Only Mike Leach could go into a presser in the middle of an absolute poopstorm and produce a bunch of snark-filled sarcasm featuring nothing of usefulness.
His not-at-all-lawyer-ly intro:
"I have considered this over the years -- having the yes/no press conference where every question is answered with a 'yes' or a 'no,' and I certainly wouldn't rule that out. I may go to that yes/no thing, because in this era of ridiculous political correctness and stuff like that, there seems to be some dissatisfaction for style points.
"Typically, if I'm asked a question, I give an honest answer, and I can see that there's evidently some dissatisfaction with that. But I can go to the one-syllable answer. I kind of like that and it appeals to me, and I've done things a certain way for a number of years, so maybe it's time to change that and check that out."
Enjoy:
If you can't watch it/listen to it/sit through it at the moment, just be aware that this is an apt summary:
"I think next year is going to be even better because everybody's great and everybody's done a perfect job and I like the way everything is going."
Auburn president Jay Gogue has informed some members of the Board of Trustees that he is preparing to possibly dismiss coach Gene Chizik, multiple sources told 247Sports.com. ...
Gogue has contacted board members about forming a committee to help with the process of possibly removing Chizik and naming a new head coach “within days after the end of the season should the decision be made that Chizik will not be retained."
Level of surprise on a scale of 1-10: -27. That said, there are a lot of qualifiers in that lede, specifically "preparing to," "possibly" (twice) and "should the decision be made." Those were probably included in the event that Auburn somehow pulls its head out of its collective lower-extremity crevice and beats either Georgia (unlikely) or Alabama (hahahahaha) to finish 3-1 down the stretch, which might be sufficient for Chizik to not get fired.
But considering that said 3-1 finish (a) is laughably unlikely and (b) still might not qualify as "good enough" for a guy whose team will have gone 11-13 over the last two years and finished in the bottom quartile of the SEC in every major category on both sides of the ball this year, it's probably safe to assume that the assembly of a search committee isn't busy work. There will be candidates; one of them will probably become relevant in the near future.
Speaking of which ...
Louisville offensive coordinator Shawn Watson has been named as a potential candidate.
LOLWUT? I'm serious right now:
Shawn Watson??? The Shawn Watson who got let go as O-coordinator at Nebraska in 2010 after four years of his West Coast-ish offense produced a crappier passing game every year? The Shawn Watson who took over the Louisville O-coordinator job almost by default four games into last year and has overseen very modest improvement thanks largely to having by far the most talented quarterback (one who's gone from freshman to sophomore) in the craptacular Big East? The same Shawn Watson whose head coaching experience consists entirely of three years and an 11-22 record at Southern Illinois in the mid-90s (and who's now 53)?
No. There is no possible way Shawn Watson is a realistic candidate. There is nothing on that guy's resume that would warrant him getting serious consideration for a head coaching job anywhere outside the MAC/Sun Belt (or maybe at Vanderbilt). He'd be the 2009 version of Gene Chizik except if Chizik had no recent head coaching experience and had been fired as D-coordinator at Texas rather than being so good that he moved directly into a Big 12 coaching job.
Then again, considering that Auburn did hire Chizik four years ago and once tried to hire Bobby Petrino while Tommy Tuberville was still employed, trying to figure out anything that happens there is a pointless endeavor. Just read this and draw your own conclusions.
Question answered: The Big 12 and SEC announced Tuesday night that the Champions Bowl will (a) be hosted by the Sugar Bowl and (b) take the name of the Sugar Bowl, meaning the Champions Bowl will never actually exist by name but will take over the Sugar Bowl, which will (starting in 2014) be contractually tied in with the Big 12 and SEC.
Other than the name elimination, the only real surprise is in the lack of involvement of the Cotton Bowl; word on the interwebz had been that the Champions Bowl was just gonna rotate between the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl, with each one hosting a semifinal one year and the bowl the next. That obviously didn't happen, although it makes minimal difference because of this:
The Sugar Bowl also will be part of the semifinal rotation during college football's 12-year four-team playoff deal, starting after the 2014 regular season. Other bowls announced in the semifinal rotation are the Rose (Pasadena, Calif.) and Orange (Miami).
Sources said the other three bowls in the semifinal rotation are expected to be the Fiesta (Glendale, Ariz.), Chick-fil-A (Atlanta) and Cotton (Arlington, Texas). Each of the six bowls is expected to host four semifinals during the 12-year period.
So the Cotton Bowl will still be part of the rotation; it just won't have the Big 12-SEC tie-in (it doesn't have any tie-ins at all as of right now). Upshot: Jerry Jones will have to buy something else that probably won't be very exciting since all the good conferences have their winners going elsewhere.
Things are going well, obviously: The Washington State situation is pretty much out of control. Here's some entertaining analysis from Mike Leach after Wazzu got freakin' destroyed by a pretty bad Utah team the other day:
"Sometimes they only brought two. Our five couldn't whip their two. Which means, if five of our guys went in an alley and got in a fight with two of theirs, we would have gotten massacred. That's just ridiculously inexcusable. It was one of the most heartless efforts up front I've seen; and our defensive line wasn't any better."
Perhaps they'd be less heartless (or more heartful?) if they weren't so corpse-like. Anyway, that hilarity preceded Marquess Wilson walking out of practice Sunday and either getting suspended or quitting the team, depending whom you believe.
Ohhhh ... OK. Wilson's a junior who's currently 22nd nationally in receiving yards a game and is on pace for his third straight 1,000-yard season. He's pretty good. He's also probably a first-round-ish talent and, given his apparent relationship with Leach, probably won't be back (like, ever).
As for Wazzu as a whole ... I mean ... yikes. I figured Leach would be entertaining but in a not-quite-as-horrifying way.
