Wolverines Issue of the Week: Michigan hasn't beaten a ranked road opponent in 6 years - Has it been that long? Nick and Kyle at AnnArbor.com discuss.
The inverted veer: blocking still an issue - Chris breaks down one of Michigan's plays and how it has slowly evolved.
The way Michigan ran this play last year wasn't really an option at all. If you're blocking the player that you're supposed to be optioning, your QB is just taking longer to hand the ball off/run. This schematic tweak against UMass hopefully signals a change in philosophy where the offense will block defenders by optioning them.
Notre Dame defense built to stop Denard Robinson from running - Passing is key for U-M.
"We completed some passes," U-M offensive coordinator Al Borges said today of that fourth quarter. "That’s the thing when people are crowding the line of scrimmage like that and forcing the issue. They were so keenly aware of what he had done to them the year before (258 rushing yards in 2010), they restructured their defense to stop him and force the issue with the passing game."
Miscellaneous Minutiae, 9/19/2012 - Fouad on something I didn't fully understand until participating in the BlogPoll this year: ranking college football teams is hard.
I'm sure he would agree, but when you really get down to the business of attempting to construct a top 25, you really begin to realize how byzantine and completely arbitrary college football really is. That is part of its charm, I guess, and I wouldn't trade college football for anything in the world. Still, college football comes with the underlying notion that attempting to place teams on a relativistic spectrum of quality is like trying to decide whether Beethoven or The Beatles were more influential than the other. In a few words: it is impossible. As long as you accept that, you'll be doin' just fine.
B1G Power Poll, Week 3: Bad Football Equals Bad Beer - Your team as a domestic beer.
The Numerical, Week 3: Fast Starts, False Starts And Poor, Poor Colorado - Numerical: a weekly must read.
3. Consecutive wins for Ball State over state-mate Indiana. In 2008, the Cardinals won, 42-20 in Muncie. In 2011, they won, 27-20, in Indianapolis. And on Saturday, they held off a late comeback in Bloomington and won, 41-39. I'm pretty sure that automatically promotes them to the Big Ten and relegates the Hoosiers to the MAC. (And on the flipside, UL Monroe just missed promotion to the SEC after an overtime loss to Auburn.)
The Alphabetical, Week 3: Utah Is On The Field (Again) - Ditto the Alphabetical.
That is the playbook for the Utah student section, aka the beloved MUSS, who like jolly idiot lemmings charged the field during a live ball situation on Saturday night, gave BYU 15 yards of field and a replay of a game-tying field goal, and who then went right back to the playbook in charging the field for a third time in victory. Champions: they practice the basics until they can't get it wrong. The Utah student section will now continue charging across America until they interrupt every major event in our society, including intimate time with your significant other.