The Flogged Irish

I meant to tick off a list of everything that was bugging me about the BCS - specifically the various reasons cited for Michigan not being in the championship game - just before Christmas, but 1) it got lost in the holiday crunch, 2) to pick it up now feels like sour grapes, and 3) after the Rose Bowl, really - what would be the point?

But I do want to pick up one of those points in light of Notre Dame getting their clovers smashed by LSU in the Sugar Bowl Wednesday night.

One of the more popular arguments for Michigan not being voted into the BCS title game was that the Wolverines didn't win their conference. And I was willing to accept that as a rationale, until you consider how easily it would've fallen apart had Florida lost in the SEC championship game to Arkansas. Then it would've exposed as an arbitrary reason.

So my question is this: If winning the conference is suddenly so important (and yes, of course it means something - I don't want to dismiss that), then why should the BCS accept any non-conference champions as at-large teams?

Is it to even out the number of teams at eight, so there can be four match-ups? Is it to allow for those teams that had impressive records in a given season, yet had the misfortune of playing in an extremely tough conference?

Or is it really just to keep the door open for Notre Dame when they have a worthy record (regardless of whether or not it's artificially inflated by a weak schedule)?

Even when the match-ups were announced, it was clear that the Fighting Irish didn't belong. A rule restricting conferences to only two participants kept the far more deserving Wisconsin and Auburn off the BCS carousel. And maybe a fair bit of politicking from Charlie Weis a few weeks beforehand.

But Notre Dame had the name. ("The university of football in America," as Tony Kornheiser often nauseatingly refers to Notre Dame on Pardon the Interruption.) A supposedly good record. The golden boy quarterback - destined for #1 NFL draft pick status - that surely would've won the Heisman Trophy if only he hadn't been completely exposed against the only good teams he faced. The supposedly genius coach that sends Brent Musberger TV announcers and analysts reaching for towels to wipe up all of their awe-stricken drool.

So how did that end up working out for the BCS? 41-14? That almost made Michigan's effort against USC look competitive.

Brady Quinn looked like a quarterback who needs absolutely everything to go right for him to succeed. While on the other side, JaMarcus Russell was that rare football player who could impose his will on the game with his variety of talents. NFL scouts and general manager had to be re-evaluating their draft boards, taking note of Russell's size, athleticism, and arm strength. You think that kid's skipping the NFL scouting combines? All he needs to do is pass out a tape of that 58-yard touchdown pass he launched on the run.

[Pardon me for the brief digression. I couldn't resist making a suggestion or two to the Detroit Lions, who inexplicably beat the Dallas Cowboys to lose the #1 overall draft pick. It's probably a moot point, since they'll likely never have a chance at drafting Russell now, regardless of whether or not they need him. C'mon - why the #@$% did they bother winning that game?!? Ahem.]

Boise State's thrilling victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl (a game I couldn't bring myself to watch because I was so disgusted with football after the Rose Bowl) has a lot of people touting the virtues of the BCS, but that just makes me wonder why conferences like the WAC and MAC aren't part of the sock-hop to begin with.

Yes, runners-up in the "big" college football powerhouses are likely better than the champions of such mid-major conferences. But can we really be sure about that these days? Boise State and Utah have made quite a case for the WAC in recent years. And really, could any of those schools from the lesser-known conferences really perform any worse than what we saw from Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl?

▪▪ Meanwhile, back in South Bend, Charlie Weis is having a grand ol' time taking shots at Nick Saban while denying he's a candidate for the New York Giants head coaching job that will surely be open after the Giants lose to the Eagles in their wild-card playoff game on Sunday.

Anyone want to be Weis somehow inexplicably scores a raise and extension out of this? After all, he's got himself a program to rebuild.

The Woes Bowl

[Presented by $#!++y - football, that is...]

Well, I don't know about you, but I certainly feel like an idiot for dragging out the pitchforks and torches after Michigan was left out of the BCS championship game.

The Nelson Muntz-like "HA-has" emanating from Columbus, Gainesville and Los Angeles would've kept me up most of the night, if I hadn't already tired myself out from grinding my teeth and nearly smashing anything and everything with a block "M" on it.