We don't need no transfers: With Joel Stave done for the year, Wisconsin is bypassing Danny O'Brien and starting Curt Phillips this week against Indiana in a game that (for some reason) will probably decide the Whatever Division.
Wisconsin will finish the season with a new starting quarterback, as fifth-year senior Curt Phillips will get the start this weekend at Indiana, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, citing a source.
It will be Phillips' first career start.
"He will be fine," a source told the Journal Sentinel.
Inspiring. Phillips was actually the presumptive starter a couple years ago before tearing his ACL a second time (and then a third time), which has resulted in him taking no snaps whatsoever since his freshman year in '09. Whether he's actually any good is unknown to anybody outside the Wisconsin coaching staff; I'm somewhat skeptical since he was the third-stringer going into the season behind a guy who had just shown up from Maryland and a lightly recruited redshirt freshman. As for the guy who had just shown up from Maryland, I dunno why O'Brien has gotten buried. He started the first three games and did OK -- 44 for 71 for 6.3 yards an attempt with three touchdowns and a pick -- before getting benched late in the Utah State game with Wisconsin generally unable to score points. Granted, he's pretty immobile, but so is/was Stave. The only thing I can figure is that he was taking way too much of the checkdown/underneath stuff and not taking advantage of the open deep stuff the Wisconsin run game generally creates; that could be why Stave averaged something like 9.2 yards an attempt and got Jared Abbrederis 403 yards and three touchdowns in the three games after he took over.
Regardless, Wisconsin kinda needs to win this week since, division race notwithstanding, a loss to Indiana creates a legitimate possibility of a 6-6 finish since the last two games are at home against Ohio State and on the road against Penn State. Wisconsin hasn't finished with fewer than seven regular-season wins since 2001 and has done so only twice since Barry Alvarez first got things going in 1993.
Because scoring points is fun:Stanford has apparently given up on figuring out Josh Nunes, a concession that was made a lot easier by Kevin Hogan coming in last week against Colorado (after Nunes did nothing on the first two drives) and going 18 for 23 for 248 with three touchdowns and no picks to go along with 48 rushing yards on seven carries.
Stanford coach David Shaw said redshirt freshman Kevin Hogan will make his first start for the Cardinal on Saturday against Oregon State in what is essentially a Pac-12 North semifinal.
Nunes had been pretty unimpressive this year against everybody other than Arizona and Duke (and I guess the second half against USC); those schools have pretty awesome basketball teams but pretty bad defenses. And it's worth noting that in all but the two games in which Nunes played well, Stanford scored 21 points or fewer. NEED MOAR QUARTERBACKING.
Hogan probably doesn't have the grasp of the passing game Nunes has as a senior (albeit one with no meaningful snaps before this year) but is a way better athlete, as evidenced by his Wildcat snaps earlier in the year and his aforementioned 48 yards against Colorado's tire fire of a defense. And considering that Nunes was completing barely 50 percent of his passes and had thrown as many picks as touchdowns (six of each) against BCS-conference teams, getting a guy in there who can do anything consistently probably represents an improvement, even if it's mostly a run-based one.
BTW, going back to that "Pac-12 North semifinal" thing, the Oregon State-Stanford winner will have one conference loss and thus will technically control its own destiny until getting destroyed by Oregon. Seeing as how Oregon State has a legit defense that's fifth nationally in rushing yards allowed and 17th in pass-efficiency defense (and therefore about 20 standard deviations better than Colorado's defense), Hogan's getting his feet held to the fire here. Granted, it's at home, but I'm having a hard time seeing Stanford producing enough points to win unless it's a 17-13 type of game, which is possible since Stanford's defense is just as good as Oregon State's and may very well sack Cody Vaz eight times.
Thanks a lot, Dad: Lane Kiffin's assessment of what exactly USC did wrong defensively against Oregon:
"I think if we were to single either one of those out and say it was scheme or execution, I think we'd be wrong because if you give up those kind of numbers, it has to be everything," Kiffin said."You can't give up that amount of points and that amount of yards without it being everything overall. And so it was a combination of every aspect of defense you could think of for it to get to the level that it was at."
Ouch. I don't even know what else to say.
I don't think you know what "committed" means: Robert Nkemdiche, a defensive end/running back/manchild who's the top recruit in the country according to everybody who decides such things, might or might not have decommitted from Clemson on Wednesday, presumably with the intention of committing to Ole Miss to play with his older brother:
"Nothing final yet," Nkemdiche told the AJC in a text message at 11 p.m. EST. When Nkemdiche was asked if he was still committed to Clemson, he replied, "Yes (still committed to Clemson). Just undecided."
Two hours earlier, Nkemdiche told the AJC in an interview that he was still committed to Clemson, was going to visit Ole Miss this weekend to watch his brother play, and would wait until after his senior season at Grayson High School.
So he's "committed" to Clemson but "undecided." I see. FYI, Nkemdiche's mom is the 2012 version of Cecil Newton and has made it abundantly clear (for whatever reason) that (a) she wants both her kids playing at Ole Miss and (b) the commitment to Clemson means nothing. I see no way this doesn't end with either Nkemdiche at Ole Miss or something hilarious happening (or both).
Michigan has games: Michigan filled a couple of the distant-future schedules left unfinished via the end of the Notre Dame series this week, setting up a one-off home game against BYU in 2015, a one-off home game against Hawaii in 2016 and a home-and-home with Arkansas in 2018-19.
