You're just realistic. The college football that we love, the unique animal of developing kids who play with heart and emotion as their primary driver, is now over. It is a thing of the past. There are now two super-conferences, no amateurism, and a playoff that is almost exactly the same as the NFL. Rivalries are finished. Bowl games and healthy debate are finished.
I didn’t watch the game. But can Orji throw as well as JT Barrett? Because that can lead to a pretty darn good offense in the right hands. Pretty tough to stop Orji on 3rd and 2.
I've watched enough college football to have seen edge mismatches like that game 100+ times. What I have never seen as a response, is to bring in 2 additional OL for almost the entire rest of the game. I was at the game, 50 rows back on the 50 yards line. And it was a sight to behold. I don't think too much can be made of how unique that was, and Sherrone's cojones for doing it, and sticking with it.
Hmmm. A former O-lineman and O-line coach, who's answer (in the absence of his boss) to PSU's super-fast gap-unsound D was to do something not seen since the 50's and basically keep 6-7 OL on the field at all times...............I'm going to speculate that we're going to see an emphasis on line-dominated, physical football.
I can tell you the best moment of the 21’ game, the moment I was pretty sure we were going to win: that was the Roman Wilson helmet pull-off when UM's OL literally sprinted over and verbally mauled poor Cam Brown. It was obvious at that moment who was tougher, who wanted it more and would fight for it, and who was a more cohesive team. That game was an even bigger blowout if not for a couple of miracle plays by OSU. However, the 22 game is actually my favorite as it showed we were here to stay. Not to mention the way it unfolded with Jim Knowles having the best drive of his career lasting one play.
I wouldn't. I think JJ has a lot of unknown as far a QB in an NFL offense. QB in the NFL is largely based on quickly reading complex defenses, and throwing with accuracy. While he may well be capable of combining those two things, certainly the former quality is an unknown in his history as he simply wasn't part of such a scheme. He'd be a late first-rounder to me.
I was thinking the same. Stover seems a mid-low NFL-level TE. While there is less of a premium on blocking these days, he doesn't strike me as having anything beyond a distant back-up skill set.
Hard to make excuses for those loses. But, Urban walked into a stacked roster, and Harbaugh walked into a mess, especially on offense. It's a big deal to essentially not have OL development and takes years to bring this up to the necessary level to be the kind of team Harbaugh wants. His biggest cognitive mistake, IMO, was allowing Don Brown to be inflexible on defense and also to fail to prioritize DT recruiting (the second most important position in football). Harbaugh competed early on with greatly inferior talent. Then got wiped out due to Don Brown not adjusting, and having absolutely no significant DT play. Once that self-corrected, even finger-licking Urban would not have beaten Harbaugh.
Day is definitely a better human being than the two slimeballs who preceded him. But those slimeballs understood football in a way that Day does not.
Unfortunately, for many in football, Jabrill Peppers comes to mind, growing up in a single parent household under difficult and, at times, violent circumstances, is highly prevalent. Day's resilience is laudable, but hardly exceptional.
Look for clues. Cryin Day clearly said 'like some of "US" in the profession', he had to battle his way up. This is classic psychological projection:
"In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others"
Clearly it is Harbaugh who grew up on 3rd base with all the advantages of being in a football family. I think this is true to an extent. Harbaugh learned the central tenet of football probably in the womb: it is a ferocious physical game at its core, and that battle generally determines the outcome. Team and coach mentality must unflinchingly reflect this tenet at all times. Like many of his generation, Day learned football drawing up cool plays on Madden.
Whoa! Here in reality, Kirk Ferentz, Matt Rhule, Bert, Frames Janklin, PJ Fleck and Luke Fickell all won Conference Championships, and are ranked lower than Dan Lanning.
Steve 8-5 Sarkisian is #4? I guess you don't have to prove much to be near the top. Took the guy 10 years of coaching to get his first 10-win season. And how could one possibly rank Jonathan Smith above Good Shit Jedd? So, far, in 2 short careers, their performance has been relatively the same, except Good Shit Jedd hit the high value mark sooner.