I think I'm old enough now to consider myself a "long-time" Michigan football fan, and that giant turd the Wolverines left in Pasadena yesterday might have been the worst performance I've ever seen from the maize-and-blue. Especially considering the circumstances and expectations leading up to the Rose Bowl.

One of the best teams in the country? Deserving to play Ohio State for the national championship over Florida? Are you #@$%ing kidding me?

Unfortunately, Michigan's gotten their collective asses kicked in bowl games before. The two poundings that immediately come to my mind are the 1992 Rose Bowl against Washington and the 2002 Capital One Bowl vs. Tennessee. They were completely overmatched in those games, with the players looking slow and sloppy, and the coaching staff embarrassingly outwitted.

But I'm not sure either of those games were as bad as this.

Michigan looked like a team that sat back for five weeks and got pudgy and soft, feasting on all of the adoration and outrage that had been expressed on their behalf. Despite all of the talk from the players beforehand about wanting to prove they were the best and becoming the second team in school history to win 12 games, they acted as if their case had already been made, so why bother showing up to play USC?

And I've defended Lloyd Carr for years to naysayers, but you have to pin this one right on the coaching staff. (Yes, Brent Musberger - here comes one of those bloggers.) Did they not come up with anything new during the past five weeks? I suppose when you're going into your bowl game with an 11-1 record and the belief that you should be playing for the national championship, you don't have to do anything differently.

Meanwhile, the coaches across the field looked like happy-go-jumpy football geniuses on the other sideline, intent on showing that the loss to UCLA was a total aberration.

And most importantly, after both teams just kept banging heads against one another, like rams on a mountaintop, Pete Carroll and his staff gave up on trying to run the ball and decided to attack a Michigan secondary that didn't have the talent or the game plan to match USC's receivers.

Is it possible that Leon Hall and Willis Barringer heard what Keyshawn Johnson said about Dwayne Jarrett not being ready for the NFL, and decided to help the guy out? Sure looked that way. Awfully generous of those young men, but maybe the Rose Bowl wasn't the best time for that kind of philanthropy.

I tend to roll my eyes whenever fans or sports talk radio hosts complain that adjustments weren't made at halftime, because that's just often used as a catch-all phrase to hide behind when you really can't point out a problem. But that seems entirely appropriate in criticizing Michigan's approach in the second half yesterday. It's like the coaches had no idea what else to do once it was obvious that their game plan wasn't going to work. "$#!+, fellas - That's all we got. What do we do now?!" They truly let their players down yesterday, especially on offense.

I'm not a big fan of Bob Davie's work on ABC (especially back in the days he was paired with Mark Jones on ESPN and they seemed to call every play "a jailbreak screen"), but he made the outcome seem pretty clear when talking about the big flaw in the zone running game. If the scheme isn't working, you're in trouble. You're either running left or running right. There aren't many adjustments that can be made. You can't suddenly draw up some counters, draws, or toss plays.

Oops! Heh-heh. Yeah, about that... I'm sure Mike Hart and his 47 yards rushing would be happy to confirm that for all of us.

By the way, does Michigan's passing game have the same sort of limitations? Because they didn't seem to change much against that USC pass rush. No three-step drops. No quick slants or seam patterns. No changes in pass protections. The best work Michigan did against the blitz was when the Trojans decided to stop blitzing and go into a prevent scheme.

And now something that looked so promising, perhaps a fresh direction for the University of Michigan football program, goes from the new hotness to old and busted in less than two months. Three straight years with losses to Ohio State and a bowl opponent. Four consecutive bowl losses. And it all looks so same 'ol, same 'ol.

If Lloyd Carr earned a free pass and some goodwill from starting the season 11-0, he may just have burned that up, whether it's deserved or not. And Ron English can probably put any resumes he'd been sending out for head coaching positions back on the shelf. Hopefully, he's on the phone right now, buttering up some new defensive backs. Or drawing up some schemes that can defend the deep pass.

August is a long way away, right? I might need until then to bleach the memory of this debacle out of my eyes and mouth. That was truly revolting. And I'm not sure I've ever said that about a Michigan team after a loss.

The Stanford stepping stone?

Keep an eye on him as he rises through the coaching ranks, from San Diego on up to Stanford.

