Tuesday Happy Hour is Breakin' Records and Droppin' Mics

Michigan Football

Al Borges looks at your criticisms and your calls for his firing and says HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW? MLive's Nick Baumgardner on how Borges silenced his critics:

Brady Hoke didn’t really want to talk about it, but he didn’t have to.

Michigan’s offense, its offensive line coach and its offense coordinator have taken some serious heat over the past two months.

The Wolverines turn the ball over too much. Al Borges’ offense could barely score against Akron and Connecticut. Hoke and Borges have been too stubborn. They were forcing a power scheme that just wasn’t working.

Well, after Fitz Toussaint rumbled for a 27-yard touchdown run to bring Michigan’s point total to 63 on Saturday -- shattering the school’s all-time total offense mark in a 63-47 win over Indiana -- Borges had officially entered mic-dropping territory.

Nine touchdowns, a school-record 503 passing yards by Devin Gardner, 248 yards on the ground and 751 yards in total – more than any other team in Michigan’s 134-year football history.

Criticize that.

This bit was also good:

The Wolverines (6-1, 2-1 Big Ten) want to be a power team. And maybe, someday, they will be. But right now, they’re not.

But what they do have is an athletic, dynamic quarterback who can do things no one else in the Big Ten can do. They have a pitbull of a wide receiver, who is now suddenly finding himself open because 6-foot-4 behemoth Devin Funchess has defensive coordinators sweating on the outside.

And, above all, they have an offensive coordinator who proved he wasn’t too proud to do what he had to in order to win a football game.

And to also set records in the process.

Michigan doesn’t want to run the spread. It doesn’t like the spread. But it likes winning more. Saturday proved that, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

After reading that, anyone else feel like they just watched that "Here comes the boom" scene from the Longest Yard?

Anyone? Nope, just me then? Okay.

Fouad Egbaria has your extensive, 2,000+ word recap of the game. Best line: The game was not unlike getting the largest bag of candy available at your local bulk foods retailer and eating it in one sitting. Sweetness becomes nausea.

Five Things We Learned: Indiana. The Michigan Daily raises obvious questions about the defense, which gave up 47 points and 572 total yards, and also wonders about the identity of the offense.

MGoBlog's Brian does his weekly recap. Dennis Norfleet might be terrible at kickoff returns, but apparently that's okay because he's Dennis Norfleet and all is forgiven, Dennis Norfleet. You make exciting games with your negative returns, because it sets up deep Vintage Borges(TM) passes to Gallon. You would be sooo dangerous on a spread team, Dennis Norfleet. Now, do us all a favor, and fair catch.

Magnus dishes out weekly awards at Touch the Banner and praises the record-breakin' in his recap. Is it just me, or is Magnus getting more optimistic?

Angelique Chengelis gets Devin Gardner's post-game take on how Michigan responded to The Critics. Via The Detroit News:

So did this game quiet the critics?

“You’re never going to shut everybody up,” Gardner said. “We just played a good game, and that’s our job. We’re going to try and do it every week.

“As soon as we have a bad game, you guys are going to be bashing us again.”

Maize n' Blue Nation's Brad has his Five Takeaways from the game. He's feeling better about the offensive line. You might be the only one, Brad. Although I will admit that I liked what I saw from Kyle Bosch.

Another set of takeaways from our very own Anthony Mammel. He's not feeling better about Borges, despite the fact that statistically that was the best offensive game in Michigan history. Hug it out, bro. Hug it out.

Michigan offensive guard Joey Burzynski tore his ACL, which means we can expect to see a lot more appearances from true freshman Kyle Bosch.

Hoke is still confident Michigan can win the Big Ten championship, according to College Spun and Twitter.

Hey, Michael Cox started last night for the Giants! You remember Michael Cox, don't you? That 6'3" running back that we all loved (especially Magnus) but secretly wondered if he'd ever amount to anything? Yep, that Michael Cox. He started for the Giants last night against the Vikings, and he did okay!

Big Ten Blogosphere

Sippin' On Purple is none too pleased about losing to Minnesota. The real sad talk is in the comments.

Rodger Sherman gets all philosophical about it:

Something almost zero percent of college fans realize: that things don't inherently become better. Fans of 125 teams think that next year will be a better season. Because in college sports, no matter what happens, there's the promise of the future. The next recruiting class is the one your school has been waiting for, and the new coach is really going to change things around here.

A pretty solid percentage of the time, that's not true. Some recruiting classes turn out to be just as untalented as the one before. Some coaches don't turn their program around. And at a certain point in time, you have to stop buying into that promise of future success.

Minnesota, meanwhile, is plenty happy:

I was going to complain about the play-calling or a second straight week of basically taking a knee to close the half despite having all kinds of time, field position and/or timeouts, but why bother? We'll worry about that and Nebraska next week. A win today was unexpected, and that's one reason why I don't care about the areas for concern, just that Minnesota is finally on the board in the Big Ten and just one win away from going bowling again.

The Champaign Room finds a few discernible positives in Illinois's loss to Wisconsin. The Illini have clearly made strides on offense from last season, thanks to Bill Cubit (who may have single-handedly saved Tim Beckman's job), but the defense remains a core issue. So much so that they're calling for Illini DC Tim Banks to resign.

Similarly, Purdue's Hammer and Rails is seeing some positives for the Boilermakers after a 14-0 loss to Michigan State. The author, TMill, who said after Purdue lost a surprisingly competitive game to Notre Dame that his spirit as a Purdue fan was finally broken, now says he's "never been quite so pleased after a loss." Progress!

Indiana's Crimson Quarry does their recap of the Michigan game. Surprisingly not as a negative as you might expect. I'll let you in on a little secret, Indiana fans: we are not exactly thrilled about the Hoosiers being in the same division next year.