a LenDale White guy to put in to get the tough yards.
John David Booty has done a fine enough job at quarterback, but with a second trip through the Pac-10 schedule and the loss of USC’s best receivers, I expect we might see something of a slump from him.
…and other games of interest:
TCU (plays Stanford on Oct 13) beat Baylor, 27-0 – Baylor ain’t good, but they’re not the doormat they used to be. I’m impressed with the focus of this win with Texas coming up next week. Star DE Tommy Blake (no relation to UCLA DE Tom Blake) did not play due to an unspecified injury. Horned Frogs go to Texas next weekend. The Longhorns underwhelmed and got outgained in their win over Arkansas State. Texas’ starting receiver opposite Limas Sweed is serving a three-game suspension, although he was supposedly injured anyway. Either way, Texas had better get it together or they’ll be the next poster child for early-season victories that propel mid-major teams to BCS dark horses (see: Oregon State-Boise State, Utah-Texas A&M).
Notre Dame (plays USC and Stanford) got pounded by Georgia Tech, 33-3 – The Ramblin’ Wreck didn’t care who was in at quarterback, although Notre Dame tried all three options. The running-quarterback offense, which had not been successful since the late-90’s Jarious Jackson era, was a failure against the Jackets’ swarming D (two fumbles set up GT scores) run by one of the best defensive minds in the game. In the tradition of Ron Powlus and Brady Quinn, Weis has named freshman Jimmy Clausen the starter to get him a jump on the tradition of four years of under-center overration. (This could be a huge mistake come September 15, given Michigan's total inability to stop running quarterbacks.)
This was the kind of game that got Tyrone Willingham on the hot seat and eventually fired. Yet, Charlie Weis held another passive-aggressive press conference flagellating himself for having the team unprepared, and all was forgiven. The media spent all of August saying Notre Dame would lose 6 games – Weis is Teflon this season.
Tashard Choice’s 196 yards on the ground punctuated the dominance, in Notre Dame’s house no less. (Michigan might want to think about handing the ball off on every play in two weeks.) Recently, only Michigan in 2006 and Purdue in 2004 have hung home defeats on Notre Dame with this much ferocity.
Cool stat of the week: Colorado quarterback Cody Hawkins hasn’t lost a game in his 60 career starts, covering youth ball, high school and now his first college start. He’s also head coach Dan Hawkins’ kid and put in a sterling comeback performance in one of the more underrated intrastate rivalries. (Hat tip: Sunday Morning Quarterback)
The Fulsome Files
Disgusting Excess in Sports Journalism
ESPN’sMike TiricoSean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Colin Cowherd crowded the booth for the Washington-Syracuse game. If it’s possible, the normally egomaniacal Cowherd was the most listenable of the bunch. McDonough staged a love-fest for embattled ‘Cuse coach Greg Robinson. We learned about his NFL success, what a “good guy” he was and that all his colleagues were sure he’d turn things around.
While a sweet presentation, it completely ignored the results on the field – an inconsistent but dangerous program under Paul Pasqualoni has become one of the worst teams in Division I-A football under Robinson. Talent and a tough Big East is certainly part of it, but in the place of Pasqualoni’s multiple and adaptable offensive philosophy, Robinson installed a “West Coast” system they don't have the personnel to operate. I know a slick passing game is seen as some kind of zenith of football sophistication, but for heaven's sake, run something you can run.
Leave the memory of the dead with some dignity. Virginia Tech re-centering around a football game after a mentally disturbed student killed 32 people was a feel-good story. (The lackluster performance put in by the Hokie offense was a bit more hair-raising.) But the hours and hours of ESPN runup, retrospective packages, SportsCenter references and on and on got to be a bit much. It’d be a damn shame if a campus tragedy turned into a marketing device for a football team, but that’s close to how ESPN has been using it.
The old names were just fine. The media has rolled over in using the terms “Football Bowl Subdivision” and “Football Championship Subdivision” that replaced “I-A” and “I-AA” in NCAA parlance. They sound ridiculous, FCS and FBS being bandied about. I have to mentally expand the acronyms to remember which is which.