Yesterday, former Michigan quarterback Jim Harbaugh was hired as the Cardinal's head coach. And a job at a Division I program looks like an excellent point from which to jump toward the position that many Wolverines fans hope is his eventual destination.

Is there a set of headphones being kept warm for Harbaugh in Ann Arbor? I'm certainly among those hoping so, and said as much in one of the very first posts on this blog (which wasn't nearly the original idea I may have thought it was at the time).

His 29-6 record at San Diego was certainly impressive, though some will surely wait to see what he can achieve at the Pac-10 level before declaring him bona fide. For me, however, the Bob Bowlsby stamp of approval is enough for me. As athletic director at Iowa, Bowlsby hired Kirk Ferentz, which says to me that his eye for coaching talent is quite sharp. So if Harbaugh's good enough for him, he might just be pretty damn good.

▪▪ If you haven't read it already, Brian Cook has taken a closer look at Harbaugh and the Stanford job over at the AOL Fanhouse.

▪▪ And here's what Jake Curtis of the San Francisco Chronicle thinks of the hire.

Take out the "C," and what do you get?

I try to pride myself on being a rational Michigan fan.

My buddy Rob has made fun of me in the past for attempting to distance myself from those Wolverines fans who seem to think that Michigan is entitled to win every single game, who believed that Lloyd Carr should've been fired after last season's 7-5 record, who call in to local sports talk radio after a 31-point victory and complain that 1) Michigan didn't win by enough, 2) Boy, they should've thrown the ball more, and 3) Why didn't the coaches give the back-ups some playing time with 42 seconds left in the game?! That's gonna haunt them later in the season - you watch!

So I maintained a calm demeanor when USC leapfrogged Michigan in the BCS standings for the #2 spot. No, I didn't believe the Trojans were a better team, but I thought they played a tougher non-conference schedule with games against Alabama and Arkansas. Plus, USC would win its conference, something the Wolverines had no claim upon once they lost to Ohio State.

As flawed as it is, this is the system that Division I college football has insisted on following - punishing teams for losing late in the season and indulging voters who factor such arbitrary standards as "Aw, I don't want to see two teams play each other again" into their decision-making. Ultimately, though I think it stinks, that's what we're stuck with. And I was going to live with that.

But then UCLA inexplicably beat USC, 13-9, Saturday evening. I figured a Trojans victory was so assured that I didn't plan on watching the game. I went to the movies. (Stranger Than Fiction, by the way, was very good. But I'll save that for the other blog.) After turning my cell phone back on in the lobby, however, I had two messages that made me rush home to catch the fourth quarter. And I got home just in time to watch Eric McNeal's game-clinching interception - after which I declared that I wanted to have that man's baby.

Was this really going to happen? Would the dominoes fall exactly as Michigan needed? Would they get another crack at Ohio State? It wouldn't be assured, however, unless Arkansas beat Florida in the SEC title game. And if Houston Nutt hadn't insisted on making his running back throw the ball so many damn times (how often did he think that trick was going to work?), maybe the Razorbacks could've pulled it off.

Once Florida won, however, I tried to tell myself that the Gators might be too far behind Michigan in percentage points to overtake them in the BCS standings. But deep down, I knew what was going to happen. The voters didn't want a rematch. And they hadn't watched Michigan play in two weeks. Despite such nonsense, I tried to apply the same rationale as I did with USC, and told myself I was fine with Florida playing for the national championship instead of Michigan.

So for most of yesterday, in the hours leading up to the announcement of the Bowl Championship Series match-ups - and most importantly, who would be playing Ohio State for the national championship - I had my Spock ears on and tried to look at this as logically as possible.

Florida won its conference - and the SEC was quite possibly the strongest conference in college football this season. According to whatever criteria ranks such things, the Gators played the toughest schedule in the country. And soon after Michigan lost to Ohio State, I was one of those people who felt like Michigan dropped its claim on the national title. After all, if those were the two best teams in the country, then that game was essentially for the championship. Fault that reasoning, if you will, but that's what I told myself as I fell asleep last night.

So why did I wake up this morning feeling like Michigan's been screwed here?

Okay, Florida won its conference, but let's be honest here: If the SEC didn't have a championship game, and Florida had beaten Arkansas, let's say, back in October, would the Gators' proponents be using that as Exhibit A in their case?

