Recent Comments

OSU averaged just 62 offensive snaps those last 7 games with just 110 attempted passes over that time. You're not going to get big yardage totals like that. The quality is more important then the quantity. 7.38 YPA with a true frosh QB is pretty good.

And you try doing your job with the nation's sports media hovering like vultures over the program. And Urban Meyer too. Good luck with that.

Bollman is an upgrade over Roushar.

The hand Bollman was dealt in 2011 was pretty tough. The cloud Tressel left the program under didn't help and everybody in Columbus knew the staff was gone. Including the players. The starting QB was dreadful. He should have been pulled for Braxton Miller much earlier that season. Still, Miller was very, very raw. And the advance gameplanning Bollman executed for Michigan was outstanding. You guys forget that game went down to the wire and Miller was explosive. Bollman did a really nice job of prep with the kid.

I know I'd take Bollman over Roushar any day. Roushar was arguably the worst OC in the B10. Greg Davis was terrible at Iowa but at least he had a lot of injuries - peace be upon AIRBHG - as an excuse. Gus Malzahn or Chad Morris couldn't have turned MSU's offense into a juggernaut LY. But they still have too much talent to look like they did. Bollman for Roushar is a good trade for Sparty.

Look at this from another angle. Tressel allowed Bollman to be his OC for 10 seasons. Dantonio canned Roushar after 1 season. No way this is a downgrade.

.... I can easily picture Rick Mahorn pulling some guy's arm into his privates to draw a foul. And if Mahorn could do it so could Zeller.

The the frosh numbers were a lie. Go back and look at the tape. There is no comparison.

If a Super Bowl-winning QB can't rape anyone he wants the terrorists have won.

I agree. The kid is a freak but he's not the next Clowney. He doesn't tackle so much as wrap up.

But he does have the makings of a superlative receiver.

Adam Grinwis is certainly good enough to do this.

Just 4 months away. Any longer and I'll blue myself.

I'm not sure you'd call InfoWars libertarian. But then I rarely see the place.

Come now, you sell yourself short. I do see you have a comedy blog there.

Don't know why anyone hasn't mentioned pulling Lewan by himself to his *left*. Line up a TE next to him, have the TE downblock and pull Lewan into space. Nevada runs - or did run it anyway - this from the Pistol to great effect.

Kelly already has the most important assistant of all: Chuck Martin. The guy can coach. I'd dump Diaco and give Martin the entire defense.

Its not that Chizik was unimportant to their success, its that he vigorously ran off the guy primarily responsible for their success - Malzahn - and hired a guy to replace him with a philosophy so different that it essentially guaranteed at least a season of failure.

I would have gone maybe with Stevie Wonder, but that will do.

Because the classics never go out of style.

You mean the Bears are looking at Peyton Manning? Well, you never know when that neck could go.

Yes, obviously a dog in Hunny's situation may need something different for awhile.

But BARF is a trial-tested diet. Ever hear of evolution? I loves me some evolution.

My dog gets his some of his raw meat gently cooked for a short period of time to deal with the shortcomings of our industrialized food supply. For example a chicken thigh gets about 45 seconds per side in over medium heat.

For smaller dogs you might want to pre-prep things a bit. I've heard of some owners using an industrial blender to pre-grind some cuts.

But as I said I didn't think this was the time nor the place to get into specifics. And then you criticize me for not going into specifics. Thanks much.

Joe Delaney called to remind you the Chiefs have had some pretty bad luck too.

But yeah, Andolsek's death never got enough attention in this town. He would have made the Pro Bowl his last season had he not uttered one too many racial epithets during play. He and Spielman were pretty tight.

Andolsek was the widest homo sapien I've ever seen. My wife suprised me with a trip to Lions' camp at Oakland U his rookie summer. Far off in the distance I saw an older Lion, a well-known DT whose name escapes me now. Eric Williams? Eric Williams. The guy was working on his own away from everyone else, with a coach. Every few minutes some other player was brought over to go one-on-one with Willams for some snaps. He ate them alive.

