Well, after one season of observing Rich Rodriguez, I’ve taken note of the following:
• He’s quotable, but not predictable. Lloyd was the opposite, predictable but not quotable. Strangely, I can’t figure out which style I enjoy more. Lloyd would go 9-3, pick petty fights with reporters, and give out very little information. Rodriguez went 3-9, basically extended an open invitation for reporters to visit him at his office in the offseason, and didn’t appear to blame anyone else for his troubles at the press conferences. But he’s hard for me to imitate.
• I could only remember one stock Rodriguez quote: “I only discuss the players that play for Michigan.” Unfortunately, he used that one an awful lot last season. Would he say that if someone asked him about Charles Woodson coming back for the charity golf outing?
• This offense failed for many reasons. Worst quarterbacks ever, for sure. Neither of them could have played at Grand Valley. But what hurt us the most was not their throwing (dis)abilities. This offense requires a quarterback that can pull the handoff back and gash a defense up the middle for seven yards. Pat White did it, Woody Dantzler did it. That’s what keeps everyone honest so we can continue running the same four plays out of Super Tecmo Bowl. I can remember 3-4 times that Threet got 10-15 yards keeping the ball up the middle. Just imagine how that can work with someone that can run faster than John Kruk.
• How bad must David Cone be? We tried Threet, we tried Sheridan, we talked about Feagin an awful lot and even he got in for some snaps. But Cone was apparently so out of place that he was not given any consideration? This year, we’ve got two Forciers, Denard Robinson, and Sheridan, and we’re still spending a scholarship on Cone? Worse yet, he’s just a redshirt junior. We’re never getting that scholarship back. It’s like waiting for Nate Robertson’s $12 million to come off the books. Can’t we get campus police to trump up some kind of disorderly conduct charge on Cone outside of Scorekeepers so we can kick him off the team? You would think the boosters could arrange this.
Let’s get to the games …
September 5, WESTERN MICHIGAN – The road back to respectability starts on September 5. Because Labor Day is the last possible day on the calendar, this represents our latest start to the season since 1997, when our opener against Colorado was September 13. Can you imagine starting a season that late again?
It ended up working out well. The 1997 season was so exciting, so memorable, that I don’t know how we fans would have tolerated a bye week in the middle of the schedule. The only thing that got me through two hours of Karl Marx in a Sociology 100 discussion section every Wednesday afternoon was knowing there was a football Saturday ahead. As it turned out, we won 11 games in 11 weeks without a break, each week more exciting than the last.
As far as this year’s opener, I just want to win. 17-14, 33-31, 2-0, whatever. Of all the state schools we play in nonconference, we play Western Michigan far less frequently because it’s hard to tell how good they’ll be when the game actually rolls around. This may be their best team since those 1998-2001 seasons, where they would be 9-2 and win their division but somehow be forced to play the MAC championship game on the road at Marshall every year, a crooked arrangement if I ever saw one. (One of those seasons, the Herd was 6-5.)
Offensively, we can’t be our own worst enemy, like the Toledo game. Yeah, Toledo had 56 completions to Nick Moore, and they moved the ball up and down the field at will against us, but their only touchdown was the 110-yard interception return. Somehow, that was enough to win.
Western’s passing game will be a challenge to defend, but they lost 10 defensive starters and that makes me feel a lot better. That means this will be the debut on defense for various third-team all-staters (“Mick McCabe All-Stars”) from places like Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern, Hudsonville, and Portage Central. If our 4.5 speed guys from Pahokee, Fla., can’t move the ball on this team, I’m going to be angry.
Prediction – Michigan 26, Western Michigan 21
September 12, NOTRE DAME – I believe one of college football’s best attributes is its unpredictability. In the NFL, if your opponent has a 10-point lead with 6:00 to go, the game is pretty much over. You might cut it to 3, but you’re not recovering the onside kick, and at best you’ll get the ball back on your own 15-yard line with 23 seconds left. College football is much different. You could come back from the bathroom and find out that not only did your team return an interception for a touchdown while you were gone, but they also recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff and are setting up shop at the 19-yard line. That should be its motto – “College football – don’t go to the bathroom!”