I don’t understand why the change was necessary, except possibly to avoid mixing I-AA football up with its D-II sister (I have noticed a lot of confusion among fans between Div I-AA and Div II). But it would have been just as well to call the two sides I-A and I-B.
I suspect also the NCAA may be upset about its lack of oversight of I-A’s bowl and BCS postseason, and executed the Orwellian language to subtly suggest a perceived illegitimacy of the I-A national championship. (Fear not, the merits of the I-A title system will be meticulously discussed on P10BH throughout the season. A warning, though – if you’re hoping for an exhaustive set of pro-playoff arguments, you should prepare to look elsewhere.)
Floppycock of the Week candidates
A floppycock is a very special designation – one who is unreliable, flakes out, doesn’t follow through or otherwise abdicates responsibility in a way that shames his own respect. It is distinct from terms like a**hole, coward, damn fool, sad sack, and screwup. It is reserved for those whose true occupational impotence is put on stark display.
Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, for putting a woefully unprepared Wolverine team on the field in the most embarrassing event in Michigan football history, then appearing bored in the postgame press conference. The performance continued a trend of lame Michigan performances against out-of-conference opponents large and small and magnified longstanding uncorrected issues with Michigan’s passing game, special teams and defensive strategy.
Syracuse coach Greg Robinson, for force-fitting a pro passing game onto an offensive personnel group unable to run it, and for now switching when the Husky defensive line was teeing off in the pass rush. And for letting his team wear those god-awful orange-on-orange uniforms. (I know the team nickname is the Orange, but seriously…)
And the winner is…Greg Robinson, whom not even an ESPN love-in could save on Friday. He’s the wrong guy for the job and should be gone by December if the ‘Cuse AD has the guts to sack the guy he hired barely three years ago.
Warning: not all posts will be this dry and redundant (and redundant). As the season goes on and we find out who’s actually any good, the coverage will turn to the story behind the story.
Last week’s action…
Oregon State beat Utah 24-7 in Corvallis – The Beavs looked unimpressive in the win over the Utes, sloughing through the game despite Utah missing its quarterback for much of the contest. Oregon State was incredibly focused and effective down the stretch last season, culminating in the 39-38 no-time-left win in the Sun Bowl. The only exception was a flopover loss against UCLA at the Rose Bowl.
Receiver Sammy Stroughter’s soap opera continues as he grieves in the loss of unnamed family members. The Beavers missed his production and new quarterback Sean Canfield looked shaky. Mike Riley had better get this ship tightened up before the Pac-10 schedule begins.
Washington won 42-12 at Syracuse – First the good: Jake Locker’s debut was masterful. The homegrown quarterback ran and threw like a white Vince Young. The team made very few mistakes and didn’t let a weak ‘Cuse offense get into the game in its own house. The defensive line was dominant.
Now the bad: it was against Syracuse. Syracuse quite frankly stinks and is probably worse on Day One of the season than the recently-famed Appalachian State. The Orange (who forced that stupid name change?) couldn’t protect the passer and couldn’t stop the UW running game. The biggest problem was continuing the offensive gameplan when it was clear the passing sets were failing.
Not a red-letter victory, but without doubt a trend-upwards win the Husky fans can feel good about. Boise State just got a bit more worried about next week’s game.
Washington State @ Wisconsin – The Badgers won 42-21, but the story behind the story is how WSU’s offense went right down the field on its first two drives, showing great run-pass balance. More than once, WSU downfield runners reversed field and left the Wisconsin defenders grasping for air.
After taking a quick lead, WSU dried up offensively, lacking the explosiveness to keep the pressure on, and wilted in the face of the Badger power running game. The nail went in the coffin when the Cougars punted with under a minute to go in the first half, then got a penalty tacked onto the return. Wisconsin got a deep pass into the end zone for a two-touchdown lead and the rest was just for show.
Cougar quarterback Alex Brink, the most experienced passer in the Pac-10, really showed his skills. He has a quick release when the routes are open, and used his mobility to buy time and make completions. Wisconsin appeared as advertised, with a big offensive line that will wear down opponents and a functional, efficient passing attack.
