Dead Coach Walking?

It's not possible to overstate just how incredibly bad the Michigan defense played the night before Halloween. A team that was averaging 109 yards rushing per game got 109 in the first half. A team that had been averaging 344 yards of total offense got 435. A team that had been out gained by 80 yards by the hapless Minnesota Golden Gophers out gained the vaunted Michigan offense. A team that had been averaging 20 points per game, scored 41 and ended the game by taking a knee inside the Michigan five-yard line. And they did this with a third-string walk-on QB and a patchwork offensive line, and without the aid of any turnovers.
This offensive explosion from a team that has one of the worst offenses in the league, when healthy, came on the heels of a series of position moves during the bye week that were eerily similar to the changes in the defense made before the Purdue game in 2008, when Michigan played a 3-3-5 for the first time all year and a backup running back turned QB torched Michigan for a bazillion yards and more points than Purdue had scored all year. Just like that game, the Michigan defenders looked lost, and constantly out of position. It was a coaching failure of the highest order. It has become clear the Rich Rod knows only slightly more about defense than I do, and doesn't have the faintest clue how to go about teaching it to young players. Which is really a shame, considering he knows more about the spread offense than anyone coaching today. We have the worst defense in the league, and the best offense.

So was this game the tipping point for Rich Rod? Depends on who you ask. Some were ready to get rid of him when he quoted the Lion King at his opening press conference. For some it was the loss to Toledo. For the first time, I think, more than 50% of the fanbase think its time for a change. For me it was the MSU loss this year, although it took until this game for me to accept it. Although I recognize the beauty of his offense and know that if he stays we will have an Oregon like offense if not next year than the year after it, I can't get past the lack of any defensive fundamentals, the poor personnel decisions (Marell Evans anyone?), and the complete tailspin they've gone in for three straight years. There is still time to turn this season around, but we've seen no evidence that Rich Rod's teams are capable of that.

Other random thoughts:
-Mark Dantonio showed his true stripes (win-at-all-costs), I'm glad the mainstream media is finally picking up on that. Hey Mark, if you want to be a father figure to these kids (your words, not mine), try acting like a father. If you tell a kid the consequences of bad behavior is a certain punishment, and then you don't follow through with the punishment when they do that bad behavior, they learn not to listen to you, or believe you when you tell them there will be dire consequences if they mess up.
-How the hell did Texas beat Nebraska?
-All of a sudden, West Virginia has fallen off the map. I wonder if they might be willing to take Rich Rod back? Maybe we could work out a sign and trade.
-That Iowa collapse against Wisconsin last week is looking like it might be the pivotal game in the Big Ten race this year. Iowa looked very good against MSU and has a decent chance of beating OSU in two weeks. But even if they run the table, if Wisconsin also runs the table, they are out of luck for the Rose Bowl.
-Tulsa? Seriously, Tulsa?!? Is this why you decided to stay an independent?
-The story about the Notre Dame student killed while filming football practice is tragic, and his tweets were especially haunting. This accident is gonna cost the university a ton of money, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of heat comes on Brian Kelly because of it.
-The Cal scoring streak continued, blows out teams at home, gets blown out on the road - they lost at Oregon State 35-7. They travel to Washington State, so a continuation of the trend would be quite shocking. They close the season with home games against Oregon, Stanford, and Washington.

