Mississippi State Prediction Based on Fortune Cookie

msu34, m24

Update on Countdown to Kickoff - day 1 Great Autographs!!!

Back in September I finished my countdown to kick off with a recap of the Michigan - Indiana game from 1979.
Here are the scans of the autographs from the Go Blue Brunch:

Calvin O'Neal 1976
Jim Pace 1957
Pat O'Donney (???)
Barry Dehlin (my cousin - Fullback/linebacker 1963-64,66)

Bob Timberlake 1964
Lowell Perry 1951
Paul Seymour 1972
Marty Huff 1970
Jim Mandich 1969
Ron Johnson 1968
Alvin Wistert 1948-49

Rick Volk 1966
Billy Taylor 1971
Tom Curtis 1969
Pete Elliott 1948
Jim Pace (again)
Rick Leach 1978
Calvin O'Neal (again)
Ron Kramer 1955-56

Ernie Vick 1921
Benny Friedman 1924-25
Rick Leach (again)
Bob Chappuis 1947
Maynard Morrison 1931
Bill Daley 1943
Merv Pregulman 1943
Ed Frutig 1940
Otto Pommerening 1928

Finding the old photo album may have answered the question of where I sat for the game. My parents stuck with the tickets from the Pharmacy School down in Row A of the South Endzone. Horrible seats, until AC splits the defenders and ends up right in front of them. I remembered being in the student section, but I would have thought I was closer to midfield then section 31, which is pretty deep into the corner. Since the two tickets aren't together and the late 70s student section was even less strict on where you sat, who knows if I was even in section 31.

Gator Bowl Prediction based on historical data

M is 164-46-1 in all games I have attended (all data refers to games I have attended, unless otherwise noted)
M is 28-12 in games away from Michigan Stadium
M is 6-4 in bowl games
M is 31-6 in games where M's starting QB is #16
M is 5-0 against teams from the SEC
M is 48-26 against ranked schools
M is 23-13 when unranked
M is 7-4 when unranked facing a ranked opponent
M is 39-14 against "state name" State University schools
M is 2-1 in the final game coached by their current head coach (1-0 when he gets fired)
M is 13-2 when they'll be lead by Jim Harbaugh in their next game

It's simple when you add it all up:

Michigan 28
Mississippi State 27

OSU, NCAA and ugh!

How could you not know that selling a Big Ten Championship ring or a jersey is OK?  Is that something that they have seen others do, so they thought it was normal?  Really?

With the delayed suspension, the NCAA does it again.  I really wish the NCAA wouldn't be so transparent with regards to their existence as a money-grabbing organization.  

For those who are saying the rules that the OSU players broke show that players should be paid, I have to ask one question:  WHY IS IT A RIGHT TO GET A TATOO?!?!?!?!

So, I caught portions of College Football Live on ESPNU (I think) a couple days the past week and they were talking about Maryland possibly hiring Mike Leach.  With all of the discussion about how great a coach he is and how he would be a good fit with the Terps, nothing was mentioned about why he is not coaching Texas Tech anymore.  I'm not saying he did anything wrong, because I have no idea, but how can that not be part of the discussion?  ESPN is as bad as the NCAA.  

I have a lot of ideas of this whole Michigan Man issue regarding RR, but it would be a very long post.  Nobody wants to read that.  But, for those who say Bo wasn't a Michigan Man when he came here, I have two responses:  1) The high standards (on and off the field) may or may not have been part of the culture at M when Bo was hired, but M alums and the uni, as far as what I know, embrace what Bo stood for.  If he wasn't a fit for the culture at the U, then he certainly helped to create the culture as we know as The University of Michigan.  2) RR did not, and has not, embraced the U traditions/culture.  He came in knowing it was a great football job.  But, anyone who cares about M doesn't care that it is a great football job.  We care that it is a great place to be.  This is not an SEC job, where you win and make alums happy.  Winning is only part of it.  Being a good Michigan Man is the other. 

I saw a story on WBKB-TV (channel 11, Alpena) about the MSU-Alabama bowl game and they had three quick soundbites from Alabama players talking about the MSU team.  All three said that MSU is like an SEC team.  It was clear they were doing this as if to say it as a compliment.  I really want the Big Ten to beat the SEC this year . Ugh

Sad Anniversary

Seventy-one years ago today, this AP photo captured the end of University of Chicago's football program.

HT: http://www.uniwatchblog.com/

The program was quite impressive for much of their time in the Big Ten. The programs record up to that point was 261-149-30. The school was 22nd in over all wins at the time they dropped the program. Chicago's 7 conference football titles tie them with MSU (7th this season) and lead Penn State and Indiana.
However they hadn't had a winning season in over a decade. In their final season they finished 2-6, however in their 6 losses they were outscored 306-0.

Two other playoff ideas

In addition to the world renowned sarcasMike playoff, I stumbled across these two playoff suggestions.

WhatIfSports has a suggestion very similar to mine. Eleven conference champs plus five at-large teams. They use the BCS rankings instead of the CFRC, so the teams are slightly different. If you look back at their previous years, Michigan has been in the tournament twice, in 2004 and 2006, with their best finish #2 in 2006.

The second example is from an actual 1998 patent application. It's not the easiest read, but it looks like a 12 team playoff with the teams determined by a combination of the media and coaches poll and an objective formula. The top 4 teams get byes. Games are at campus sites at least until the final four. This suggestion also has a secondary 16 team playoff with the next 16 teams. I assume this takes the place of bowl games.

Obviously I prefer the system that includes conference champs over one that selects the entire field subjectively. I wonder how the secondary playoff would do compared to keeping the majority of the bowls in tact, interesting idea.

MGoBlog comment - since I've apparently gotten the banhammer

I was reading this post from MGoBlog commenter SixZero. He is (or considers himself) a graphic artist and is commenting on the new Big Ten log and his distaste for BrianGoBlog's create a better logo contest.

Although he has other, probably true, arguments; to me it boils down to "You aren't _____, so you don't understand and shouldn't really comment on this."

Isn't that what the entire site does? No one is a player or coach yet they write diaries and posts about particular plays and players and why they failed or succeeded. This seems to me to the Mike Taylor argument - that "you've probably never played the game, so you don't know!"

I think the Big Ten's new logo is unimpressive, I think the suggested crest style logo is far superior. I don't think anyone needs to be a graphic artist to know that, anymore than they need to have been in the marching band to know that jiMpossible was the best Gilligan in the history of the MMB!