Note – I am blatantly ripping off The Sports Guy.  I don’t feel bad about this for a couple of reasons, the first and most important is that I’m unpaid.  Secondly, he doesn’t cover college sports.  Lastly, his teams are winning everything lately, and mine just lost.  So screw him and I hope this takes some of the edge off. 

Post is rated PG-13 for some offensive language. 

• 3:25 – We’re here LIVE! at the Wolvrine32 basement entertainment industrial complex.  Diet coke is in place, remote is set up to flip and pause/rewind appropriately, hopefully lucky jersey is on and lucky. 

 

• 3:27 – The cat is looking at me with disapproval.  I’m strongly considering a little cat ritual sacrifice to the football gods.  Couldn’t hurt.

 

• 3:28 – Someone tell John Saunders that Michigan has played many, many other games than Appalachian State.  Also, Craig James picks USC/OSU in the title game, and also takes Obama in November and Germany over Poland in WWII. 

 

• 3:32 – If the first play of the Rodriguez era is zone left, I’m sending him a photocopy of my butt.

 

• 3:37 – A quick pan of the cheerleaders reveals the one hot cheerleader is gone, and apparently not replaced.  We’re changing so much, can’t we change *that* tradition?

 

• 3:42 – We do not run zone left, and Rodriguez is spared the photocopy.  However, we do not gain squat and punt.

 

• 3:43 – We recover the fumble on the punt!  Brigham Young just rolled his eyes in the grave.  Hee hee.

 

• 3:47 – Touchdown Michigan!  Shaw from Sheridan, first TD of the RichRod era.  The cat didn’t like my celebration lap around the basement.  I point out there are a lot of Chinese restaurants around here, and she should keep quiet.

 

• 3:48 – I’m sorry, I drifted off there into daydreaming about Nick Sheridan’s Heisman trophy acceptance speech.  Let’s listen in:

            “Thank you Heisman voters for recognizing my contributions to the Michigan football team.  Thank you Coach Rod for giving me the chance to start.  And a very special thank you to Wolvrine32 for wearing the lucky home jersey, instead of the unlucky road jersey.  That was key for me during the Utah game, where this crazy journey began.  Oh, and eat it Tim Tebow.”

 

      I’m choked up right now.  Cat32 is licking herself.

 

 

• 3:56 – Huge Utah pass play.  I dare you to use “Stevie Brown” in a sentence without the word “clusterfuck.”  (See?  I couldn’t.)  He was flat-footed on coverage.  The cat is looking at Mr. Brown’s clusterfuck with disapproval.

 

• 3:57 – TD Utah, but Mike Barwis scores a point as a 30 lbs. lighter Terrance Taylor blocks the extra point.  Thanks Mike.

 

• 4:02 – Sheridan throws a pass like a girl.  With her left hand.

 

• 4:06 – KC Lopata connects on a 50-yard FG!  John McCain just asked him to be his running mate.

 

• 4:15 – The GM Scholarship thing is null and void if they are bankrupt prior to the end of the 3^rd quarter.

 

• 4:24 – Utah kicks a field goal.  The backup TE for Utah just waved in the crowd to his three wives.  He does look like Bill Paxton a little.

 

•  4:36 – Scott Shafer abandons aggressive, attacking defense in favor of passiveness and timidity.  It doesn’t work and Utah picks up 38 yards.  I think, all things considered, I prefer aggression in my defense. 

 

• 4:43 – The Ryan Mallett Memorial Fumble on the center exchange.

 

• 4:45 – The color guy, David Norrie, is just slobbering over Nick Sheridan right now.  I am wondering if we are watching the same game, and then he almost throws a pick.  I also think Farrara Ferere Farre, screw it, the DE-guy is on our O-line right now.  Hold me.  (Tighter.)

 

• 4:51 – Utah, tiring of passing all over us, decides to run all over us.  Here kitty, kitty….

 

• 4:53 – From Wikipedia I learn that Utah’s two most famous draft picks, Alex Smith and Andrew Bogut, were both drafted #1 in the same season, the only school that can claim two #1 picks in the same year.  Funny, it did not mention that they were colossal busts who suck so hard they shift the universe out of alignment and basically stole millions from dumb owners who don’t pay their scouts enough.

 

• 4:56 – Trickeration!  We hike the ball and no one moves.  I am officially trying to decide between describing it as “that shit is fucked up” or “that is some fucked up shit.”

 

• 4:57 – Rich Rodriguez has kept alive another Michigan tradition, the Carson Butler false start.

 

• 4:58 – Nooooo!  Minor drops a TD pass.  Cat32 looks at him with disapproval.  I look at him with disapproval.

