It's too bad we don't get more contributors to this thread, because this is shaping up to be a pretty awesome season. Robinson is breaking record after record (1000+ passing, 900+ rushing yards, by week five), Oregon's offense scores at will, Florida, Texas, and USC are not the perennial contenders they once were (Washington two years in a row!!!), and let's not forget what I will bias-dly call the matchup of the year next week when the 5-0 Spartans take on the 5-0 Wolverines in Ann Arbor. We haven't had the upsets like we did in 2007 (which was the greatest year ever in college football), but with this week's LSU-Tenn game and the MSU/Notre Dame overtime fake two weeks ago we've had a bevy of memorable games. Why we don't have the haters, the shit talking, the arguments, the Heisman hopefuls bickering endlessly around here with so much to discuss is a real shame. Instead it's Tom Ato trying to rough things up with nary a reaction. I guess the college football fans didn't cross over from the old board.
Well Sr. Jackson, I am a bleed green Spartan and our game yesterday was freaking awesome aside from our many a turnover, O-line unable to contain that huge JJ Watt, or stupid penalties. Fortunately we put a wall up in front of Clay limiting him to 80 something yards, not to mention his ankle. Dropping the #11 team in the country at home would have been an awesome sight to see in person. Neck and neck all game until the final minutes. Also watching that LSU game's final minute was awesome. Subbing on the last play with the clock running? 13 guys on the field? Miles was given a golden present on a silver platter right there...Lucky guy.
New AP rankings are out: http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings/_/poll/1 Boise got jumped by Oregon. I'm definitely happy about this. I just don't like Boise, I'm not sure what it is. Lucas, you're looking for controversy, so I'll throw some out there. I think Michigan finishes 6-6. I don't think they're much better than last year, and their defense is definitely worse. When it comes to rankings, Michigan is just like Notre Dame, it doesn't matter how weak the schedule, if Michigan's record is good, they're going to get a big bump in the rankings because of their name. I just don't understand how people are falling for this again this year. Michigan started almost exactly the same last year, and they finished among the bottom teams in the Big Ten. Robinson is just this year's Forcier, and when he goes against a few real Big Ten defenses, he'll be missing games. Michigan goes against State this week, and Iowa next week. If Robinson survives those 2 games, and Michigan wins 1 of 2, I'll be absolutely shocked, and then maybe I'll believe somethings different for Michigan this year.
If you've watched any of their games, I don't know how you can say that Robinson = anything close to Forcier. Besides being possibly the quickest player in college football, he makes much better decisions and throws a much more accurate pass than Forcier ever did. The 1st time he had a designed run for him this past game...he ran it 70+ yards for a TD. He's done that every game so far. Admittedly he hasn't faced the best defenses, but there's plenty of elite college players who haven't had any tougher of a schedule than him and haven't put up close to those numbers. He's the first player in college football HISTORY to have 2 games of 200+ yards rushing and passing. He's broken Michigan's single game total offense records...3 times in these first 5 games. That being said, UM's defense is beyond awful, and there's no way Greg Robinson should have a job after this season. I have a feeling that every one of their Big 10 games coming up are going to have each team scoring 30+ points. I could realistically see them finishing 7-5 at worst (Purdue and Illinois are awful - I don't know how you think they'll lose to both of them), but I think they'll knock off 2 out of Penn St, Iowa, Wisconsin, MSU, and OSU, which would have them at 9-3. We'll see though.
