Here's your weekly helping of me telling you that I wrote something somewhere that is not here:
I wrote a little bit about Saturday's game over at Maize n Brew. We're three games into the season and none of what we've seen so far has been particularly illuminating with respect to the actual quality of this squad. Either way, it's still fun. Remember, there are worse things than watching Michigan blow out a completely overmatched, nominally FBS-level team: it could be July, with nothing but baseball going on in the world of sports. Yeah, just be thankful for what you've got...only nine more of these things left (plus the bowl game and maybe the B1G title game). Cherish them, because before you know it it will be January and you will be wondering where the past four months went.
Since Fouad is not posting a preview today, Who Are You and Why Should We Care is back on Friday.
Have we ever seen them before?
Three games into the 2010 season, the Minutemen came to the Big House to take on the Wolverine's in Rich Rodriguez's last season. Just three seasons after THE HORROR, Michigan decided to schedule another Division 1-AA* opponent; this time against a Greg Robinson lead defense. Michigan scored 42 points, and needed almost all of them to defeat UMass, 42 - 37. Denard was forced to play the entire game. He ran for 104 yards and threw for 241, scoring 3 touchdowns. Two of those touchdowns were throws to Darryl Stonum, who accounted for 121 yards receiving. Michael Shaw** had a tremendous game with 126 yards and 3 touchdowns on 12 carries. Michigan's defense could not get the Minutemen off the field. The defense allowed 439 yards. Quarterback, KyleHavens had 222 yards and 3 touchdowns, and the running back duo of Jonathan Hernandez and John Griffin combined for 210 yards and 2 touchdowns. Michigan had to withstand an onside kick attempt in the final minutes to hold off the Minutemen.
*I will never call it FCS
**I have no idea what those two UMass players are doing in the Shaw picture.
What do they look like?
The Minutemen are represented by the colors Maroon and White. While members of Division 1-AA, they wore maroon jerseys with huge black underarms and red or white pants at home. They wore white jerseys with maroon underarms, which took up way to much space on the back of the jersey. UMass had white helmets for both the home and road look. This year, UMass entered the MAC, and changed their uniforms. They simplified the look with plain red jerseys and white, red, or black pants at home and white jerseys on the road. There is also an all black option, which was broken out against Indiana. The white helmet was retired, and the Minutemen now wear a black helmet at all times. In my opinion, the uniform looks much better, but the helmet was a step backwards. Their undershirt sleeve is pretty awesome though.
Where does the name Minutemen come from?
Originally, the Massachusetts State College football team was nicknamed the Aggies or the Statesmen. Those two names were both used until 1947, when the college became the University of Massachusetts and the team changed their name to the Redmen. After determining that the name may be anti-Native American, the team changed their mascot to the Minutemen in 1972. All the information you could ever want to know about the Minutemen of the American Revolution here.
Have they had good coaches?
The current head coach is Charley Molnar. Molnar had been an assistant coach from 1984 to last year. He slowly made his way up through the ranks, working at small schools like Lock Haven, Western Carolina, Illinois State, Kent State, and Eastern Illinois. He has completed the trifecta of directional Michigan schools after stints at Eastern, Western, and most recently, Central. He followed Brian Kelly from Central to Cincinnati to Notre Dame, before finally being offered the head coaching job in Massachusetts. Molnar was the Offensive Coordinator at Notre Dame the last two seasons, so there is a good excuse to show Tommy Rees throwing the ball backwards.
Molnar is currently defeated as a head coach, but that has a lot to do with only playing two games.
Have they ever won a National or Conference Championship?
UMass beat McNeese State, Lehigh, Northwestern State, and Georgia Southern in the 1998 Division 1-AA playoffs, winning their first, and only, National Championship. From 1947 to 1996, the Minutemen were in the Yankee Conference. They won 17 Yankee Conference Championships. They moved to the Atlantic Conference in 1997, and won the Conference Championship there four times before moving to the Colonial Athletic Association, where they were Champions in 2007.
Where do they play football?
