UMFan83

Martz drive crazy but it seemed like he was finally getting something going with Cutler and his receivers. How much of that was his system and how much is Cutlers pure talent? Who knows. Would be nice to have an OC that lets his QB audible at the line though.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Roy has more left than I thought. Even if he's not explosive that's ok as long as he can hit his outside shots and create once in awhile. When he was with Portland there were whispers that he dominated the ball too much, but I could see a less dynamic Roy settling into a sidekick role well. The problem is of course the concern that he will injure those knees again and be available when we truly need him. People with chronic knee problems tend to miss games fairly often.

NO it was supposed to happen the other way. Dangit

Ok sorry. By home run I mean someone who can do the things we need from him like create his own shot, play at least 26 minutes a night, and someone you can count on to be healthy come postseason. Given the fact that his knee injuries have made him a slower and less explosive player than he was 3 years ago and given that I believe his type of injury is likely recurring, I just think its good much of a gamble.

Don't know if I can justify making Roy the SG we need to pick up this offseason. At this point in his career, he is much less explosive as before and is someone you should absolutely not expect him to play more than 40 games at most. I do like Roy and think its possible he can play a role on a good team (and produce throwback performances like in the playoffs last year) but we are in a position where we need to hit a HR with this SG as we will likely be grazing the luxury tax limit as soon as next season, so even the MLE isn't a guaranteed resource we will have. (unless JR shocks the world and decides to go over. But I doubt it, and I don't necessarily blame him)

Why does someone who lives in the Central time zone create a game thread for 2 Central time zone teams played in the Central time zone and list the game time as 1:00pm? I can't believe this. The Bears will be playing at noon for the first time in 8 weeks. Ok I'm being a bit deceptive here. The game against the Bucs in London was at noon Chicago time but at night for the Bears in London.

Still no definitive news that the Cubs are going after Pujols or Fielder. All just speculation right now.

Didn't say they did. I said the SOS are nearly even, maybe MSU with a slight edge, but not enough to mean much. Playing Wisconsin twice is impressive. Playing Florida Atlantic and Indiana is not. Do they balance each other out? Of course not. But they do hurt MSU's SOS. SDSU, regardless of their being unproven, is much much much better than every single non common opponent for MSU besides Wisconsin. Same with Purdue, same with Illinois, same with Western Michigan, same with probably even Minnesota. I would agree that there comes a point where it doesnt matter if you are 75th or 175th, there is just about no way MSU or UM will lose to them. So I would respect the argument that it doesnt mater if Western Michigan is 77th and Florida Atlantic is 182nd, there is no way either was going to beat MSU or UM, so the difference between 77th and 182nd isnt much here. But even if you take teams above 75th, UM has played 9 vs. 7 for MSU. It's honestly really hard to put one schedule significantly higher over another IMO.

Did you know? The 2007 Illinois Fighting Illini are the only 3 loss team to ever be selected as an At-Large BCS team.

Does not compute Using Sagrin ratings which were updated yesterday

Amazing. Instead lose 2 games and sit at home while a team that spanked you risks it's BCS berth. Do you understand the part where I said that 2 loss teams shouldn't complain about not getting a BCS bid. That means none of them, including Michigan. Most years neither Michigan nor Michigan State would even be in the discussion. So if they want a shot at a BCS bowl, go into the conference title game with 1 loss. The reward is a guaranteed BCS bowl and the penalty is having to sweat out the selection process.

It's called independent analysis. I prefer to look at situations and make my own conclusions rather than blindly accept someone else's opinion. Maybe that's a foreign concept to you. And which 3 top 25 teams did UM play? I only see MSU and Nebraska. #24 Notre Dame. That's fine that you don't want to blindly accept someone else's work but there tends to be bias when you are analyzing to fit your argument. To dismiss 78 independent SOS measures as crocks because they don't fit your argument is rather silly.

Not all numbers are accurate. Anybody can put up a ranking system and say what they want about the SOS. Ultimately, if what pushes the thing in one team's favor is that their weakest opponents weren't as weak as the other guy's weakest opponents it doesn't really mean anything in terms of who has the better resume. No but when ones non common opponents are significantly better than another's it has an impact. UM: Purdue (72), @ Illinois (55), SD State (53), Western Michigan (77), Eastern Michigan (118) MSU: Wisconsin (13), Youngstown State (121), Florida Atlantic (182), Central Michigan (139), Indiana (142) Michigan and Michigan State were non common opponents for each other but they are literally 19th and 20th in the rankings so well throw them out. MSU gets a huge boost for playing, and beating, Wisconsin. That can't be emphasized enough. But they also get penalized for playing 4 teams that Michigan didn't play that are almost impossible to lose to. If Michigan really isn't that good like you say, they should get a boost by virtue of playing and beating halfway decent teams that thy stood a chance at losing too. Every single team in the Big Ten lost games to teams in that 55-77 range so you can't just dismiss them as slightly less worse patsies. IMO The schedules are fairly equal. If MSU has an advantage, it's too small to really mean anything.

Yes, this is how I feel. I understand the pro-MSU people are making, but it's not enough to sway me one way or another. 2 loss teams shouldn't feel robbed when they don't make a BCS Bowl IMO. It's a really fortunate set of circumstances that has lead to UM even being considered. And as for being penalized for not winning te conference title game, the reward is a guaranteed to play in the premier non-championship BCS bowl for the Big Ten. If you don't want to be penalized a shot at a BCS bowl for losing the title game, don't lose 2 games coming into the game.

