April 13th, 2009 at 12:54 PM ^
My guide on DirecTV is showing a 3 PM eastern start time for CFL live on ESPN today.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:57 PM ^
espn.com confirms the 3 pm eastern start time too.
It is sometimes quite nice to work at home. Yay football on the teevee!
speaking of football on the tv, espn classic is playing the 1999 penn state v michigan game and afterwards its 1994 penn state v michigan
Love me some sublime.
Watching the replays of these games, I'm struck by how dependent I've become on the first-down line graphic. I got by fine without it before it existed, obviously, but now it's confusing without it. Ditto for the scoreboard/clock in the corner of the screen.
No one compare me to McFarlin, but I seriously think Michigan could go 8-4 or 9-3 not counting the bowl game. I think these guys from last year are really fired up for the season, and Tate is really confident, and he even said himself "I don't get nervous"
Bob Grisie just said, "Everything is new to him" Everything is not new to him. He played a version of the spread in high school, and I think since he will have 9 months to learn Rich's version, he will grasp it quite well.
I agree. I'm not EXPECTING that many wins but I think the B10 is really not very strong this season and UM will be far better than last season.
Edit:
Rich's 1st season at WV: 3-8
2nd season: 9-4
Rich's 1st season at Michigan 3-9
2nd season: ?????
The offense has improved vastly, but the defense still isn't good. The 2nd team defense was absolutely atrocious; God forbid any 1st team D players get injured for a long time. Good teams will rack up 30-40 points on our D as of today. Our offense isn't good enough to carry our defense. 6-7 wins is still our realistic goal.
Except their aren't many good teams that we play this year. Illinois, Penn St, maybe Iowa, and maybe Ohio State are probably it.
I like to use the Utah, Miami Ohio, Nore Dame, and Wisconsin games as a reference. They were that close to beating Utah, beat Miami Oh, lost Notre Dame in a rainy turnover mess, then had that amazing game against Wisconsin. After those games, I still believed they could get a winning record. Then after the Illinois and excpecially Toledo game, you could tell they just stopped trying. They played those first four games the best, then just tanked after.
I bet they could have beat a few of the teams after Illinois and Toledo, but you could tell they were just deflated. Like Purdue and Northwestern. Those were games they should have won. How do you explain them nearly beating the eventual #3 team in the final polls, a #9(at the time) Wisconsin team, and an 8-4 Minnesota team? Not that they didn't have tons of problems, but I bet they could have done much better, and I believe they will this coming season.
i agree. i mentioned something about this on another thread but i think 8-4 is very realistic. i also think this year's schedule is much MUCH easier and if last years team played this schedule they may have scrapped together 5 wins.
also, is there any team in the big10 coming back that is actually BETTER than last year? OSU, PSU, MSU, iowa all lose big time contributors. illni MAY be better, but they were all over the place last year. any thoughts on this?
IMO, Illinois could be the team to beat this season. Offense is stacked. Their D is questionable though. You're right about the others though. No one is all that great on paper this season.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:21 PM ^
I'm still baffled why any Michigan fan takes any games for granted anymore. After loses to App St. and Toledo, I'll never take a game for granted anymore. Yeah, we nearly beat Utah, but if we played them again at end of the season, we would have been smoked by them. That team really came together and dismantled a very good Alabama team. Notre Dame is a year ahead of us on both sides of the ball; their strength is the passing game, and our biggest weakness is our secondary. That will be a very difficult matchup.
Wisconsin is on the road, where we've struggled lately at Camp Randall; 9 times out of 10 we would have lost that game to Wisconsin as they completely melted down. Besides, Wisconsin was overrated and shouldn't have ever been ranked in the top 10. MSU returns most of their defense and we're playing at East Lansing. MSU will have addition by subtraction with Cousins/Nichols replacing Hoyer. Minnesota inflated their record off non-conference cupcakes; they struggled in Big Ten play. We don't play them this year so they're not a good barometer to gauge this upcoming season.
6-7 wins is the target; 2010 should be the year we'll break out.
I'm not taking these games for granted, I'm saying 9-3 is possible. It's definately not impossible, but I am really aiming for 7-5.
Keep in mind that at least four defensive starters didn't play Saturday, so some of the "first-stringers" that we saw out there are really going to be backups, and some of the "second-stringers" are really going to be third-string.
That was an AWFUL segment on the UM spring game. They didn't really even say anything positive. They could've talked about Tate's unofficial 11-13, 100+ yds passing, 3 TDs passing, 1 TD running. Talked about some of the young guys that a lot of us have been raving about. That segment was so bad I actually lost some UM football knowledge that I had prior to watching it.
+10
That happens on everything I watch. Ticks me off
April 14th, 2009 at 11:07 AM ^
ND and even Western could be tough for M. Eastern and Delaware should be easy.
We should beat Indiana and Purdue, but the rest of the Big Ten slate could pose problems.
Wisconsin and MSU are on the road. OSU and PSU are way better than us at this stage, and Illinois returns its senior qb who killed us last year.
While we may win one, or even two of this last 5, it is just as conceivable that we lose all five.
WMU will be breaking in a new qb as their experienced, senior qb is out with knee surgery or will just be getting back. He's missing all of spring and more than likely most of summer. Also, they are replacing all kinds of guys on defense. They have some weapons on offense, but again, new qb.
Also, ND should be better than last year. Their defense was terrible. UM ran all over them with McGuffie and struggling Oline and Threet actually looked good that game. IMO, UM will have to outscore ND to win that game. It's definitely a very winnable game though.
While I know what you meant by this, I must point out the obvious hilariousness of your statement.
haha, that's great. I read it and was like "was the f*ck is he talking about..... oh, oh, oooooh, haha"