At some point they bring Andolsek over. Coach blows whistle and they scrum to a draw. Reset, do it again. Reset, do it again. Now Williams is pissed and decides to dish the kid some extracurricular physical abuse after the whistle. From the view of my binoculars the kid doesn't seem to respond at all. Williams is now just yelling at him. Coach decides to bring someone else in and Andolsek walks quietly away.

I didn't know who the kid was and I look him up on the program. Andolsek, 5th round from LSU. I learn his number and decide to keep an eye out for him after the practice is over.

Practice ends and the players begin the hike over to our part of the field and start signing autographs. I'm keeping an eye out for Rodney Peete. Hard to miss; the guy looked like a movie star from 50 yards away. He gets closer and closer, but someone else gets in my line of sight. The guy is so wide that he blocks Peete from view completely. Its Andolsek. A total eclipse of the Peete. Rodney could have died on the spot and I never would have seen it.

I get Andolsek's autograph and I'm practically speechless. I'd never seen a human built like him before. And never since. They called William Perry the Fridge. Andolsek got a nickname too; the Table. Could have called him the Doorway, because I don't know how he could fit thru one. He would have gone down as maybe the best guard ever to wear the Honolulu Blue & Silver.

Fred Jackson: "Skipper is like Jake Long, only big"

Doesn't anyone want to comment about the Bomber? Never been there.

From the article:

"McVay made more than the CEO of the American Red Cross, which has revenues of $3.5 billion."

True, but most bowl organizations are less corrupt then the ARC.

Salvation Army >>> Red Cross

Anything Petrino does is going to be interesting. Ark State has had a lot of success doing things a certain way with Hugh Freeze and Gus Malzahn. They'd like to keep doing things in that way. Chucking it out the window for Petrino doesn't make a lot of sense.

I don't believe Gus Malzahn thinks Chizik is a good guy.

This is the big question SoMiss folks have to ask themselves. Was it worth it to can 17-year man Jeff Bower to hire Larry Fedora? Everybody knew that Fedora wouldn't last too long in Hattiesburg. Bowers was a good coach who won consistently with the budget he was given. Kids graduated at a decent clip and Bower represented the school well. But Fedora brought the Golden Eagles to heights they hadn't seen before.

Thing is Bower is only 59 years old. I wonder if he would consider coming back.

Death to web designers that hide links.

http://www.discountmags.com/promos/blackfriday?sdtid=5555160

You're welcome.

What, no votes for Smith & Gee?

I've been saying it all season and its nice that the feed showed some of you; Adam Grinwis is a really good keeper and has an excellent shot at a productive pro career.

..... 7th grade boys team.... seconds winding down in the 4th and up by a couple and a fluky play puts the ball in my hands. I didn't want it, couldn't find anybody to pass it to and the other team was bearing down.

So I thought - I don't know how I had the time to actually work this idea out - that if I threw the ball high enough that the clock would run out before the ball came down.

Derp. Derpity derpity derp.

Had I attempted this gambit say, in 9th grade I may have been able to run a rough calculation then go to plan B: soil myself. Needless to say there were still some seconds left though thankfully I didn't cost my teammates the game.

The Crew have a good relationship with Akron because Porter is a great coach.

If the QB pulls the give and tosses right NU might have scored. They had the right numbers in the box. Someone was supposed to block Demens. The odd alignment cause confusion. I'm guessing the left guard didn't do his job.

If I've said it once I've said it like 5 times here: Adam Grinwis is a really good keeper. More people need to pay attention to this kid.

... its a nice first try but I think we can spiff it up a bit. How about the Spartan Citation for Union and Manumission?

There. That looks about right.

You underrate just how big the losses on the OL were. All 4 of those guys were starting for their respective NFL teams on Opening Day the next season. Its believed to be the only time in NFL history that has happened.

A point in Deion's favor: when Jimmy Johnson got him in Dallas he stuck him in a zone first defense. That's like giving Rembrandt finger paints.

Also, I'm not sure what position Everson Walls played at the end of his career in Cleveland, but at the end of his time in Dallas he was playing at safety, not corner. And for more than just a season.

From the article:

"Clark bursts upfield and Michigan stunts Black outside, getting both a delay on the QB and a second tackler in space."

This is an effective tactic against the triple when not overused. There are counters and if the offensive coordinator is right they can make hay. Mattison came nowhere near overusing this. Should have been called more.