The 2015 and '16 nonconference schedules are now done like so:
2015:
Sept. 3 at Utah
Sept. 12 Oregon State
Sept. 19 UNLV
Sept. 26 BYU
2016:
Sept. 3 Hawaii
Sept. 10 Miami (Ohio)
Sept. 17 Colorado
Sept. 24 Ball State
That 2015 schedule is pretty decent: two quality BCS-conference teams and one nationally recognizable independent. The 2016 schedule is downright terrible barring a significant turnaround at Colorado (which is possible given that 2016 is four years from now). And as noted by MGoBlog, Michigan's home conference schedule that year includes Michigan State, Northwestern, Illinois and Iowa. Who has two thumbs and wouldn't be interested in shelling out a couple grand for season tickets to that blahfest? This guy. I'm definitely appreciative of the Arkansas series, though; Michigan hasn't had a legit home-and-home with a quality (usually, anyway) SEC opponent since ... uhhh ... never. Seriously. More of that plzkthx.
O RLY: Hilarious tweet leading up to the Georgia-Auburn game this week:
Auburn OL Chad Slade on Jarvis Jones: "You can stop him, it's not that hard."
That's what they say about Auburn's offense lol zing!
It's official: According to a simulation (with a sample of 50,000 games) based on lot of numbers that seem reasonable at first glance, the Jaguars would definitely beat Alabama ... 94.2 percent of the time. IT'S SCIENCE.
Since the start of the 2011 college football season, Alabama has been the top team in our College Football Power Rankings every single week (including after a loss at home against LSU last year). Since the start of 2011 NFL season, the Jacksonville Jaguars have been ranked last in our NFL Power Rankings in all but two weeks (and they will find themselves there again tomorrow). On a neutral field, with equal time to prepare and playing under NFL rules, Jacksonville would win 94.2% of the time and by an average score of 33.1-8.7 – a blowout where Alabama does not even score double digits in the average game.
Insert "so you're saying there's a chance" gif here.
The thing we all knew was gonna happen at the end of the season actually happened two weeks early when Kentucky fired Joker Phillips on Sunday. Here's the announcement via athletic director Mitch Barnhardt (who definitely couldn't be a newspaper columnist since he actually uses paragraphs):
After much conversation, evaluation and prayer, I have determined that it is in the best interest of our athletics program to make a change in our football coaching staff at the conclusion of the season. I do so with a heavy heart for a man who has served his alma mater for almost 22 years as a player and a coach. Joker Phillips has carried the banner for the Blue and White with honor and pride. I have enjoyed working alongside him and am thankful for his friendship for the last decade. His concern for the entire program, his work and teaching of young people, his humanitarian work, and the friendship we all enjoy with him will long surpass the scoreboard. I want to thank him for all of those things on behalf of Kentucky.
The search for a new head coach will begin immediately and will be managed internally.
So that's that. Phillips will coach the final two games and then be done, most likely with a record of 12-25 since Kentucky is headed for a 2-10 finish that will include a loss to Western Kentucky, a 42-point loss to the tire-fire version of Arkansas and a 40-0 loss to Vanderbilt. Good Lord.
In three years, Phillips will have gone 6-7, 5-7 and presumably 2-10, and barring a win over Tennessee this year, his only SEC wins in the last two years will have been in 2011 against a Tennessee team that won one SEC game and an Ole Miss team that won zero.
The thing is, Phillips was a pretty decent offensive coordinator under Rich Brooks. Remember when Kentucky was, like, going to bowl games and stuff? In Phillips' four years as O-coordinator, Kentucky went 8-5, 8-5, 7-6 and 7-6 and won three bowl games while the offense was rolling out dudes like Andre Woodson, Randall Cobb, Derrick Locke, et al ... en route to finishing 31st, 24th, 106th and 93rd nationally in total offense in those years. So I dunno. It's possible that the early numbers were somewhat of a mirage; last year's offense finished 118th in yardage and 117th in scoring, and this year's is currently 120th (dead freakin' last) in yardage and 118th in scoring. A guy who's a pretty good offensive mind and has SEC-ish talent should be able to do waaay better than that.
Regardless, he's gone, which means Kentucky has an opening and a job that looks pretty crappy based on the last couple years but does have some potential. Kentucky isn't Idaho; winning bowl games and being something resembling competitive in the SEC isn't totally out of the question since Rich Brooks was still doing those things four years ago (and Hal Mumme was doing those things a few years before that until getting himself run out of Division I football for a while for various recruiting shenanigans).
The obvious guy out there who could do what Phillips couldn't (both in terms of producing points and winning games): Bobby Petrino. Kentucky's level of interest in Bobby Petrino: zero, according to Yahoo.
With Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart officially announcing the firing of third-year football coach Joker Phillips via an open letter to fans Sunday, the search is on for a replacement. And it will not include Bobby Petrino, according to sources with knowledge of Kentucky's initial list of candidates.
Oh. There's no explanation as to why. I mean, yeah, Petrino had an unbelievably stupid affair; he also produced elite teams via elite passing games at both Louisville and Arkansas, both of which went into the toilet immediately upon his departure since it's really hard to duplicate an NFL-level playcaller. And it's worth noting that (a) Louisville is in Kentucky and (b) Arkansas is in the SEC. There's no other plausible candidate out there who checks off every possible box on Kentucky's list; I don't get it (unless the assumption is that he'd have some success and then be gone, in which case I kinda get it, but that would still be preferable to being terrible).
Anyway, a little more from that Yahoo piece:
Sources tell Yahoo! Sports that the candidate list includes Louisiana Tech coach Sonny Dykes and Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter, plus several college offensive coordinators. Among those believed to be interested in the job are Florida's Brent Pease and Texas Tech's Neal Brown, both of whom have ties to UK – Pease as a former assistant and Brown as a player.
Willie Taggart, Western Kentucky: This job is Taggart's to turn down, in my opinion.
Interesting. Backing up a little, I'm not sure Koetter (who's probably gonna get interviews for NFL coaching jobs this year) is realistic. Dykes makes a ton of sense, though, since he's got the offense (10 years as an Air Raid coordinator under Hal Mumme/Mike Leach), the Kentucky connection (a grad assistant in '99) and the demonstrated success as a head coach this year with a Louisiana Tech team that's scorching the earth and might end up in a BCS game. The only real question with Dykes is whether there will be a preferable offer out there (say, Tennessee and/or Arkansas).
