While the eyes of the nation are heaped upon the Buckeyes and Trojans in one of the most anticipated regular season matchups in recent years, a game that used to capture the eyes of the nation on a regular basis has almost slipped completely off the radar.  Notre Dame and Michigan plays in one of the least talked about historic matchups in all of college.  The competition between the two winningest programs in college football used to be circled on the calendar of all true college football fans.  But that was before both programs slipped into disarray.

The Michigan-Notre Dame game is this weekend as well, but not too many people outside of the states of Michigan and Indiana are talking about it.

At least the teams are not winless going into the game, as they both were last year for the first time ever in a non-season opener. Both teams were 0-2 last year before Michigan embarrassed the Fighting Irish 38-0 in Ann Arbor, Mich. (LINK)

How close are these two teams, ranked one and two in overall wins, when it comes to football tradition?

Since Lou Holtz left in 1996, Notre Dame has gone 79-56, falling behind Michigan as college football’s winningest program in 2004. The Wolverines are now 870-287-36 (.744) with Notre Dame second at 825-278-42 (.739).  (LINK)

This once titanic matchup that filled the sports news with video snippets and player quotes is now relegated to the back pages. Notre Dame (1-0) limps into the game after a late comeback to edge powerhouse San Diego State.  Michigan (1-1) brings a veteran defense but a spread offense that has sputtered and imploded in two straight games.  

Everyone has heard of the quote, “What happens when the immovable object meets the irresistible force”?  But what happens when an ineffective offense meets a porous defense?  I’m guessing fireworks could ensue.  One thing is for sure, either the Irish defense will look stout for a change or the Wolverine offense might look downright potent!

It’s not like Charlie Weis, coach of Notre Dame, hasn’t done his best to add some spice to the matchup. (more…)

Turns out, there are things far worse to a college basketball program than Patrick Patterson’s broken foot or a missed NCAA tourney trip.

Try this one: Harvard’s, HARVARD’S, hoops program got caught with its hand in the cookie jar. There are a litany of recruiting violations, including illegal contact with a recruit’s father, an assisstant coach playing illegal pickup games with a recruit, and the signing of players below Harvard’s normally lofty standards.

Apparently, head coach Tommy Amaker, resentful of Boston’s sudden boom in sports success, felt a need to catch up. So he hired Bill Belichik to help him out.

Okay, so I made that last one up. But seriously, Tom, why do it? Messing around at America’s most prestigous college makes no more sense than Tim Tebow trying to imporve his football prowess by taking steriods. In trying to improve something great at the price of excellence, everyone loses.

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This is a Japanese game show version of the popular ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ game. You flash your play and if you win, you get to smack the other guy upside the head with a paper fan. A hardhat is thoughtfully provided by the game show staff.

That’s me, Florida Gators blogger and SEC chest-thumper, on the left.

Michigan is on the right.

H/T: FanHouse.

This year’s Capitol One game in Orlando, Florida showed the country one thing.  Despite the overall difference between the Big 10 and SEC conferences, Michigan and Florida are two teams with comparable talent.  I can understand why Wolverine fans were so outraged by the way their season began.  Their belief that Michigan should have been one of the leading candidates for the BCS game was not unfounded.  This game was not as much about planning and execution as it was emotion and will.  Michigan played with a high level of emotion and displayed the kind of intensity they lacked against both Wisconsin and Ohio State (not to mention early losses to Appalachian State and Oregon).  Buoyed by a healthy Henne and Hart, Michigan showed why preseason expectations had been set so high.
 
While the score depicts a close, high scoring game that most fans enjoy, this was by no means a well played game.  There are three phases to every game - Offense, Defense and Special Teams.  Florida won exactly NONE of these phases.  Florida entered the game with the Heisman Trophy quarterback and as the nationally recognized offensive “juggernaut“.  This was the one clear advantage the Gators seemed to have.  Yet on offense Michigan scored 7 times to Florida’s 5.  The Wolverines gained 524 yards (373 passing, 151 rushing) to Florida’s gained 399 (230 rushing, 169 passing).  Had it not been for their 4 turnovers (2 interceptions, 2 fumbles), two of which were inside the 5 yard line, Michigan might have scored 62 points on Tuesday.  The Florida defense had NO answer for the Wolverines.
 