I'm not saying Day can't scheme up a passing attack. I'm saying Day hasn't really accomplished much on his own. He went to the playoff with Urban's players. And that's about it.
Also wondering about the chemistry between Chip Kelly and Day. Kelly has done nothing but HC for 15 years, is a control freak on offense, and, reportedly, not the most warm and fuzzy guy in the game. Combining this with another guy who thinks he's a brilliant offensive mind, but hasn't really accomplished much on his own, and clearly is being pushed to the edge of his fragile ego- is going to be quite interesting, IMO
Well, since OSU is only going to play in domes from now on, cold and weather shouldn't affect him either. On another note, has this cat, whom "the internet" notes is from Buford, GA, USA, ever had to snap a football in cold weather?
While true, this title comes with an asterisk. We did have the unfair advantage of sharpening our steel by playing two of the biggest games of the year without our head coach in the face of gale-force fabricated scandal. No other team had to face that kind of character-building adversity, and it clearly gave us an edge in mettle during the playoff. I mean, imagine what OSU could have done had they had the opportunity to build such fortitude.
But why do that, when you can already watch the NFL? That would be like saying get rid of March Madness and have best of 7 series in the NCAA tournament. It's okay that CFB isn't the NFL. Diversity is good for sports fans.
Joel Klatt makes his comfortable living off the media circus surrounding college football. He is not an impartial voice, and, even if he is better than some at balancing bias, he is still coming from the position of an inherent conflict of interest, where his financial interest is tied to the expansion of the playoff. What these people who churn out this drivel about expanding the playoff fail to acknowledge (which was the main reason I watched college football and seldom watch the NFL, and was actually once a motto that college football used a generation ago) was that the regular season WAS the playoff, and every week mattered immensely. I was always attracted to college football because the intensity of big games, even in week 1, was unrivaled by any sport. Of course, those were the days when Michigan might play UCLA, Notre Dame, Boston College to start the season, rather than the trash games we have now. The product is corrupted- probably irrevocably- by money and is simply a Saturday version of the NFL now, complete with free-agency, essentially two conferences, about the same number of teams in the playoff, nobody eliminated from contention with a couple early season losses. Boring. Thank god Harbaugh took us there in the final year before this Armageddon. That will probably keep me satisfied until I'm in a pine box at this point.
My take, Harbaugh loves Michigan. He's spent 2X longer here than anywhere else, and it will almost certainly be the longest job of his career. He meticulously built us back from the abyss to a unique, sustainable position of prestige and power. We owe him tremendously.
"The video also mentions how to beat these modern defenses--run the ball, especially counters--which OSU routinely abandons when playing Michigan."........This
There are certain coaches, Day, Riley, Sarkisian, who just can't help themselves and have to throw the ball, even when they shouldn't be doing it. They just can't take what's there to be taken down after down, and eventually have to follow their fancy-play ego down the rabbit hole to show how they are modern geniuses. Urban has openly criticized Day for this on multiple occasions. Urban gets it, and it simultaneously a heinous human being.
No. MHJ is a generational talent that changed the course of games all on his own. Maybe they will develop that, but there is no obvious heir, nor is it likely. And, MHJ = 0-3 against UM, because senior leadership is what decides The Game and OSU hasn't shown that. They've sent us a pouty QB x 2, and their most recent sacrificial lamb quit the team.
I know. We lucked out, huh? Leading 30-24, and having just had a 7 min drive to eat clock and OSU time outs, I had given up until we lucked out and an angel guided the ball into Rod Moore's arms.
Apparently, you don't listen to coach Jim about how to win road games in the B1G. His refrain is "pack your defense". A great defense, which we have, keeps you in every game.
A: They are losing an absolute generational player in MHJ that they don't have an obvious replacement for. I will admit that Corum, to a lesser extent, is that same concept to us, a heart and soul of the offense player.
B: They have yet to prove they can go toe-to-toe with us for 4 quarters in the trenches. Until proven otherwise, Ryan Day is not a coach who manifests domination up front as the defining feature of his teams. That is the reason we have beaten him decisively 3 straight years and why his teams have hung close only to fail in the 4th. That is the reason we will continue to have a viable chance in The Game.