 

• 5:00 – ABC shows a graphic with changes RichRod is implementing, and the last one is “no showboating.”  Did I miss the moonwalks, spikes, and gang-signs for the last 20 years?  Was Chad Johnson a Wolverine?

 

• 5:04 – Sheridan throws a bad, bad, bad interception.  Seppuku anyone?  One sec while I clean off the dried blood from the cat.

 

• 5:05 – In a bizarre commercial, Joe Paterno sounds like he is imploring his reluctant bowel movement to “COME TO PENN STATE!”

 

• 5:10 – TD Utah, then a 15 yard penalty to start the 2^nd half (thanks McAvoy.).  Welcome to Wolvrine32’s totally free football consulting service:  I don’t need Powerpoint for this à Coach Rod, that whole end of half play sequence sucked donkey balls.  Halftime.

 

• 5:11 – I know I said not to overeact to the first game in an earlier diary, so I’m going to go not overreact with my head in the oven.  Back in a jif.

 

• 5:27 – Flutie:  “Nich Sheridan isn’t Pat White.”  Thanks Cap’n Obvious.  Also, they show a highlight of Terrell Pryor cashing his paycheck.

 

• 5:36 – Now Norrie is demanding a Threet replacement of Sheridan.  Additionally, he also decides on reflection that his Pontiac Aztec is kinda ugly.

 

• 5:43 – McGuffie fumbles, Utah ball.  Sheridan held the ball on the handoff.  The cat looks at the offense with condemnation.  If Cat32 were calling the shots, people would be dying.  That’s the way she sees it.

 

• 5:46 – Interception Ezeh!  Tip by Brown!  Woot!

 

• 5:47-9 – My exact notes:  Threet/suck/suck/delay of game/hurried punt.  That is some rompin’ stompin’ football there folks.

 

• 5:55 – Utah channels Reggie Ho’s kid Sakoda, and he connects on a field goal.  Anyone left for another round of Seppuku?

 

• 5:59 – I swear to God I saw Barwis wearing a headband and carrying a knife in his teeth, stalking Utah’s offensive coordinator. 

 

• 6:03 – Offensive series here an unmitigated disaster.  If incompetence were people, our offense would be China.  Like the stadium, the offense is clearly under construction.  Can you tell yet that this series sapped my will to live?

 

• 6:12 – Minor fumbles.  Thus far, this is not a candidate for Big Ten’s Greatest Games.

 

• 6:22 – Sakoda hits a 60 yard punt under pressure.  Honestly, it was badass.  Rejected Utah nicknames:  Polygamists, Choirboys, Fightin’ Bigamists, Smiters, Latter-day Utes, Ragin’ Prophets.  I’m lashing out.

 

• 6:30 – Threet looks more discombobulated on a screen than John McCain picking a running mate.

 

• 6:36 – WE BLOCK A PUNT!  Joseph Smith’s ghost is looking at his team with disapproval.  Cat32 does not approve of him taking her schtick.

 

• 6:37 – Threet to Hemingway, touchdown Michigan!  That deserved some third person:  Wolvrine32 LOVED that play!  Wolvrine32 wants MORE of that play!  Wolvrine32 is JACKED!

 

• 6:40 – Donovan Warren is on a guy like white on rice in a glass of milk, on a paper plate, in a snowstorm.

 

• 6:42 – FUMBLE UTAH!  MICHIGAN RECOVERS!  AUSTIN PANTER!  I CAN’T STOP WITH THE CAPS OR THE !!!!!

 

• 6:43 – Two neighborhood kids just ran by the window.  What is wrong with parents today?  Don’t they know their kid should have been properly brainwashed to be sitting inside watching college football instead of running around outside exercising?  It’s tantamount to child abuse.  Someone call state services.

 

• 6:46 – We run the “pass interference offense.”  I sing The Victors.  Cat32 doesn’t know the words.  Right after we find out in three words why Threet didn’t start: “Human Traffic Cone.”

 

• 6:48 – Huge touchdown run by McGuffie!  I paw-bump the cat.  Cat32 looks happy for the first time in years.  We might win this damn thing!

 

• 7:00 – I stopped taking notes for a bit.  It’s official, I hate Mormons, Mormonism, the stupid choir.  Grrr.  I even, in retrospect, decide I hated the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.  Take that Utahfan.

 

• 7:06 – Ballgame.  Wife32 appears with some cookies, I annihilate them like our O-line was annihilated all game.

 

On the bright side, I thought our defense flipped a switch at halftime and could grow into a decent unit.  The offense, yikes.  Guess that’s pretty much where we all thought we’d be and hoped for more.  Nope. 

 

I am sad, but at least it’s football season.  Bring on Miami, and Go Blue!