College Football News has created a list of the most over- and under-rated teams of the past 35 years. This is based on preseason rankings compared to final rankings for each year. Michigan ended up 24th most overrated, while the most overrated team was MSU.
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ESPN reports that Vanderbilt will be getting a new quarterback for next season.
Since Richard Kovalcheck has graduated from Arizona, but still has eligibility remaining, he will be able to play right away for the Commodores, and is expected to do so.
Despite the graduation of Jay Cutler, Vanderbilt was expected to be a passing-oriented offense, so this development will help them be more successful in that regard.
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If the team does these things, I get the feeling that everything else will take care of itself.
After that, there’s nothing we can do but hope for a great game against OSU.
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What will Mallett do?
This (first) edition poses the question as it applies to Ryan’s eligibility in college. Will he enroll early? Will he redshirt his freshman year?
The first factor in this decision will be Chad Henne. Will Chad go pro after his junior year, or stay for his senior season? This question may not be as ridiculous as it sounds to many Michigan fans. Henne is currently predicted as the 6th-best quarterback in the 2007 draft, with two of the prospects ahead of him (#2 Brian Brohm and #5 Kyle Wright) also soon-to-be juniors. If Henne has a great 2006 season, or of something happens that would move him up in the draft order (career and/or life-ending injury to Brady Quinn sounds pretty good), it may be more realistic an idea than it seems.
If Henne leaves early, the decision is a little more clear. As Michigan’s definite #1 guy, Mallett would not redshirt, and instead be the likely starter from day 1. The chance of this happening successfully would, of course, increase if Mallett were to enroll early and learn the offense in the spring. If he’s maybe not as good as we all think (hope?), he would sit behind the starter his freshman year, in which case he may take a redshirt.
If Henne doesn’t leave, the decision becomes a little more complicated. The important thing here is that I am not entirely clear on NCAA rules about whether a player can enroll early, in addition to taking a redshirt in their freshman year, and wind up with 4 remaining years of eligibility. I’m guessing that it’s possible, though I’ll have to look into this a little more.
If Henne stays, Mallett would either be the first backup right behind him, or redshirt, and have a year to get acclimated to the game at a college level, as well as Michigan’s offense. In my opinion, he should not take the redshirt, and instead get a little playing time in some real game action, to speed his development process. This would, of course, be preferred with an early enrollment, so that he’ll have a spring under his belt. If something were to happen to Henne, the capable backup would be there.
People may wonder why I think he should back up Henne (playing mostly mop-up duty), instead of redshirting, and maybe burning the shirt if Henne were to go down. For one thing, I think that game experience that he would get in mop-up duty would be beneficial, especially for his confidence since he’s moving up a level. Also, if he’s really as good as everyone thinks he is, he might leave early for the NFL. We may as well get as much playing time from him while he’s here if there is a risk for that.
However, it seems as though he intends to stay for at least four years, based on his “come with me and win 3” slogan. Unless he thinks he can take the starting job away from a senio Henne (doubtful), he would be the starter after that. After 3 seasons (all of which, according to Mallett, will end in NCs), he would be either a senior or redshirt junior. It sounds like he would leave early following his redshirt junior year, given the chance, so we might as well have him leave as a senior.
Thus, it is decided. Mallett should enroll this coming winter, and not redshirt the following year. This would be the best for both the Michigan program and his development as a quarterback.
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When discussing the two biggest (well, two best, since Mallett is an enormous man-being, but Clausen is more normal-sized) QB recruits for the 2007 class, people in the world at large are prone to talking about how the battles between Mallett and Clausen will be historic, etc. For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume that everyone turns out healthy, is as ridicu-good as the experts say they are, and matriculates at the school of his choice.
The most important fallacy I’ve seen (and, unfortunately, I’ve seen it fairly often) is the idea that these two will be facing off against each other four times. Since they are in the same class, this would seem to make sense. They are in the recruiting class of 2007, and both will be freshmen during the 2007 football season.