Reading this is funny. If the numbers don't support your opinion you mock them and call them a crock. Got it. Bottom line is, according to sagrin ratings, Michigan State played FOUR games against teams that were worse than the worst team Michigan played, and those happen to be 4 of the 5 non-common games between the 2 teams. That doesnt change the fact that Michigan State beat 2 teams (#13 Wisconsin and #19 Michigan) that were better than any team Michigan played all year, but it's silly to look at the 2 schedules an say definitively that one was clearly better than the other IMO Top 25 teams played UM: 3 MSU: 4 25-75 teams played: UM: 6 MSU: 3 75-100 teams played: UM: 2 MSU: 1 100+ teams played: UM: 1 MSU: 4

Why are you ignoring the fact that Michigan isn't any good? Michigan is going to get housed if they get to a BCS game. Outside of LSU/Alabama and OSU I think Michigan would compete with just about any other team in the country. Stanford, USC and Oregon would slaughter them, although obviously USC won't get the chance. I think Arkansas and Georgia would handle them. What is their most impressive win, against an overrated Nebraska team? That overrated Nebraska team blew out Michigan State. If they really are overrated (I'm not disagreeing necessarily), I might say that getting blown out in Nebraska is as bad of a loss an losing a close game in Iowa. Probably questionable logic there but it makes sense in my head.

yea, they both were. i'm saying they should have been given more than 22 carries when they were averaging a combined 5.5 yard per rush. instead, hanie is chucking it 36 times at a 50% completion percentage. you can't run when you're behind 2 scores in the 4th. martz made a bad play call and hanie made questionable decisions. hopefully he gets over them next week. i will, however, point out that hanie ran for another 50 yards on 5 carries, technicallythat pushes their rushing totals to 27 carries with a 6.4 average. it's hard to criticize them for not running when they did run a lot. Only one of those 5 rushes was designed. Martz called for 40 passes and 23 rushes. The Bears were behind by one score or less for all but 1:36 of the game. During that time, Martz called 5 passes and no runs. You can also include the final drive as there was no way they were running. There they called another 5 passes. So you are looking at 30 pass calls and 23 running plays called during the 56 minutes or do that you wouldn't necessarily change your play book to favor one side or the other. I think thats a bit too high with your best offensive player being a RB and your backup QB being inexperienced.

That's placing a ton of emphasis on conference games, as in a regular season a team will play 52 conference games and 30 non conference.

That article is pretty dumb and overreacting quite a bit.

comon

I think the top 14 rule doesn't make a lot of sense and the BCS is already set up to allow exceptions to get a name program in. Yup, posted that on the last page last night. I've only seen that from one source, ESPN, and saw someone debunk that saying the blogger misinterpreted the rule and the only way someone outside the top 14 could be picked for at large is if there were not 10 eligible teams in too 14 for an at large. I don't know if that's right either. UM should probably make sure they get into the top 14 to be safe.

Means we probably would have to win at least 3 of our final 4 games, with 3 of those coming on the road and and one coming against 11-0 GB. And even with that, youd have to hope Detroit either finishes 2-3 or 3-2 with the 2 losses coming to GB and MIN. Edit: this is all assuming ATL goes 4-1 against their cupcake schedule, which I guess isn't a given despite the games being @ HOU (3rd string QB), @ CAR, vs. JAX, @ NO, vs. TB.

The risk to having divisions and a conference championship game is exactly what we were talking about with the Michigan State/Michigan discussion. Teams that were eligible for the conference championship game lose that game and no longer are eligible. That's the risk for a conference when they schedule a conference championship game. We already exclude some of the best teams by the 2 per conference rule and also by letting the bowls choose their own at-larges (of course with some restrictions). To expand that even further by excluding teams who land in the wrong division hurts the BCS even more. Oregon lost to LSU just like Alabama did, but because they happen to play in a different inferior conference they get the big money bowl and Alabama is shut out? Under your scenario, Alabama/Michigan in the Capital One Bowl and Stanford vs. Kansas State in the Alamo Bowl would both end up being better games than most of the BCS. Why would you want to put the best teams in the lower bowls? You really think Alabama/Michigan is a better game than Houston/Georgia? Bama would rock Michigan. A better game? Maybe. A more interesting game? Sure. I'd rather see what happens in that game than watch a Houston team try to prove itself against the 4th or 5th best SEC team. I don't want to solve the problem of putting in teams in the BCS that aren't top 10 worthy by putting more teams in that aren't top 10 worthy just to get a more competitive game. There are better ways (such as not letting a conference winner in if they aren't in the top 18 or so of the BCS). You already have not top-10 worthy teams in the BCS (unless you think UM is top 10). That happens every year. The BCS wasn't created to pit the top 10 teams against each other. There has actually only been 3 teams that have gotten at large bids despite finishing below the top 10. 2001 Notre Dame (9-2, #11) 2007 Notre Dame (9-2, #11) 2008 Illinois (9-3, #13) I know you are talking about BCS teams like the Big East champion as well, but its not that common for at larges to be selected outside the top 10, which makes it all the weirder that everyone is assuming that a potentially #14 Michigan is likely to be selected for an at large.

According to this, its likely that Michigan only has to finish in the top 18 because of some weird rule. If that's the case, unless the loser of the B1G title game doesnt drop below 14th, Michigan is eligible to be selected. http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post?id=54347

Dammit, Kansas City is 30 yards away from beating Pittsburgh with 35 seconds left. I think I want them to lose so they are further out of the playoff hunt next week. A win over a team like Pittsburgh is going to give them a ton of confidence that they can beat a Cutler-less Bears.