BlockM

November 15th, 2010 at 4:50 PM ^

I always love to see professional players get that worked about the performance of their team. One of the biggest reasons I like college sports so much is that the players all seem to care more than the pros. Like the announcers said, he's been in the league 11 years, and he obviously still cares.

Joined: 07/03/2008

MGoPoints: 40727

Kal

November 15th, 2010 at 5:33 PM ^

Thanks for the 32 fantasy points Tom, just saved my week and my playoff spot. Oh and I had so much faith in you I benched the Steelers D (-10 pts) and started the Rams D on a hunch that you'd rip the Steelers secondary apart. You know you're an elite QB when the only thing people have left to pick on is your hair.

Joined: 07/10/2008

MGoPoints: 4608

The Baughz

November 15th, 2010 at 6:04 PM ^

I loved every minute of it. The man is intense and loves football. He plays with a lot of fire and passion. Also, like you guys already mentioned, he goes out there and backs his talk up. His teammates thrive off his passion and leadership. Another reason why I enjoyed this so much is the fact that I live in western PA and I absolutely hate the Steelers. Im constantly surrounded by Steeler fans. The worst fans of all time.

Joined: 10/08/2010

MGoPoints: 31913

The Baughz

November 15th, 2010 at 8:47 PM ^

Well for example, if you were at the bar I was at last night watching the game,  you would've heard such things as: wow mike tomlin needs to go, big ben is a horrible qb, the defense is terrible (last night yes, overall its still a top 3 defense year in year out) etc. ect,. Im only speaking on behalf of the Steeler fans I know. This is the same shit they say every year. They hated Piitsburgh last yr since they failed to make the play offs, but those same people were in love with them up until last night. I attend Slippery Rock Uninversity and most of the people I know like the Steelers. Once the game was over all their facebook statuses were saying how much pittsburgh sucks and this person needs to go and so on. It is really quite amusing. I loved Michigan just as much in '07 as i did in '97. Maybe I am making too much of it but that is just how I feel.

Joined: 10/08/2010

MGoPoints: 31913

The Baughz

November 15th, 2010 at 9:00 PM ^

I was at the Michigan/Umass game for my first ever trip to the Big House and noticed the jumbotron giving a shout out to SRU. I was shocked. I kept telling the people I was sitting by that I went there but  they didnt seem to believe me. Anyways, could somebody inform me on the correlation between the two schools? I looked on here and googled it and couldnt really find any definitive reason why the score of the SRU football game would be announced at a Michigan game.

Joined: 10/08/2010

MGoPoints: 31913

blueheron

November 15th, 2010 at 9:42 PM ^

Slippery Rock is on a short list (along with Bob Ufer) of things that Old Blues hold dear.  At this point, both would have great value to them even if based on something mediocre.  (That's just a friendly jab at the OBs.  AFAICS, both were good enough to be conversation pieces for many years.)

Around the late '70s they played another school of similar size at Michigan Stadium.  I think the game was held on a Saturday when Michigan was playing elsewhere.  Anyway, it drew 60+ thousand people and turned SRU into a cult favorite among Michigan fans.  I'd guess that it's lost on most fans these days.

Joined: 03/26/2009

MGoPoints: 30936

The Baughz

November 15th, 2010 at 9:49 PM ^

Wow. Thank you. Very informative and interesting. I could see this potentially being a topic that I could write a paper on for class. lol.  And yes I agree Steeler fans are everywhere. Like I said, Im not bashing the whole Steeler fan base, just the ones I know . When you live in western PA and you don't like the Steelers, it gets really annoying.  

Joined: 10/08/2010

MGoPoints: 31913

treetown

November 15th, 2010 at 11:16 PM ^

Slippery Rock is a small school in Pennsylvania. It has about 7000 students. They play Division II rivals within a league of school which are based in that state. Their arch rival is Shippensburg State.

It may be hard to believe but once upon a time back in the dark days between 1949 and 1969 UM stadium did not sell out and photos of that era will have a lot of empty bleachers. After Bo arrived the stadium started to pack up but Don Canham, a forward thinking AD (the first to really think about branding and arranging license deals - hard to believe today but until he started to do it, no one was seriously doing it) tried to stir up interest. He really pushed Band Day (a tradition which dates back to 1944) and brought in high school bands from all over the state at half time. This was later dropped because giving up 10,000 seats to the band kids was too much after general attendance picked up.

Among the other ways to stir up interest was to announce the scores of games around the country. In the pre-internet, pre-espn, pre-smart phone dark ages, that's all we had. One day the announcer thought it was amusing to see the name of this college coming across the teletype. So he began to announce it and soon Michigan fans adopted the little school and would root it on. So popular was the support that Canham approached Slippery Rock about playing a game at the UM stadium on an open date. And so on Sept. 29, 1979, the Rock played their rivals Shippensburg State in front of 61, 143 fans (a Div II record - at the time, don't know if it still stands). Unfortunately they lost 45-14. They came back to play Wayne State on Sept. 12, 1981 to lose again 14-13. Check out the programs: http://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/football/fbart/aofband.htm. So it is just another part of the lore of the great program.

Joined: 11/10/2010

MGoPoints: 6339

briangoblue

November 15th, 2010 at 6:46 PM ^

highlight video, following the Orange Bowl win, a breathless David Terrell tells an interviewer that "Tom Brady has the heart of a lion!" Whether it was when Brady looked like a skinny dork or the pimp he is now (although my wife has been lighting candles to voodoo-god Jobu asking for a haircut), the guy has always played with more guts and fire than any quarterback I've seen come through Ann Arbor. The fact that he throws the most catchable ball in the league and has the instincts of Montana wouldn't mean anything if he wasn't that same hyped up kid trying to keep Drew Henson on the bench with his clutch play and neverending grit supply.

Joined: 08/03/2009

MGoPoints: 5160

imablue

November 15th, 2010 at 8:20 PM ^

Brady backed up the rant with the QB sneak for a TD, an awesome spike and a "Yeah" I could hear after the TD. He is definately an inspiration to his teammates. Was it Woodley that got the "roughing the passer" penalty?  

Joined: 09/01/2009

MGoPoints: 1552

bronxblue

November 15th, 2010 at 10:15 PM ^

Love the passion.   This is why I can't really blame guys like Favre who stick around after their time - playing football is just so visceral, so real that it must be incredibly hard to just let go of.  Brady is a future HOF, has piles of money and a supermodel wife, and he still gets this worked up in a middle-of-the-season game while leading.  That's intensity.

Joined: 11/22/2008

MGoPoints: 171752

Parkersback

November 16th, 2010 at 12:53 AM ^

as I guess I think he was pretty well squandered at Michigan.  I know hindsight is 20/20, and the hope was that Henson would walk on water, but I wonder what things would have been like had Brady been the full-time starter, no questions asked, his last two years.

Joined: 08/14/2009

MGoPoints: 399

Hoke_Floats

November 16th, 2010 at 12:18 PM ^

I drank all the Henson Kool-Aid, couldn't get enough of it.  I was so excited when he came into the game. The PSU come back by Brady was amazing, Brady did have a good career.  But he could have had even better.

However, if he had a better career may not have been drafted so low by the Pats, could have gone to the lions and languished.

Joined: 09/21/2010

MGoPoints: 2226