Or, someone in the program did know what he was doing and either approved it or gave him tacit approval with a "don't get caught" winky winky. No matter which scenario, it was a mole hill turned into a mountain to act out a mob vendetta against the arrogant University of Michigan. How'd that work out for you fellas? Ryan? Tony?
They didn't have the exact same results as our D, because they played Mizzou in the Depends Bowl and we played in the CFP and won, giving up an average of 16.5 points. I'm not saying Knowles has done a terrible job, but we didn't know how good our D was for real until the CFP, because we hadn't really faced good offenses either. If you want to sit on your eggs of SP+ and call us equal, fine, but that also rates half of the B1G West as having elite defenses, which I don't buy. Competition matters (see UM Defense in 2019), and OSU's best competition was us, and they played well, but not well enough to win. At the moment they had all momentum on their side, 17-17 we drove it down their throats. Like 2022, another time for Knowles to "have the best drive of his life" and he shit the bed. We then went on to score two more FG's including a crippling 6-min drive to essentially run the clock out. When they needed to be elite, they were not.
Huh? The only offense with any power they played all year was UM. And we more or less had our way with them. They out-talented the opposition of truly generationally terrible offenses in the B1G, but I don't know that Knowles' presence made them elite. It made them more consistent than Kerry Coombs, which was enough against the monstrosities of offenses they faced.
The only product more boring than the NFL, is the NBA. Thankfully, Michigan won the final non-playoff title, and with no potential for Scott Frost's mom to talk trash. I guess I can die now.
Give me a break. 59% winning percent at 3 blue bloods.
Here are the coaches better (provable by record), just off the top of my head (and I'm sure the list is much more exhaustive). And there are some coaches on this list whom I would never want (Franklin) but who are provably more accomplished than Sark.
Sark had a Gene Chizik/Ed Ogeron year this year, coming out of a weak conference, in which he still lost a game and almost managed to lose to Houston. The guy coaches sloppy teams who aren't mentally tough, which from what I've seen of Sark, roughly mirrors his personality.
It took him 10 years to get a season with 10 wins. So why has he "now" arrived to be a top-5 coach? Please list all the great coaches who took 10 years to get to 10 wins? It took Harbaugh 4 years at a horrible Stanford program. It took him one at UM. Sark's career (59%) is close to Charlie Weis at ND (56%). He's also had the benefit of being in two of the weaker Big 5 conferences.
Bama had one drive the whole game, two bomber FG's and a gimme gaffe from us to get 20. No way Bama generates more than 13 points without help, and were lucky (incredible kicker and punter) to be in that ball park. Also, refs loving on Bama. That drive-killing joke of a personal foul against Bredeson comes to mind. The lack of a personal foul when the DB pile-drives JJ on the sideline, etc. On a different day we could have beaten Bama 34-13. Our DL dominated Bama more than we did Washington.
This: Sark is grossly overrated. Ten seasons at blue bloods with a record of 71-49, one season with 10 wins or more. One 9-4 season, two 8-5 seasons, leaving 6 seasons with 7 or fewer wins. Pretty much the definition of mediocrity. Texas about to have a Charlie Weis moment.
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The laws of physics are the same no matter who wins The Game. But God is on UM's side. When we lose, we're being punished because of too much sodomy.
You're just realistic. The college football that we love, the unique animal of developing kids who play with heart and emotion as their primary driver, is now over. It is a thing of the past. There are now two super-conferences, no amateurism, and a playoff that is almost exactly the same as the NFL. Rivalries are finished. Bowl games and healthy debate are finished.
When your fuck-you money is limitless, you put it toward everything you give two shits about.
Didn't Ryan Mallett just die? I guess 10 months post-mortem is long enough to make fun of him.
Exactly what I was thinking. Clearly a "big" and "little" brother situation.
I didn’t watch the game. But can Orji throw as well as JT Barrett? Because that can lead to a pretty darn good offense in the right hands. Pretty tough to stop Orji on 3rd and 2.