Bye Week This and That

In no particular order:
-Raise your hand if you wrote down Missouri, Oregon, Auburn and Michigan State at the start of the year as the last remaining unbeatens from the BCS conference. Liar.
-If there are any Rich Rod critics out there who still believe that his offense "won't work on a big stage", please note that three of those four teams run versions of his offense. That and the fact that Northwestern has run the offense successfully for ten years with less talent than just about anyone in the league. His problem ain't offense, it's everything else.
-I didn't see any of the MSU/Northwestern game, and only heard a few minutes of it on the radio as we were running errands, but it seems to me that road wins against winning conference teams where you come back from a 17-0 deficit are one of the requirements for a championship season.
-MSU can almost print their tickets for Pasadena. With Iowa's loss to Wisconsin, the spartans can afford to lose one of their remaining four games and still win the league title. Even if they lose to the Hawkeyes next week, they can still win the title if OSU beats Iowa, or if MSU, Iowa, & Wisconsin all finish with one loss. Even if you throw OSU in there and make it a four way tie, MSU still gets the Rose Bowl bid. All the Spartans have to do is beat Purdue and Minnesota at home and Penn State on the road and they get their first Rose Bowl in 23 years. It would take an epic collapse to miss out on a BCS bowl. While "epic collapse" and "Michigan State" have gone together like the Captain and Tenile for the better part of the last 40 years, that trend has reversed itself the last three years, as they have found a way to win important games down the stretch in each of Dantonio's first three years.
-Of course, if they win in Iowa City on saturday, they may miss the Rose Bowl by getting invited to the BCS championship game. They may get to play Boise State sooner than they planned.
-It seems that the best LSU QB changes from week to week, depending on who's starting, with the best player always being the guy who comes off the bench.
-What the hell has happened to Texas? I understand them having an off year (they've won ten or more since 2001, and haven't won fewer than 9 since 97), but losing to Iowa State? At home? Maybe Mack Brown has checked out, but you'd figure they have enough talent to overcome whatever is ailing them against Iowa State in Austin. They might be an underdog this week at home against Baylor. I'm pretty sure that's one of the signs of the apocalypse.
-The SEC East is starting to look like a typical year in the ACC, where all teams finish between 5-3 and 3-5 in conference. I wonder if Urban Meyer is regretting his decision to come back. Can they fire Mark Richt if he wins the SEC East at 5-3? I think Derek Dooley had more wins over SEC teams when he was at La Tech then he does at Tennessee.
-Like offense? Try watching the Cal Golden Bears. So far this year they've scored 52 against UC Davis, 52 on Colorado, given up 52 to Nevada, scored 35 on UCLA, given up 48 to USC, and just this week scored 50 on Arizona State. They're scoring 35 points per game and haven't played the two worst scoring defenses in the Pac Ten, Washington State and Oregon State. They haven't played the top two offenses, Oregon and Stanford, either.
-This weekend was about as bad as possible for us on a bye week. All five of the teams we've beaten this year were beaten this week, some in blowout fashion - IU by 30 to Illinois, Notre Dame by 18 to Navy, UConn shutout at Louisville, 26-0, BGSU losing by 24 to Kent State. Strength of schedule really doesn't matter too much to a team nowhere near the BCS, but the fact that Umass was beaten 39-13 by a 5-3 New Hampshire team really doesn't me a lot of confidence about the season going forward.

Stop me if you've heard this one before

Michigan comes out fired up, makes a defensive stop or two and takes the lead. Opponent comes right back down the field and scores and then continues to score throughout the second and third quarter. Michigan scores in the fourth quarter, but its too little to late. Michigan offense gains lots of yards, but is undone by turnovers. Michigan defense looks good in spots, but fails to make the stop at the key moments. Yes, this game looked a lot like the MSU game, and further reinforces what we have thought for several weeks now -- this team is not quite ready for prime time. The defense is still far too weak to be counted on to stop any team that is trying to score. Poor positioning, poor tackling, or just poor recognition - they simply don't have enough talent to be successful. The offense has also shown its youth in the last two weeks with costly turnovers, ridiculous penalties and an inability to make clutch plays. And special teams (other than punting) is still a weight on the offense.
Still, there were some positives:
-Tate's play (other than the two interceptions) was encouraging, and opens up the possibility of bringing him in future games as a change of pace when Denard is struggling.
-Kenny Demens looked better than horrible in place of Obi Ezeh. Hopefully his play against Iowa effectively ended Ezeh's playing time for the year.
-522 yards is a lot of yards to gain on a top ten defense. It does lend some credence that if (and that's a big if) turnovers can be cut down, this offense can duplicate some of their early season domination.
-The defensive and offensive lines played decently considering that David Molk and Mike Martin missed most of the game.
-The receivers looked good, especially in the fourth quarter. I think it's clear that most of them react better to Tate as a passer than Denard.
-Zoltan, Jr!
-Crowd was really into the game, especially during the mini-comeback in the fourth quarter. After the game, Iowa players reported troubles hearing audibles.

Of course, watching them shoot themselves in the foot for the second straight week has led to a lot of grumbling about Rich Rod and a lot of discussion about his future here. Towards the end of the game, there were chants of "We want Harbaugh" audible in the sections near us. Personally, I'm not ready to kick him to the curb just yet. There are still five games to be played, and there have been enough positive signs to suggest that a winning conference record is not far fetched. Unlikely, maybe, but not impossible. So I will reserve final judgement for at least two more weeks.