Problem is the two service QBs aren't all that comparable. Ricky Dobbs was a special athlete that academies rarely succeed in recruiting. Also as I recall (because I had Navy plus the points in that game) the emotional setup was very good for the Middies. And Jim Tressel had a documented record of failure against the flexbone going back to his days at Youngstown State. I actually looked at some old footage of a YSU-Georgia Southern game. Tressel had no handle at all on the Xs & Os as GSU cut thru them like a hot knife thru butter.

That said AFA's per play stats weren't all that impressive. I do think they aimed pretty squarely at Will Campbell.

Danielson blamed Gardner's space on the DB falling down. Then the replay clearly shows Gardner putting on a sick pattern that *made* the guy break his ankles. And Danielson refuses to correct his error.

Props to Denard for throwing that ball away from the closing safety.

Zona was very unlucky. They dominated on the ground and in the air. The Toledo punter and coverage teams dropped 7 punts inside the Zona 20 and gave them long fields all night. And Zona's kicker blew a 25-yard chippie to win on the final play of regulation. Too bad; the final drive was a thing of beauty filled with some masterful execution.

RR & special teams........ hmmm........

I recommend watching this highlight video while listening to Ride Of The Valkyries. Awesome.

I was waiting for someone to suggest that perhaps Mr Kalis has a healthy dislike of donkeys.

Fred Jackson also sez that Chris Pittaro is going to be so good at 2nd base that Lou Whitaker will have to move to third base.

Yes, the flexbone generally doesn't feature zone blocking. The Illini will be doing *nothing* but zone blocking, and Nebraska is a predominantly zone blocking outfit as well.

In recent years Navy has done a little zone blocking here or there. Not much and when they do it you can't tell without running the video back.

OT: there are indications Navy will be introducing some wrinkles this season. If AFA was later in the season it could have given us something else to prep for. AFA/Navy/Army/GTech all have the ability to quickly adopt something one of the others introduce.

I have a secondhand report via multiple PSU alums here in the office that says UM, MSU coaches are there as well.

Crushing heads? So passe. All the cool kids are pinching faces.

Believe me, no one in Mt Pleasant thinks EMU is a rival.

I've got some fairly strong family connections to GSU. An interviewer like that needs to be addressed. Care to reveal the name?

I wonder if anyone has named a thoroughbred "Craig James Killed 5 Hookers" yet. Can you imagine such a horse at the Kentucky Derby?

I was thinking maybe the Fighting Shemps.

Screen plays, think screen plays.

The college system ain't perfect, that's for sure. But youth development has improved substantially in recent years and the colleges have turned out great drafts the last 3. Still it would be nice if we got rid of some of the silliness. Kids don't learn game management when coaches overselect for physical strength and speed because the substitution rules are insane.

Methinks the Book of Revelation needs amending. Dark times these.

Please someone make sure Brandon is nowhere near the TV this afternoon.

Mary Jo Kopechne was not available for comment.

The Tartars will be 7 or 7.5 pt dogs next week to a superior Pittsburg State team. This will vary a bit depending on the injury to WSU RB Davis.

Ah, but we covered the line that night. +6.5 if I recall. I think there were some 7s leading up to the game. Bo was money when getting points. Auburn didn't need to pass; they had Bo Jackson!

The defensive Xs & Os were laid out well. The Tigers moved the ball reasonably well until they got in deep. The field got small and crowded and our defensive discipline stood Bo up.

..."with the heart and determination of Mike Hart" but *fast*.

That. Is. Awesome.

Mike Martin is a walking violation of the Geneva Convention. Hopefully he isn't reported and arrested before the bowl game.

I'd cut the SDSU defense a bit of slack on the Army game. In Ellerson's first season (2009) he ran the flexbone he ran at Cal Poly (with a dash of I-form thrown in). In 2010 he moved to a veer framework purer than anything Lou Holtz ever ran.

And this year Ellerson shifts to a wishbone. SDSU had a week to prepare for something they not only won't see again, but more importantly hadn't seen more than 7 days before the game.

My wife went to CMU, and I can guarandamntee you that every August she will badger me for the date and place of the WMU game, and my general impression of this year's matchup.