Last year, these momentum changes always went against us, primarily with punt returns. It all started in the Notre Dame game, in the rain. It would have been more productive for us to not put anyone back there, and let the punt bounce another 20 yards. At least then we’d get possession. But that’s apparently taboo in college football, along with “going for it on 4th-and-inches from your own 23-yard line because no one can stop a quarterback sneak and the officials will always give you something good on the spot.” It just makes too much sense. But coaches like to promote the idea that this game is far too sophisticated for mere fans.
My rules for catching punts are as follows. 1) Don’t catch punts on the run, and certainly don’t dive forward to catch a punt. 2) If the ball flies inside the 10-yard line, still consider catching it at the 8 or 6 because that is far better than hoping the other team mismanages the situation and lets it squirt into the end zone, where you end up on the 2. (Unless your opponent is Michigan, in which three defenders will let the ball slip over the goal line somehow and then all drop to their knees and put their hands on their heads, as if acknowledging it somehow makes up for the mistake.) 3) If the ball takes a big lazy bounce and there are five defenders surrounding it, run into the pile, catch the ball and fall immediately to save yourself 11 more yards.
I am sure that the coaching staff works special teams to death during the week and is mystified by the problems these players have in doing simple things like catching punts, downing punts, tip plays, falling next to sideline fumbles so they don’t squirt out of bounds, etc. But on Saturdays, to quote Brian Ellerbe, apparently they become “just kids” and you never know what you’re going to get. This Notre Dame game will be difficult enough as it is without committing four turnovers (three in special teams), and racking up 12 penalties for 96 yards. What Michigan football has been reduced to is hoping we don’t embarrass ourselves in games like these, as we did last year.
Prediction – Notre Dame 27, Michigan 20
September 19, EASTERN MICHIGAN – Well, Eastern Michigan has brought on a new football coach yet again. Despite the fact that the program is routinely in the bottom five in Division I-A, the three previous coaches lasted a total of 14 seasons in Ypsilanti. Meaning, the administration gives you a chance before they kick your ass out the side door. Either that, or the boosters are the MudDog fans in “The Waterboy,” too drunk in the bleachers to raise a fuss. Buddy Garrity wouldn’t be this patient.
EMU decided to get serious with the coaching search this time, so they hired Lloyd Carr as a consultant to pretty much run the search and make the decision. I suspect Carr’s short list was as follows:
1) Ron English, defensive coordinator at Louisville. Former defensive coordinator at Michigan. Gave up 42 points to Troy Smith in the most important Michigan game in the last 10 years. But the players liked him, and isn’t that what it’s really about?
2) Terry Malone, assistant to the assistant to the associate tight ends coach, New Orleans Saints. Former offensive coordinator at Michigan. A true disciple of Lloydball. Responsible for adding wrinkle to Michigan offense that required Calvin Bell to run a reverse once per game during his career.
3) Mike DeBord, former offensive coordinator at Michigan. In charge of driving Carr to and from work in the morning (I am not making this up). Won 12 games in four years as head coach at Central Michigan, then had the gall to say that he thought that his tenure “got things started in the right direction” up in Mount Pleasant once CMU started making regular bowl appearances under Brian Kelly.
4) Jim Herrmann, former defensive coordinator at Michigan. Genius of 1997 when he had Woodson taking away half the field from opponents. Later in his career, authored the defensive philosophy of having your cornerback lead the team in tackles by allowing his man to catch a 20-yard pass on 3rd-and-17, hit him as hard as possible, then stand over the guy and flex his muscles as they are moving the chains behind him.
And the job goes to – Ron English! Thank you for all your wisdom, Coach Carr. We look forward to receiving your help again in another five years.
