Jon

Ugh. Oregon State blows a first and goal at the 7 opportunity. A false start on the FG attempt and then the FG is blocked. :(

Awesome. Up 7-0, Oregon State gives up a huge play to USC on third and long. On the next play, Booty throws a pick in the endzone on one-on-one coverage, which was bobbled and returned to the 50.

Well, Northwestern played like crap and Michigan ran a very conservative offense and didn't play that well. And then Bacher takes a shot to his recently healed right leg. Classy not to take a couple of knees and run out the clock, though.

Does that give the Spartans the worst defense in the Big Ten? Son of a...Bacher just went down with another leg injury.

The 2005 White Sox (3rd in the majors in ERA and 1st in the AL), 2004 Red Sox (11th in the majors and 3rd in the AL), 2003 Marlins (10th in the majors), 2002 Angels (4th in the majors and 2nd in the AL), and 2001 Diamondback (3rd in the majors) all had clearly better staffs than the Cardinals. Only the 2000 Yankees were close, but they were still one of the better pitching staffs in the AL. The top 8 pitching staffs in baseball this year were, in order, Detroit, San Diego, Minnesota, LAA, Houston, NYM, Oakland, and LAD. I love pitching, but it's pretty clear that the best staff didn't come out on top.

Maybe some of it is just the wind, but Bacher has looked bad today. A lot of underthrown passes (two which would otherwise have been TDs) and another really bad decision on first down a little earlier. It's all valuable experience for next year, though.

The amazement over Greg Colby still having a job continues.

These officials are something else. Did Howells just make that? Did he sell his soul for that one?

For the tenth time or so, McManis is awesome. Boy these officials are bad...

You don't see the gameclock run during timeouts too often. And thanks a lot, Wisconsin...

They were ranked 16th in the majors in ERA. Of course, their offense was ranked 14th in the majors in runs and OPS. Hendry will just have to find the most average players available. That means they'll still need to improve at shortstop. And then trade Barrett for a catcher with a sub-.600 OPS.

This game was going to be bad enough already. We really don't need the officials to give them free first downs.

Wow. If Dious is actually going to play today, this defense is in a worse position than I thought.

The wind chill is supposed to be 30 degrees pretty much all game up in Michigan with a 40% chance of showers and 25-35 mph winds with gusts occasionally getting up to 50 mph. Sounds like fun.

Khryapa really harnassed the power of # 38 in the last 5 minutes of tonight's game.

Which is crap. Guerrero tried to go through Joseph. Getting elbowed in the face is incedental contact when you try and run through another player. No other league in the world would have suspended Joseph for incedental contact. And as far as Klinsi goes...let's hope it gets done. He wasn't trying to go through him. They were tied up and then Joseph got possession of the ball. He may not have intended to get Guerrero in the face, but the elbow was certainly intentional: mms://a1503.v115042.c11504.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1503/11504/v0001/mlbmls.download.akamai.com/11504/2006/open/topplays/10/102206_ecs_nerchf_joseph_rc_350.wmv

Apparently Shalrie Joseph has been suspended for the game after elbowing Guerrero.

All gone. They even took down the Robbie Gould Mayne Event clip. Chris Harris was once again the only player to miss practice today.

The stuff with the radio calls from both broadcasts are free on chicagobears.com. Are they longer than the free stuff or are they charging to download those?

Yeah, there is no product. A few minutes of highlights certainly isn't a replacement for watching a live or archived game (if they even have archived games). Apparently all that free advertising is getting under their skin. YouTube isn't even drawing any advertising revenue from the traffic right now. It's all about being overly obsessed with having complete control of the footage. It has nothing to do with money. I guess the NHL is now the only league that doesn't actually mind it. Of course, they can't afford to piss off fans.

Chris Harris was the only one on the injury report who didn't practice today. And I got the notification from YouTube that the NFL is claiming copyright infringement. They already removed the clip from week 1. Anyone have any advice?

Nope. At least not yet.

Injuries to watch: I'd imagine Muhammad will be fine, but Manning Jr. and Harris would be big losses. Probably more so Manning Jr.

Ugh. Not again.

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.