UMFan83

I understand. He came to storied Michigan program to join a team that was 3 points away from a National Championship game and then went 3-9, 5-7 and 7-5 (with a 38 point bowl loss). He was part of the worst class in Michigan history. To turn it around like that and beat OSU, get to a BCS game, win it, and win the MVP pretty much makes it all worthwhile for him. That's not even including all the coaching changes he had to endure. Very cool that all the seniors get to go out with a Sugar Bowl victory and an 11-win season. Those guys had to go through a lot of [expletive]. Wasn't even thinking about the fact that he was recruited by Lloyd Carr and redshirted Carr's last year. Damn that guy has seen it all.

Haha, since we were talking about Funk, I am watching a replay of the 4th quarter (thanks for the link) and on one of Korver's 3 attempts, it hits the back of the rim almost hitting the backboard, and Funk causally calls the shot short. That's what I can't stand about him. By itself it wouldn't be a big deal, but he makes like 25 of those kinds of mistakes a game. Annoying.

I actually really liked Funk when he was on the radio. I applauded the move to TV. It was then I realized all the humiliating errors he makes on a nightly basis. Here is one example: Last year there was a situation where someone hit a 2 point shot, CLEARLY a 2 point shot. He had a full foot inside the line, you could clearly see a large gap between his feet and the line. But Funk said that the player hit a 3. Ok whatever, he'll figure it out pretty quickly when he looks at the score. Nope he continued for the next 3-4 minutes mentioning the incorrect score for some reason, never questioning why the score on the TV monitor was different than his made up score. Eventually they went to commercial, and when they came back, he was confused about why the score was now 1 point less than before, and speculated that the refs must have looked at the play again and changed the call. Let me remind you that the player was CLEARLY inside the line, with a huge gap between his foot and the line, and that the scoreboard at the arena and on TV displayed the correct score the entire time. Just bizarre.

I understand. He came to storied Michigan program to join a team that was 3 points away from a National Championship game and then went 3-9, 5-7 and 7-5 (with a 38 point bowl loss). He was part of the worst class in Michigan history. To turn it around like that and beat OSU, get to a BCS game, win it, and win the MVP pretty much makes it all worthwhile for him.

I never understood why they have this huge presentation with confetti for a meaningless football game. They didn't win the championship. I mean what do the players do, instead of holding up a finger and say 'we're number 1!', they hold up 2 hands and yell 'we're probably number 10 or so!"?

Elbow came in bounds first before the rest of his body landed out of bounds. Should have been a TD, given the ruling on the field. I actually agree. 3 factors that should have made it upheld: 1) The elbow hit 1st in bounds. That's the same as a foot, and it doesn't matter if the rest of the arm landed out of bounds. Once the elbow hits, if it is not touching the line, it's in bounds. 2) The ball did not move when it hit the ground. From my understanding, that is a catch. 3) The call on the field was a TD so it had to be conclusive to overturn. It was not. I'll certainly take it though!

They did...and I was wrong. UM WINS! 5th 11 win season in school history! I don't know how they won that.

UM, don't be conservative like UGAs coach yesterday.....cost them the game

Hoke calls a TO there with 40 seconds to play, VT may just go for it on 4th and 2. Well that's his stupid fault if he wants to put the game on the line there instead of taking the easy 3 points and likely going to OT, where Va Tech probably has a significant advantage due to their ability to play offense.

Given how the game has gone, OT does not favor Michigan at all.

Why isn't Hoke calling a TO? He's just conceding OT? There were 45 seconds left and Va Tech was making ST gaffes all game.

The VT side is probably the same side as the press box where that pic was taken. So the teams all have to fill an entire side of the stadium? Don't they get like 20,000 tickets allotted? Ugh, Michigan's D fails them when its been their rock almost all year.

Didn't take very long for VT to gain 50 yards and get just outside FG range

So. The BCS is not designed to get the best teams in the games, it is designed to get the most money to the schools that already have the most money...including ND. http://p.twimg.com/AiRuGOFCQAAWMBN.jpg Not a lot of maroon or burnt orange in there. From that picture it sure looks like UM fans did their job.

That was the most frustrating drive I've seen in some time. 3rd and 12...converted. 3rd and 9...converted. 3rd and 11...stopped but they go for it on 4th and 11 and convert. 3rd an goal from 8 VT throws it 10 feet above the receiver and gets bailed out on a pass interference on a completely uncatchable pass. Oh well , Michigan doesn't deserve to be winning based on their offense so now they aren't.

I'm assuming by the league and not by the Hawks? The honeymoon is over for him in Chicago. Wonder how this effects his WGN rock radio show.