Dude, this next week says it all. You have every reason to doubt UofM, but there's so much uncertainty now that'll be settled on the field next week. Sure Tate was the savior last year, but that guy wasn't putting up even hardly the same numbers. Robinson's stats are unreal. No one plays football like that. No one since Sanders, maybe. Not Vince Young, not Tim Tebow, not even Pat White, RichRod's former project, no one put up multiple 200 passing/rushing yard games in the same year, much less their entire career. He's already done it by the fifth game of the season. That is SICK. But I can only remain so objective, and I hate the University of Michigan with the fire of a thousand suns and cannot wait to sit back and watch their inevitable downward spiral against actual defenses who can tackle and run, so this will undoubtedly only last so long. I just can't believe that SO FAR, the kid's already done this much. Most people would consider a team putting up 500 yards of total offense pretty dominant. Shoelace did it BY HIMSELF. I really can't wait for next week. I won't be able to watch the game - no score updates, no text updates, nothing - because I'll be at a wedding in South America, but this has to be the biggest matchup between Michigan State and Michigan in a long fucking time. Michigan hasn't beaten MSU in football or basketball (either gender) in 1064 days. The year that streak might be snapped is when both teams are 5-0 and a with a record-breaking quarterback. That is too awesome. Not to mention, State's coach is almost 100 percent likely to make his first trip back to the sidelines after suffering a heart attack, JUST to win this game. And keep in mind these words when gearing up for this showdown, too. Guys, if I were you, even if you hate or just don't care about either team, I would tune into this game. This is - again, I'm being bias - about as good as college football gets. So many different story lines, from heart attacks to revenge games to a holy-shit-that's-unreal quarterback, all converging in one spot in Ann Arbor this Saturday. I'm going crazy just thinking about it, especially the fact that I'll be out of the country. Do yourself a favor and make sure you watch this game.
I won't argue the impressiveness of Robinson's stats. The numbers are pretty incredible. Robinson is undoubtedly an incredible athlete. My issue is whether he can do it against Big Ten defenses. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, I believe Robinson has had to sit out plays due to injury in 3 out of 5 games. Going against defenders like Greg Jones or the entire Iowa defensive line, I just believe Robinson won't make it through the games. He is a little guy who will take some big hits, and if he can't handle hits from UMass, how will he handle going against Michigan State, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. If Robinson stays healthy and puts up numbers against Big Ten defenses and Michigan wins games, I'll come back here and admit I was wrong. But I think Michigan fans are too eager to crown their team as back, and I wouldn't be surprised to see RichRod still end up fired when Michigan finishes 2-6 or 3-5 in the Big Ten. I'm also willing to concede that some of my opinion could be influenced by the ridiculous knob-slobbing that ESPN has been doing on Robinson. I hate ESPN with a burning passion. Has anyone else noticed that their game coverage has been even worse this year? In the Iowa-Arizona game and the Iowa-Penn State game, ESPN has been failing to show replays in an annoying fashion. For example, last night near the end of the game Iowa intercepted a pass and returned it 33 yards for a touchdown. It was a pretty good play and put an exclamation point on the win, but ESPN did not play a single replay of it during the game. It wasn't until I switched to a different game and they had one of their game breaks that I saw a replay. And this happens consistently during the games. I wish a true competitor with decent coverage could emerge to challenge ESPN, but they're working on getting as much of a monopoly as possible.
No argument here. But that's why we have to wait and see - he may be superstud #1 right now, but that means nothing if they falter down the stretch, which is what I bet they do. That guy is just so good right now, that you have to sit back and marvel at it. What strikes me as so fucking odd is that this kid came out of nowhere. Did anyone predict that the backup quarterback who never ties his shoes, who was a four-star recruit amongst a sea of four-star recruits that year for Michigan, would emerge not only as the starting QB ahead of Forcier, but be throwing up these insane numbers this early in the season? Michigan State throttled Robinson last year in East Lansing, I think he got sacked like three times before being taken out. If you told me that he'd be the runaway favorite for the Heisman next year I'd have laughed in your face.
Okay - to begin, yes, Robinson hasn't done anything against Big 10 Defenses...yet. Yeah. Yup. Okay. Except that the only elite defense, right now, in this conference, belongs to Ohio State. Michigan dropped 28 on Iowa last year. Penn State has trouble stopping anyone because their own offense is so damn bad. Michigan State has a good front seven, but a highly suspect secondary. Wisconsin's defense has been decimated by injuries. This year, Michigan's O-Line has been mauling fools. I'm not going to argue that Robinson will not be knocked outta a game or seriously hurt....because he is. But Michigan's weakness is defense, not offense. I'm pretty nervous about Kirk Cousins getting all day to stand and throw in that pocket.
First, GO BLUE. Second, I can't believe Matt Millen is going to be calling this game for ABC. What an insult to everyone in Michigan. The fact that he even has a job related to football after what he did to the Lions boggles my mind. How can anyone think he has any credibility left? Unreal.
