The Mad Monks

One of, if not the best, characteristics of Lloyd Carr coached teams over the years was on full display Saturday night in Champaign-Urbana. His teams have always shown incredible resiliency. Like Rasputin, the infamous Russian advisor to the last Tsar, they just won't die:
-Pump them with enough cyanide to kill five normal college football programs (the twin horrors of App State and Oregon)
-Shoot them in the back several times (lose your best player, and the only player who has shown up for every game this year)
-Beat them senseless with a club (night game against a spread option attack with speed at key positions, the exact type of offense they have struggled with in the recent past)
-Throw them in a frozen river (A senior quarterback with injuries so bad that he went the locker room twice during the game, and left the stadium with his right arm in a sling)
Poison them, stab them, throw them in the river, they keep coming back for more. it wasn't pretty, and they still have a long way to go, but they are bowl eligible and have another Big Ten championship in their line of vision. Proof positive that you never count out a Lloyd Carr coached team.
-The receiver pass from Arrington to Manningham was a thing of beauty and almost completely out of character for Mike Debord. A poster on one my favorite Michigan message boards jokingly suggested that QB coach Scott Loeffler made the play call while Debord was in the powder room. All kidding aside, I think it was a fairly well-called game by the coaches, given the limitations of the team's injuries. I do wonder why the abandoned the run when Henne came back in the game.
-Carlos Brown had a great game. He's not going to get you the guaranteed 4 or 5 every carry like Hart, but he does have more big play ability.
-QB-Center exchange, QB-Center exchange, QB-Center exchange, QB-Center exchange...(just keep practicing it)
-Henne and Hart should both rest this week if they are not 100%. Minnesota is absolutely awful.
Other games:
-What a play to end the LSU-Auburn game. More proof that this is a charmed season for Les Miles and the Bayou Bengals. I don't think the coaches expected Matt Flynn to take 10 seconds to snap the ball on that last play, and it could have ended up a disaster if he had gotten sacked or had to scramble.
-Right before the penultimate play of the Cal-UCLA game, I thought to myself, UCLA is going to be sitting at the first down line. If they throw, throw it a little deep. For the second straight week the fighting Tedfords are undone by a QB mistake at the end of the game that costs them a chance to kick a last second field goal. Longshore stared down his receiver and tried to force a throw to a receiver that was covered.
-I turned on the USC game and saw that they were playing the Edmonton Eskimos.
-Not to be outdone, the masters of the ugly jerseys unveiled a high school type all-white ensemble that had countless viewers in the northwest calling their local cable company and asking why the broadcast was in black and white.
-Sparty put up a good fight in C-Bus, but i wonder how much of that was OSU letting their guard down after breaking out to a methodical 24-0 lead in which the Spartans offered little resistance. Kudos to MSU for not packing it in, if they show the same sort of defense in their last four games, they's get the one or two wins they need to be bowl eligible.