Prediction – Michigan 34, Eastern Michigan 10
September 26, INDIANA – Having Indiana at home to start the Big Ten is a favorable draw for us. In years where we’re good, I’d prefer to have Indiana as a breather the week after Michigan State or something. But it’s nice to know that if we play our cards right, we should be 3-1 by the start of October. Kellen Lewis getting kicked off the team removes most of the doubt here.
Indiana football is reflective of a very screwed-up athletic department. It has the worst program record in Big Ten football history. At least other schools like Iowa, Purdue, and Minnesota had some sort of glory period, even if it was 50 years ago. Its success in basketball, entirely attributable to Bob Knight, hid shortcomings in other sports. But with basketball winning six games for the near future, you have to take Indiana for what it is – an inept athletic department. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Someone has to finish last in the Big Ten and I’m fine with it being them.
Sure, Knight was being self-serving when he said his last athletic director “didn’t know his ass from third base.” Maybe he was right. Forget the Kelvin Sampson mess for a moment, just look at this sequence of events on the football side. They hire a good coach, Terry Hoeppner, to replace Gerry DiNardo. Sadly, the guy dies in June 2007. They tap Bill Lynch, former head coach at Ball State, to be the interim head coach for the upcoming season. Fair move, because they were on short notice, Lynch had head coaching experience, and apparently met the minimum requirement of knowing how to put a headset on properly. Lynch went 7-6 that season with Hoeppner’s players, and squeaked into a bowl. So they jumped the gun and hired him full-time.
Why? Lynch went 37-53 at Ball State, including seasons of 1-10 and 0-11 in 1998 and 1999, whereupon he was allowed to keep his job for three more seasons before being fired. Why not do a more thorough search? Yeah, hiring the hot coordinator back in 1997 failed (Cam Cameron), but try, try again. Instead they hired a 53-year old retread, the college football version of Dick Jauron.
Congratulations, you just went 4-7 for the next six years – nice 59-0 win over Indiana State though. There is such a thing as bad luck, but some programs just create it for themselves.
Prediction – Michigan 30, Indiana 19
October 3, at Michigan State – Congratulations to the Spartans for their victory last year. I don’t know if I would have taken the liberty of printing up T-shirts to commemorate the score and the date – Tommy Amaker beat Tom Izzo three times with no T-shirts to be found around Ann Arbor – but that doesn’t take away from the accomplishment. Or maybe it does.
Also, I’m not sure why Michigan State fans insisted on harping on the pylon touchdown from back in the first quarter, in the week following the game. You won by 14 points, the play didn’t end up being a factor, but somehow you want an apology from the Big Ten office. Let it go. At least the Michigan side will admit that the replay official (not Dave Witvoet, the best ‘R’ in the Big Ten) clearly goofed. But if Michigan complains about Michigan State-supplied game management staff outright stealing a game, then we’re “whiners” and your response is to print up a bunch of Christmas cards with a clock on the front, advertising your own poor ethics. Go figure.
Either way, in just one season, Michigan football has unlocked the program’s cabinet and smashed every piece of crystal inside – bowl streak, winning season streak, respectability streak. Everything except for one item. Michigan State has not beaten Michigan in consecutive years since 1968-69. That should be a great point of pride for Michigan fans because it demonstrates that with the Spartans, any success they have is temporary. Losses to Michigan State are typically on the road, so you always have a home game to come back to the following year. Not so this year. To keep the streak alive, Michigan will have to do it in East Lansing.
I think we’re going to give them a game. To have a chance, Michigan will need to do a decent job on whatever running backs State throws out there. You don’t have to hold them to 39 yards on 17 carries, but you can’t make a hero out of any of them either. Because if you have to commit more than six guys to run stoppage, then the Spartans will just eat you alive over the top with their big tight ends. And there is nothing more frustrating than not being able to get off the field on third down because the tight end wasn’t accounted for.
That’s what will determine this game. Times that Michigan should have gotten off the field but didn’t, because the tight end caught a ball in traffic on third down, because three of our defenders “rubbed” the quarterback instead of tackling him, allowing him to scramble for a first down, or because we jumped offsides or late-hit someone. If this happens more than twice all day, we’re sunk.