Taggart would be the polar opposite philosophically (he's a pro-style guy all the way) but has a comparable resume that includes several years as an assistant under Jack Harbaugh at Western Kentucky, a couple years as an assistant under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford and a pretty miraculous rebuilding job as head coach at Western Kentucky, which went winless the year before he took over and has since gone 2-10, 7-5 and 6-3, with a 9-3 finish this year likely. He also just turned 36 (wow) and presumably has a lot of current in-state recruiting connections that would be of some unquantifiable value.
I have no idea whether either of those guys is a legit favorite; I'm pretty sure both will be on the short list, though, and what matters isn't as much philosophy (although scoring points Chip Kelly-style helps a little in terms of recruiting and selling tickets and all that useful stuff) as just winning some freakin' games. It can be done. The good news is it really can't get any worse; the bad news is it really can't get any worse.
That was entertaining: Wow. I mean ... like ... wow. I don't even know what else to say. LSU was 1:34 and 72 yards from beating Alabama for the second straight year and third time in the last four years (!) but got A.J. McCarron'd. What a freakin' drive: 18-yard laser, 15-yard laser, 11-yard laser, perfectly thrown fade that would've been a touchdown if the receiver hadn't gotten tripped, touchdown. And what a freakin' playcall with LSU bringing seven:
Wow. Prior to that possession, McCarron had gone 10 for 22 for 93 yards and had zero passing yards in the second half (yeesh). That said, it wouldn't have mattered if Zach Mettenberger hadn't figured out how to play quarterback at a super-convenient time, going 24 for 35 for a season-high (by a lot) 298 yards with a touchdown and no picks against Ala-freakin'-bama. Why is that guy hanging out around 100th nationally in pass efficiency (against a bunch of teams other than Alabama) if he can do that against Alabama? Really, LSU probably should have won; they had a 435-331 advantage in total yards and had three drives end inside the Alabama 30 that produced a total of zero points. Alabama also probably should have won easily since a 14-10 lead could've been 21-10 late in the third quarter if not for a weird botched handoff at the LSU 10 that turned into an 89-yard LSU touchdown drive; I'd consider that somewhat of an aberration if LSU hadn't put up 240 yards on five full second-half drives. So I dunno. If Mettenberger had been playing like that all year, LSU would've been unbeaten coming in; he obviously hadn't, and whether that ridiculousness was a development or something that will never be duplicated is unknowable at this point. What I do know is that Alabama still could've won easily and actually did win -- at one of the hardest places in the country to win -- despite Mettenberger going ham. I'd still take Bama against anybody on a neutral field (or any field, really) and feel pretty good about it. As for LSU, Les Miles is Les Miles and therefore had to meet a quota of about five ridiculously ballsy decisions; those just didn't work out very well, especially the fake field goal (three more points would've made the drive at the end of the game slightly more manageable). He'll probably regret that when LSU is playing in the Capital One Bowl rather than maybe the national title game but will change nothing since Les Miles is Les Miles (and I can't even really criticize him since LSU is apparently the only team in the country that can regularly play with Bama).
Lol punting: Oregon + USC + Gus Johnson = awesome. Also awesome: Oregon's offense. Holy Lord. Know this: Oregon didn't have to punt until running out the clock with about three minutes left in the game. There was never a point at which USC even came close to stopping Oregon from doing anything. I mean, Oregon fumbled a snap once and missed a field goal (the combination of which allowed USC to get within three right after the half); the other eight drives before the aforementioned punt all ended in touchdowns. Oregon had 426 rushing yards (!) and 730 total yards (!!!) and averaged 8.8 yards a play. Marcus Mariota went 20 for 23 for 304 yards with four touchdowns and no picks. Kenjon Barner went for 325 yards (hahahahaha) and five touchdowns at 8.4 yards a carry. Against USC! I know! Exclamation points! Matt Barkley threw for 484 yards and five touchdowns yet really had no chance of producing enough points to win since Oregon would've just scored more. BTW, speaking of ridiculous stats, Marqise Lee went for his typical 12 catches for 157 yards and two touchdowns. Meh. What's even more ridiculous is that Robert Woods might be the best receiver in the country and is barely getting the ball because Lee is so hilariously fast that nobody can touch him. Anyway, Oregon: There are three games left (at Cal, Stanford, at Oregon State). All three are potentially losable but should be wins assuming nothing totally insane, in which case Oregon will most likely get the winner of the USC/UCLA game for the Pac-12 title and probably a spot in the national title game. Like I said last week, Oregon's gonna finish second in both polls, and with Oregon State potentially going into the Civil War 10-1 and Stanford approaching the top 10 in the BCS, the computer rankings are gonna get enough of a boost that I just don't see any possible way Oregon doesn't finish second. K-State and Notre Dame are gonna have to hope everybody in the Pac-12 implodes down the stretch.
Player of the Week: Kenjon Barner lol wwwhheeeee! In the Not Oregon Category: Tyler Bray, who went 29 for 47 for 529 yards and five touchdowns, all of which were necessary for Tennessee to beat Troy since Tennessee has opted not to play defense this season.
Great googly moogly: So Notre Dame lost to Pitt. I mean, not really, but really. Brian Kelly apparently has an unlimited number of horseshoes available to be pulled from his ass. It probably should've been over when Everett Golson threw an incompletion on fourth-and-4 when it was 20-6 Pitt with about 13 minutes left; a terrible pass-interference call gave ND a first down and resulted in a touchdown that totally changed the course of the game. It probably should've been over when Davonte Neal muffed a punt at the Notre Dame 33 with just under two minutes left; it bounced right back to him via the most fortunate bounce in the history of bounces. It definitely should've been over when Pitt recovered a weird goal-line fumble in the second overtime; a crappy snap and similarly crappy kick (that should've been negated but wasn't because of an egregious missed call) gave ND a third overtime. And so on and so forth.