From 1965 to 2011, the Minutemen played their games at Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium. The 17,000 seat stadium was named for Warren P. McGuirk, who was the Athletic Director from 1948 to 1971. When UMass made the move up to Division 1-A, the University decided it was necessary to improve their home stadium drastically in order to live up to expectations of Division 1-A play. In order for the renovations to occur, the Minutemen will play all their 2012 and 2013 home games at Gillette Stadium, two hours away. Gillette Stadium, home to the New England Patriots, holds 68,756 people, and will host at least four UMass home games through 2016.
Do they have any players in the NFL that we may have heard of?
They currently have seven NFL players, but the only one I have ever heard of is Victor Cruz.
The mascot for UMass is Sam the Minuteman. He performs at every sporting event, and placed second in the 2005 Capital One Mascot of The Year Competition. He's been in some commercials for Sports Center, which is pretty impressive for a mascot from a school without a Division 1-A football team.
The University of Massachusetts Minutemen have been terrible so far this season. They lost 37-0 to UConn and 45-6 against Indiana. Hopefully, this will be a game where the first team is taken out of the game very early, and we get to see what Russell Bellomy can do at QB. Prediction based on everything but football: Michigan 52 - UMass 3.
We are playing UMass this week...here are some words. Since I don't have time to do a proper UMass preview due to an imminent move to the hamlet of Chicago, I will have to do it lightning round style. Here it is.
The game is over. No, really, it's already over. This is of course assuming that Michigan can contain...
That was your UMass preview: an unrelated video and a "Mike Cox is awesome haha not really" joke. Anyway, my friend Mike Taub will have the Who Are You? post up tomorrow as usual (I think).
"The kids call 'em ballers." I think this may have to be the new site tagline.
Duck season. The last few days have not been good ones for Oregon football, what with two senior starters, safety John Boyett and guard Carson York, both going down with injuries, ostensibly for the rest of the season. This is where I make a lazy joke about Phil Knight and Oregon's players being interchangeable cogs in the machine that is Oregon football and so on and so forth.
I spent the offseason convincing myself of this theory of interchangeability vis-a-vis Wisconsin football, and we've seen how that's turned out (although Wisconsin's offseason losses were obviously more significant than Oregon's losses). Still, for a team that isn't quite on the same level as Alabama or LSU in the starting 22--and certainly not depth-wise--any losses at all can become a damaging blow to a team's title hopes.
Columns that will be written every year for the rest of Time. Bryan Fischer tackles the primary driving force behind the Big Ten's ineptitude since the beginning of the new millennium. The verdict? Oh, don't pretend that you don't even know. Or maybe you don't know, because you are taking a long time to think about it, because you are sloooow:
The biggest issue for the conference is overall team speed. Sure, that's subjective. But it's accurate. From the safeties to the slot receivers, one can't compare how most Big Ten teams operate between the lines to their counterparts in the Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and, even in some cases, the ACC.
I've always been sort of mystified by the fact that people will, without fail, chalk up the B1G's struggles to a lack of speed. Not only is it reductive, it doesn't really give the teams beating B1G squads their due credit. Football games are not won and lost solely because of team speed.
It's 2012. I thought we had the "yes, the SEC is certainly faster in the front 7 but everywhere else it's too close to be statistically significant" line down pat. I guess not. On the bright side, Fischer does give our very own D. Funch some well-earned respect:
Freshman of the week Devin Funchess, who became the Wolverines' first tight end to have 100+ yards receiving since 1997, is an example. He's big and physical but can still move down the field and in space with a reported 4.6 40-yard dash. Grabbing more players like him at positions like tight end is a start to being more competitive with programs from other leagues, and the Wolverines have been well on their way based on their recent recruiting classes.
Dear Michigan: recruit more players that are big and fast and talented. This recruiting advice has been completely pro bono on my part. You're welcome.
Grasping at straws. For the people staring at the Alabama-WKU box score and wondering how the Hilltoppers were somehow able to contain the Crimson Tide ground game much more effectively than Michigan did, here's one thing to make you feel a little bit better:
On Monday, two days after a 35-0 victory over Western Kentucky, Lester acknowledged that the Crimson Tide wasn't as focused last week as it should have been.
Why?
“I would say it was because Western Kentucky is a smaller team," Lester said. "I think a lot of guys didn’t look at them as seriously as they did games like Michigan or Arkansas. A lot of guys weren’t motivated like in a big game. We were coming off a big game and have a big game coming up, so a lot of guys weren’t motivated.”