Prediction – Michigan State 20, Michigan 13
October 10, at Iowa – That Michigan State loss will hurt, because we will have deluded ourselves into some positive thinking about where the season could have gone had we won to move to 4-1. Then we follow up with night road game at Iowa, no easy task. But as road venues go, we have played well at Kinnick Stadium over the years.
Well, another year is underway and Kirk Ferentz is still at Iowa. Lloyd wasn’t able to shoehorn him into the Michigan job two years ago. (This is one of those rumors that I really do believe, because I think Lloyd could have convinced Ferentz to bring offensive coordinator Ken O’Keefe and leave the rest of his assistants behind, in order to keep the rest of Lloyd’s staff.) Ferentz has always received overtures from NFL teams, but has continued to re-up his contract in Iowa City.
The fact that his son, a freshman center for the Hawkeyes, has been arrested twice in the last year for some petty alcohol-related scrapes might have something to do with that. Maybe Ferentz is a decent parent and knows that he’d better keep his eye on his son before he starts stealing the spotlight from Andy Reid’s kids. And it’s a lot harder to keep your eye on someone in Iowa City when you’re not in Iowa City. (That should be the tagline for an Iowa version of the show “Cheaters” starring Joey Greco wearing a black leather coat on top of a pair of overalls.) Either that, or Ferentz likes going to the Outback Bowl every year.
Iowa is a schizophrenic team. They ruined Penn State’s year, but lost at home to Northwestern. They often lose to Iowa State every other year in Ames, no matter how much they are favored going in. I think I understand the Hawkeyes pretty well. Call me anytime this year and I will win 75% of my Iowa picks against the spread. I should open up my own tout service. “If they don’t cover, you get my pick of the week free for the rest of the season! Even though I just cost you a grand!”
Here are some other good Iowa-related prop bets. You might have to visit one of Cousin Eddie’s casinos to find them, but I promise it will be worth your time.
2-to-1 – that Iowa’s top yardage receiver will be a white guy named Andy
Over 2.5 – number of players on the roster from Keokuk
Iowa doesn’t scare me. They have one player at each position. They lost their top running back to the NFL. Their quarterback is a game manager, a poor man’s Brian Griese. Defensively, I don’t view them as a turnover producer. But with the roster we have, you’ll think they brought back Bob Sanders and Jared DeVries for one evening. It stinks to see an average, vulnerable team and not be able to take advantage.
Prediction – Iowa 27, Michigan 24
October 17, DELAWARE STATE – I’ve already decided I won’t be reading any of the newspapers this week. (I guess that’s an easy promise, given that no one in this town produces a real paper anymore. But you get my point.) It’s a throwback gesture to when I was a kid where, after a loss, I wouldn’t read the sports section until the next time Michigan won because I didn’t like reading the midweek stories that rehashed everything.
If you think this is extreme behavior, realize you’re dealing with a guy that cried after every Michigan football loss up through the sixth grade. I don’t apologize for it. Heading into junior high, I dropped that part of my act. Now I just get irate.
Anyway, I won’t be reading anything because I already know what the story lineup will be.
• Monday – A bunch of leftover information from Saturday’s game. (I’d say “Cold Pizza,” but that implies a bad ESPN morning show hosted by an idiot lady that allegedly went to Michigan.) There is nothing more unappetizing that reading fluff pieces after a tough loss such as “hey, some backup safety had three tackles on special teams,” “hey, our defensive coordinator was really impressed with the overall effort,” and “did you know, the team plane had an unexpected refueling stop in DeKalb, Ill., on the way home.”
• Tuesday – Stories from the press conference. We lost at Iowa on Saturday. How will the team react? Will they practice hard, or do they intend to give up on the season? Everyone is dying to know! Bonus points to any player who uses Jack Navarre’s favorite euphemism for describing a loss: “We just stubbed our toe a little bit.” Navarre might be the only quarterback to stub his toe in all three West Coast states!