It's worth noting that Pitt is 4-5 with a loss to Youngstown State this year and isn't particularly good at anything statistically. That's a team Oregon would beat by seven touchdowns; Notre Dame needed three overtimes and now has four wins of the relatively miraculous variety, with three of those against Pitt, BYU and a terrible version of Purdue (cumulative record: 11-15). The Oklahoma win was legitimately impressive but has to be taken in context, and the context is indicative of a team only slightly better than Stanford/Michigan/Pitt/BYU/Stanford. Seriously: Notre Dame hasn't scored more than 20 points against a not-totally-terrible defense this season (Bob Diaco FTW). That said, Notre Dame is obviously 2002 Ohio State, which means an inexplicable double-overtime win over Alabama in the national title game is basically guaranteed.
Ridiculous Stat of the Week: Boise State hadn't trailed by more than seven points since 2007 (!!!) until San Diego State went ahead by eight in the third quarter Saturday. That's so ridiculous. BTW, that eight-point lead -- which was the result of a missed Boise State two-point conversion, a kick return for a touchdown and a touchdown off a blocked punt -- ended up being enough since Boise State got stopped at the 1 on a two-point play in the fourth quarter that would've tied it. And with that, Boise's ridiculous run of 12-win seasons (four straight) is over. Same goes for Boise and any shot at getting into the BCS, which probably would've had to take an 11-1 Boise team as a conference champ in the top 14 but now will be free to take ... umm ... Clemson? Louisiana Tech? I don't even know. At least Boise's total lack of kicking game hasn't been very costly the last three years, amirite?
Ballsy call of the week: This is TCU (which got a 94-yard touchdown pass with about a minute left in regulation to tie it) going for two and the win in overtime:
BOOM BOYKIN'D/BOYCE'D. BTW, the first overtime featured zero points; the second overtime featured all of two plays from scrimmage, both of which were touchdowns (and one of which was a double-reverse pass). Woo. Not so woo: West Virginia has now lost three straight by an average score of 48-22 and plays at Oklahoma State and at home against Oklahoma the next two weeks. Amazingly, 5-5 looks entirely within the realm of plausibility.
More stupidity of the universe: So Collin Klein left in the third quarter the other night and might have a concussion. That's bad. Kansas State had minimal trouble with Oklahoma State but has to play TCU next, and TCU (while wildly inconsistent) can unquestionably score sufficiently to beat a hypothetical K-State team playing without the guy who provides a large majority of the offense. It probably won't matter since he "seems fine," according to Bill Snyder; it'd be pretty lame if it did, which I'm sure is what TCU and Notre Dame (and maybe Oregon) are hoping for.
Sparty no (seriously, no): Sigh. Michigan State: always a disappointment, even in defeat. Of course, it wouldn't have been a defeat if not for the six personal fouls, one of which came way behind the play on a 97-yard pick six that would've effectually ended the game by giving Sparty a 17-point lead in the fourth quarter. Instead, Michigan State punted three plays later, Nebraska scored a touchdown, etc. Alas. When Chris Speilman says "that's not Mark Dantonio football," what he means is "that is the manifestation of Mark Dantonio football." That said, the game would've at least gone to OT if Nebraska hadn't gotten a flat-out awful pass-interference call on a third-and-10 jump ball from the Sparty 20 in the final seconds. The replay showed the cornerback (a) looking back for the ball and (b) making no contact whatsoever other than some incidental arm bumping. Is he required to move out of the way? Come on, refs. I guess it's tough to get calls when you're intentionally murdering people all day. Anyway, Sparty has to win at least one of the next two games (Northwestern at home and at Minnesota) to go to the Meaningless Bowl; Nebraska is probably going to the Big Ten title game and thus the Rose Bowl barring a loss to Penn State, which would give Michigan the outright division lead.
Settle down, A&M: Kevin Sumlin is crushing fools right now. I mean, Mississippi State was probably overrated but was in the top 40 in total defense and the top 20 in scoring defense before getting absolutely trucked by A&M. Some numbers: 693 total yards (!), 361 rushing yards, 311 passing yards, 36 first downs, 7.14 yards a play. And Johnny Manziel went 30 for 36 at 8.6 yards an attempt and had 121 rushing yards and two touchdowns. How all that produced only 38 points I have no idea; it should've been much worse. Anyway, A&M leads the SEC in almost every relevant offensive category despite starting a redshirt freshman quarterback getting generally mediocre play from the running backs, and that's after having played both Florida and LSU. I don't think they really have a chance against Alabama but wouldn't be shocked by something similar to the LSU game, which was a five-point loss mostly due to Manziel turnovers and despite 400-plus total yards. And even with a loss to Bama, A&M probably still finishes 9-3 in what was supposed to be a transition year from both a coaching and conference standpoint. Kevin Sumlin FTW?
Of course: Texas went on the road and beat Texas Tech by nine as the defense allowed a total of two touchdowns and David Ash went 11 for 19 for 264 yards with three touchdowns and no picks against the top pass-efficiency defense in the country. Taking into account last week's awfulness against Kansas, it's apparent that Texas can both beat anybody and lose to anybody. The next three games are against Iowa State at home, TCU at home and at Kansas State; your guess is as good as mine. Amazingly enough, a BCS game is still possible if Texas wins all those games, which isn't likely but probably isn't any less likely than looking infinitely better against Texas Tech than against Kansas.
Awesomest Trick Play of the Week: Cincinnati has apparently reinvented the jump pass in a way that is totally and completely indefensible and awesome:
Watch it again and note that (a) the tight end kicks out a linebacker before releasing and (b) the right guard pulls so as to totally sell the linebackers on the Down G/Power O. Ridonkulous.