However, Notre Dame’s quarterback, Brady Quinn (we won’t get into this in too much detail now, but he is certainly the most overhyped payer in America right now) is going to be graduating following this year, and, if everything goes that way that ESPN has planned for it to happen, he will be the number one pick in the draft, despite needing a fair amount of luck to hit the broad side of a barn a good portion of the time. Michigan’s quarterback, the occasionally just-as-inaccurate Chad Henne, is only going to be a junior this coming year, and barring an outstanding 2006 season from him (which is possible, but not likely), he will be back in 2007.
So, for Jimmy Clausen’s first battle against Michigan, he will presumably be squaring off in Ann Arbor against a senior in Chad Henne (who, if everything goes according to ESPN’s master plan, will have yet to beat Notre Dame in his 3 tries). This will leave Mallett on the bench (remember, we’re assuming, for the sake of argument, that everyone stays healthy). Therefore, Mallett’s first start against JC will actually be in the 2008 season, as either a redshirt freshman or true sophomore. The two will play three times in their careers.
Now, Mallett’s status of redshirting, etc. is a little more less than Clausen’s (he is already penciled in as the starter for Notre Dame in 2007), but we won’t go into that in too much detail right now. I just wanted to clear the air in the blogosphere about the assumed Mallett v. Clausen battles that will be taking place in the future (and maybe sooner than we expect, if both attend the Elite 11 combine).
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Since the open spring practice is still a long three weeks away, I’m going to continue to make posts that are related to football only in the vague sense that they have something to do with the gameday atmosphere. My topic of the day? Fan attire.
Last year, the official student t-shirt was blue. This was a terrible idea. Bright colored student sections look infinitely better, and since Michigan has only one bright color (as opposed to say a Texas, who has both orange and white), the choice should obviously be maize every single time. I’ve already covered this in the past, so I won’t get into it too deeply.
I’d now like to extend that ideal, and say that the fans not in the student section should wear yellow as well. The Athletic Department seems to be getting into this a little bit as well, as the slogan on the student shirts is “Go Blue, Wear Maize.” Nothing bothers me more than the fans who come in their grey or white sweatshirts. Wearing blue is acceptable, wearing neither yellow nor blue shouldn’t be.
Also, I have a great idea that has blatantly ripped from Penn State (in case you haven’t noticed, I have some sort of weird thing for PSU). In the section of the stands where the ‘M’ is, the fans should wear the color corresponding to their seat so that the figure comes out on TV. It looked really cool during the PSU/OSU game, and I think it’s something that we should try as well.
Obviously, however, it is difficult to get fans to all wear the same color, it will be exceptionally difficult to get them to figure out where they’re sitting, and dress accordingly. The solution? Give away the T-shirts. Not only could the athletic department manage to do this for free (corporate sponsors would pay for it, much like the towels from last year’s OSU game), but it would be essentially the only way to guarantee that this cool visual imagery could take place.
The athletic department would know exactly how many of each shirt they would need to buy (allow me to suggest that blue shirts be given to those on blue seats inside the yellow box, and yellow shirts be provided for those sitting in yellow seats), and could give people the shirts as they enter the stadium in that section (although this would slow down the entry through those couple gates for a while, it would be well worth it).
For lack of information, I’m going to end this post here, but I certainly plan to follow up on it in the near future (i.e. when I take the time to figure out the numbers of shirts, etc.)
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Last year, the Penn State game happened to fall over our Fall Break (as well as PSU’s). As a result of these two factors combined, there was a huge crowd of Penn State students at the away game for them, as well as a smaller-than-normal crowd of Michigan students at a home game. This actually had a pretty large impact on the crowd noise at the game. The Penn State student section seemed to be almost as loud (and sometimes noticeably louder) that the home student section.
Now, I won’t get into how dumb it was to schedule a home football game during our fall break, since I’m sure that didn’t even go into consideration when making the schedule. Even if it had, I wouldn’t be surprised if the athletic department had counted on students staying in town just because there was a home football game (as I’m sure many did). However, the point remains the same: A lot of PSU students showed up, in no small part because the game was during their Fall Break.
This upcoming season, the tables have turned. Yet again Michigan plays Penn State in the middle of October, and yet again this means it falls during study break for UM (Penn State’s academic calendar for next year has not yet been posted on the web). I’m going to make the call right now that Michigan students need to return the favor, and travel en masse to University Park, and show the Nittany Lions what true fans are. I’d love to see a massive road trip down there.