Thoughts on other games:
-The Wisconsin / OSU game was surprising so much because the Badgers, but rather for the way they won - by imposing their will on the Buckeyes and ramming the ball down their throat. I'm not surprised that the OSU offense stalled because they've looked rather pedestrian at times this year, but I didn't think Wisconsin would score over 30, when they only scored 20 against Arizona State at home.
-OSU's loss really helps MSU. If Iowa loses to Wisconsin this week, MSU has a one game margin over everyone in the conference, and can almost afford a lose in their toughest game left, in Iowa City. Of course, MSU has yet to play outside of the State of Michigan, and I wouldn't be surprised if Northwestern gives them a scare. Still, they are looking good for a New Year's day bowl, at least, if not a BCS bowl.
-I think we are heading for a TCU-Boise national championship game. The SEC undefeateds both have to play Alabama and each other. Oregon still has tough games with USC, Washington, Arizona and Oregon State. Oklahoma, Missouri and Oklahoma State all play each other, along with games against Nebraska and Texas. Finally, MSU still has to go to Iowa City. If Boise and TCU run the table, they will each be 37-1 in the last three years. Meanwhile, some other BCS bowl will feature a game that will be hyped as the "real" national championship game (Alabama/OSU in the Sugar, perhaps).

Going through the motions

You'll have to excuse the lackluster blogging effort this week (i.e. late) after a lackluster game on Saturday. Ugh. What a stinker.

The offense was out of sync. Robinson forced his first pass of the day resulting in an INT. He fumbled several snaps and seemed to read a couple of zone read plays wrong. The O-line missed a few assignments, and there were a few missed cuts by the RBs. Still they racked up 550 some odd yards on 56 snaps. Even when out of sorts, this is a potent offense. Offense is not the problem.

Defense is. More specifically, linebackers are. Even my untrained eye saw Ezeh and Mouton make bad read after bad read. Give Umass credit, they ran a lot of misdirection , roll outs and short passes that put the onus on the LBs to make the right read. Time and again they didn't. What is scary is that there are several Big Ten teams that play exactly this style of offense.

That being said, I'm not sure this meager effort changes the big picture. Even with the defense of death, the offense appears to be good enough to win four of the remaining nine games. If the defense improves (i.e. they discover some new linebackers), we might see more wins.

This and That:
-A lot of fans will make a big deal out of a close game with an FCS team, but this really isn't any different than a basketball win over a mid-major. UMass, Villanova, James Madison, App State, these are the football equivalents of the Butler team that came within a few points of winning the Big Dance this year. Now Umass probably isn't as good as Butler was this year, but they were chalked full of seniors. had plenty of experience, and probably won't be the worst team we play this year.
-The thing that disappointed me the most in our game is that we didn't see any backups. Obviously some new prospects on defense might provide some hope, but I was also hoping to see the backup RBs. Still not convinced Shaw and Smith are the answer.
-What a call by Dantonio in the MSU/ND game. The amazing thing was that it wasn't open when the punter first stood up. He had to wait for his receiver to come open. I found it funny that Kelly, who is know for his gambling nature passed on a fourth and one in overtime, and Dantonio, who is considered conservative took the risk.
-Hope Dantonio recovers in time for the Michigan game. We should have known that something was wrong when he smiled in the post game interview.
-Not to look to far ahead, but the State game looks like it will be a barn burner. Two potent offenses, two poor defenses. I think this game is huge for Rich Rod. If he loses that game, I don't think he comes back next year.
-Only watched a little bit of the Iowa-Arizona game before I fell asleep, but man is Mike Stoops crazy on the sidelines. If you had told me Sunday morning that a college coach had a heart attack the night before, I would have guessed Stoops.
-Bo Pelini looks to have Nebraska rounding in form just in time for their move to the Big Ten. I would love to see them win the Big 12 this year.
-I wonder if the Pac 10 is having second thoughts about Colorado. First California routs CU 52-7, then the bears get blown out by Nevada 52-31. They've added a few teams and still can't beat the Mountain West.
-A new set of Golden Rankings coming in a day or so.