Besides, was the SEC really better this year? Really? I was ready to say yes. LSU! Arkansas! Auburn! Tennessee! Georgia! South Carolina! But after looking at the standings from the two conferences, I'm hardly certain about that. Ohio State! Wisconsin! Penn State! Purdue! Minnesota! Iowa!

You tell me Northwestern and Michigan State were bad teams, and I'll say that Alabama and Ole Miss stunk it up, too. How about Illinois? Well, how about Vanderbilt? And Mississippi State?

Three SEC teams in the BCS top ten! Hey, man - look at those standings again and count off the Big Ten teams for me. And while you're at it, note where those Big Ten teams are ranked in relation to their SEC counterparts.

And did some analysts really cite the utterly ludicrous argument that Michigan hadn't played in two weeks as some kind of legitimate reasoning to tout Florida as a more worthy championship opponent? As if Michigan's lack of bye weeks to stretch out its schedule and the Big Ten's lack of a conference championship game should hold any kind of merit in this equation? You'd have to be hiding behind Lou Holtz's coke bottles to say that with a straight (or Holtz-ian) face.

Sour grapes? Oh, you bet your sweet ass. Because no one seems to be making an argument for Florida based strictly on merit. And that's a case I'm willing to listen to. I might even agree with it. But when junk like "I don't want a rematch," "Ohio State shouldn't have to play Michigan again," and the above mentioned "haven't played in two weeks" bull$#!+ is factored in, the argument looks like a wet piece of tissue paper.

I've heard some look on with satisfaction and say "the human element" won out over the computers in reaching this decision. But after looking at how some of the Harris Poll voters ranked certain teams, I'm beginning to wonder if we should just leave it all up to the BCS-matic 3000 again. (Hat tip: Michigan Sports Center) It's enough to make a forehead implode. Or compel me to go outside, find a small animal - preferably a little girl's pet - and kick it across the street. We're going to leave this in the hands of people willing to rank Boise State #2? Louisville #2? Florida #5?


Sweet Jesus, bloggers have never looked more competent compared to the mainstream media in all my life.

Of course I'm biased, but this system absolutely reeks. Whoever would've predicted that a Rose Bowl match-up with USC would be seen as a terrible letdown? And I'm sitting here in Ann Arbor, Michigan ready to root for Ohio State - hoping Jim Tressel and the Buckeyes punch Urban Meyer right in his smug face. I'm not sure that's a college football world I want to live in, man.

42 points by Troy Smith on the wall...

42 points. Take 'em down, pass 'em around...

That's the thing I can't get over. You can say Michigan just ran out of time and the last team to have the ball was going to win. (Did you like their chances to tie the game or even take lead had they recovered that onside kick?) You can point to missed tackles or overthrown passes. You can wonder how helmet-to-helmet hits on quarterbacks outside the pocket should be interpreted by the referees.

You could even sound like the sorest of losers, like the moron caller I heard on WTKA after the game who blamed Ohio Stadium's shoddy turf for the Wolverines' loss. (Fortunately, that guy seems to be in the smallest of minorities.)

But ultimately, it comes down to 42 points. You can't expect to win a game giving up that many points. (Unless you're, say, the San Diego Chargers.) And if you watched the Michigan defense all season long (well, except the game that was on ESPNU), you wouldn't have predicted it to yield six touchdowns.

39 points - on the road, with that defense - should be enough to win a game. And against any other team in the country, that number on the scoreboard probably would've been enough. Mike Hart pushed through the first tackle, and looked as fast and nimble as I've ever seen him. Chad Henne may have played his best game at quarterback. (But ooooohhhh, if he only could've connected with Mario Manningham on that pass down the sideline in the first quarter.)

But Ohio State was expected to be be an offensive juggernaut coming into 2006 - with two fantastic wide receivers (make that four?), two spectacular running backs, and the best player in the country taking the snap at quarterback - and in the course of three-and-a-half hours, destroyed all the good work Ron English had done with Michigan's defense this season. (I imagine he won't be including this game in his resume once he starts applying for head-coaching jobs.)

