Michigan Friday: Apologizes to San Diego State

Dear San Diego State,

The University of Michigan and it's fans owe you an apologize.  We took your programs head football coach and top assistants and left you with little to no coaching talent.    It started in January of 2011 and continued through out the year. 

Then 8 months later, Michigan was not a gracious host in September and welcomed you to Ann Arbor by beating your team 28-7.  Again we are sorry. 

Clearly, Rocky Long your head coach is upset about the treatment from U of M and down votes the Wolverines in his final poll.   Which clearly is a way to stick it to the man, since a loss to a higher ranked Wolverines would help SDSU's ranking. 

Then earlier this month, you get confused on where your school is located and join the Big East.  Now, I can't really blame you for joining a BCS Bowl conference but that seems like a ton of travel for your school.   Since the Big 10 has 12 teams, maybe you can call your new conference The Big East West?

The last but not least straw, was your teams performance in the Super Dome last weekend.   (Hey, Michigan plays there in a couple of weeks!)  Your team lost to Louisiana-Lafayette, let me say that again Louisiana-Lafayette.   Here are some of the great coaching moves during the game:

• L-L sold out to stop the run against the nation's #3 rusher and SDSU continued to try to run the ball for little to no gains.  Pass the ball coach!

• SDSU gave up 470 yards through the air. 

• On the winning field goal, SDSU got an “illegal stemming”  penalty that got them 5 yards closer and made a 55 yard field goal a 50 yarder. 

• Late in the game, Rocky Long brought out his terrible kicker to try to kick a field goal.   This guy had hit less then 50% of field goals this year and I believe he had missed his last 5 attempts coming into the game.   He did make a short attempt early in the game but his 4th quarter attempt was shanked badly.   Good call coach.  

• The team you lost to was 3-9 last year and has 1 win in it's history over a BCS school.  L-L had lost 3 out of it last 5 games coming it to the bowl game.  This was their first bowl win.

• This is L-L's S&C Coach. He left that blood there the entire game.  

This is clearly all Michigan's fault and we apologize.   To make it up to you, please enjoy coach Steve Fisher for many more years.

That's what we need - More Bowl Games!

This is pretty old news but I just ran across it. Did you know that we are going to have two more bowls to enjoy next year? Yes, I know - you can hardly wait.

First off is the brand new: St. Petersburg Bowl (which sounds more like a cheer leading event on ESPN then a bowl game) will be played at the Tampa Bays Devil Ray's Tropicana Field. The game will feature teams from the Big East and Conference USA. Boy, this could be a similar match up to the exciting International Bowl played in Toronto. Get your tickets now!

Next is the Congressional Bowl in Washington DC which will pit Navy vs an ACC opponent. Yes NAVY already has a spot guaranteed in a bowl. What luck! Why even play the regular season games? Oh right, sorry Notre Dame I understand. In related news, there has been some talk of changing the name of this game to the Paul Johnson Bowl, but those rumors have not been verified. A committee member of the Congressional Bowl was quoted as saying, "Changing the name to the The Paul Johnson Bowl was never an option. But it was a Triple Option"

The last bit of news to get you excited about College Football's post season is the legendary Cotton Bowl is doing it's part to kill the News Years Day tradition by moving it's game to the afternoon of January 2nd. Not sure why they didn't want to keep that 10am spot on January 1? They will also move the game to the Cowboys new stadium in 2010. So the Orange Bowl isn't played in the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl isn't' played in the Cotton Bowl. This reporter has also been told that the The Rose Bowl is negotiations with the Indianapolis Colts new stadium management. The Big Ten is very happy on how the talks are progressing.

No Plus 1 in College Football

I have to wonder what the BCS commissioners are thinking. Yesterday they shot down the +1 proposal where number 1 would play #4, and #2 would play #3 in the traditional BCS Bowls. The winners would play a week later. For some reason that proposal had too many holes in it and the commissioners shot it down. No real reasons were given why.

This is ridiculous. They didn't want to add more excitement to College football? They enjoy controversy? The have a problem at doing what most of America wants? They enjoy watching Ohio State get beat by 21 points each year?