• Wednesday – Hey, in case you forgot, this Delaware State is the same team that forfeited a conference game in June just to play this game in Ann Arbor.
• Thursday – Hey, in case you forgot, Michigan played a I-AA team to open up the 2007 season. I forget what happened in that game. Maybe the story will provide a recap.
• Friday – Hey, too bad we’re not playing the other Delaware school, because they have winged helmets like we do, and wouldn’t that be interesting to see on the field? Plus, a preview column from Bob Wojnowski that was written in 45 minutes and includes the same three jokes!
Prediction – Michigan 37, Delaware State 17
October 24, PENN STATE – Back in the good old days, I used to look at Michigan’s schedule and enjoy the fact that every game on the schedule was very winnable. There was no “at Oklahoma” to be found. You always had Notre Dame, a road test here and there against an Illinois or an Iowa, the Michigan State game, and Ohio State. It allowed you to dream of making the BCS championship game, if you played your cards right.
What got people frustrated with Lloyd and the program was that it very rarely played out that way. Besides 1997, only once (2005) were we undefeated heading into Ohio State. Other years, we always tripped up somewhere early. We blocked ourselves from having some elite seasons, and by elite, I don’t mean 9-3.
Penn State had one of those years in 2008. They didn’t have a very challenging first two months of the season, staying at home all nonconference, and I don’t fault them for that. They won the game they had to win at Ohio State under the lights, then had a week off before traveling to Iowa, their last real hurdle on the schedule. And that’s the game that bit them. At Michigan, you’re never really in that position because Ohio State always looms as the last game, and lest we forget, even when we dominated Cooper it was a strange set of circumstances because we won those games in spite of the fact that he had some really talented teams.
I don’t think it will be impossible for Penn State to have a similar year in 2009, but I’m not like everyone on ESPN that is willing to put them in the top 10 and book Daryll Clark a ticket to New York City in mid-December. Penn State graduated all of three of their big-play wide receivers, but no one appropriately values this loss because none of the three was a juggernaut statistically (and therefore, all three were an absolute mindwreck for college football fantasy owners). I have always been of the opinion that Clark has an average arm, and I think those guys made him the best that he could be.
Prediction – Penn State 24, Michigan 13
October 31, at Illinois – Having lost to them last year, I learned how much I take beating Illinois for granted. To steal from John Feinstein, losing to Illinois is like having a family member die, only worse. In addition – and there is no smooth segue for this – Champaign is the ugliest town in the Big Ten, hands down. I was going to ask the cops to clear the hookers off Neil Street, until I realized they were Illinois students.
Prior to 2008, our last loss to the Illini was in Ann Arbor in 1999. Tom Brady was our quarterback. Everyone in the stands was angry for how long he would hold onto the ball, and how many sacks he took. He’d be lucky to get drafted!
We had a 27-7 lead and lost. Anthony Thomas left the game with a broken pinkie finger and we were stuck with Walter Cross. I think any discussion regarding Anthony Thomas being the greatest running back in Michigan football history needs to include the following facts. First, he left that Illinois game with a pathetic pinkie injury, a game we ended up losing. Just carry the ball in the other hand, damn it! Second, he was perhaps the most prolific fumbler ever (at Northwestern, 2000). And third, he was voted “Most Likely to Lose Two Yards on 2nd-and-1” by his high school class. But hey, did you see those four touchdowns against Rice!
Common sense would dictate we’ll lose this game. We lost by 20 points at home last year. Neither team has changed that much, personnel-wise. And if it’s a 3:30 start or a night game, it takes me back to two years ago and how difficult it was to win in that environment. Illinois scored 1:30 into the game, the place was electric, and I thought we had no chance. It was only on the strength of a very savvy, injured Chad Henne that we were able to come back and win. Bless him for all the times he played at 40 percent.