Coach English made some good second-half adjustments, finally figuring out how to break the Buckeyes' pass protection and get the blitz into Troy Smith's face. But by then, it may have already been too late. Michigan had already coughed up 28 points, and it fell upon Henne and the flying Wolverines to get the maize-and-blue back in the game.

On The Sporting Noobs Podcast (new episode coming tomorrow!), I said Ohio State would win because of their offense - and more specifically, because of Smith. Kind of a "no duh" statement, I realize, but what I meant was that I thought Michigan could knock around that Buckeyes defense a bit. The real test of strength would pit the supposedly immovable object of the Michigan defense against the irresistable force of Ohio State's offense. I just didn't expect quite so big an explosion after the collision. (My prediction, by the way, was Ohio State 31, Michigan 26. I just felt Smith would find a way to win the game - as he had the previous two years.)

But Michigan picked the worst possible day to start giving up the big play. And that was the difference in the game. Chris Wells' 52-yard run. A 39-yard pass to Ted Ginn. Antonio Pittman's 56-yard run. All for touchdowns. Michigan had some big plays of their own, but the Ohio State offense was just relentless. Even when it looked like the Wolverines defense had everything covered, Roy Hall or Brian Robiskie found a sliver of open space in a corner of the end zone, and of course, Smith didn't miss them. He really didn't miss anything.

After the season ends, I'm sure we'll once again hear all the talk about how Jim Tressel owns Lloyd Carr in this rivalry. And 1-5 is a difficult number to argue against. But I'm not so sure it's a question of Tressel owning Carr. I think it's more that Troy Smith owns Michigan. I'm not sure I've ever looked more forward to an opposing player graduating than Smith. And I hate saying that, because it seems like such a lame admission of defeat.

But Michigan just can't beat this guy. And I felt that way the entire game. The only thing that was surprising to me is that he never made Michigan pay by running the ball. But he also never had to. His development as a quarterback over his four years at Ohio State has been truly impressive. (I would've said it was a joy to witness, if so much of that growth hadn't taken place at Michigan's expense.) Obviously, Smith is fresh in my mind, clouding my long-term memory, but I can't think of any other players who I both hated and greatly admired at the same time.

(And this doesn't even need to be said, but if anyone but Smith wins the Heisman Trophy, the damn thing should be melted down and used to make doorknobs, and never given out to anyone ever again.)

Now, the current sensation sweeping the nation is the question of whether or not Michigan deserves another shot at Smith and the Buckeyes. Right now, I'm standing on the side labeled "No Rematch." It's not that I wouldn't like to see Michigan play Ohio State again on a neutral field. Despite all the breakdowns, belated adjustments, and missed opportunities that plagued the Wolverines on Saturday, they still only lost by three points and fought the Buckeyes hard until the very end. And that was in Columbus.

I like their chances if they were to play Ohio State again in Arizona, and sure as hell wouldn't complain if the BCS roulette wheel hit Michigan's number on December 3 and set up that rematch. And yes, I'm biased - but I think Michigan is better than USC, Florida and Arkansas (and we already know they're 26 points better than Notre Dame). So if they're the second-best team in the country at the end of the regular season, it stands to reason they should play in the Fiesta Bowl.

But if you were among the people who said that Saturday's game was the de facto national championship game, well, Michigan had its shot and lost. On the day their defense had to play its best, it gave up 42 points. And the disappointment from that and the sadness over likely the most emotional day in Michigan football history are the emotions I can't move past right now. They're too fresh in my mind.

Of course, I could change my mind in a couple of weeks. And you bet your sweet maize-and-blue ass I'll be watching USC-Notre Dame and the SEC championship game to see how it all shakes out. Just hold 'em to 38 this time if you get another shot, boys.

Suddenly, it's just a game

I was getting set to finally write something about tomorrow's game in Columbus (and even my sister - who hardly ever reads my blog - ripped into me last night for not writing about Michigan-Ohio State this week), but right now, it doesn't really feel appropriate.


I have a couple of memories of Bo Schembechler that I'd like to share, one of which is particularly special because it involves my father. Dad loved Michigan football and admired Bo greatly. And at some point, I really want to write about that. But not today.

Rest in peace, Bo.

This is not my beautiful house...

