Unverified Voracity Clocks It
Michigan Stadium circa 1955, or thereabouts.
Shirt notes! 1) We printed up a limited-edition run of Notre Dame date/score t-shirts for your delectation. Get them before they are gone forever. Also, for Ann Arbor folk who want shirts but would like to avoid shipping charges, MGoShirts are now available at Underground's Ann Arbor store on South U.
For a good cause. Note: the Pat Maloy Charity Auction, which seeks to establish (now, continue) an endowed kinesiology scholarship in the name of the late Professor Maloy, a guy who had a far-reaching effect on everyone who experienced his teaching. They've got a ton of Michigan memorabilia up for purchase; I suggest you check it out. Goes to a good cause. Robert Haddad has some personal thoughts for you if you're not quite moved yet.
It was dumb for exactly the wrong reason. Much controversy in the aftermath of the Purdue-Notre Dame game concerning Danny Hope's timeout before third and goal. Here's a typical Boiler response:
Why the $%*&@!!!!!!!!!!!! did we call a timeout?
And here's Charlie Weis:
"That kind of helped us out a little bit right there," Weis said. "We were going to clock it, so we made sure we had one play left....It didn't end up paying any dividends for us, because we didn't score on that third down call. But we had an opportunity to gather our thoughts and get the right call for fourth down."
What? Is Charlie Weis actually suggesting that Notre Dame was going to spike the ball on third down? That's the interpretation of Brian Hamilton:
The Irish were set to spike the ball to kill the clock and leave themselves just one play to score.
Notre Dame had 37 seconds when Hope took his timeout. If Weis is actually claiming ND would have spiked it instead, he's either a liar or an idiot. I'm going with the former since there is no college coach in the country that would blow a down on third and goal with 37 seconds left. Even if you're an idiot, you have 20 seconds to think to yourself "maybe we should throw a fade to one of our 6'4" wide receivers, that would probably be better than chucking a ball straight into the ground."
Anyway, the larger issue: Purdue's error here was not in calling the timeout. You can't bank on the opposing coach making the dumbest coaching move since Marty Mornhinweg took the wind. Notre Dame was going to get all four shots at the endzone either way. The error was in not blowing the remainder of their timeouts in an effort to keep a reasonable amount of time on the clock for a potential response. Purdue should have called timeout after Notre Dame got first and goal; doing so would have saved another 20 seconds or so and given Purdue 40 seconds instead of 20 on their final drive. When you only need a field goal that's a big deal.
Hey, man, Smart Football agrees with me. QED.
Adios, Keith*. A reader recently asked about Keith Jackson's 1998 retirement tour stop at Michigan Stadium, which I remember fondly. He asked for what video existed of the game and I asked Wolverine Historian if he had it. He did, of course, because he is ninja like that:
Really wish they had provided the whole thing, but that's life. Jackson's evident emotion at his last game at Michigan Stadium is something I've treasured as a Michigan fan. I generally adhere to the belief that people who go around talking about their program as if it is the be-all and end-all are unpleasant, but the idea that Keith Jackson thought Michigan was a special place defies that cynicism.
*(Sort of, anyway. Jackson decided to un-retire and did a selection of Pac-10 games for a few more years. He stuck to the West Coast, though, and this was his last appearance at Michigan Stadium. [UPDATE: Wrong. Jackson did the 2003 M-OSU game.)
Van Bergen's error. Clarification on what Van Bergen did wrong on Indiana's 85-yarder from the man himself:
"I made the wrong check," Van Bergen said. "It doesn't happen very often, but it was independently on me. It almost cost the team a big loss, and I would have blamed that completely on myself." …
"We were supposed to be running blitz to the boundary and I checked to field," he said. "It's something very basic, and I shouldn't have made that mistake."
So it wasn't anything after the snap but what led up to it that was the error. I do remember that run looking almost indefensible given Michigan's alignment.
Yes, as GSimmons reminds, this sort of thing makes it difficult to hand out pluses and minuses as individually as I do in UFR. For the record: I do try to take the difficulty of making a particular play into account and often let players off when it seems clear that the defense was just not right for that particular situation. Also, UFR attempts to be useful, not gospel.
Other game stuff: Brown was absent for much of the middle of the game with a minor injury, Moosman put the onus on himself on the snap fiascoes (but he was not the guy who was called for lining up off the LOS, that was Ortmann), Donovan Warren insist he's the guy who caught the ball. (Full transcript of Moosman's postgame interview.)
Advertisin' note. The M-Den is running a special that's about to run out: $5 shipping on any order. Orders of more than $200 have been and will be free. As always, if you don't shop at the M-Den, you hate America.
Etc.: Have had a couple requests for a high-res downloadable version of the preseason hype video. You can download it here; right click and "save as". Week 4 hype video. GS has last week's run chart up; never linked to it.
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