Obviously, "not being focused" for Alabama still yields a shutout and a comfortable 35-point victory. So, good news everyone: if Alabama doesn't try, you have a very real shot at scoring zero points.
Yes, more "Big Ten is terrible" stuff. Spencer Hall uses the letter J in this week's Alphabetical to cover the Big Ten's week 2 struggles and to insert this note:
It's one week in a very long season, but don't think Jim Delany is not at this instant crafting the most carefully worded full-page ad in the Birmingham News congratulating Alabama on their continued football success while also slyly mentioning the state's dismal high school dropout rates.
Not that the above isn't probably true, but, to add to the sentiment about "team speed" above: sometimes I get the feeling that college football commentary is just one big elaborate Mad Lib.
#WEHOPEYOUDANCE. Speaking of Spencer...join the #WEHOPEYOUDANCE revolution to get Bill Dance, TV angler and iconic TENNESSEE MAN, onto this week's College Gameday set as a celebrity picker. Due to the frightening power of social media, this will goal will be accomplished in absurdly short order (if it hasn't been done already). If you need any more reasons to do this, just know that Kenny Chesney has been chosen as the UT celebrity picker for this week's Gameday. Kenny Chesney.
If this works, this will be just another one of those moments where you have the marvel at the frivolous yet awesome power of the Internet.
More? Jamie Mac says nice things about the Big Ten...no, this is not a trick at all. Even the Wall Street Journal has a take on the Big Ten being terrible, as well as some unsolicited some advice. Zach at Maize n Brew takes a look at the key offensive and defensive plays from the Air Force game.
Once again, it must be stated: after the first tier or two, the remaining terrain in the top 25 is largely unclaimed and largely untenable, which is why teams drop in and out with a Kramer-esque frequency. We know very little about most teams. That is, other than the fact that teams like Florida State can beat horrible teams by many points and that Michigan is not as good as Alabama. This is really the only downside to the first month of college football. Still, football that isn't competitive is better than no football at all.
After all, without college football, we probably wouldn't get things like this:
GO U NORTHWESTERN.Take it in...oh yeah. That is the battle hymn of undefeated football and championships. My future second alma mater, The Fighting Warrior Poets of Northwestern University, executed a smashing victory against the dastardly Vanderbilt Commodores on Saturday. Much harumphing was done throughout this affair, and many comments were cast into the Evanston night regarding the authenticity of the student-athletes competing in a dignified and respectful battle of sport in a stadium filled with tens of people. The battle was won before the game had even started, joked every Northwestern fan to every single Vanderbilt fan in attendance. Indeed.
In the end, a game was in fact played, and the Warrior Poets--the ones in purple and black--emerged victorious with a little bit of luck and a lot of Venric Mark, which has been the winning formula thus far this season in two victories against BCS teams (Syracuse and Vanderbilt). Northwestern's wins aren't anything to write home about, but they do merit a lower end top 25 ranking (of course, this means so much). Kyle Prater still hasn't done a whole lot and 4-star recruit/true freshman defensive end Ifeadi Odenigbo made his debut but didn't seem to do much either. If either of them get going, this team becomes even more spoilerific than it already is. The Wildcats' secondary played much better against Vandy's Jordan Rodgers than they did Syracuse's Ryan Nassib, but they will need to be even better with a pass-happy BC team coming to town next week.
DERP. There was quite a bit of derping around done on this second football Saturday, although most of it was not that surprising when you really think about history and precedent and stuff. Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Illinois all playing Pac 12 teams out west in September? Boom, auto-loss. After seeing Michigan suffer abominable losses at UCLA, Washington, and Oregon in the early 2000s, why is any of this surprising? Detroit makes cars, the Big Ten loses out west in September. THIS IS WHAT WE DO.
Speaking of out Californee way. The Pac 12 South is pretty much the complete opposite of what I envisioned it would be. UCLA and Arizona looking...good? Arizona State beating Illinois probably doesn't mean much, but they really beat them. I figured Utah to be the #2 team in this division, albeit with a vast gulf separating them and USC. However, after their loss at Utah State, it's looking like they'll be fighting to avoid having the pleasure of sitting next to the moldy unconsumable thing that is Colorado football. College football is fairly unpredictable, in case you hadn't noticed.