Sorry if this was posted already: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/chi-colts-christensen-likely-oc-candidate-for-bears-20120103,0,2665339.story

In terms of an OC, aren't we going to have the same problem we had 2 years ago with attracting quality offensive coordinator candidates here? The issue 2 years ago was Lovie was basically given a 1 year mandate to win or be fired. This turned away some of the top potential OCs who didn't want to come here, install an offense, and be let go a year later. This year, Lovie will be working under a new GM, and if he has a bad year will likely be let go, or at worse his contract will expire a year later and won't be renewed. What highly regarded OC wants to work under those conditions unless they are someone like Billick that might want to use this position as a springboard back into an NFL coaching job?

the TE position just seems to be a poor reason to criticize martz. if you're going to criticize him, criticize him for something else. I just hate that we had to trade away a pretty good young TE that wanted to be here and had good chemistry with the QB so that we could utilize Martz for one more season. Now we don't have Martz and I'm sure one of the things the new OC is going to want is a pass catching TE.

Lets bring Ron Turner back just for laughs.

I agree with the first part of what you said, but I really don't see how you can say he couldn't win a Super Bowl. He built two NFCCG teams, once of which made the Super Bowl which they played close for the most part. I generally like the idea of a different direction, and I actually kind of like the idea of sticking with Lovie (for now) while going about that different direction, despite it being the sort of half assed change it is. What I'm mostly concerned with is their ability to find a better replacement. Ted Phillips is an accountant. He's basically in charge of hiring and firing. He went out and got the solid, but uninspiring hire of Angelo. But nobody in this organization strikes me as particularly bright, forward thinking or innovative. Yeah he built the 2006 Super Bowl team and while we had a solid team last year I still don't know if we'll ever know just how good. I mean we beat the 7-9 Seahawks at home to get to the title game. But whatever, I'll give him credit for it I guess. Either way, the defense is getting older, I don't see many more productive years for Urlacher, Briggs is probably going to keep complaining until he is able to leave, etc. It would be up to Angelo to get top talent to replace these guys, and he hasn't drafted a Pro Bowl caliber defensive talent since......... And I also agree about being worried about who the replacement is going to be. There are a lot of horrible candidates out there. The thing that worries me is that I don't believe the Bears are going to be looking at bringing some big named person with a successful resume here (if theres one even out there - BESIDES THE POLIANS), so its looking like whoever we choose will be coming with some risk of failure. With the Bears built the way they are, we don't have a lot of cushion for draft failure over the next couple of seasons.

I wonder how much of an effect certain embarrassing events had on the Angelo decision today. His tenure has been littered with occasional things like the Tank Johnson situation, the James Starks accident, the Ravens draft trade fiasco, with the Sam Hurd incident being the last most glaring example. I don't think it had a huge effect on the decision, but with the Bears being an image conscious organization, I'm sure that played into the decision somehow.

So we get Olsen back now right?

I agree that he's not incompetenent, but he's not good either. That's the thing, despite a lack of draft hits over the last several years, and basically ignoring several FA groups, he still built decent teams. But I don't even think I really understand why. Here are a few reasons that I've come up with: 1) Defense is surviving on early to mid 2000's pickups like Urlacher, Briggs, and Tillman. The rest of the D is built with adequate but not great draft picks, and FA signings. Looking at Melton, Toeaina, Izzy, Wright, Jennings, they are ok players, but none of them are premier talents. They fit well in the scheme and their shortcomings are aided by Peppers (on the line), Tillman (in the secondary), and Urlacher and Briggs (everywhere). 2) Lovie is a coach who gets the most out of his players, gets them rallying behind him, and has stubbornly refused to adjust his defensive scheme. The last part is important because the organization by now knows every little thing about Lovie's cover 2. They know the kind of players that fit every position, and the players that have been there for a couple of years know it like the back of their hand. The consistency has allowed the players to "master" the scheme to the best of their abilities. 3) Angelo managed to acquire one of the only QBs that could make the offense look decent despite the lack of talent at WR and on the line. Thats the only thing I can think of because outside of Cutler, Forte, and maybe Chris Williams, there is a glaring lack of talent everywhere else on the offense. But yet, due to an offensive scheme that can succeed with no name WRs, and a lot of sacks are accepted, the offense has been at least average at times. The offense is what kills my vision of Angelo. Look obviously the man has some philosophy about spending on WRs being inefficient. But I just cannot make any justification for his handling of the oline. He went 4-5 years without drafting any oline players in the first 5 rounds of the draft (jersey once put this together and explaining it well) and tried to fill his holes with either over the hill vets that were once good, or rejected FA scraps from other teams. Just doesn't make sense to commit to many resources for the franchise QB and then not make an effort to give him all the pieces he needs. Instead he gets the OC that supposedly can make an offense without good WRs and line succeed. I don't necessarily hate what Angelo did (looking at his tenure as a whole), but I kind of agree with the quote that things were sort of stale. He did an ok job here but it is time to go a different direction and see what we get. I could see us making the playoffs, maybe getting to some conference title games, but unless a lot broke right, I don't see Angelo winning a super bowl here over the next few seasons. While its a big gamble, going a different direction might in fact be what we need.