Fail-est Trick Play of the Week: No explanation necessary:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Uhh Virginia Tech? Virginia Tech has moved past "mediocrity" into "WTF" range. Scoring 12 points and losing by 18 to a blah Miami team that was giving up almost 34 points a game coming in? Yeesh. It's entirely possible that Va. Tech won't even make a bowl this year, which is barely even comprehensible after eight straight 10-win seasons (amazing). With five losses already record and another one extremely likely via the Florida State game this week, Va. Tech's realistic best-case scenario is 6-6, and that would require wins over both Boston College and Virginia, neither of which is good but both of which are comparable to this year's version of Virginia Tech. BTW, that Logan Thomas-for-Heisman stuff was probably a little premature.
Purdue is really bad: Kirk Herbstreit inexplicably picked Purdue to win the Big Ten the week before the Michigan game; since then, Purdue has lost five straight, with the last two losses coming by a combined 41 points in not-even-vaguely-competitive games against Minnesota (?!?) and Penn State. The Illinois game in two weeks is probably the only thing that'll keep this team from (a) going winless in conference play and (b) finishing with a historically awful conference point differential since Illinois's will be even worse. Danny Hope is so, so gone.
Illinois is downright terrible: Illinois has allowed 194 points and scored 60 in Big Ten play, with all five games thus far (including one against Indiana) being losses by 14 points or more. MGoBlog noted last year during GopherQuest that no Big Ten team has compiled a scoring ratio (points scored/total points) lower than 21 percent since the 1981 Northwestern team finished at amazingly awful 15 percent. This year's Illinois team is at 23.6 percent, which ... I mean ... yeah. BTW, Colorado is at 16.8 percent outside the one nonsensical win over Washington State, and that doesn't even take into account the loss to Fresno State that was 55-7 at the half and the loss to Sacramento State that requires no qualifiers.
Washington State wow: Wazzu lost to Utah, which was 1-4 in the Pac-12 coming in, by seven touchdowns and finished with -4 rushing yards and 255 total yards. Oddly enough for a team that lost to Colorado, it was by far Washington State's worst loss, which means either Utah is much better than expected (doubtful) or Washington State is showing no signs of improvement (probable). It's probably worth noting that Wazzu is currently averaging 29 rushing yards a game, which is both mind-bogglingly awful and the worst average in the country by a mile. Last year's team averaged 71 more yards a game and finished 111th in rushing, which provides some context for the aforementioned number. But it's the Mike Leach offense, so whatever. Speaking of which, I'm not sure why Jeff Tuel and Connor Halliday have both been so terrible in an offense that got Kliff Kingsbury an NFL roster spot, but holy hell have they been terrible. I mean, 19 points a game? No. Just no. And things probably won't get any better without Marquess Wilson, who's legitimately one of the 10 best receivers in the country but has been suspended indefinitely for a super-specific violation of team rules heading into a three-game stretch against UCLA, ASU and Washington. Upshot: Wazzu is headed for 2-10, which is definitely not what I expected from a team with some decent (and seemingly improving) skill-position talent that hired Mike Leach.
Kentucky is the worst: Kentucky has a 20.3 percent scoring ratio in SEC play and is 0-7 in the conference after losing 40-0 to Vanderbilt (!) this week. Honestly, I'm not sure whether that or the 42-point loss to Arkansas was worse; I guess it doesn't really matter since the cumulative effect was to get Joker Phillips fired (deservingly) Sunday morning. I'm eagerly anticipating the ginormous Tennessee-Kentucky showdown in which one team (probably Tennessee) will end an SEC losing streak going on a full calendar year.
Hilarious Stiff-Arm of the Week: Ummm ... what the headline-type thing says:
WOO AUBURN WINS!!! SUCK IT, NEW MEXICO STATE!!!
Post-Week 10 top 10: So ... LSU. I dunno.What I do know is that dropping from fifth to ninth in the polls after largely outplaying the best team in the country and losing by four makes no sense whatsoever. I'm still giving Florida the benefit of the doubt based on what I saw when Florida and LSU played each other (although that's tenuous considering Jeff Driskel's regression) but can't justifiably put anybody else (other than the two obviously elite teams) higher. As for the bottom, there's a pretty substantial drop-off after Oklahoma; Georgia has no right being in the top five of the polls given everything other than the Florida game, which would've been a loss if not for Fumblegeddon. Getting obliterated by South Carolina, miraculously avoiding both LSU and Alabama and barely surviving against both Tennessee and Kentucky does not a national title contender make.
1. Alabama
2. Oregon
3. Florida
4. LSU
5. Kansas State
6. Notre Dame
7. Florida State
8. Oklahoma
9. Ohio State
10. Georgia
The last Michigan game Denard Robinson didn't start was a 2009 loss to Ohio State that ended with a sophomore Terrelle Pryor saying "I'm glad I'm on this side." That was obviously a long time ago since (a) Rich Rodriguez was still a good 13 months from getting fired and (b) lol Terrelle Pryor.
Prior to Saturday, there'd been 67 meaningful non-Denard passing attempts in a span of 34 games over about three years, almost all of them by Tate Forcier and most of the rest of them being utterly horrifying. The Russell Bellomy Experience was not something I particularly enjoyed, and by "not something I particularly enjoyed" I mean "the worst thing ever."
. . . . .
Brady Hoke:
"Well, he's not gonna play today. He didn't progress as much as we hoped."
I take a drink sit back relax /
Smoke my mind makes me feel /
Better for a short time /
What I want is what I've not got /
What I need is all around me /
. . . . .
Here's a chart of my totally-not-emotion-driven assessment of Michigan's win probabilities over the course of Saturday morning (stupid 9 a.m. kickoffs):
That was ... like ... fine (eventually). It was fine because of Devin Gardner.