Something something fluids not being hot enough something something. So, Arkansas. Let's talk. I know how you feel. So does Nick Saban AHAHAH /looks at Alabama-Michigan box score /sobs internally. I will say this though: I never understood all the Arkansas love, so they are only dropping down from #16 spot in my completely meaningless top 25. There was no reason for Arkansas to lose that game even without Tyler Wilson for most of it, but the Razorbacks are still a top 25 team if Wilson plays. Still, I can't even give them the ol' "I'm putting you at 25 out of pity" designation. With Alabama coming this Saturday, things don't exactly get much easier.
THEY CAN'T HANG PAWWLLL. I started to convince myself that Florida and Georgia might go a combined 0-2 against their new SEC foes this past Saturday. Simply put: NOPE. I don't know that these games mean anything in the grand scheme of things (i.e. TAMU and Mizzou's ability to compete in the SEC), but it sure would've been nice for TAMU to shake the "can't finish" label against a Florida team that is still very much in transition from the Meyer era to Muschamp's brand of ball. Mizzou, on the other hand, had a chance to take out a team missing several key defenders (Alec Ogletree, Sanders Commings, Bacarri Rambo), and failed to cash in after hanging in there for three quarters. Things might have ended differently if not for an odd fake punt call by Gary Pinkel early in the fourth quarter, but a 21-point loss is, in the end, a 21-point loss.
In retrospect, Mizzou actually would've been a pretty good addition to the Big Ten (not that Nebraska hasn't been one), and I think the Tigers will be probably be okay, although I just looked at their schedule again and it is pretty darn tough. Except for Kentucky, there probably isn't a single slam dunk game the rest of the way. As for Georgia, this is their first 2-0 start since the 2008 season, when they were preseason #1.
I feel terrible for not posting something about this sooner, but here it is. If you haven't already seen this, Martavious Odoms has been busy working to give back to his hometown of Pahokee, FL. We know this town, a town that veritably burst into our collective consciousness, like a comet streaking across the Michigan sky, because of the football recruits that came to Ann Arbor from there. However, these are also places, places with real problems and issues that actually matter and affect lives. These issues make all of this talk about football, done here and elsewhere, completely meaningless by comparison.
We always wonder: how can we possibly show our appreciation for the athletes that give their time and their energy to the sport that we love to watch? Well, this is one way to do that very thing.
Odoms is raising money via Kickstarter for a Pahokee project that would set out to strike at many of the problems that Pahokee currently faces, utilizing urban agriculture as a positive force for the betterment of his hometown. Watch the video above and read the mission statement that follows.
Odoms was one of my favorite players as an undergrad, and easily my favorite Wolverine of all time in the "underappreciated" category. I know that times are tough, but if MGoBlog's HTTV Kickstarter can reach its goal in approximately -12 seconds, this should have been fulfilled by now. If you believe that this is all about something greater than football (a frivolous and ultimately meaningless thing, albeit a very fun one), then this is one way to prove it.
The goal is $35,000, with the fundraiser ending on the 25th of this month. The project currently sits at just over $10,000. The rewards for each donation level are well worth it, but being able to help out a former Wolverine who truly gave it his all for Michigan and is attempting to do some real and measurable good in the world is the ultimate reward. Donate.
I talked about the Air Force game over at Maize 'n Brew. Hey, it wasn't a beauty...but that's alright with me. In summary: it's going to be okay, guys. If the aforementioned ends up not being true, you can come back here and receive an emotional refund.*
This is something that may or may not become a regular Sunday thing. Who knows. In any case, I'll recap each B1G game, with specificity depending upon whether or not: a) I actually have the game on my TV lookity box and b) I have time to watch games other than the Michigan game in a given week.
Anyway, if you aren't already plugging your nose, you should probably go ahead and do that. Ready? Here we go.
Michigan 31, Air Force 25.I will talk about this at length during my recap post at Maize 'n Brew on Monday, but for now I'll just say these things.
