College Football - Week of 10/21

[Jon]

Apparently Clemson school officials claimed that they were the first team in the modern era of football to wear head-to-toe purple. I guess all purple with an orange helmet is the real head-to-toe purple and not this:

 

http://www.geocities.com/proj4utep/sutton.jpg

 

Roach's career is indeed over. He was third in the Big Ten in tackles at the time of his injury. Apparently Peterman only had a bad cramp, though, which is good.

[ConstableRabbit]

Apparently Clemson school officials claimed that they were the first team in the modern era of football to wear head-to-toe purple. I guess all purple with an orange helmet is the real head-to-toe purple and not this:

 

http://www.geocities.com/proj4utep/sutton.jpg

 

Roach's career is indeed over. He was third in the Big Ten in tackles at the time of his injury. Apparently Peterman only had a bad cramp, though, which is good.

 

I'm outraged.

 

Oh and btw jon -- not trying to start a complete lie rumor or scare you, but a girl I met throught a friend told me that Tyrell had mentioned to her in passing that he hates fitz and would consider transferring.

 

I met the girl at a party and don't know her. She said she lived with him in Elder last year. She could be out of her mind for all I know. But I think we should fire fitz just to make sure.

[Derwood]

I feel bad for Pat. Talk about a situation not of your own making

[ConstableRabbit]

I feel bad for Pat. Talk about a situation not of your own making

 

Yeah. He was put into a really tough situation. However, he's still not the right coach for the situation.

 

I feel really awful for everyone on the team

[Jon]

Hmm. Sutton has gone out of his way to make it seem like he's happy (I'm sure the media has been asking him that for weeks), but I'm sure he's at least frustrated. However, with Bacher in there now, he's actually going to be able to get the ball now. Until Bacher got healthy, he was a victim of the Brewer and Kafka QB draw-only offense. Now they're finally able to run the offense he was so successful in last year. If Bacher can spread things out against Michigan, it'll be interesting to see how many carries Sutton gets and what he does with them.

 

It's a real shame that Bacher didn't start the Purdue game, as CJ will now have to face Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio State in consecutive weeks, but we'll learn a lot about his ability. If he's not the answer, that only leaves Mauro and Persa next year as options.

 

Fitz and McGee should be fine. They're quite bad right now, but they'll get better. My main concern is whether or not they'll really be ready for next season. They've got a lot of catching up to do. And he still needs to fire Colby. Maybe it'll finally happen this offseason.

 

But the decision to hire Fitz really came down to recruiting and he's pulling in one heck of a recruiting class this year. It could get up to 5th in the Big Ten on Rivals when the final rankings are released. And perhaps most importantly, they have 3 good looking DB recruits, good enough for a tie for 6th nationally.

[Jon]

Oh, there was a rule question I was wondering about. During the punt that would eventually get blocked and returned for a TD, the refs started the play clock without Michigan State on the field. It took them a few seconds to get on the field and even longer the get in punt return formation. Northwestern never snapped the ball, but apparently the ref was standing over the ball the entire time. And that happened another time during the game. If the refs aren't going to let you snap the ball, how the heck can they penalize the team with possession by running the play clock? Is this common in college football?

[cubweiser03]

But the decision to hire Fitz really came down to recruiting and he's pulling in one heck of a recruiting class this year. It could get up to 5th in the Big Ten on Rivals when the final rankings are released. And perhaps most importantly, they have 3 good looking DB recruits, good enough for a tie for 6th nationally.

 

After you posted this i checked rivals. Yeah, looking really quickly it appears to be a pretty damn good class from them, better than in years past. One thing i dont get is why they cant attract a real stud qb or stud wr as much as they pass the ball.

[Jon]

But the decision to hire Fitz really came down to recruiting and he's pulling in one heck of a recruiting class this year. It could get up to 5th in the Big Ten on Rivals when the final rankings are released. And perhaps most importantly, they have 3 good looking DB recruits, good enough for a tie for 6th nationally.

 

After you posted this i checked rivals. Yeah, looking really quickly it appears to be a pretty damn good class from them, better than in years past. One thing i dont get is why they cant attract a real stud qb or stud wr as much as they pass the ball.

I'm not entirely sure what they look for in QBs, but current redshirt freshman Joe Mauro was a 2/3 star QB who ran a very similar offense in HS. They certainly look for how well they'd fit in this system. He was the only QB of last year's class and Persa is the only QB in this year's class. But the issue is probably more that they just don't get four-star recruits and really don't target them. I'd like to see them more aggressive with big time recruits, but they're not at that point yet. The last four-star recruit (Loren Howard, now at ASU and still injured, I believe) was in 2001. But they do a lot with 3 star recruits and have a good deal of success with them, so they're sticking with what has worked. On defense, they've also been very linebacker-oriented, although like I said, they've landed some nice DBs (probably because they think they can step in and play early considering how crappy the secondary is).

 

Also, they love athletes, even at QB. Chris Malleo was a backup QB but is now a linebacker/special teams player. Eric Peterman looks like he'll make a nice receiver. And eventually, Andrew Brewer will probably get a long look at receiver, as well. That might not happen until after the season, though. That way Mauro will be through with his redshirt and they'll have 3 QBs going into next season.

 

Some may wonder why they're recruiting TEs for this offense, but it's for the same reason. They're not shy about converting players to other positions.

 

As long as Ohio continues to produce enough "surplus" (and/or Ohio State continues to overlook some guys), recruiting should be pretty strong. Fitz was one of the best recruiters in the country last year, so he'll hopefully only get better doing it as a head coach.