Ride Captain Ride

News came down from on high today that Bill Martin will be hanging it up as AD by next September. Now while most of us wouldn't know what makes a good AD, I think it's pretty clear that Bill Martin has been one of the best ADs in the country for the last ten years. To recap some of his accomplishments:
-He took an athletic department that was opertaing at a loss each year and made it one of the most profitable departments in the country, even without luxury boxes.
-He dramtically improved the facilities here, including a new football practice facility, new soccer stadium, boxes at Yost, new basketball practice facility, new wrestling facility, new varsity tennis complex, new academic support center for athletes, a renovated baseball and softball complex, and of course, the new suites and press box at Michigan Stadium. It is easily the most prolific building period in the history of athletics at the university.
-He helped provide a new emphasis on women's athletics, leading to our first ever women's national championship (2oo1 in field hockey).
-Eight top five finishes in the last ten years in the Director's, or Sears Cup, the annual award given by the NCAA to the school that finishes with the best overall placements in their top 10 men's sports and top 10 women's sports. These finishes have come against a number of schools that have extraordinarily large private endowments (like Stanford), or sponsor more sports than Michigan due to climate or size of athletic department (like Texas).
-Despite some high profile misses in coaching hires (Tommy Amaker, Bob Bowman), he has made some outstanding hires -- John Beilein, Rich Maloney, Marcia Pankratz and Rich Rodriguez -- that have put a number of the athletic programs in good hands for years to come.

All in all, it's safe to say that not since Don Canham retired has Michigan had such a successful AD. Here's hoping his successor has half his business sense.

Bullets:
-Not much to talk about with the Delaware State game -- both teams got the cash they needed out of the deal, the Hornets their 500k payout, which probably paid their season expenses, and Michigan their $4 million gate, which paid for a few different non-revenue sports
-From my vantage point, the national championship pecking order looks as follows:
1) Alabama / Florida winner (assuming they are undefeated)
2) Texas
3) Iowa
4) Cinncy
5) Boise
6) TCU
7) Alabama / Florida loser (or 1-loss SEC team)

Actually if the championship game is not a rematch, I think the one loss SEC team shoots above the two mid-majors, and maybe even above an undefeated Cinncy.
-I'll be interested to see how many of the SEC slappies who cried injustice at the idea of a rematch 3 years ago will now campaign for the loser of the SEC championship game to get a second bite at the apple.
-I'm not buying this "woe-is-me" routine from the Buckeyes and their fans. No matter how awful they look and how many games they lose between now and November 21, I'll still expect Pryor to go 28-32 for 350 yards and 4 TDs against us.
-A weird line for this weekend's games: Iowa @ MSU is a pick'em. Now I know it's tough to win on the road in the Big Ten, but Iowa already won by 11 in a night game at Penn State. Do the oddsmakers really think Penn State is 11 points worse than MSU?

Missed Opportunities

I must admit that when it happened, I was livid. How could you not put the golden child, Tate Forcier, back in the game? After all, hadn't he already led three fourth quarter drives to win or tie games this year? We only had 1:40 on the clock, no timeouts, and we had to go about 60 yards to get into reasonable field goal range. Surely this was the perfect setup for more heroics.
But no, Denard Robinson came back out on the field. Maybe Tate was injured, we had seen him shaking his hand like he had hit it on something earlier in the quarter. But we saw him start to run on the field, as if to say, "I'm ready to go" only to be told to sit down by Rich Rod. This was clearly a decision by Rich Rod to go with Robinson.

After the game, I stewed for a while, thinking about the missed opportunity to steal a game on the road against a top ten team when you commit five turnovers. As disappointed as I was that the game slipped away, I began to mellow a bit, thinking about how good the team had played in certain segments, and realizing that we were a nine point dog in this game and nearly won it.

As I poked around on various message boards, and saw discussions of the game, and of Rich Rod's decision to bench Forcier, I came across a comparison that seem particularly apt to me.
Late in the Big Ten basketball season, with the Michigan hoops fighting for their first NCAA bid in ten years, Michigan was playing on the road against a poor Iowa team. With tough games still to play against Purdue and Minnesota, most people felt this was a must win for our tournament chances. After blowing a large lead late, John Beilein benched his best player, Manny Harris for the overtime period, and we ended up loosing. At the time, many people were upset that the loss had cost us our chance at an NCAA bid. But Manny came out fired up a few days later and we beat Purdue, and then beat Minnesota, and he was the best player on the court in our big dance win against Clemson. In the end, Beilein's decision to bench Manny against Iowa probably cost us that game, but might have been the move that saved our season. We can only hope that Rich Rod's bizarre decision to bench Forcier will have the same consequences.