The athletic department also should feel a responsibility to encourage students to attend this away game. As they always do (though I’m not exactly sure how this process usually works), they will be given an allotment of tickets, and sell these to students. However, I don’t think that this will be enough. There need to be advertisements, etc. that encourage students to go (even if it means they can’t actually get into the game, or if they have to scalp tickets).
In the near future, I’m definitely going to be posting more resources about how to make this happen, because I really want this to go down. Despite their losses, Penn State is going to be a very solid team next year, and the Wolverines will need all the help they can get to ensure a win.
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Sun Belt officials admit some mistakes.
Some of the things they say in this link are dead wrong, too. For one, the back judge was in perfect position to see the Manningham interference call – I was right behind him in the first row, and it was blatantly obvious. The low-tier official was just tricked by the Nebraska player doing the “I’m innocent” pose right after interfering with the receiver.
Also, some of the rules that they cite as example are just plain wrong. According to Section 1 or Penalty enforcement in the NCAA Rulebook, when live-ball fouls are enforced as dead-balls fouls, there is NO offsetting. The penatlies are instead administered in order of occurence. This means that regardless of the penalties called on the final play, there should have been one more down.
There are various other errors that are made in that article, but I don’t even really feel like dignifying most of it with a response. Maybe some other time I will.
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For having the largest crowds at just about every home game, Michigan Stadium is not as intimidating as it should be. There are multiple reasons for this, such as the outward architecture of the stands, and the lack of anything for sound to reflect off of, down to the field. However, the most important issue that leads to this problem is the lack of fan involvement.
At every field in the country, the student section is expected to be the leader in creating havoc for opposing offenses. However, at most schools, there is substantial support from almost every section of the crowd. The best examples of this are SEC schools. At Michigan, however, this is not present. The alumni, who occupy the middle of both sides of the field, are most guilty of being too quiet. The end opposite the student section is actually louder than I woul have expected (as I experienced on the field for the Penn State game), but still not that loud. Though the students may use this apathy as an excuse for not being enthusiastic, it should instead be motivation to be that much more of a factor. As it is my area of experience, the student section will be the topic of this article.
The first thing I’d like to discuss is the vocal noise that the student section makes. First off, not everyone even makes noise. There are two groups that are guilty of this. First is those who just couldn’t care less about the game, and only go because everyone else does. They are essentially a lost cause. The other group, however, is about as frustrating as it gets. These people are the same ones who bitch about how quiet the atmosphere is in the stadium, and are constantly calling for Lloyd Carr’s head (and Tommy Amaker’s). These are the people who waltz around saying they are the only “true” fans, when this is clearly not the case. Among students who DO make noise, however, there is still a problem. It seems as though everyone is missing the point about making noise. They think that their voice simply has to be present, regardless of volume. This has always bothered me, as the point is to be as loud as possible.
Another issue I take with the students is the other means of making noise. I mayh be the only one on this side of the fence, but I think that the “key play” is stupid, and should be done away with ASAP. It is unoriginal, and not loud. Plus, students seem to think that jingling their keys absolves them of their yelling duty. Given a choice between the two, I would much rather have people making vocal noise. If I ever see another freshman “hilariously” waving the keycard to his room again, I think I’m going to have to punch his lights out.
Other than these two forms of making noise, there isn’t a whole lot going on in the student section. The cowbells are out there, but those are for more of cheers that take place randomly, rather than specifically when the team is on defense. I’d love to see students stomping on the bleachers, and making other types of noise (bring noisemakers, people!) to help out when the team is on defense.
One last (smaller) issue that I have is that there aren’t a whole lot of coordinated cheers throughout the student section. I’d like to see more of those, such as chants, etc. I will be so happy if the marching band learns the Super Mario Bros. theme to accompany big plays by Manningham next year.
The stadium does cause the volume to be lower than it would be in another stadium with the same fan enthusiasm. However, the fans must stop using this as an excuse, and start pumping up for the games.
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Well, after a moderate disaster of a season, I think it’s best to just try to move on instead of dwelling on all the things that could have happened just a little differently. Yes, there were coaching issues in just about every loss. Yes, there were reffing issues in some games (one of which is being reviewed by the NCAA). However, this season is past us, and it’s time to look ahead to next year.
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