I've watched enough college football to have seen edge mismatches like that game 100+ times. What I have never seen as a response, is to bring in 2 additional OL for almost the entire rest of the game. I was at the game, 50 rows back on the 50 yards line. And it was a sight to behold. I don't think too much can be made of how unique that was, and Sherrone's cojones for doing it, and sticking with it.
Hmmm. A former O-lineman and O-line coach, who's answer (in the absence of his boss) to PSU's super-fast gap-unsound D was to do something not seen since the 50's and basically keep 6-7 OL on the field at all times...............I'm going to speculate that we're going to see an emphasis on line-dominated, physical football.
But Scott Frost’s says he was a catch.
Agreed. There is no way these kids have thick enough skin to endure MgoBlog’s use of Emojis.
I can tell you the best moment of the 21’ game, the moment I was pretty sure we were going to win: that was the Roman Wilson helmet pull-off when UM's OL literally sprinted over and verbally mauled poor Cam Brown. It was obvious at that moment who was tougher, who wanted it more and would fight for it, and who was a more cohesive team. That game was an even bigger blowout if not for a couple of miracle plays by OSU. However, the 22 game is actually my favorite as it showed we were here to stay. Not to mention the way it unfolded with Jim Knowles having the best drive of his career lasting one play.
I wouldn't. I think JJ has a lot of unknown as far a QB in an NFL offense. QB in the NFL is largely based on quickly reading complex defenses, and throwing with accuracy. While he may well be capable of combining those two things, certainly the former quality is an unknown in his history as he simply wasn't part of such a scheme. He'd be a late first-rounder to me.
I was thinking the same. Stover seems a mid-low NFL-level TE. While there is less of a premium on blocking these days, he doesn't strike me as having anything beyond a distant back-up skill set.
Bait feeds the internet monster. So, well done.
Hard to make excuses for those loses. But, Urban walked into a stacked roster, and Harbaugh walked into a mess, especially on offense. It's a big deal to essentially not have OL development and takes years to bring this up to the necessary level to be the kind of team Harbaugh wants. His biggest cognitive mistake, IMO, was allowing Don Brown to be inflexible on defense and also to fail to prioritize DT recruiting (the second most important position in football). Harbaugh competed early on with greatly inferior talent. Then got wiped out due to Don Brown not adjusting, and having absolutely no significant DT play. Once that self-corrected, even finger-licking Urban would not have beaten Harbaugh.
Day is definitely a better human being than the two slimeballs who preceded him. But those slimeballs understood football in a way that Day does not.
Unfortunately, for many in football, Jabrill Peppers comes to mind, growing up in a single parent household under difficult and, at times, violent circumstances, is highly prevalent. Day's resilience is laudable, but hardly exceptional.
Look for clues. Cryin Day clearly said 'like some of "US" in the profession', he had to battle his way up. This is classic psychological projection:
"In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others"
Clearly it is Harbaugh who grew up on 3rd base with all the advantages of being in a football family. I think this is true to an extent. Harbaugh learned the central tenet of football probably in the womb: it is a ferocious physical game at its core, and that battle generally determines the outcome. Team and coach mentality must unflinchingly reflect this tenet at all times. Like many of his generation, Day learned football drawing up cool plays on Madden.
Whoa! Here in reality, Kirk Ferentz, Matt Rhule, Bert, Frames Janklin, PJ Fleck and Luke Fickell all won Conference Championships, and are ranked lower than Dan Lanning.
Sark won a shit conference after 10 tries.
Steve 8-5 Sarkisian is #4? I guess you don't have to prove much to be near the top. Took the guy 10 years of coaching to get his first 10-win season. And how could one possibly rank Jonathan Smith above Good Shit Jedd? So, far, in 2 short careers, their performance has been relatively the same, except Good Shit Jedd hit the high value mark sooner.
I'm not saying Day can't scheme up a passing attack. I'm saying Day hasn't really accomplished much on his own. He went to the playoff with Urban's players. And that's about it.
