Thursday, December 29, 2005

What a Shocker THAT was....

So wait, Michigan lost a game that they were leading in the fourth quarter, Chad Henne was great at times, incredibly shaky at times, Avant made a few great catches but one big mistake, the offensive line didn't help (albeit a banged up OL), Rivas shanked a field goal inside 30 yards, Breaston was great on returns but completely invisible in the offense itself, the defense was good but not quite good enough, and we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory yet again?? Take out the blitzing and I'd say that was pretty much every other Michigan loss rolled into one.

The Penn State fans can forever shut up now because that was as big of a screw-job as I've ever seen. Though, to be fair they didn't screw us because they were all from Nebraska, or they were Big 12 refs...they were just completely incompetent. NU had a few calls go against them (mainly the flag on the punt return when the guy clobbered Breaston) that probably shouldn't have, but the majority of the doozies were in their favor.

I'm not going to rehash all the horrid calls in this game. God knows everyone saw it. When the play-by-play man says "This is the worst officiated game I have ever seen." you know it's bad.

If they're going to have instant replay in college football then they need to figure out how the hell to use it or get rid of it altogether. My preference is to go to an NFL-system and put the challenges in the hands of the coaches. That way, if something isn't reviewed and it should be, it's the coach's fault for not throwing the flag. It blows my mind that Lloyd could have to use not one, but two timeouts in the second half to get plays reviewed that should have been no-brainers to go upstairs on. And the more times I see the replay, the less I think that Henne actually fumbled. Last night I thought you could definitely make a case for him throwing an open hand, but the angle they showed today on Sportscenter made me think he actually threw it forward.

And the last play...holy crap! That actually almost worked! Made the end of the game really exciting, but how is there not a flag for too many men on the field? Even if you throw one on Michigan as well and have them be offsetting and have the game end, that's fine, but that's just more evidence that those guys were completely in over their heads.

I'll let everyone else break the game down more since I don't have the stomach to watch these losses over again.

Michigan's GLI game is about to get underway and I have a feeling it's not going to be pretty. I suppose we could be alright on offense. They do still have Hensick, Kolarik, Kal, and Ebbett amongst others, and we still have our goalie, but our defense is going to be Michigan Tech-bad (that is a new adjective after watching MTU give up 60 shots to MSU in the opener tonight). Hunwick absolutely HAS to stay out of the box tonight. And he better be ready to play about 35 minutes of hockey. I would also love for Montville or Dunlap to show enough that they can challenge Cook for the 6th defense spot but I highly doubt that's going to happen.

Anyway, I have a feeling there's going to be too much Sertich and Sterling tonight and sadly not enough Hunwick, since he can't play 60. Luckily the Pistons and Heat are on if this one gets too ugly.

1 comment:

Packer487 said...

He was better than he had been in a lot of the games this year, but--at least from watching in a room full of people (you know how that is...) and not re-watching anything--it seemed like there were a few that he missed the guy on when it was there. I'll be curious to see what Brian's final analysis comes up with of throws that were catchable, totally off, dead on, etc.

You are right about him getting the David Carr treatment though.

That makes 2 bowl games that Chad has the record for single-game TD passes in. I wonder if anyone has ever done it in 4 before....

As for the guys downfield getting mugged...it sure wouldn't shock me a bit if that play on the goalline was any indication.