To keep track of the Apple Cup matchup, Washington State showed it has a greater diversity of weapons than Washington. WSU’s defense couldn’t hold up against a prototypical Big Ten offense with a huge offensive line, but Washington’s defense benefited from an untalented Syracuse offense sticking with its failing gameplan and not adjusting to the Husky pass rush.
Wisconsin is a much tougher opponent than Syracuse, so I would call it a draw so far.
A note on these games: In the process of claiming Michigan’s loss to Appalachian State “showed the Big Ten was the weakest BCS conference,” Neil Berman of Your Sports NightCap buttressed his argument by suggesting that Wisconsin struggled with a weak WSU team. He further suggested that UW’s win over Syracuse somehow showed more positives for UW than hanging in at a very tough Wisconsin venue showed about WSU. My analyses above speak for themselves, but as a reminder, it’s really too early to draw many conclusions other than that WSU can throw and UW’s quarterback can run.
UCLA won at Stanford, 45-17 – in the debut of Cardinal coach Jim Harbaugh, the home team went to 0-7 in its new stadium. We didn’t learn much about Stanford that we didn’t already know – the wide receivers can be dangerous, the defensive line is thin, and the defensive backs lack top-flight talent. That being said, Stanford’s only shot to win this one was to take advantage of UCLA mistakes. Except for two missed field goals, the Bruins didn’t make any.
I thought UCLA looked slightly overrated. Their defense sure didn’t play like a top-ten unit and QB Ben Olson is no Alex Brink.
Cal beat Tennesse 45-31 in Berkeley – Head-case quarterback Erik Ainge got along pretty well with a busted pinky on his throwing hand, but ultimately the offense didn’t have the strength, speed or guts to get on top of Cal.
The mythologic “SEC speed” on defense got totally outclassed. The Golden Bears ran over, through and around Tennessee and scored their first three touchdowns on offense, defense and special teams. Philip Fulmer stupidly punted to DeSean Jackson, the most dangerous player in the west, who broke four tackles en route to a spectacular touchdown.
Except for a period where Tennessee scored 10 points and pulled within a touchdown, Cal dominated the game. They were not afraid to hit the Vols in the mouth and make huge revenge statement after last year’s flop in Knoxville.
Oregon beat Houston, 48-27 in Eugene – this was a game (34-27) until the end of the third quarter. The teams combined for 52 first downs and almost 700 rushing yards. I didn’t see the game so I’m not going to speculate on possible defensive weaknesses, but the huge yardage put up by the Cougars should give any Duck fan pause.
Oregon is in very dangerous territory – happy from a win, the Ducks take their balanced offense to Michigan this weekend, in what could be the most hostile case of rebound victory in history.
BYU 20, Arizona 7 – The Sonny Dykes super-charged offense fell flat in Tucson as the Cougars ran up a 20-0 lead. Willie Tuitama went 26-for-36, but Arizona had to punt eight times and had seven penalties to go with 32 net rushing yards. Now that the heat is officially on Mike Stoops, the Wildcat offense, horrible for years, has the entire staff’s jobs around its neck. Is it basketball season yet?
Arizona State 45, San Jose State 3 – Spartans coach Dick Tomey, the man Arizona should never have let go, couldn’t work much offensive magic without his top two tailbacks. Dennis Erickson’s debut with the Sun Devils saw 520 yards in total offense to the Spartans’ 115.
The schedule doesn’t make it easy for San Jose State – their four-game road trip goes next to Kansas State (who hung tough at Auburn last Saturday), an improving Stanford squad and Utah State. Back-to-back road games at Fresno State and Boise State might all but kill the Spartans’ chances of repeating their 9-4 2006 record. This might be a case of a better team with a poorer record.
USC 38, Idaho 10 – Is there anything to say but we saw this one coming? USC beats season-opening opponent; not news. One thing USC has to work on is finding a tailback they can depend on. The by-committee approach got the job done last season, but they need a LenDale White guy to put in to get the tough yards.
John David Booty has done a fine enough job at quarterback, but with a second trip through the Pac-10 schedule and the loss of USC’s best receivers, I expect we might see something of a slump from him.