Despite Urban Meyer’s focus on special teams the Gators made too many mistakes in this aspect of the game.  After a mistake by Brandon Minor who stepped out of bounds on the Michigan seven yard line on the opening kickoff (Michigan would go on to drive 93 yards and score regardless), Michigan’s kickoff return squad started their team on the 38, the 44, the 33, the 30 and the 33 yard line.  Not once did the Wolverines begin a possession inside their 30 from a kickoff return and outside the opening drive were never inside their 20.  In addition Florida failed to gather possession of a pooch kick to begin the second half which allowed Michigan possession at the Florida 38 (resulting in a TD).  In addition Florida missed one field goal and had another blocked later in the first half. (more…)

Losing to Georgia was bad. Losing to Michigan… far worse.

This is the team that lost to Appalachian State. The team I’ve picked on mercilessly. Karma’s a bitch.

Florida just embarrassed the SEC, and the ‘mo’ for the Big 10 vs. Southeastern Conference wars has swung decidedly back to the north.

Hell, Tennessee was able to beat Wisconsin, for crying out loud.

I’m having a hard time understanding how we lost this game. How our offensive line was manhandled. How we lost despite being +4 in turnover margin. How our players looked unprepared. How Michigan seemed to want it more.

How we went 4-and-out two consecutive freaking times to end the game.

One can always play the youth card, but jeez, we played horribly on both sides of the ball. I guess the Heisman Curse lives on.

Michigan commenters, and I’m sure we’ll see plenty of you guys, enjoy. Your team deserved to win and Coach Carr was able to go out in style. No excuses, Michigan is the superior team. (I just vomited in my mouth when I wrote that.) Commenting has been opened up so you can wag it in our faces all you like. We deserve it, I s’pose.

I’m probably going to take a break from blogging for awhile. Dive back into work. Spend more time with the family. I can’t really think about what just occurred because my frame of mind is… dangerous. Unstable.

I want to blame the coaches. I want to say Florida and the SEC is way overrated. I want to say that our defense is the worst I can remember seeing, and they were playing against a team that could only score a field goal against Ohio State. I’m wondering if LSU can restore some vestige of SEC pride in the championship game, or if Ohio State is licking their chops in wait for them there, too.

All that was assured is now suspect. Where once we stood on steady ground, we now find an undulating sea of uncertainty beneath us. Ugly speculation. Painful introspection.

And we get to do this for anther 9 months? Oh, joy.

Won’t be liveblogging today due to other obligations, but feel free to use this space for the gameday open thread.

If you didn’t already know, Michigan linebacker Shawn Crable has provided the Gators with a little bit of bulletin board material for this game. Thanks, Shawn.

Score prediction: Florida 42, Michigan 20.

Go Gators!

Tebow wins yet another honor: the AP Player of the Year Award.

Now that Tim has won the Davy O’Brien and Maxwell Awards, has been named to various All-SEC and and All-American teams, and of course brought the Heisman Trophy back to Gainesville, how does it feel to win this latest honor?

“That’s cool,'’ Tebow said.

Aha!  So it is possible to get a little bit jaded winning every award in existence and the entire world bowing at your feet, telling you how great you are.

No doubt Tebow’s in full practice mode for the upcoming battle with the Wolverines, and doesn’t really want to think or talk about laudations anymore.  As most coaches will tell you, buying into praise and compliments will result in a fat, happy, and complacent player.  I’m sure Michigan would take it if they could get it.

Frank Haith entered this year on the hot seat. Many Hurricane fans were clamoring for his firing a year ago. To clarify when I say many I don’t mean there are a lot of Hurricane basketball fans, just the percentage of fans who actually follow basketball. Because, let’s face it: most Miami fans are probably still busy mourning the football program, and don’t even realize the success on the hardcourt yet. And if history shows us anything, they will not support this team unless they are contending for an ACC Championship late in the year. And even that is no guarantee!