These first two games are games that I'm not sure should be data points from much extrapolation should be done. The Alabama game was one against a team with significantly more talent than any other team on Michigan's schedule. The Air Force game pitted Michigan against an offensive attack that they won't see again. We cannot really be sure how good or bad Michigan is at this point in the season.
The youth movement is a cause for excitement, sure, but in the short term is like being served several dollops of uncut consternation. If Michigan is rolling with two freshmen at the inside linebacker positions (Ross and Bolden) in place of a sophomore and a FIFTH YEAR SENIOR in Demens, Michigan's run defense--which was already not something to write home about last season--will take several steps backwards. Unless Demens and Morgan reassert themselves (which seems unlikely given the second half), odds are Wood, Atkinson, and Riddick have a field day against this front seven in two weeks.
In the end, a win's a win. Also, Denard is just the man, period...but you knew that.
Northwestern 23, Vanderbilt 13.A week after prevailing in the so called "Prose Bowl" against Syracuse in the Carrier Dome, the mighty warrior poets of Evanston took on the Vanderbilt Commodores in a dignified football derby at the venerable Ryan Field in Evanston. After getting torched by Ryan Nassib last week, Northwestern fans were anxious to see how the secondary would look this week; Vanderbilt's first drive did not do much to assuage those fears. However, the NU defense settled down after that point. The Wildcats gave up a touchdown on Vandy's first drive, but only allowed two field goals the rest of the way, an encouraging performance for a D that gave up 41 last week and was mostly terrible all of last season.
The 'Cats once again used both Kain Colter and Trevor Siemian at quarterback, with Siemian being the more effective of the two through the air. This sort of thing is always an awkward arrangement, but it has worked thus far. Siemian was 10/16 for 91 yards, with Kolter going 7/15 for 42 yards. However, Kolter also pitched in on the ground with 41 yards and a touchdown run to seal the win with just under two minutes to go in the game.
Wildcat running back Venric Mark continues to be the "Big Ten dude that most people probably don't know about but probably should." He carried the ball 23 times for 128 yards and a touchdown in what was another tremendous effort for the lilliputian tailback. Northwestern has not had much of a running attack since the days of Tyrell Sutton, so if Mark can continue this pace into the B1G schedule, Northwestern could be a very dangerous team in a capacity greater than the humble "spoiler" role.
Michigan State 41, Central Michigan 7.After leaning heavily on Le'Veon Bell to grit through a not aesthetically pleasing win against a revamped Boise State team, the Spartans blew the doors off the hapless Chippewas, a game played in Mount Pleasant (for some reason). The Spartans held CMU to 245 total yards and a meager 3.3 YPC. Andrew Maxwell bounced back after a less than ideal performance against BSU, going 20/31 for 275 yards and 2 touchdowns. Bell was actually somewhat held in check (18 carries, 70 yards, 2 TDs), but the Spartans got a boost from its receiving corps, which looked fairly underwhelming last Friday night. Dion Sims continues to look like a formidable weapon (3 rec, 48 yards., 1 TD) and Bennie Fowler left his mark as undoubtedly the most effective MSU receiver on Saturday (8 rec., 99 yards, 1 TD). Overall, this was one of only a few B1G no doubters on what was a rough weekend for the conference.
Ohio State 31, Central Florida 16.Once again, Braxton Miller was the story of the day for the Buckeyes. Miller ran the ball a whopping 27 times for 141 yards and three touchdowns, a stat line that reminds me of Michigan's usage of Denard in September last year against EMU and SDSU. You can't argue with the results, however. Miller had an efficient day through the air, going 18/24 for 155 yards and a touchdown (plus an interception). After an interception by Etienne Sabino led to a short field and a TD for the Buckeyes, it was 31-10 about halfway through the third quarter, and the game seemed to be over. UCF had a little fight left in them, as the ensuing 14-play TD drive would show. The Knights then picked off Miller on OSU's side of the field but ended that drive by throwing a pick of their own. There would be no more scoring on the day, as OSU seemed to be content with just bleeding out the clock on the ground. Miller's pick was not a good one, but he is looking more and more like a player that will give Michigan serious problems once again at the end of the season.