Also wondering about the chemistry between Chip Kelly and Day. Kelly has done nothing but HC for 15 years, is a control freak on offense, and, reportedly, not the most warm and fuzzy guy in the game. Combining this with another guy who thinks he's a brilliant offensive mind, but hasn't really accomplished much on his own, and clearly is being pushed to the edge of his fragile ego- is going to be quite interesting, IMO
Well, since OSU is only going to play in domes from now on, cold and weather shouldn't affect him either. On another note, has this cat, whom "the internet" notes is from Buford, GA, USA, ever had to snap a football in cold weather?
This. All picks and sacks mean is extra OL coming into the game. 3 picks = 8 OL finishing the game on the field.
While true, this title comes with an asterisk. We did have the unfair advantage of sharpening our steel by playing two of the biggest games of the year without our head coach in the face of gale-force fabricated scandal. No other team had to face that kind of character-building adversity, and it clearly gave us an edge in mettle during the playoff. I mean, imagine what OSU could have done had they had the opportunity to build such fortitude.
But why do that, when you can already watch the NFL? That would be like saying get rid of March Madness and have best of 7 series in the NCAA tournament. It's okay that CFB isn't the NFL. Diversity is good for sports fans.
Joel Klatt makes his comfortable living off the media circus surrounding college football. He is not an impartial voice, and, even if he is better than some at balancing bias, he is still coming from the position of an inherent conflict of interest, where his financial interest is tied to the expansion of the playoff. What these people who churn out this drivel about expanding the playoff fail to acknowledge (which was the main reason I watched college football and seldom watch the NFL, and was actually once a motto that college football used a generation ago) was that the regular season WAS the playoff, and every week mattered immensely. I was always attracted to college football because the intensity of big games, even in week 1, was unrivaled by any sport. Of course, those were the days when Michigan might play UCLA, Notre Dame, Boston College to start the season, rather than the trash games we have now. The product is corrupted- probably irrevocably- by money and is simply a Saturday version of the NFL now, complete with free-agency, essentially two conferences, about the same number of teams in the playoff, nobody eliminated from contention with a couple early season losses. Boring. Thank god Harbaugh took us there in the final year before this Armageddon. That will probably keep me satisfied until I'm in a pine box at this point.
My take, Harbaugh loves Michigan. He's spent 2X longer here than anywhere else, and it will almost certainly be the longest job of his career. He meticulously built us back from the abyss to a unique, sustainable position of prestige and power. We owe him tremendously.
So, you count all the orgies you've been to as a team sport?
"The video also mentions how to beat these modern defenses--run the ball, especially counters--which OSU routinely abandons when playing Michigan."........This
There are certain coaches, Day, Riley, Sarkisian, who just can't help themselves and have to throw the ball, even when they shouldn't be doing it. They just can't take what's there to be taken down after down, and eventually have to follow their fancy-play ego down the rabbit hole to show how they are modern geniuses. Urban has openly criticized Day for this on multiple occasions. Urban gets it, and it simultaneously a heinous human being.
No. MHJ is a generational talent that changed the course of games all on his own. Maybe they will develop that, but there is no obvious heir, nor is it likely. And, MHJ = 0-3 against UM, because senior leadership is what decides The Game and OSU hasn't shown that. They've sent us a pouty QB x 2, and their most recent sacrificial lamb quit the team.
I know. We lucked out, huh? Leading 30-24, and having just had a 7 min drive to eat clock and OSU time outs, I had given up until we lucked out and an angel guided the ball into Rod Moore's arms.
Apparently, you don't listen to coach Jim about how to win road games in the B1G. His refrain is "pack your defense". A great defense, which we have, keeps you in every game.
A: They are losing an…
A: They are losing an absolute generational player in MHJ that they don't have an obvious replacement for. I will admit that Corum, to a lesser extent, is that same concept to us, a heart and soul of the offense player.
B: They have yet to prove they can go toe-to-toe with us for 4 quarters in the trenches. Until proven otherwise, Ryan Day is not a coach who manifests domination up front as the defining feature of his teams. That is the reason we have beaten him decisively 3 straight years and why his teams have hung close only to fail in the 4th. That is the reason we will continue to have a viable chance in The Game.