What gives? Auburn, USC, Georgia, and even Michigan have had a legitimate beef on not making it to the Big Game in the past few years.

This plan would keep all the Bowl Games and yes there still could be Bowl games in Detroit and Toronto. Why wasn't this proposal considered more closely. Maybe it goes to the intelligence of the commissioners. Here is a quote from ND athletic director Kevin White on why they didn't do the +1 game. "If it isn't broke," White said, "don't fix it."

Wow, I guess these guys just don't get it. I wonder what Kevin would say if a one loss ND team got passed over for the National Championship game for a one loss each USC - Florida match up?
College football is the perfect game with an un-perfect ending every year. On a personal side note: The BCS has really hurt the American tradition of New Years Day Bowls. It's just not the same when two or three bowls are a few days to a week later.

A Road Les Traveled

So late yesterday, Bill Martin asked LSU athletic director Skip Bertman for permission to talk to Les Miles regarding the open position at Michigan.

Skip has asked that the contact be made after the SEC Championship game on Saturday. The reason for this is two fold. 1) It allows Les to focus on the game 2) It gives Skip a couple of days to keep his coach.

So here is what I believe has happened. The deal for him to come to Michigan has been wrapped up via 3rd parties. Usually, you wouldn't do something like "ask for permission" for a coach you didn't want to hire, because the PR would be too great if he turned it down or wasn't interested.

Second, I believe Skip is going to break the bank and try to keep Les. I'm hearing Skip will offer in the $3.5 Million a year range. I don't believe Bill Martin will pay that much. I expect Michigan to be the $2.5-$3.0 range. Skip has already met with George Bass, Les's agent on a contract extension. Bass says he has not talked to Michigan.

So it comes down what is more important to Les: His dream job? Or more money?

Only time will tell. Hopefully this is a no brainer for him.


It looks like Michigan's inability of their fans to travel to non-important bowl games is going to haunt them. The Outback bowl has chosen the well traveling Wisconsin Badgers and the Citrus will most likely take Illinois. The Alamo bowl hasn't been impressed on how many tickets they sold the last time they were in town and are leaning towards Penn State. So that leaves Michigan in some other bad Orlando bowl against an ACC team before New Years. Way to go out Lloyd!

The Little 11?

I have always been a huge supporter of the Big Ten against the other conferences. I thought the Big Ten played tough nosed Midwest football that prided itself with good defenses and a balanced offense.

Now, I wonder if that style of football will get you beat by the top tier teams in the NCAA. Now, chill out everyone that says a balanced offense and at good defense does not a good football team make. Just hear me out. This season the Big 11 is way down. This past weekend was a great example of that. Let's take a look, shall we........

Michigan and OSU: Played the awe inspiring 14-3 football game with 367 of total offense between the two teams. Tim Tebow has that before half time.

Penn State loses to MSU: MSU was tied for 10th place in the Big Ten coming into this game. Penn State was ranked in the top 25. Not good for the Big Ten nationally.

Wisconsin barley beats Minnesota: Wisconsin coming off a big win against Michigan at home all most gets upset by a 1-win Golden Gopher team that could be one of the worst teams in Division 1A.

Western Michigan beats Iowa: Enough said here.

IU beats Purdue: I know this is an instate rivalry and IU is looking forward to going to a bowl, but at one point this year Purdue was ranked 15th in the country and just lost 3 straight.

Come Bowl season the most attractive Big Ten school maybe Illinois. I expect them to get a Citrus Bowl invite to play maybe Georgia. I'm not sure their quite ready for that type of game yet.

So we throw in names like App. State, anyone that played Minnesota, and so on. I thinks it's hard to argue that the Big Ten hasn't had an off year.

So what's next? Let's try not to get embarrassed in the Bowl season. Right now the SEC-Big Ten Bowl match up looks heavily favored towards the SEC. Florida could be in the Outback Bowl? - Wow that will be ugly for Michigan or Wisconsin. OSU got a little lucky with Dennis Dixon going down last week and can compete against USC or Arizona State. But if they are to face West Virgina, that doesn't really set up very well for OSU.

There is always next year! Illinois and OSU will be the two top teams in the conference in 2008.