…and other games of interest:
TCU (plays Stanford on Oct 13) beat Baylor, 27-0 – Baylor ain’t good, but they’re not the doormat they used to be. I’m impressed with the focus of this win with Texas coming up next week. Star DE Tommy Blake (no relation to UCLA DE Tom Blake) did not play due to an unspecified injury. Horned Frogs go to Texas next weekend. The Longhorns underwhelmed and got outgained in their win over Arkansas State. Texas’ starting receiver opposite Limas Sweed is serving a three-game suspension, although he was supposedly injured anyway. Either way, Texas had better get it together or they’ll be the next poster child for early-season victories that propel mid-major teams to BCS dark horses (see: Oregon State-Boise State, Utah-Texas A&M).
Notre Dame (plays USC and Stanford) got pounded by Georgia Tech, 33-3 – The Ramblin’ Wreck didn’t care who was in at quarterback, although Notre Dame tried all three options. The running-quarterback offense, which had not been successful since the late-90’s Jarious Jackson era, was a failure against the Jackets’ swarming D (two fumbles set up GT scores) run by one of the best defensive minds in the game. In the tradition of Ron Powlus and Brady Quinn, Weis has named freshman Jimmy Clausen the starter to get him a jump on the tradition of four years of under-center overration. (This could be a huge mistake come September 15, given Michigan's total inability to stop running quarterbacks.)
This was the kind of game that got Tyrone Willingham on the hot seat and eventually fired. Yet, Charlie Weis held another passive-aggressive press conference flagellating himself for having the team unprepared, and all was forgiven. The media spent all of August saying Notre Dame would lose 6 games – Weis is Teflon this season.
Tashard Choice’s 196 yards on the ground punctuated the dominance, in Notre Dame’s house no less. (Michigan might want to think about handing the ball off on every play in two weeks.) Recently, only Michigan in 2006 and Purdue in 2004 have hung home defeats on Notre Dame with this much ferocity.
Cool stat of the week: Colorado quarterback Cody Hawkins hasn’t lost a game in his 60 career starts, covering youth ball, high school and now his first college start. He’s also head coach Dan Hawkins’ kid and put in a sterling comeback performance in one of the more underrated intrastate rivalries. (Hat tip: Sunday Morning Quarterback)
The Fulsome Files
Disgusting Excess in Sports Journalism
ESPN’s
While a sweet presentation, it completely ignored the results on the field – an inconsistent but dangerous program under Paul Pasqualoni has become one of the worst teams in Division I-A football under Robinson. Talent and a tough Big East is certainly part of it, but in the place of Pasqualoni’s multiple and adaptable offensive philosophy, Robinson installed a “West Coast” system they don't have the personnel to operate. I know a slick passing game is seen as some kind of zenith of football sophistication, but for heaven's sake, run something you can run.
Leave the memory of the dead with some dignity. Virginia Tech re-centering around a football game after a mentally disturbed student killed 32 people was a feel-good story. (The lackluster performance put in by the Hokie offense was a bit more hair-raising.) But the hours and hours of ESPN runup, retrospective packages, SportsCenter references and on and on got to be a bit much. It’d be a damn shame if a campus tragedy turned into a marketing device for a football team, but that’s close to how ESPN has been using it.
The old names were just fine. The media has rolled over in using the terms “Football Bowl Subdivision” and “Football Championship Subdivision” that replaced “I-A” and “I-AA” in NCAA parlance. They sound ridiculous, FCS and FBS being bandied about. I have to mentally expand the acronyms to remember which is which.
I don’t understand why the change was necessary, except possibly to avoid mixing I-AA football up with its D-II sister (I have noticed a lot of confusion among fans between Div I-AA and Div II). But it would have been just as well to call the two sides I-A and I-B.
I suspect also the NCAA may be upset about its lack of oversight of I-A’s bowl and BCS postseason, and executed the Orwellian language to subtly suggest a perceived illegitimacy of the I-A national championship. (Fear not, the merits of the I-A title system will be meticulously discussed on P10BH throughout the season. A warning, though – if you’re hoping for an exhaustive set of pro-playoff arguments, you should prepare to look elsewhere.)