An explanation of the chart: Michigan's first three drives against a Minnesota defense giving up almost 6.5 yards a carry against BCS-conference teams this year acquired a total of nine yards, meaning that in the first 10 meaningful drives this year without Denard (notwithstanding the irrelevant one at the end of the Nebraska game), Michigan gained 16 total yards. Awful.
Oh. OK. Gardner started 1 for 3 with a pick and then proceeded to go ham for three quarters, finishing 12 for 18 for 234 yards (that's 13.0 yards an attempt) with two touchdowns and just the one aforementioned pick, which came on his second throw of the game. It's probably worth noting that, according to the coaches, Gardner had taken almost no snaps as quarterback this year until last Monday. So he spent the first nine weeks at receiver, spent one week at quarterback, started on minimal notice and put together one of the best passing performances at Michigan in the last five years.
Some of that was just crazy stuff that probably won't be replicable in the long term ...
... but some of it wasn't. Like this ...
... and this ...
... and this (note the corner blitz) ...
... and this (note the trajectory/placement):
That's doin' work. And for all the crap I've given Al Borges for being incapable of assembling a coherent offense built around Denard, he had guys running hilariously open all over the field despite going against a team that came into the game 10th nationally in pass-efficiency defense (although that number was undoubtedly skewed by the Big Ten's craptacular quarterbacking). It seems very possible that the downfield passing game is/will be more of a threat with a guy who's 6-foot-4 and can (a) see the open dudes and (b) get the ball to them (that has more to do with vision and trajectory than it does arm strength, BTW).
Sadly, the running game was no more coherent and did almost nothing against a defense as bad at stopping the run as it has been good at stopping the pass. Thomas Rawls got some fairly regular I-form carries and produced all of 2.7 yards a carry with them, with one well-designed pitch play getting him outside for 12 yards and the other 15 carries going for a combined 31 yards. Fitz Toussaint had about the same amount of success (which is to say none, basically) until busting a 41-yard touchdown on a fourth-and-inches play early in the fourth quarter. Just to be clear, the problem isn't the running backs; it's an O-line that clearly isn't very good despite having four returning starters, two of them seniors and one of the other two a top-15 pick who's just destroying everybody at left tackle. That's been a problem all year, a problem that's been exacerbated by basically every defense putting eight in the box and just outpeople-ing the blockers on the assumption that Denard/the receivers/Borges won't do anything to account for that; they've been right for the most part. I mean, just look at this screenshot (this is play-action):
There are eight guys both in the box and screaming downhill as Gardner approaches the mesh point. And this is the very next play:
Again there are seven/eight guys in the box, although said guys are being slightly more conservative than on the previous play. But when seven/eight guys are all planting themselves in the box for a full two seconds assuming that everything that even vaguely looks like a run is definitely a run, there should be stuff open downfield, hence the 234 passing yards at 13 yards an attempt. The inverse of that: A hypothetical Michigan offense that can consistently hit three 40-plus-yard pass plays a game will probably produce a better running game since there won't be a safety in the box on every play like there has been this year. Anyway, Michigan for once took advantage of what the other guys were doing to shut down the running game; consider my confidence in Borges upgraded incrementally.
And, for reasons that should be blindingly obvious, consider my confidence in 2013 being something other than unwatchable upgraded massively. Gardner will almost unquestionably be the starting quarterback going into spring ball; given what's been shown by Gardner in game situations and what's been shown by Bellomy in game situations, whatever upgrade Gardner provides at wideout is inconsequential compared with the upgrade he provides at quarterback. There's an obvious discrepancy in terms of both talent (specifically arm strength and athleticism) and the ability to read defenses, and those aren't things that are gonna be overcome in an offseason. It'll be either Gardner or uber recruit Shane Morris in the event that Morris is Chad Henne, in which case OK. My money's on Gardner.
As for the receivers, they did pretty OK with Gardner throwing it to them instead of running around with them. I mean, the Gallon touchdown catch was legit, as was this one by Roy Roundtree:
Wow. More of that plzkthx.
So the offense done good. The defense done ... uhh .. good-ish? My expectations are obviously pretty out of control when the other team's quarterback goes 13 for 29 for 4.9 yards an attempt, the other team's running game goes for about 3.4 yards a carry and the other team as a whole goes 4 for 16 on relevant third- and fourth-down attempts and I call it a "good-ish" defensive performance. Still, Minnesota's offense hadn't scored more than 13 points against a real team (does Purdue count as a real team?) all year but moved the ball with some regularity in the second and third quarters, and Michigan needed two goal-line stands and the world's worst fake field goal on a fourth-and-13 play ...
... to keep it from becoming far more uncomfortable than it should've been. In that regard, I give Minnesota some credit; the offense ran a lot of veer/misdirection stuff, got the edge a few times, tested the corners deep a few times and generally seemed about 1,000 times better and more competent than last year's offense. Given that next week's game is against Illinois, it's pretty likely that Minnesota is going bowling this year. Upshot: Minnesota isn't terrible.
And what was most relevant was that Minnesota's five first-half possessions prior to Michigan getting its head out of its ass on offense yielded a total of 78 yards and seven points despite three of those drives starting at or near midfield. It could've easily been 10-0 or 14-0 early and a totally different game; it wasn't. Really, the defense largely gave up nothing other than a few irritatingly long drives sandwiched around halftime, and those drives didn't produce much because Minnesota could no longer get the edge once everybody got crammed into the red zone (that's why Notre Dame never allows touchdowns). So it was a a good-ish performance, which makes sense based on the 13 points and 275 yards allowed (Minnesota's second-lowest output of the year).