Like in the Rose Bowl?
All the LB's with torn groins be like: "yea but he could'a gotten to the end zone faster."
Or, someone in the program did know what he was doing and either approved it or gave him tacit approval with a "don't get caught" winky winky. No matter which scenario, it was a mole hill turned into a mountain to act out a mob vendetta against the arrogant University of Michigan. How'd that work out for you fellas? Ryan? Tony?
No one gets a colonscopy at that age, unless they have certain rare medical conditions.
No one gets a colonscopy at that age, unless they have certain rare medical conditions.
Elite is what Jesse Minter did to Washington. OSU did not have an elite defense showing in 2023, because they only faced one offense with a pulse.
They didn't have the exact same results as our D, because they played Mizzou in the Depends Bowl and we played in the CFP and won, giving up an average of 16.5 points. I'm not saying Knowles has done a terrible job, but we didn't know how good our D was for real until the CFP, because we hadn't really faced good offenses either. If you want to sit on your eggs of SP+ and call us equal, fine, but that also rates half of the B1G West as having elite defenses, which I don't buy. Competition matters (see UM Defense in 2019), and OSU's best competition was us, and they played well, but not well enough to win. At the moment they had all momentum on their side, 17-17 we drove it down their throats. Like 2022, another time for Knowles to "have the best drive of his life" and he shit the bed. We then went on to score two more FG's including a crippling 6-min drive to essentially run the clock out. When they needed to be elite, they were not.
You're right. It's Ron DeSantis, the 3rd Wonder Twin.
Huh? The only offense with any power they played all year was UM. And we more or less had our way with them. They out-talented the opposition of truly generationally terrible offenses in the B1G, but I don't know that Knowles' presence made them elite. It made them more consistent than Kerry Coombs, which was enough against the monstrosities of offenses they faced.
The only product more boring than the NFL, is the NBA. Thankfully, Michigan won the final non-playoff title, and with no potential for Scott Frost's mom to talk trash. I guess I can die now.
So college football is now, in every way including free agency, the NFL.
Hmmm.......so you live in a mistake-free world. I like it.
Give me a break. 59% winning percent at 3 blue bloods.
Here are the coaches better (provable by record), just off the top of my head (and I'm sure the list is much more exhaustive). And there are some coaches on this list whom I would never want (Franklin) but who are provably more accomplished than Sark.
Smart, Kiffin, Swinney, Day, Franklin, Ferentz, Wittingham, Lanning, Dykes, Rhule, Bielema, Stoops, Tedford, DeBoer, Leipold, Gunda, Brohm, Kelly, Jerry Kill, Mike Norvell.
Sark had a Gene Chizik/Ed Ogeron year this year, coming out of a weak conference, in which he still lost a game and almost managed to lose to Houston. The guy coaches sloppy teams who aren't mentally tough, which from what I've seen of Sark, roughly mirrors his personality.
It took him 10 years to get a season with 10 wins. So why has he "now" arrived to be a top-5 coach? Please list all the great coaches who took 10 years to get to 10 wins? It took Harbaugh 4 years at a horrible Stanford program. It took him one at UM. Sark's career (59%) is close to Charlie Weis at ND (56%). He's also had the benefit of being in two of the weaker Big 5 conferences.
Bama had one drive the whole game, two bomber FG's and a gimme gaffe from us to get 20. No way Bama generates more than 13 points without help, and were lucky (incredible kicker and punter) to be in that ball park. Also, refs loving on Bama. That drive-killing joke of a personal foul against Bredeson comes to mind. The lack of a personal foul when the DB pile-drives JJ on the sideline, etc. On a different day we could have beaten Bama 34-13. Our DL dominated Bama more than we did Washington.
This: Sark is grossly overrated. Ten seasons at blue bloods with a record of 71-49, one season with 10 wins or more. One 9-4 season, two 8-5 seasons, leaving 6 seasons with 7 or fewer wins. Pretty much the definition of mediocrity. Texas about to have a Charlie Weis moment.
Ranking is less important than beating OSU