On an injury note, Carlos Hyde, OSU's starting tailback, was carted off the field with a large bag of ice on his knee. Zach Boren had the most carries of anybody not named Miller or Hyde, coming in with 7 for 16 yards. True freshman Bri'onte Dunn did pitch in 5 carries for 29 yards; if Hyde misses any games, which seems likely, it looks like the freshman will be the feature back.
Iowa State 9, Iowa 6.This has been one of the more mercurial and underrated rivalry games around. After gritting out a win against Northern Illinois last week, the Hawkeyes looked to avenge last year's loss in Ames with a win at home against its in-state rival. Unfortunately, a dismal offensive performance stood in the way, as the Hawkeyes couldn't get find the end zone all day. Neither could ISU, however, which makes the loss even worse. Iowa managed only 68 yards rushing (2.8 YPC) and Vandenberg was not Henne-esque at all, going 20/42 en route to a bleak 5.6 YPA and 2 interceptions. Other than Keenan Davis and tight end CJ Fiedorowicz, Iowa doesn't appear to have many perimeter players worth mentioning. This was Iowa's first loss at home against the Cyclones since the odd 2002 loss by that Brad Banks-led Big Ten co-champion team.
Without any running game to speak of, odds are it's going to be a long season marked by hordes of Iowans screaming about OC Greg Davis going sideways and whatnot.
Minnesota 44, New Hampshire 7.I'll be completely honest: whenever I notice that Minnesota is winning, I react as if I had just watched a Youtube video featuring corgis doing corgi things. YES YOU WON THAT GAME YES YOU DID YOU DID. I don't even mean this in a bad way.
Anyway, the Gophers rolled over 1-AA (FCS, whatever) New Hampshire, which wouldn't be anything to brag about if Minnesota had not notched losses to North Dakota St. and South Dakota in recent years. Marqueis Gray continues to look like a guy who should probably be playing for Paul Johnson: he went 6/8 for 100 yards and a pair of TDs through the air. Also, with a 78-yard gallop comprising most of the total, he added 109 yards and two TDs on the ground. Minnesota is now 2-0, and while I don't know how many wins I'd mark them down for, bowl eligibility is not a laughable notion to entertain.
Penn State 16, UVA 17.I've been very high on UVA since Mike London's successful debut season in 2011, but I think that Saturday proved that maybe I'm overvaluing them just a little bit. A PSU team missing tailback Bill Belton, that also had to insert backup QB Steven Bench (the most hilarious name for a backup QB ever, by the way) for a while due to a Matt McGloin injury, gave UVA all it wanted, which probably says more about UVA than it does Penn State. PSU receiver Allen Robinson--a sophomore from Southfield, MI--was the only Nittany Lion skill position player who did much of anything on Saturday (10 rec., 89 yards, 1 TD). Otherwise, McGloin had an anemic 5.6 YPA and the Lions could not take advantage of a +4 turnover margin.
Of course, the story of the game was PSU's field goal kicking, which reminded me of the 2002 Michigan-Washington game up until PSU kicker Sam Ficken missed the last one, unlike our own Phillip Brabbs. UVA converting on two big third and longs against the PSU defense during a 12-play, 6+ minute drive in the 4th quarter, a touchdown drive that left PSU with 1:28 on the clock. Starting on his own 27, McGloin did an admirable job in getting the Lions into field goal position, although one has to wonder about his final kneel down, in which he attempted to center the ball but lost 3 or 4 yards in the process. Ficken then hooked a 42-yard field goal wide left.
The life of a field goal kicker is a thankless, tortured one. Baseball closers nod, knowingly.
Indiana 45, Massachusetts 6.See above re: Minnesota, but this is another one of those wins that you like to see as a B1G fan. With that said, that is two teams that have spanked Massachusetts thus far (UConn last week). If Michigan doesn't absolutely destroy this team in the Big House next week, it will officially be time to panic.
Another unfortunate injury note: IU quarterback Tre Roberson went down in the second quarter with an ugly injury. Watch this at your own peril. Roberson was having a great game up until that point, on the ground and through the air (264 total yards, 3 TDs), so it's a shame to see something like this. Cameron Coffman, brother of former Mizzour tight end Chase Coffman, will take over in Roberson's absence, which I imagine will be pretty lengthy.