It’s weird. This preview was founded upon the predictability of Lloyd and his teams, and the desire to put the obvious in writing before it happened. Now, the program is utterly unpredictable. It used to be you steered clear of picking Michigan games against the spread. Now, you don’t have much more luck picking the winner outright. It’s almost made me just want to write the game previews and forget the predictions.
But the way I look at it is this – somewhere along the line, Ron Zook has to cost himself another contract extension and turn the fan base against him. And this game is as good an opportunity as any.
Prediction – Michigan 24, Illinois 23
November 7, PURDUE – A November home game against Purdue is some very wacky scheduling. We always play them in October, and then Purdue plays Michigan State is some frigid November weather in East Lansing. That’s just how it goes. Listen Jim Delany, you can’t be messing with the order of the universe like this.
There is absolutely nothing to hate about Purdue. It’s a good school, the people aren’t jerks, and as far as college towns go, West Lafayette is the purest of pure Midwest in October. In fact, I rank it as my most favorite “other” Big Ten school, with Northwestern and Penn State being next. If I had four more undergrad years to spend somewhere, Purdue would be one of my choices along with Central Michigan (can’t pass up the opportunity to live 10 minutes from a casino) and Ole Miss (yeah, you go 6-6 and lose to Tulane and Memphis to begin your season most years, but those Rebel babes at the Vaught-Hemingway tailgates look like they’d be a lot of fun to party with).
With the coaching change and roster turnover, I get the sense Purdue is headed for the kind of season that Michigan had last year, and that saddens me. The Big Ten is better as a conference when Purdue is there to go 8-4 (5-3), and earn a trip to the Sun Bowl. Granted, I don’t want them being some Rose Bowl threat, but I take a certain comfort in knowing they’re in the middle of the pack most years.
Justin Siller is gone from the university, so that leaves the quarterback job to senior Joey Elliott, the David Cone of the Purdue roster. (Between Siller, Maurice Searight, and David Bowens, I think Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Prep has a terrible track record for producing punks.) Every Purdue team must have a Montrell Lowe at running back, a 5-foot-10 speed guy, and this one does, in Jaycen Taylor. The Purdue defense never seems to be one of the top units in the league, but if you look at the number of Boilers in the NFL, there must be some talent there year after year and no one realizes it. But I think this team is going to take its lumps, and this is a team that hasn’t won at Michigan in probably 20 years as it is.
Prediction – Michigan 38, Purdue 24
November 14, at Wisconsin – Unfortunately, looking back on the 2008 season, there were just three bright spots. (Anticipated title of season highlight video produced by the athletic department: “Refuse To Lose.”)
1) Inexplicably winning the Brown Jug at Minnesota after having lost five in a row.
2) Injuring Charlie Weis during the Notre Dame game.
3) Beating Coach Meathead and the Badgers after trailing 19-0 at home.
I was in Vegas for the Wisconsin game. It was a bad weekend all around. I didn’t have much fun, which is a hard fate to accept on a Vegas trip. Blackjack was treating me terribly. And just as Wisconsin kicked yet another field goal to take a 19-0 lead at the half, I suffered an unrelated loss which killed my $25, 12-team college football parlay, the kind of parlay you place just to tell your friends, “If I win this somehow, we’re eating dinner at the Maloofs’ most expensive restaurant.” Depressed and still feeling it from the previous night, I decided to take a midday nap in the room.
I woke up to Michigan rumbling in for an interception return to give us a 20-19 lead in the fourth quarter. All of a sudden, I got hope. A win here would get us to 2-2. We’d surely get past Toledo the next week, and it was starting to look like our bowl streak would be preserved. Thankfully, Wisconsin got that formation penalty on the two-point conversion. Had the game gone into overtime, there’s no way we would have won.