Floppycock of the Week candidates
A floppycock is a very special designation – one who is unreliable, flakes out, doesn’t follow through or otherwise abdicates responsibility in a way that shames his own respect. It is distinct from terms like a**hole, coward, damn fool, sad sack, and screwup. It is reserved for those whose true occupational impotence is put on stark display.
Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, for putting a woefully unprepared Wolverine team on the field in the most embarrassing event in Michigan football history, then appearing bored in the postgame press conference. The performance continued a trend of lame Michigan performances against out-of-conference opponents large and small and magnified longstanding uncorrected issues with Michigan’s passing game, special teams and defensive strategy.
Syracuse coach Greg Robinson, for force-fitting a pro passing game onto an offensive personnel group unable to run it, and for now switching when the Husky defensive line was teeing off in the pass rush. And for letting his team wear those god-awful orange-on-orange uniforms. (I know the team nickname is the Orange, but seriously…)
And the winner is…Greg Robinson, whom not even an ESPN love-in could save on Friday. He’s the wrong guy for the job and should be gone by December if the ‘Cuse AD has the guts to sack the guy he hired barely three years ago.
Welcome
Allow myself to introduce...myself.
For the past three seasons I have been covering Stanford football for KZSU 90.1 FM, Stanford's campus radio station. I served two years as sports director at KZSU and also served as the original producer of Your Sports NightCap on KZSU. I served as game analyst in 2005, and took over the play-by-play duties in 2006. I had the pleasure of seeing in person several thrilling 2005 contests, and the ignominy of broadcasting the 1-11 2006 season.
This will not be a Stanford football blog. That role is filled by thebootleg.com (link). Instead, I will cover the Pac-10 in general, programs related to the Pac-10 (Notre Dame, Rose Bowl rival the Big Ten Conference, the WAC and the Mountain West), and issues related to college football at large.
The name Pac-10 Brewhouse is supposed to evoke both the making and drinking of the fine grain beverage. In brewing, time and care are combined with top ingredients to make a tasty, sophisticated refresher. In the pub where the drink is served, many voices blend in a broad, enriching discussion. So here's what you're in for: provocative, thought-provoking, insightful, witty, hard-hitting analysis of the world of college football. You can count on me to dissect the very burning issues of the game.
Lest I be accused of being some kind of a homer, I did not go to a big-time football university for college. I played Division III football at a small technical school north of Boston, Massachusetts.
Lastly: I did not take on the name Topher because of the influence of That 70's Show. I acquired the nickname in the 6th grade, long before Topher Grace was on national television.
Crack open a cold one and enjoy.
For the past three seasons I have been covering Stanford football for KZSU 90.1 FM, Stanford's campus radio station. I served two years as sports director at KZSU and also served as the original producer of Your Sports NightCap on KZSU. I served as game analyst in 2005, and took over the play-by-play duties in 2006. I had the pleasure of seeing in person several thrilling 2005 contests, and the ignominy of broadcasting the 1-11 2006 season.
This will not be a Stanford football blog. That role is filled by thebootleg.com (link). Instead, I will cover the Pac-10 in general, programs related to the Pac-10 (Notre Dame, Rose Bowl rival the Big Ten Conference, the WAC and the Mountain West), and issues related to college football at large.
The name Pac-10 Brewhouse is supposed to evoke both the making and drinking of the fine grain beverage. In brewing, time and care are combined with top ingredients to make a tasty, sophisticated refresher. In the pub where the drink is served, many voices blend in a broad, enriching discussion. So here's what you're in for: provocative, thought-provoking, insightful, witty, hard-hitting analysis of the world of college football. You can count on me to dissect the very burning issues of the game.
Lest I be accused of being some kind of a homer, I did not go to a big-time football university for college. I played Division III football at a small technical school north of Boston, Massachusetts.
Lastly: I did not take on the name Topher because of the influence of That 70's Show. I acquired the nickname in the 6th grade, long before Topher Grace was on national television.
Crack open a cold one and enjoy.
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