BTW, Michigan is now seventh nationally in total defense (!) at 288 yards a game and 13th nationally in scoring defense at 16.8 points a game. Greg Mattison FTW, even if those numbers are Big Ten-aided and probably won't look so awesome after the Ohio State game (I'm legitimately terrified of Braxton Miller running the veer all day).
Unfortunately, the Ohio State game probably won't mean much (other than meaning everything just because it's the Ohio State game) since Michigan State rabble rabble can't even win right rabble. ARGH. Stupid fate; if Denard's ulnar nerve weren't made of paper mache and/or Michigan had one freakin' receiver capable of being tall and stuff, Gardner would've been playing quarterback in the second half of the Nebraska game and maybe/possibly/potentially doing what he did against Minnesota, in which case Michigan would be two wins away from roses and good times and wooooo.
As it is, all Michigan can do is curse at the football gods, win out and accordingly take back all that cursing at the football gods in hopes that Nebraska loses to Penn State and/or Iowa (realistically, the Michigan-winning-out part is probably more likely than the Nebraska-losing part). If only one or neither of those things happen, it's Orlando and ehhhhh, which I guess means these are the good ol' days. Come on, Penn State.
So Michigan plays at Minnesota tomorrow. Michigan plays at Minnesota tomorrow but not at the Metrodome, which ... like ... I don't even know. How is that possible? It's the Metrodome. I think "Minnesota football" and I think "mmm, Metrodome staleness." No more. The thing that exists now is undoubtedly better from an atmosphere standpoint -- it can't possibly be any worse, especially since it's on campus -- but is also Generic Corporate Bank Stadium, which blah. And won't somebody THINK OF THE MEMORIES???
. . . . .
Editor's note: Almost everything that follows was written last year but has been updated for timeliness/relevance.
Chuck Klosterman wrote a piece for Grantland a while back in which he explained why watching recorded/DVRed/tape-delayed sports seems to lack that indescribable feeling you get when you watch something emotion-torquing. His primary theory is based on the following premise: The reason most of watch sports (in a very general sense) is for that feeling, that thrill you get from seeing something you've never seen before, either athletically or dramatically.
Here's the takeaway:
"If this game has already ended and I don't know anything about what happened, it was probably just a game": This sentence is so obvious that it's almost nonsensical, but I suspect it's the one point that matters most. It's the central premise behind the entire concept of "liveness," which is what this whole problem comes down to.
What I've come to accept (and this is both good and bad, but mostly bad) is that — for the rest of my life — I will never not instantaneously know about any marginally insane event. There's just no way to avoid the information. ...
If I record Thursday's Mavs-Heat game and wait until Friday morning to watch it, will I be able to avoid discovering that Miami won in overtime? Probably. I could probably avoid hearing the score or knowing that it was an especially thrilling game. But could I avoid hearing that LeBron James scored 85 points? Could I avoid hearing that Dirk had 51 at halftime? Could I keep from learning that the roof of American Airlines Center tragically collapsed? What if Miami never missed a single field goal for the entire second half? What if Mark Cuban grabbed the PA microphone seconds before tip-off and publicly announced he was gay? What if a bear broke into the stadium and started attacking players on the court, forcing Shawn Marion to tackle the bear and break its neck? Is there any chance I could avoid hearing that news before pressing "play" on the DVR remote? No. No way. There's no possible way I could avoid hearing about any of those situations. And — sure — those scenarios are preposterous and implausible. But so was the possibility of an earthquake happening during a World Series game. So was the likelihood of an NBA title game being interrupted by the LAPD slowly chasing a Hall of Fame tailback down the freeway to arrest him for double homicide. So was Monica Seles getting stabbed in Germany, Reggie Miller scoring eight points in less than nine seconds, and the conclusion of the 1982 Cal-Stanford game.
It's difficult to project fictional scenarios that are more oblique and unexpected than the craziest moments from reality. We all understand this. And that understanding is at the core of the human attraction to liveness. We don't crave live sporting events because we need immediacy; we crave them because they represent those (increasingly rare) circumstances in which the entire spectrum of possibility is in play. They're the last scraps of mass society that are totally unfixed.
That last bolded portion says it all.
. . . . .
Almost exactly nine years ago, I was still a wee laddie fresh out of Grand Valley State working a crappy day job and covering high school sports as a stringer. It was a thoroughly unexciting existence with few memorable moments.
It was a Friday night in October, and since it was a Friday night in October, I was covering a high school football game (I think it was at Desert Vista in Ahwatukee but can't remember for sure). Michigan was supposed to play at Minnesota the following day, but because the playoff-bound Twins got first dibs on the Metrodome and were scheduled to start the ALDS at home that Saturday, they booted the Michigan-Minnesota game to Friday night despite the direct conflict with my schedule that I definitely was not consulted about. I was something other than totally thrilled.
So ... a plan. I needed one. It went like this: Tape the game (lol VCRs), avoid all references/scores/updates (this was easier before Twitter and the world of the omnipresent internet), hurry home after watching mediocre football/better-than-mediocre high school girls for three hours and immerse myself in the world of delayed Michigan football.
I mostly succeeded, and by "mostly" I of course mean "not at all." I started the tape around 11, fast-forwarded through the commercials, etc. And then the fourth quarter came along ceased to exist. Minnesota scored on the last play of the third to go up 28-7 on the best Michigan team since 1997 as I sat there yelling profanities and/or shaking my head and/or whatever else seemed like a good idea at the time ... and that was the end of the tape. Apparently I'd left the VCR on "slow" (or whatever it was only gave you two hours of recording time). This was half "SO MUCH ANGARRR" and half "whatever we were getting killed anyway stupid world." This was also the point at which I gave up on the original plan and, with no real alternatives, headed to the interwebs to get a final score and assess the horrific-ness of the damage.
At least I didn't miss much:
Thanks a lot, VCR. You totally deserved to get technologically usurped.