Take a look at anyone announcing a nationally televised game these days (college or pro). I'm pretty sure that's a prerequisite for getting into the booth.
I hope you're joking. During the Iowa vs. Penn State game last week they mentioned about 50 times that Iowa's defense is the #1 ranked defense in the nation right now.
Against the explosive offenses of Penn State and Iowa State? Defensive and offensive rankings don't really mean much until you hit the meat of the conference schedule. Arizona, the one legit team they played, did alright for themselves. If next week Michigan gets jacked up by the Iowa D, I'll take my hat off to the Hawkeyes. Adrian Clayborn is the best player in the Big 10.
No, actually Arizona's offense did not do alright for themselves. That game was high scoring because Iowa's special teams screwed up massively. Not to take away from Arizona's special teams, they played well, but it was not Arizona's offense scoring points at will. The first TD was because Zona got the ball at the 7 yard line. The 2nd TD was an INT returned for a touchdown. The 3rd TD was a kickoff return for a TD. The other scoring was 2 field goals and the 1 touchdown scored by the Zona offense at the end of the game. Arizona's defense and special teams won that game for them. Iowa's mistakes of poor blocking on the first punt, the WR allowing the ball to bounce off his hands on the INT return, and not maintaining their lanes on kickoff coverage lost the game for them. To say Iowa's defense didn't perform like a top D against Arizona is flat out wrong.
Michigan football sucks. Always. and probably will always continue to do so. Congrats MSU guys, you were right, I was wrong. Spartans are a good football team.
Thanks South Carolina, now we have Ohio State as #1 again. Son of a bitch. Seriously, though...fun game to watch.
So I'm obviously a homer but I'm thinking we (Southern Cal) may be able to make it out of these sanctions alright. Right now we have the worst passing defense in college football and have given up two straight game winning drives that took under a minute to complete. (they were a little longer but a lot of the time was just spent winding the clock down before the field goals at the end) But, our offense is coming together really nicely and Robert Woods looks like the real deal. I just wish that the rest of the Pac-10 didn't suck at football for the previous decade and we wouldn't have had to listen to the SEC bitch about our strength of schedule. Oh, and once again. When Monte Kiffin is your defensive coordinator and every single fan worries about leaving one minute on the clock because it's way too much time you really need to find new players. Hopefully they can somehow manage to get some defensive recruits and the NCAA reduces the sanctions for next year.
If they can keep up through the next two years, it'll be alright, but the roster is only going to get thinner over the next two years. There's zero wiggle room in recruiting, everyone we get HAS to pan out or we're going to be in trouble. Our offense is looking great, Barkley to Woods is going to be fun to watch for the next couple years. The defense is pretty porous right now, but the insane amount of stupid penalties do not help matters in the least. I think it's a case of everyone trying to do too much rather than just doing their job and trusting their teammates to do theirs as well. I'd argue that the PAC-10 is top to bottom the best conference in the nation right now. With the exception of Washington St, everyone in the conference can go toe to toe with the top few teams from any other conference. I think people are also starting to realize just how bad the bottom half of the SEC is. If any of the teams in the SEC could play offense better, their defenses would actually be exposed for what they are: mediocre.
I'm an SEC homer, but the "bottom half" of the SEC had a pretty good day yesterday. Kentucky lost to (still undefeated) Auburn by a field goal, Georgia beat Tennessee pretty handily, USC beat their first top-ranked opponent ever, and even Vanderbilt put up 52 points in a victory. I think the SEC has taken some heat this year because Florida, Georgia and Tennessee are not having the year that people expected them to have, but calling the PAC 10 the best conference in the nation is a bit premature. I think the Big 12 would have to be recognized for that at the moment, because they have 4 undefeated teams, several middle-tier teams that would be dangerous to play (Texas, A&M, Colorado, and Texas Tech) and to be honest, the best outside shot at the title if Oklahoma wins out.
Les Miles. BALLS. Big, huge, swinging testicles. NUTS. Swagger. Is there a more entertaining coach in tight games during the fourth quarter?
and as much as I hate to post this Andrew Luck is a boss. We should get him for linebacker, tackles better than our guys do.