On to this year. If one coach went 3-9 in 2008 and the other went 7-6 and made a bowl game, and I told you one of them was under fire from his fan base, would you believe it was the 7-6 coach, Bret Bielema? Strikes against him - He blew a 10-point lead to lose at Michigan State with 9:00 to go, almost lost to I-AA Cal Poly, and got waxed in the bowl game by 30 points. Points in his favor – He beat Minnesota to win the Axe, and he has the support of Big Barry, so obviously that must be enough to keep his job, as long as he doesn’t get photographed shopping at some adult bookstore in Kenosha.
All of this probably means a very competitive, yet very average Michigan-Wisconsin game. A toss-up, really. But after predicting an 8-4 season last year, Mr. Optimism doesn’t work here anymore. (He’s filing for unemployment with the state of Michigan, along with everyone else.)
Prediction – Wisconsin 23, Michigan 19
November 21, OHIO STATE – It has occurred to me how I’ve never really gotten the opportunity to wake up on this particular Saturday morning and just enjoy this game, knowing that we have the decided advantage that day. It seems like Ohio State has that privilege every year.
That being said, I think Michigan has an excellent chance to beat Ohio State at home this year. Just hear me out.
Ohio State lost a lot of legacy players last year on both sides of the ball. Chris Wells. Brian Hartline. James Laurinaitis. Malcolm Jenkins. Their new tailbacks and wide receivers are guys you’ve heard of, but they’ve played bit parts on past teams. And Laurinaitis’ replacement got conked on the head during a family vacation and will miss the whole season. This team is not deep.
Of course, a lot depends on whether Michigan can take any momentum into the game, and whether we decide we’re going to try and catch punts that day. But on paper, the Buckeyes don’t convince me. So we should sneak up on them, because (rightfully so) no one will give us a lot of credit heading into the game, but after it’s over, everyone will say that they saw signs that Michigan could win.
The 2007 and 2008 performances were disgusting, and for very different reasons. If something is going to happen in the Rich Rodriguez era, we need to see indications of it in this game. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that we win, given the information that I mentioned above. Because if we don’t, there’s no way we’re winning next year and now Rodriguez is 0-3 in this series, and he’d have to coach another 12 years just to even the score. And if he doesn’t win, is that something we even want?
Prediction – Michigan 20, Ohio State 17
If it’s anything the last two seasons have done, it’s made me a humbler Michigan fan. Take a program like Southern Mississippi, for example. They used to have a coach named Jeff Bower who had been there maybe 12 years, looked like Moe Szyslak from “The Simpsons” and was one of the less-famous coaches to wear a visor during games. He was the Greg Kampe of Southern Miss, got them established in Division I and had been overall pretty successful.
Every season was the same. Bower would schedule tough in the nonconference (at Nebraska, home Charleston Southern, at Virginia Tech), make the athletic department a bunch of money in these guarantee games, and start 1-2. Southern Miss would do well in its piddly conference, finish 7-4, and get another berth to the Mobile Bowl on December 21. In the bowl game, he’d beat Tulsa or somebody by some cartoon 48-27 score, and as the last few seconds ticked off the clock, Bower would walk across midfield, flanked by his two daughters, one of whom was ridiculously hot. He had just completed an 8-4 season, won another bowl game, everyone was happy, and the ESPN commentators would gush about Bower’s tenure at Southern Miss and his track record for being “one of the most underrated coaches in America.”
I used to look at Southern Miss and think, “What’s the point in being a fan of a program like this? You have no chance at the national title, and you end up at the same bowl every year. Why even bother?” Apparently Southern Miss thought the same thing. They fired Bower after the 2007 season. His replacement inherited decent talent, went 7-6, and won the New Orleans Bowl – exactly what they were getting from Bower. We’ll see if things get better or worse.
Back at the ranch. After 2007 and 2008, my outlook has changed slightly. By no means have I permanently reduced my expectations. If Rich Rodriguez doesn’t have us in the national title conversation every year, let’s find someone who will. But for this season, I’m willing to be one of those Southern Miss fans in the Jeff Bower years. Let’s get back to a bowl, anywhere other than Detroit, and I’ll be satisfied.
Of course, I said the same thing last year.
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