It is too early in the season to suggest that UM will make any noise in the NCAA tournament but not too early to state that their local fanbase will probably be the last group to realize if this team is any good. Even in the heyday of Hamilton, only the games involving St Johns and UConn were sellouts even though Miami spent much of those years ranked. The basketball program is a shadow of what it was back in the late 90s. One thing going for the team is the lack of success in football might lead for some Cane fans to latch onto any scrap of success they can find.

KENTUCKY REELING

I am completely perplexed of the proclamations of doom and gloom I hear from people surrounding the Kentucky basketball program. Folks, I realize that Kentucky is in the SEC and southerners are not the savviest of basketball fans nationally but this ISN’T FOOTBALL!!! It doesn’t matter what you do to start the season, all the matters is how you FINISH THE SEASON!!! Sure, UK is 4-4 but the Wildcats entered the year with a dearth of experienced talent, a difficult schedule and are implementing a new system. This isn’t UNC which brought back virtually the entire team under the same coach and system for the past few years.

It is going to take time before we will know what form the Wildcats will take. A lot of people seem to be down on Billy Gillespie based on how the team is playing. Now I’m not going to suggest I’ve been overly impressed with Gillespie’s in-game strategy but why do people think there isn’t a method to his madness? I’ve watched Billy Donovan stubbornly force his team to execute a system they were clearly struggling in despite being down big in games. Many basketball fans (who have little knowledge of the nuances of basketball) don’t realize that coaching is more than just taking advantage of specific mismatches in an individual game. You might be able to overwhelm an opponent like FAU by forcing the ball to your big men due to a size advantage but when they play SEC foes and are the smaller team . . . you want a team that can execute the entire offense against various defensive looks.

(more…)

Long: good OL. Henne: suspect QB. Hart: mouthy RB.

For one, I have to admit I’m disappointed we didn’t draw a better team, despite my initial “Oh, Hell Yes” reaction. Michigan didn’t even finish the year inside the Top 25, yet here the 9th-ranked (AP) Florida Gators have drawn them for the Capital One bowl.

I was having a conversation regarding the Michigan fanbase’s dark mood about this matchup with a fellow FanHouse blogger who has ties to the Big 10 conference. He wrote in email:

Michigan fans are worried that they’re losing their place among the elite nationally AND within the conference. Wisconsin has been almost as successful as Michigan over the past few years, and with the way Zook is recruiting, Illinois may be able to keep the ball rolling. Bielema and Alvarez very wisely accepted the Outback bid early to keep from having to face Florida in the Cap One. Penn State did the same thing with the Alamo Bowl. They pretty much forced the Cap One to take Michigan, proving that Michigan’s AD is as behind the times as the Wolverine fan base thinks he is.

That certainly sheds some light on how we drew the Maize and Blue.

And can you really blame Wisky and Penn State? Florida’s a bad matchup for them as well. The Gators are receiving tons of respect for their potent offense; they’re the highest ranked 3-loss team in both the BCS and AP standings; even above two-loss teams like West Virginia and Arizona State. No one wants to play them.

I’m not privy to the inside dealings that go into bowl selections, but this story has a legit feel to it.

Anyway, as for the Wolvies, I just can’t see how we lose. I usually dread that fat and happy, complacent, overconfident feeling and it isn’t a welcome one right now; but even if the Gators have a terrible, turnover-prone, mistake-ridden game, I just don’t see a loss in the cards.

Michigan’s not very inventive on offense. I’m sure Mattison, Strong, Heater, et. al. have been carefully preparing based on many years of tape, which shows a rigid, unimaginative offense which rarely presents any wrinkles. Any number of SEC teams would have presented a far greater challenge to our youthful line and secondary, so it seems hard to believe we can’t contain this attack.

On the offensive side of the ball: will the Gators punt? Michigan’s defense doesn’t like to fight by their opponent’s rules, and Florida’s offense above all others in the nation dictates their own terms. Tebow’s one-man play-action attack will fluster and confuse Michigan’s defense, who were so inept at stopping Oregon and Dennis Dixon that the Ducks began to toy with their opponent, running Statue of Liberty fakes and gadget plays seemingly for the hell of it. Florida’s offense is at least as powerful as the Ducks with a healthy Dixon at QB.

