SportsGirl

Today is a day of shame. Today was the contest between Michigan and Ohio State. This is a game we, as U of M fans, live for each year. Don’t get me wrong, the bowl games are great. But the Ohio State game is equally important, maybe more important in a crappy season where you know the bowl bid won’t be a good one. I knew that OSU would be favored this year. Heck, they have been for the last 5 years. But in this type of rivalry, it doesn’t matter how you’ve played all season. You always have a chance. Or maybe not, as the Michigan players seemed to prove today.

It was an ugly game from the beginning. Cold, rainy, and altogether unpleasant looking. Early in the game OSU quarterback Todd Boeckmann dropped the ball with no one even pressuring him so I was hoping maybe the weather would affect them more than it did us. But really neither team could get any offense going. Mike Hart and Chad Henne played, though I can’t help but wonder if Henne hurt their chances of getting a win more than he helped. What absolutely killed the Wolverines though is Mario Manningham’s multiple dropped passes. But I can’t peg the entire loss on him. Michigan’s defense apparently doesn’t realize that when you go to tackle someone, the goal is to bring them down to the ground! They seem to want to just bump their guy and hope he loses his footing and falls. Forget wrapping your arms around a guy and dragging him down to the ground; today the players seemed more concerned with trying to be Bob freakin Sanders and they just wanted to hit their man and hope they stunned him. Note to U of M defenders: you’re not Bob Sanders! That guy knows how to follow through on a tackle. And if he hits you in the middle of the field, you can be darn sure you’ll drop to the ground. So between the defense forgetting their sole purpose on the field and the offense never finding a rhythm, it was a tough game to watch. The final score was 14-3, Ohio State. Hence the reason I feel shame today. I was even heckled as I headed to the movies later in the day, trying to erase the bad memory of the game. Some guy told us he was sorry for what Michigan endured today, then said Go Bucks! as he was walking away. And all I could do was shake my head because he had every right to do that. I freakin’ hate bragging rights when I don’t own them.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s ashamed of today’s outcome. Lloyd Carr has scheduled a press conference for Monday and is expected to announce his retirement. So the speculation will swirl about who his replacement will be. Les Miles? Urban Myer? Perhaps Cam Cameron, who would probably accept a position at Notre Dame rather than staying with the Dolphins. It will remain to be seen.

Meanwhile, LSU won their game, quite handily I might add and Oregon lost theirs. (Note to self…retract your statement in your earlier post where you said Oregon was a better team than LSU) Kansas won, and so did Missouri and as I’m typing this, Oklahoma is getting their butt whooped by Texas Tech, so it looks like the BCS will rank Kansas #2 and Missouri will likely move up to #3. Since those two teams play each other next week, it should be an interesting match up to look forward to. And this hot potato game of contending for the National Championship will continue until the regular season is over. I know the Big Ten won’t represent their conference there, so my support swings to the Big Twelve, since that’s the region I live in. And that leaves me with three words to close this post. Rock. Chalk. Jayhawk, baby. Ok, that was four…