She wasn't amused by my contention that during Jeff Genyk's reign the best series in the state was EMU-CMU. Easy. Genyk tried to make EMU matter, and to matter you need a hated rival. He picked CMU.

2004 EMU 61 CMU 58 4OT

2005 EMU 23 CMU 20 OT

2006 EMU 17 CMU 24 OT

2007 EMU 48 CMU 45

2008 EMU 56 CMU 52

The last game featured 174 plays from scrimmage. It also featured an increasingly unhinged Genyk. More than an hour before kickoff he got into it with some CMU peeps on the field. Still, for a hardcore football fan it was quite the spectacle: 5 years under Genyk and the EMU-CMU games were decided by a total of 20 points with 3 going into overtime.

Then supergenius Ron English in Ypsi takes over and deemphasizes the CMU game. The obvious result: CMU 56-8, in a game not nearly as close as the scoreboard indicated.

The current ND offense may not use more than one back, but Kelly will do so if he has to. He ran a lot of two back in his first two years at CMU with Kent Smith.

Arteta isn't the stud he was 2-3 years ago.

If Arteta played for almost any other country he'd have been a national team star at the WC final last summer.

Hope's stache is better than Dave Wannstedt's.

"There aren't too many pro games with 20+ point spreads."

I'm not sure what that has to do with my post. A 10 pt NFL fave will average about +0.4 in TO margin, as will a CFB fave of the same number. Just because there are fewer big NFL faves doesn't mean the relationship doesn't hold. It does.

At one point the Cottagers had *5* Yanks on the roster at the same time: Bocanegra, McBride, Johnson (GAM), Dempsey, and Keller.

Ahh, those were the days.

Style is a biggie. Stay away from any team coached by the man named Sam Allardyce.

Fulhamerica for me. And any other team with a Yank. Though my favorite player is Ji Sung Park. Slagged by Man U fans when he originally signed because they thought he was there just to sell shirts in southeast Asia Park is a superb combination of skill, style and spirit. If your son grew up to be the Ji Sung Park of plumbers you'd go to your deathbed with a smile on your face.

Seriously, like stfu: it was on Ives' Q&A this afternoon.

This should make for a great Special1TV episode. I predict Sven will sign a fetus.

Not guilty <> innocent.

That is precisely what I thought. I love me some Xs & Os

Can we be sure Frank is a Dumars' hire?

Ho ho hoo. You are correct sir!

Tough to feel sorry for NK players who get to consume a decent diet, unlike the vast majority of slaves there.

OT: it would be cool to ban ESPN links here until Bruce Feldman is freed.

Gosh that's harsh. I see no reason to slander truck drivers here.

Gotta give Chad his props. When he changed his name he gave headline writers everywhere goosebumps. Off a bad game: "Ochocinco Mucho Stinko".

Do we know that Fickell *doesn't* molest goats?

If Stacy is going to stay home perhaps Dan Duggan can outfit him with a 2012 Bucks jersey as well.

Clint Dempsey blew more chances than John Daly.

Herb Hand interview was overrated. But then, so is Herb. Tulsa did well under Gus. Then Gus left and Herb had problems. Then Tulsa hired Malzahn's doppelganger Morris. And Tulsa thrived. Herb ain't bringing paradise to Vandy.

I give credit to Herb for showing Gus what he knows about the spread running game. At Springdale HS Gus preferred to throw as soon as he got off the bus. But then, at Arkansas Gus was the inspiration for the Wildcat. Somehow I think Gus would have managed at Tulsa without Herb.

Aging: Don't forget John Terry.

I'm thinkin' The Sorgi Incident should be a punk band based out of Madison - guys dolled up like cheerleaders. Think Badgers meet New York Dolls.

The band in the video looks like it was part of a big Shields & Yarnell sketch that went way too long.

I've wondered quite a bit just how much of a head case Mustain would have been if Gus Malzahn had been allowed to run the offense. Gus really didn't become a true convert to the run game until he spent a season with Herb Hand at Tulsa. At Springdale HS Gus started throwing the moment the kids stepped off the bus.

Someday Gus will go back to a pass-dominated attack. Just depends on the parts he has to play with.