We’ll start breaking down actual numbers and stats in the coming days, but from a high-level perspective, we don’t need to drill down too deeply to arrive at the same conclusion the rest of the college football world has found: it should be Florida in a rout over Michigan.

I admit it, I hate this team. Despise them, even.

You want to talk about entitlement culture? It’s alive and well in Ann Arbor.

Michigan, much like Ohio State, has skated by in the Big 10 conference for years. Consistently, they’ve garnered undeserved pre-season accolades. Since 2004, they’ve finished their season with two straight losses, but like a bad apple bobbing to the top, find themselves ranked in the Top 25 — sometimes in the Top 5! — each and every year thereafter.

If there’s one thing I absolutely can’t stand about college football, it’s top rankings for weak legacy teams who also play weak schedules. Getting blown out of their 2006 Rose Bowl appearance by USC should have been evidence enough for voters that Michigan can’t hang, will not hang, and hasn’t hung with top-flight competition for years. Despite that, they were still a pre-season Top 5 team in ‘07. Their defensive unit was even lauded as a strength; there were positive murmurs about the large number of returning starters, never mind that none of them were any good.

It was a year ago that Michigan fans made the same argument which Georgia fans and their head coach, Mark Richt, used unsuccessfully tonight in a bid to make it to the BCS title game; that despite failing to win a conference title, they deserved a chance to knock off #1 Ohio State for all the marbles.

Michigan fans ranted and raved that their 1-loss team was better than ours. Florida? Our Gators were written off as a weak, undeserving team despite winning the SEC and possessing a better winning percentage. I’m sure we all remember Ohio State fans trash-talking the Gators after the BCS Selection Committee went with Florida, but don’t forget that shorter period in which Michigan fans were doing the same thing. They were convinced that their team was the only one in the country capable of beating the Bucks… despite the fact they had just lost to them one game prior! The nerve!

Fortunately, voters didn’t buy it then and they didn’t buy the southern flavor in 2007, either. LSU will play Ohio State, and may God have mercy on the Buckeyes in that game. Georgia draws the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors in the Sugar Bowl.

And now, we get Michigan.

I consider it a fine opportunity for some payback.

It’s the second meeting ever for the two programs. The last didn’t go so well for our Zookian Gators; it ended up being a 38-30 loss to Michigan in 2002. Incidentally, that’s the last year that Michigan finished their season with a win, and the last bowl victory as well.

I don’t miss Zook. I think it’s great for him and the Illini that they get a chance to play in the Rose Bowl. I like the coaching staff we’ve got now. I like ‘em a lot better.

This sets up very well for the Gators; it’s a mismatch in every category I can think of. Tim Tebow, ideally coming into the game as college football’s only active player to win the Heisman Trophy, should be able to easily carve up Michigan’s porous secondary for gobs of passing yards. Similarly, Florida should be able to run the ball on the Wolvies all day long, whether it’s the Baby Rhino attack or relentless Percycution.

You know Michigan fans have to be dreading this. Remember what Oregon did to them when they ran the spread? What Appalachian State did?

This is their worst nightmare. An acid-trip, purple-drank cocktail hallucination. A football portrait painted by Salvador Dali.

This could be a game in which the Gators don’t punt.

And we get ‘em in Orlando.

Obviously, despite all the things going for Florida, the game carries with it the potentially devastating penalty of endless humiliation should the Good Guys lose. Yeah, it’d be embarassing to drop our pants to these guys in our home state. Luckily, Urban Meyer is not one to let his squad walk in with inflated heads; they’ll be ready to play, hungry, aggressive, and they’ll give Michigan far more respect than I am right now.

We will not lose.

I think of this game and I literally salivate.

We’ll have lots of opportunities to break this game down over the next 30 days and change; but my knee-jerk, way-too-early score prediction?

Florida 49, Michigan 23