Wisconsin 7, Oregon State 10.Last year's Big Ten champion and the B1G's Rose Bowl representative for the last two years traveled to Corvallis and lost to what is probably a not very good Oregon State team. Any hope that Danny O'Brien could replicate Russell Wilson's 2011 success in any way have been dashed very quickly. O'Brien went 20/38 for 172 yards (4.5 YPA). Somehow, Montee Ball only carried the ball 15 times for 61 yards. I didn't have the game on TV, but that seems a little bit odd. Losing all of those assistants and even those three departing offensive linemen has clearly had a far greater effect than expected. The defense did its part, giving up only 10 points and 2.6 YPC, but that probably makes the idea of this loss even less palatable for the Badgers.
To make matters worse, leading receiver Jared Abbrederis went down with an injury in the first half that saw him carted off the field. To say that the Leaders division is an absolute tirefire right now would be a serious affront to tire fires everywhere.
Purdue 17, Notre Dame 20.This is one of the games that I was flipping to during Michigan's commercial breaks, so I mostly have to rely on the box score and anecdotal accounts. On a basic level, Purdue was at least competitive, tying the game at 17 with about two minutes to go. After an Everett Golson fumble was recovered by Purdue, the Boilers squandered their first three downs with the ball, leaving them with a 4th and 10 from the ND 15. Naturally, Caleb "Joe Montana" TerBush found Antavian Edison up the middle of the field for a touchdown.
To a mini-chorus of boos, Brian Kelly inserted Tommy Rees after Golson had to leave with an injury (sustained, I'm assuming, during the aforementioned fumble). Although he was only 3/8, Rees completed enough passes to drive the Irish into field position, primarily on the back of a 21-yard strike to Robby Toma to get ND down to the Purdue 20. PK Kyle Brindza converted a 27-yarder, leaving Purdue with 7 seconds, enough time for TerBush to toss a duck of a Hail Mary well short of the endzone. It is still too early in the season to derive much meaning from a game like this, but if I had to make a conjecture, I think neither of these teams is particularly exceptional. Nebraska 30, UCLA 36. This is Nebraska's second year in the land of "old man football", but if this game at the Rose Bowl proved anything, it's that Nebraska still has some Big 12 in 'em. Well, in the first half, that is...in the second half, things started to unravel offensively, and the defense continued to be a complete and utter sieve.
A wild first half sent the two teams into the break tied at 24, with Martinez actually making some plays with his arm, continuing from where he left off last week against Southern Miss. He even managed a 92-yard TD run, which of course inspired someone on ESPN (Robert Smith?) to say "you know, he's just as fast as Denard Robinson and might be even faster." Sure.
Either way, Martinez was completely ineffective in the second half, looking mostly like that retro 1970s quarterback that we've seen from him in the past. T-Magic went 4/14 in the second half, with an interception (and one other flailing toss that would've been an interception if he had not afterwards been called down before releasing it). UCLA is an actual football team, apparently, but this is a game that the Huskers should have won, even in spite not having Rex Burkhead. Nebraska fans: welcome to the honored Big Ten tradition of losing on the West Coast in September non-conference games (and at the Rose Bowl in general).
Illinois 14, Arizona State 45.Why did I watch this game past the first quarter? There are many questions in life for which I simply don't have an answer. With Nathan Scheelhaase unavailable after an injury sustained against Western Michigan last week, it was arm punt city for the Illini in Tempe. The junior Miles Osei took over for Riley O'Toole at the end of the first quarter, but the switch made little difference. Osei went 4/7 for 47 yards and two interceptions. Riley O'Toole started the second half, but immediately got to arm puntin', tossing a horrific interception on the second play of the drive.
It's hard to tell if Scheelhaase would've made this game close, but the defense's performance against a team breaking in a new quarterback was pretty disappointing (although the INTs didn't help the D out). All in all, this game was the cherry on top of the cake made of dirt and shaving cream that was the B1G's performance yesterday.
Hello, Internet. I am Fouad Egbaria, a Michigan grad ('11) and recent graduate of the MSJ program at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. This is a blog that attempts to analyze the highs and lows of Michigan football and basketball; I'm just trying to capture the spirit of the thing. I will also write about general Big Ten news, as well as Chicago professional sports (from time to time).
Posts
