UMFan83

Anyone watching the ALCS? Tigers just got out of a bases loaded, 0 outs situation in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th.

I just realized that the Bears are the last team to defeat the Detroit Lions, who have since played 12 games (regular and preseason), emerging victorious in all of them. Besides being a cool stat, I wonder if it has any merit on tonights game. IIRC Detroit was starting to really be a force in games when he came to Detroit to play them, but the issue was finishing the games. The Lions played the Bears really tough until a late TD gave the Bears a 4-5 point win. Since that point, they suddenly learned how to finish games and have not looked back. Do we matchup well against them in certain areas? We'll find out I guess.

Every MNF game is a 3 hour love-fest, for both teams. We're not just talking about Gruden though.

I would look into the lack of news. This whole thing heated up 10 days ago and we haven't even gotten a legit confirmation that the Red Sox are going to let the Cubs interview the man. Now we don't know what's truly going on behind the scenes, but despite the idea that the Cubs are being really stealth, in this day and age, its crazy to think that a week could go by without any further news coming out.

UM - ND (W) MSU - @ ND (L) PUR - ND (L) IND - UVA (L) NW - @ BC (W) IL - ASU (W) PSU - ALA (L) OSU - @ MIA (L), COL (W) MIN - @ USC (L) IOWA - @ ISU (L), PIT (W) NEB - WAS (W) WIS - OR ST (W) 14 games against AQ schools (and ND), 7-7 record....5 road games (1-4) 9 home games (6-3)....Currently ranked teams played (2, with ND also receiving votes) (L vs. ALA, W vs. ASU)....Overall opponent record 44-33.

I'm assuming you are considering ND a AQ team because not counting them would eliminate Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue.

No, it's not unprofessional at all. Baseball is a club, it's not like Theo is going to work for IBM. The Sox could rightly say, "it's fair" because the Cubs are taking their chief of baseball operations and placing them at a disadvantage. It doesn't much matter that they have Cherington in the wings. However, that's based on the premiss that the Sox are picking up Theo's option. I don't think they will be getting Castro or Garza, but I think they will get something, probably money. (Second However), they could try to negotiate a package deal where they Cubs take Lacky too and get back some decent prospects. right. Unprofessional might not be the right word. They've already said the other day that they have a philosophy to let their front office interview for non-lateral positions, meaning if the Cubs are offering Theo a president position the Red Sox will let theo interview. I realize letting him interview and letting him leave are 2 different things, but I think if their guy interviewed, the position was offered, and that guy wanted to take the position, the Sox probably wouldn't strong arm him into staying. They would probably still fight for compensation and see what they can get out of him, and who knows maybe the Cubs would give them something of value. But more likely the Sox would end up having to accept some token offer for Theo because they aren't going to force him back into a position he doesn't want to be. Although I'm sure Theo would honor his deal and work his hardest for the Boston Red Sox, its still not a great position to put yourself in if you are the Red Sox.

He was pretty pissed: http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-09-28/sports/30211202_1_art-howe-movie-billy-beane I understand why the director felt it necessary to make Howe another force going against Beane's 'radical' methods, but they could have found a way to do it without ruining his reputation. At least give the guy a redeeming moment at the end where he is won over by Beane. IIRC the book didn't really portray him that well either.

Because there's very little precident of a team offering compensation for another one's GM. And if the Cubs plan on offering Theo the President of Baseball Opps title, isn't it almost unprofessional to block a promotion for Theo by demanding compensation from the Cubs (assuming the Red Sox aren't also offering a similar title if he stays)?

Dammit, I wish I made up an unconfirmable story about Theo and shared it with Paul Sullivan

Why don't we throw in a Jeff Baker and see if they'll throw in Longoria?

Harris poll: 1. LSU 2. Alabama 3. Oklahoma 4. Wisconsin 5. Boise State 6. Oklahoma State 7. Stanford 8. Clemson 9. Oregon 10. Michigan 11. Arkansas 12. Georgia Tech 13. Nebraska 14. Illinois 15. South Carolina 16. West Virginia 17. Kansas State 18. Virginia Tech 19. Arizona State 20. Texas 21. Baylor 22. Michigan State 23. Texas A&M 24. Houston 25. Florida

Bleacher Nation is also reporting the Sox have given permission to interview Theo but I'm not sure if their report refers back to the one posted a few posts above.

Oh boy. IP check mods?

I don't think anyone truly knows what's going on. As one of those tweets I posted today said, the Cubs have lived up to their promise to keep their GM search internal. To me this seems to mean that there's no chatter out there to be reported on. For all we know the Cubs could still be preparing to interview him and the next time we hear news about the GM search is when a press conference is called to announce the new GM.

i think they'll lose at least twice. probably going to pick msu to beat them next week. Yeah @MSU will be really tough especially with MSU coming off a bye and their D playing so well. Nebraska will of course be tough and OSU may be mediocre but they have a mental edge over UM so until they win it's hard to envision it. The 2 saving graces are 1) Nebraska and OSU are at home and 2) they don't have Wisconsin on the schedule. I say UM goes 9-3 with losses to MSU, Illinois and Nebraska and wins over Purdue, Iowa and OSU although Iowa is on the road i think and will be tough. I'll take that.

Good to see Bolly back in the lineup and producing.

It's a really weird Big Ten indeed. There is no way Michigan should be among the 3 best teams in te conference. Wisconsin better run the table otherwise this will be an embarrassing year for the conference.

Yes! My jinx worked! Onto MSU.

It seems like a game plan of "stack 9 in the box and dare Denard to beat you by throwing" wouldn't be that hard to pull off, and yet nobody's been able to do it yet this year. Although, NW was game last week until the 4th quarter, too. Yes, they collapsed last week so we'll see... The last 2 long passes I've seen from Denard have been nothing more than heave-ho, pray-my-guy-comes-down-with-it rainbows. It's not a wonder one of them was picked off. He needs to do better than that to be successful long term. Or, just don't throw long and use his speed and skills to make plays from the pocket. I guess he has amazing luck on those throws because he won te ND game by lobbing the ball up 6-7 times in the 4th quarter and UM caught at least 5 of them including the game winning TD.

Ahh back to reality for Michigan. Maybe next year we should go 3-2 in the early part of the schedule. Ps I know I'm overreacting to one half.

And he was publicly besties with Hendry, right up until it turned out he'd fired him a month ago without telling anyone. I think Ricketts has proven that any correlation between what he intends to do and the public perception he gives off is purely coincidental. That's different. You are comparing the public perception of an employee of Ricketts with the publically stated model of how Ricketts wants to build his baseball team. Unless of course you think Ricketts is trying to throw people off by saying he wants to emulate the Red Sox when in reality he is building the team like the Dodgers. Expect the Ned Colletti hiring any day now.

I think it's fairly obvious that his position on the list is "If you want, the job you're hired!" To pretend otherwise would be as transparent as the Bears insisting they wanted Martz all along. Why is that obvious? Because it's Theo and because Ricketts is publicly obsessed with the Red Sox.

I'd assume that if Theo was 95% wanting to stay in Boston he wouldn't risk hurting his standing among Sox fans by interviewing with the Cubs and then staying in Boston.