Ed Shuttlesworth. His last name *is* the nickname.

some sort of advanced intelligence is applying an official mgoblog policy here is overstating things. Gotcha.

I can do it all day. Married guys often develop the skill of self-debasement as a survival tactic.

You can tag this as trolling & redundant and still give a reply. I don't mind; I'm trying to learn here.

..... just wanted an explanation. There wasn't anything remotely bad about my original reply. Please explain.

Avila's poor plays late in the game. Darn near throws a ball into left field on the throw to third, and allows a ball from Papa Grande to get by him. I'll give him a bit of a pass on the E; if you keep throwing heaters 4 feet out of the strike zone eventually the catcher is going to muff one. But still.

I'd like to find a clip of the Peralta-Granderson contretemps to cut up and show to my 8-year old boy. So many mistakes wrapped up into one nice object lesson for young players.

Baseball is a couple of big, unteachable skills and a steamer trunk of small and very teachable skills. And that play was a good illustration. Granderson has good speed down to 2nd, but starts his slide too late and unforgivably turns over because he wants to see if throw is wild and he can get up for another base. Two brutal mistakes.

Peralta uses fine natural instincts to grab Avila's less than stellar throw - see a theme there, Alex? - and has the presence of mind to make Granderson pay for his thieving ways.

But then he uses poor technique in applying the tag. Granderson has to come back. You don't go extend yourself away from the bag to tag Curtis, unless you also block the base with your body. If you can't block you must let Curtis tag himself out by keeping the glove hand close to the bag. Often the ump will give you the benefit of the doubt on bang bang plays if you use good technique.

But Peralta reaches, allowing Granderson to evade the initial reach and get a hand back on 2nd. The tag happens, but well away from the base. The two actions - Grandy's hand on the bag and Peralta's tag - happened so close in time but spatially far apart its unclear to me which came first. But the ump had his eyes on Peralta's tag and bailed Jhonny out. Good fielders don't make plays like that difficult for the ump.

..... that's *cromulent*.

35 cents? That seems to be a big split. You could get lower vig elsewhere.

I'm ok with losing Taylor Decker as long as we can get Brooklyn Decker.

Blaha in person can be a real SOB. The guy also fancied himself quite the clotheshorse. Still, he used to be a damn good hoops guy. He's faded with age.

Hey we all took transistor radios to the game in those days didn't we? Was always grateful to Mom for her purse, because I didn't like carrying both my mitt *and* the radio.

I agree re: limits of using ranks. I would have preferred yards per rush/pass adjusted for schedule.

Is this dataset available for review?

Try reading the box score. Baltimore gave up only 5.1 yards per attempt. That is a pretty good number. Problem is, Flacco was held to 2.6 ypa. You don't win many games when you have a -2.5 ypa differential.

The actual point total in the game had little to do with the quality of the offenses. That happens.

Oops. Editing a duplicated post here. I don't think mgoblog likes my Firefox much.

True enough. But Hatfield's team looked worse than it was in 2005 because he was committed to developing QB Chase Clement, who was just a freshman. Clement looked predictably freshman-like in '05 and Graham got himself a good young QB with seasoning in '06. In '08, long after Graham was gone, Clement's passing numbers put him near the top of FBS.

I'm not saying Graham is a *bad* coach. I'm saying the value he brought Tulsa was directly linked to his hiring of Malzahn and later Morris. Who is really Malzahn II.

I might have it wrong, but if Magee gets the Pitt OC I predict he'll prove to be another Herb Hand - good coach in support of the top dog, but not a top dog himself.

.... you definitely hire the first guy you interview, no matter how lightly regarded he was before you interviewed him.

And then, when you have to fire that coach and get a new one, you do it again with someone who just has a better reputation.

Then, when you have to fire *that* coach, you take your time and mull over the possibilities, interview several candidates, and settle on the one who not only doesn't have any head coaching experience at any level, he doesn't even have coordinator experience at any level.

Its an interesting thought. I'd guess Hopkins would be the B back. And maybe try to convert one of the excess WRs to slotbacks.

And PJ would have to hire a good DC.

I question whether its a good fit for our current OL. Getting Lewan on MLBs would be fun to watch though.