Bullets:
-Big picture, I'm very pleased with where we are. A year after finishing 3-9 (and being somewhat lucky to get one of those wins), we are 4-2 with two narrow losses, and most of our remaining tough games at home. 8-4 is a real possibility now, and that would be a huge one year improvement
-Boy did our line play look great. I think we beat Iowa on both sides of the ball, and they were supposed to have the best D-line in the league outside of Columbus.
-I love seeing Brandon Minor run downhill. We really need to get him more carries against the big boys. I would love to see him repeat the success he had in the first half against PSU last year against the Knitknees this year.
-I was very impressed with Denard Robinson in the next to the last drive. Everyone in the stadium knew he was going to run the ball, and they still couldn't stop him. I wish he had come in the game earlier. I hope he gets significant snaps in the scrimmage against Delaware State.
-Jordan Kovacs has turned into a serviceable safety. Now if we could only bring Mike Williams along, we might be ok (meaning average) in the secondary.
-Woolfolk also look good. I would guess he's our starting CB the rest of the year, regardless of what happens with Cissoko's suspension.
-Other than Zoltan, our special teams were quite poor. Why can't we find a decent punt returner. Isn't that something that slot ninjas are supposed to be good at?
-If I were the Illinois AD, I'd start raising money for Ron Zook's buyout and would get Brian Kelly on speed dial. The Illini look like they've quit on Zook.
-The Big Ten looks like OSU's to lose. Iowa is good, but not good enough to win in Columbus. While the Buckeyes might trip up once, I don't see them losing twice, and no one else in the league is good enough to run the table. I would put Iowa, PSU, and Wisconsin in the group behind OSU, with Michigan, MSU, and maybe Minnesota a step lower than them.
-Has anybody else in the country played as many exciting games as Washington? (Perhaps us)
-The post game interview with Bobby Bowden was painful to watch. They asked him what went wrong with the game, why they lost, and he couldn't offer much more than cliches. It's pretty clear that he doesn't have the slightest clue what's going on out there. I don't envy the FSU fans or decision makers. It's pretty hard to deal with the fact that the person that basically created your program is now like an anchor around its ankle.

Bowl Math

After getting undressed on homecoming, we sat in the stands doing bowl math. That's when you go through the schedule and try and figure out where the six wins will come from to make us eligible for the the 33rd year in a row. What we came up with:
Sure Losses -- at Penn State, at OSU -- This is the year the streak ends for the Knitknees. Considering they lose almost all their starters next year, it better. And the trip to the Snakepit could get ugly.
Sure (as much as anything is sure in this year) wins -- Toledo, at Minnesota, at Purdue -- If we don't win all three of these games, we'll be home for the holidays.
Tossups -- Michigan State, Northwestern -- This is where the bowl push will be won or lost. Lose both of these, we go nowhere. Win both, we go bowling, maybe in the Alamo bowl, or the Champs Sports Bowl. Split these games, things get dicey. The bowl rules say that all 7-5 teams must be guaranteed a bowl spot for 6-6 teams to get a spot. The Big Ten has seven slots, including the BCS. Five Big Ten teams currently have 5 or more wins (Penn State, OSU, MSU, Northwestern, and Minnesota). The first four are likely to be bowl eligible, although never count out the ability of the Spartans to completely implode. 3-2 Illinois and 3-2 Wisconsin will both probably get to seven wins. That leave Minnesota, 2-3 Purdue, 2-3 Indiana, 3-3 Iowa and us fighting for that last Bowl bid. Now, if Ohio State and Penn State both end up with two or less losses, they are both likely to end up in the BCS, meaning there will be an extra bowl spot open. So at 6-6, we have a good shot at a bowl, but not a risk.
Will we get there? Good question. I think that MSU is a good match up for us, similar to Wisconsin. Power team with not much offensive diversity and serious questions in pass defense. Northwestern doesn't have the athletes the Spartans do, but they might have a better defense.

As for the game, not much to say other than Juice Williams. We stopped their zone running game fairly well, but just couldn't stop Williams running or throwing the ball. He has certainly grown as a QB. Last year you could count on him to make a number of bad reads and throws every game. This game he didn't. In short, he is exactly the type of QB I think Rich Rod would want for our system.
The offense was the same as it ever is, stop and start, very erratic. Occasionally flashes of what it could be, but mostly just missed plays. Throws off by a bit, routes run incorrectly, blocks not held long enough, etc.