So I've been kind of a bad sports blogger this week. By Tuesday, when I came up for air after working on The Sporting Noobs' inaugural podcast (while alternately clearing leaves from my yard into the street for the city to pick up and finalizing plans to completely avoid costumed children later that night), I realized that I didn't have many original thoughts in my head to offer.

I was all set to write about coping with the Tigers' World Series loss, only to find that Billfer had already detailed the five stages of grieving. How about that? Well, maybe I'd joke about the fact that I was suffering from temporary sports burnout after following that World Series so closely. Except Big Al had the baseball hangover thing covered. Damn it. Boy howdy, the local sports blogosphere is really strong right now.

(Seriously, though - a lot of great stuff has been produced over the past few weeks. Bloggers have really shown what they're capable of, giving the kinds of insights and opinions that just didn't seem available in mainstream newspapers. [Or maybe the papers just seemed redundant when Detroit Sports Blog Nation gave me everything I needed/wanted.] Good show, everyone!)

But this week, it's kind of felt like coming back home after being away for a few years. Your parents turned your old bedroom into a smoking lounge or an oversized storage closet. Or your friends have new friends. Maybe a couple of them have gotten married.

And they may also now have kids, which means they don't want to go out and do cool stuff anymore, like watch a suddenly very important Thursday night football game at a sports bar, yell at the top of your lungs at giant screens, drink much more than you should when you have to go to work the next day, and exchange high-fives and/or hugs with (equally) drunken strangers over two schools you've never really given a $#!+ about.

(I'm speaking totally hypothetically, of course. Though if I may add some constructive criticism to this, like, completely fictional scenario, the second you ask your wife if you can go, you can't go. You just gave up any say you had in the matter. Just an opinion. Maybe I don't know anything since I'm single, childless, and spent the evening flipping between Louisville-West Virginia and Grey's Anatomy. And after all, the children are the future.)

Hang on - there was a point in here somewhere. I just need to find it again. Oh yeah - everything else in Detroit sports kind of has an unfamiliar feel to it, even if I'd been following it (albeit with somewhat divided attention) throughout the season.

Case in point: The University of Michigan football team. (I realize that I wrote a lot about Michigan football last season, which made several blogs generously list me in their sidebars as a "Michigan" blog, and sent some people over here to get some Sunday morning post-mortems. I apologize for slacking on that. All I can offer in my defense is that I was seduced by the mistress baseball. She was looking damn fine, man.)

I knew they were having a great year. I've enjoyed watching their defense crush opposing quarterbacks into dust, like a loaf of stale French bread. But is their season already almost over? Really? Man, that went by quick. Ohio State in two weeks? Wow. Well, at least I'll be able to settle back into the groove and watch the Wolverines play Ball State on TV tomorrow.

Wait a minute. What's this you're telling me? The Michigan game won't be on local TV tomorrow, because it's being carried by ESPNU (for which the "U" apparently stands for "Unknown to your local cable company")? That can't be right, can it? Seriously, won't a local station (Channel 7 in Detroit) pick up the feed? It has to be available. The game's a sell-out. And we're talking about the #2 team in the entire frickin' country!

Okay - apparently, I'm a few days behind on this. (Remember, the mistress baseball.) Surely, someone who knows more about the situation will tell me it's all going to be fine, and I can sink into my armchair with some pizza and watch the game like I always do? What? You're telling me it's not on regular TV.

So the only way I'll get to see Michigan-Ball State (which admittedly will hardly be the greatest contest in college football this weekend) is to either a) scalp a ticket to the game, b) invite myself to the aforementioned buddy with kid's house, since ESPNU is only available via satellite and he has Dish Network, or c) get up early and stake out a table at the previously mentioned sports bar.

I like to fall back on four words during times such as these: ARE YOU #@$%ING SERIOUS?

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I can listen to the game on the radio. I probably will. Unless I decide I'd rather just go see Borat in the afternoon instead. And yes, I understand that in the old days, such a game wouldn't have been on television. We've become spoiled. But you know what? In those old days, I wouldn't have been able to stomp up and down and pitch a fit on my sports blog either. I like these days, okay? Stick that "old days" talk in a pipe, douse it in gasoline, light it, and then roll around on the ground to try and put out your flaming upper torso, okay?

And you may ask yourself - Well... how did I get here?