From other games:
-Iowa flat out gave away the game in East Lansing. The Hawkeyes out gained the Spartans and held their all-everything uberback Javon Ringer to under 100 yards. But two endzone turnovers, another on their own 20 put the spartans up16-3 halfway through the third. Iowa rallied to 16-6, when Kirk Ferentz made the first of two ridiculously bad decisions with about 8 minutes left in the game. With a 4th and 5 at the MSU 15, he passed up the field goal which would have brought them to within 7 and went for it. The pitch play failed, and State took over. After Iowa scored again to make it 16-13, Ferentz again passed up a field goal to go for it on 4th and 2 at the MSU 20 with two minutes left and only one time out. When the off tackle play was stuffed for no gain, MSU took over and ran out the clock. If I were an Iowa fan, I would be livid. The decision to pass up the game tying field goal was inexcusable. Considering your five previous red zone trips had resulted in 6 points, you take the points whenever you can. For the Spartans, they need to find offense from someone other than Ringer, or he won't last the season.
-I was thinking that OSU looked beatable until that last drive. Yikes, let's hope Pryor actually starts to play like a freshman at some point this year.
-With apologies to MSU and Northwestern, I think the big ten is a three team race now: OSU, Penn State and Illinois. I know the Illini have that loss already, but I still think they can give the Buckeyes trouble.
-I wonder if any of the defensive coordinators in the Big 12 sleep at night. My goodness, Sam Bradford at OU has been near flawless, Texas Tech is still taking no prisoners, Texas' Colt McCoy has been scary good, Kansas can't fall behind far enough to stop it's offense from coming back, and i don't think Missouri has a punter on it's roster. The Tigers haven't had a 3 and out with the first string offense all year. Oh, and Oklahoma State has scored 223 points in their last four games!
-On that note, the next four games for Texas: OU, Missouri, Oklahoma State, @ Texas Tech. That's the #2,3,4 & 5 scoring offenses in the country.
-How bad has the year been for the Pac 10? Their second best team, Cal, got whipped by a team (Maryland) that got blown out by a team(Virginia) that got blown out by Duke.
-If Miami and Florida State played a football game in an empty stadium, would it make a sound?
-Golden Rankings out later this week, after the Wednesday game. Guess who's number one?
-Hey, I got a link from the UofM Alumni Association! Glad to see our donations going to good use.

There's at least one every year

That saturday where all hell breaks loose, and a bunch of ranked teams get beat.

West Virginia turns the ball over a gazillion times and loses to suddenly relevant South Florida. Auburn stuns Florida in a great game in the Swamp. Colorado comes from 17 down to beat the Sooners at the gun. Rutgers is beat at home by Maryland. USC almost loses to Washington. Cal wins at Oregon on a fumble at the goal line. Clemson pulls one of their annual "what the #$%# was that!?!?" Illinois proves that either they are for real, or Penn State really sucks. Wisconsin beats MSU in a shootout. (Ok I couldn't find any good game shots on You Tube. Memo to self - I need to make it to Madison for a game one of these days) And of course Texas craps the bed against K-State. Oh yea, Michigan wins a closer than it should have been game at Northwestern.

Some thoughts:
-Ron Prince might just earn a spot on my wish list for our next football coach. I was very impressed with his offense and his special teams against a Texas team that probably has more talent at just about every position.
-I was able to get a copy of the Michigan game at Ten Yard Torrents It was not as ugly as I was expecting based on comments I've seen on message boards. The offense was somewhat conservative, but not in the same way it was against PSU and ND. There was a lot of "long hand-offs" and quick outs to the receivers. I'd still like to see them use the middle of the field more (a slant or a dig route would be nice), and there was no play action, but I know better than to get my hopes up. The defense was disappointing in the first half (can anybody tackle?) but they seem to wear Northwestern down in the end. I think the defense can be very good when they get the opposing offense into obvious passing downs. All the more reason to open up the offense early to try and build a big lead.
-I'm sure I'll live to regret saying this, but I think Cal might be a better team right now than USC. It might just be a case of Cal being focused and USC going through the motions. Tedford is still at the top of my list.
-What the heck is going on with Iowa? Seven straight conference losses?!? Kirk Ferentz might become the first coach in college football history to take a team from 1-10 to a BCS bowl and than back to 1-10 in a span of less than ten years.